Different in degree or kind: big brain evolution (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 21, 2016, 21:28 (2681 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The NDE folks are shown heaven in some cases. The NDE only see dead folks they know. The NDE'ers feel emotion because they re not yet dead. Do you think there are tea parties or any other activities in heaven?

dhw: Seeing heaven, meeting dead people they knew in life, and feeling emotions during and because of the experience (recalled later when they have been resuscitated) all constitute new information. But perhaps I have totally misunderstood your beliefs. I thought you believed in an afterlife in which you retained your identity. If there is no new information of any kind (including the fact that you are still you after the death of your body), you may as well be dead. Please explain your beliefs, and tell us why you use NDEs as evidence for them.

I've explained that NDE'ers are not really dead. They can bring back emotions from their experienced. Once really dead my soul goes to heaven but adds nothing to the overall organization of my personality, other than the experience of being in heaven. Loved ones are recognized and there is telepathic communication which adds no new knowledge. I use NDE'ers because I fully believe they have been to heaven and come back.

DAVID: Plasticity is not required if bacteria have all the alternative pathways they need for any crisis from the beginning, which I think they do have.

dhw: How can a cell alter its own structure, or have its structure altered by preprogramming, without having a structure that can be altered (which is what I understand by “plasticity”)?

The plasticity I envision is molecular processes, not fixed structure and scaffolding, which stays the same.

dhw: If, as you insist, your God’s purpose was to produce sapiens, did all these other pre-sapiens/pre-whales “freewheel” their way into existence, independently of your God? Or did he specially create each one of them in order to…do what? Balance nature, i.e. keep life going until sapiens arrived? As if he couldn’t have specially created sapiens/whales in the first place?

DAVID: It is a simple concept. An inborn drive to complexity moderated by God. I can't be more specific than that since we do not understand speciation.

dhw: So perhaps you could just tell us if you think pre-homos and pre-whales “freewheeled” into existence or were specially created by your God, and if it’s the latter, why you think he specially created pre-homos and pre-whales if he only wanted to produce sapiens.

Whales came into existence under God's guidance. That is all I really believe. The rest is theory. I have repeated over and over God used an evolutionary process so pre-whales and pre-humans had to occur first.