Biological complexity: how we smell odors (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, May 29, 2016, 15:11 (3100 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: I am happy that you are now testing out an alternative to your God's preprogramming or dabbling for every innovation and natural wonder in evolutionary history. An autonomous inventive mechanism based on intelligence sure explains the weird bush of functioning adaptations and innovations, not to mention such natural wonders as the weaverbird's nest.-Intelligence was in short supply on the hot barren Earth when life appeared 3.8 billion years ago. Intelligence implies planning, requires thought. That did not appear naturally. Information codes run life's processes. thus the conclusion, that it can only be supplied by God.
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> dhw: A neural network look-alike does not preclude intelligence, any more than a neural network precludes intelligence. I very much doubt that the researchers who confronted the bacteria with “previously un-encountered environmental conditions” concluded that your God had either preprogrammed the bacterial response 3.8 billion years ago or had popped into the laboratory to give the bacteria instructions. The experiment neither supports nor contradicts your belief that bacteria cannot think.-A set of molecular reactions that accomplish a purposeful response are a neural network look-alike. Intelligence plans it. Your use of the word 'intelligence' is ethereal. What creates it; where does it come from? Sourceless.