Biological complexity: more cell pore complexity (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 06, 2016, 15:53 (2905 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: I'm afraid the gulf extends to your interpretation of my thought. I do not “sort of” recognize the complexity. I am as incredulous as you. It is a major factor in my rejecting atheism, and as an agnostic I do not “hunt for any other possible explanation except God”. I hunt for an explanation of evolution that will exclude random mutations as the driving force of innovation (which I find so unconvincing).-I'm with you here.-> dhw: But it must also account for what I see as the higgledy-piggledy history of countless species coming and going without any apparent overall linking purpose - in stark contrast to the “planning” that seems to be your starting-point.-I view your problem here as an over analysis. Why not just accept the notion that the process of life includes enormous inventiveness, once multicellularity appears. God can plan for humans while the forms of life explode in all directions around the main thrust of His purpose. All analysis must include a look at possible purpose. that cannot be excluded.-> dhw: The discovery that so many scientists believe in cellular intelligence seems to me to offer a possible explanation for the higgledy-piggledy course of evolution,-'So many' is really how many? Just a few are always listed. And that cell intelligence can simply be automaticity seen from outside the cell. When 'inside' the processes are always simple molecular processes and often feedback loops. -> dhw: but I have emphasized from the very beginning that it does not exclude your God, who for me remains a 50/50 possible source of the (hypothetical) intelligent and inventive cell. -Accepted-> dhw: My hypothesis is neither “hope” nor “sop” nor ”help”. It is an alternative to chance, to your divine “guidance” of every step, and to your anthropocentric reading of your God's mind. I suspect the latter is the main reason for your hostility, but an alternative reading of your God's mind and of evolutionary history is not hunting “for any other possible explanation except God”.-I am certainly not hostile, but I can see you continuing to seek an alternative to chance or design, while I see no alternative, and frankly I have not seen you present an alternative that is reasonable to me. From my viewpoint I see your conjectures as tortured. We are a gulf apart.