Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, June 13, 2016, 17:35 (3085 days ago) @ David Turell

I am telescoping threads again.-Under the Chomsky language thread:-dhw: ALL language, from individual cells to humans, must stem from cooperation of some sort, since it is always a means of communication. My suggestion is that the human level of consciousness has almost infinitely expanded the subject matter to be communicated. A small range of sounds could not encompass the concepts they had to convey. For the range to expand, the physical tools also had to expand, and this may have been the spur to the anatomical changes that enabled us to make new sounds. (We must remember that writing is a much later addition to our language tools.) Using my favoured hypothesis: the inventive mechanism (intelligence) of the cell communities would have reorganized the vocal mechanisms in response to the need for greater complexity of sound. (David's bold)-DAVID: My bold is a key point in regard to your cell communities: To be humanly vocal our bodies had to change in many ways from apes: high arched palate, dropped larynx which requires a special epiglottis, specialized lip and tongue muscle development, and development in the brain of speech and hearing centers. If the development is not gradual, and you've agreed to that, we are dealing with a complex saltation, way beyond the learning capacities of cell committees unless they have a complexity mechanism they can turn on to guide the development.-“Turning on” a “complexity mechanism” is what I call cell communities using their autonomous inventive mechanism or intelligence. Just as a community of ants can build a complex city, I am proposing that communities of cells can also build the complexities of evolutionary adaptations and innovations, such as high arched palate, dropped epiglottis etc. on their own initiative. We do not know how far the learning capacities of “cell committees” extend, which is why my proposal remains a hypothesis. We now need to be clear about your own proposalsAVID: Look carefully at my driverless car analogy. The complexity mechanism sitting somewhere in a layer of the genome looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of new complexity. The cell can turn on the mechanism in response to some external stimulus, 
dhw: “Looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of complexity…in response to some external stimulus” is the key to the whole process. Your whole analogy is false. A driverless car does not produce innovations.
DAVID: You totally missed the point of the analogy. When the person (cell) enters a driverless car, he turns a key which starts the computer and engine and run the car as a self-sufficient module. I envision the cell to turn on such a module to create invention or complexity for evolution. Natural selection judges the results or God steps in to modify.-I still don't see the point of your analogy. The cell doesn't enter itself and switch on a separate "module". The "module" (inventive/complexification mechanism) has to be part of the cell community. Much simpler to talk about the cells/cell communities themselves! Either the cells “think” independently with their own inventive mechanism (just as you think with your inventive brain), or your God gives them instructions. The latter hypothesis is all you now seem prepared to accept:
 
DAVID: No problem: My inventive module has onboard intelligent instructions. The cell does not require intelligence, just a response to changing stimuli as described.-"Onboard instructions" means your God has preprogrammed all the innovations throughout the history of evolution, the cells do not have autonomous, inventive intelligence, and the “stimuli” simply trigger the correct programme. We are back to square one! -DAVID: We've never left square one. God is in charge. I've added a complexity mechanism to simple pre-programming, with dabbling always allowed if needed.-Your “complexity mechanism” is apparently nothing but the carrying-out of onboard instructions - which is no different from preprogramming. And yet on Tuesday 7 June, you agreed that an autonomous or “free” mechanism, creating its own innovations/complexifications with your God only dabbling AFTERWARDS to “correct problems”, was an acceptable alternative to your God being “hands on all the way along in evolution”. The latter hypothesis, you said, was “not as compatible with the h-p bush of life”. You have now rejected the alternative you accepted a week ago.
 
Under “Simon Conway Morris”:
dhw: Every innovation requires “exquisite planning”, and all our hypotheses are an attempt to explain how the planning takes place. We have observed cells and cell communities adapting to changing conditions, communicating, cooperating, solving problems (“external observations”), but nobody has observed a computer programme of on-board instructions for all innovations, or a God personally intervening to deliver new instructions.-DAVID: Another big IF. Exquisite planning requires an exquisite mind. God supplies the necessary mind.-The IF is the extent of cellular intelligence. I have accepted the possibility that your God supplied the “mind” of the cells, and on 7 June you accepted the possibility that cells did their own autonomous inventing/complexifying, which requires such a mind. How can onboard instructions offer a “free” alternative to preprogramming and dabbling?