Different in degree or kind: Egnor's take (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, October 15, 2016, 15:31 (2750 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Yes. I think early bacterial life came with most abilities on board.

dhw: I must say I prefer “abilities” to programmes. The ability to solve countless problems (= intelligence) must indeed have been there from the start.

Parallel pathways are the 'abilities' I have in mind as responses to stimuli or problems. Are you really agreeing to pre-planning?

Why on earth would they need to talk to each other if God had already built it in? First A is aware that B has something he hasn’t got, then he and B have a chat about it, and the two of them reach agreement to do a swap. You could hardly have come up with a better illustration of intelligent, sentient, cognitive, cooperative, decision-making behaviour. Thank you.

By 'talk to each other' I meant molecular signaling stimuli. They have to communicate in some way for the swaps to occur.

DAVID: God used evolutionary processes to create humans. How is conjecture, but your question is entirely a possible way He worked. I don't believe God follows human logic in what He does.

dhw: But you seem to believe that he follows YOUR human logic. This sounds to me as if you accept the logicality of my arguments, realize that your own are illogical, but reckon God prefers your illogical way of thinking to mine.

No. I admit I'm using my logic to try to discern His, but I've always admitted in the past that He has His own reasons for actions we see.