Biological complexity: protozoa sans mitochondria (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, May 30, 2016, 09:14 (3100 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I would suggest that apes, like other organisms, want to live, to eat, to avoid pain, just as Mickey wants the banana, but I would go further and suggest that nest-building, use of tools, development of strategies are all evidence of conceptual thinking arising from the desire for (= “wanting”) improvement. This may extend to exploring the potential of new environmental conditions.-DAVID: IMHO you attribute far too much conceptual thought to animals. But that is your prerogative. -Thank you. We shall have to agree to disagree.-DAVID: Well, I've said I am looking at expanding my concept of complexification, and your point is helping. Complexification just for the sake of it does explain the weird bush of life.-dhw: So does targeted complexification. But my emphasis all along has been on the autonomy of the mechanism, and “complexification” versus “survival/improvement” is peripheral. ...The inventiveness of the mechanism requires intelligence. And so, if you are expanding your concept of complexification, perhaps you could expand it to the point at which your God has endowed organisms with the intelligence to do their own inventing.-DAVID: It is just that possibility I'm exploring, keeping in mind God is guiding.
-I am happy that you are exploring it. But I would hate to see you lose your balance on a bit of slippery language. A “free complexity mechanism” that allows the bush “to spread as it wishes” cannot be “guided”. Your God may approve or disapprove of the products of the mechanism, and he may dabble, but it has to be autonomous. Otherwise, you are stuck with your 3.8-billion-year computer programme plus dabbling, with God responsible for every innovation and natural wonder, planning every branch of the weird bush.