By FRANS de WAAL on animal cognition (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, April 14, 2016, 17:44 (3144 days ago) @ dhw

dhw:After all, what is multicellularity if it is not a cooperative community of individual cells? -Certainly true. And we know that certain amoeba can form stalks with cells having different jobs to do, the beginning of multicellularity.
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> Nobody knows why multicellularity appeared. Why did your God wait 3 billion years to do his complexifications? Do please answer.-Waiting for enough oxygen is one answer. High levels took a long time to appear, and God seems to like evolutionary processes. -> dhw: Why did God wait till the Cambrian before deciding to dabble so dramatically? Or why did he set his 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme (which you don't believe in) to jump into such frenetic action at this particular time? Do please answer. If you can't, then don't expect Darwin or me to answer. Many scientists have proposed that an increase in oxygen was the trigger.-I agree. Complex organisms need lots of energy burned by oxidation to live. -> dhw: Why did he wait 3 billion years to increase the oxygen, or was it by sheer chance that the oxygen increased? Not much planning there, then. -As stated, He like evolution. Oxygen levels took time for cyanobacteria to produce and concentrate it.-> dhw: If increased oxygen wasn't the trigger, tell us what was. If you can't, and if you can't tell us why your God waited 3 billion years, then please stop telling Darwin and little old me that we have a problem. Our problem is also your problem.-My approach to the problem is different than yours. Oxygen supplies a basis for continuing complexity, but it doesn't guarantee complexity will appear on its own. That requires intricate planning, and therefore agency by a planning mind. Only minds can plan.