Logic and evolution (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, July 28, 2016, 12:24 (3039 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: “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?-DAVID: Wonderful flight of fancy. All we know is the quantum level of reality exists as the basis of our reality. It is counterintuitive but all the formulas we use work! We don't understand it, but it is/was used to create the universe, and it conducts or is used by many of the living mechanisms (photosynthesis, as one example). How did quanta get so smart? A guiding mind is needed.-I don't know why an autonomous inventive mechanism should be regarded as more of a flight of fancy than a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme detailing every single innovation and natural wonder in the history of life, or an unknown sourceless universe-creating, universe-encompassing mind personally giving lessons to the weaverbird on how to build its nest.