Logic and evolution (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 27, 2016, 16:14 (3040 days ago) @ David Turell


> > > DAVID: Bacteria don't have neurons, and at a cellular level only neurons are neurons. That cells can re-write their genome is a mechanism that was present as part of the origin of cells. In my view origin of life is a God-given miracle, nothing less than that.
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> > > dhw:We are not talking about origin of life or about origin of consciousness. We know that bacteria have life, but you insist that they do not have any form of consciousness. If they do have it, your God may have given it to them. I agree that the ability to rewrite the genome must have been present at the beginning - otherwise evolution could not have taken place. For you, however, that ability (disregarding your God's later dabbles) is not an ability at all, but a computer programme containing every single genome [possibility] change in the history of evolution, allowing for every single environmental [possibility] change in the history of evolution. You'll need a truly wondrous molecule of faith to swallow that.
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> > BBella: The description above in bold with my [possibility] added could be describing quantum possibility at the quantum level. All That Is, is made up of the fabric of Quantum possibility.
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> I agree with you. And God uses quantum mechanics with all its possibilities as the basis of All That Is, our reality.-“Quantum” seems to be the password to all explanations. Let me switch this “possibility” concept around. Whatever exists must be possible. Therefore you can argue that the possibility for whatever exists must always have existed. And since we have no idea what else is possible, nothing stops us from saying that anything is possible. You can't prove a negative, and so at the quantum level (which nobody understands and which is therefore full of infinite possibilities) it is perfectly possible that tomorrow I will turn into a piano-playing giraffe with wings and a bushy tail. Or, to come back to the field of evolution, I can argue that at the quantum level, instead of a possible God possibly preprogramming and/or dabbling every possible change in the history of evolution, he possibly created a possible autonomous inventive mechanism with which organisms were able to adapt or innovate according to random changes in environmental conditions. Why should that not be part of the All That Is, or the quantum fabric of reality? Or why should the quantum fabric of reality not be such that life and evolution and consciousness were inevitable, and there is no single mind controlling it all? Or life, evolution and consciousness are a quantum fluctuation?