Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, January 27, 2017, 12:18 (2857 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Free-wheeling autonomous IM's are not in my considerations, ever!

dhw: ...if you accept the possibility that your God IS the IM inside every organism, then you must accept the possibility that the outward intelligence of bacteria IS intelligence. It’s your God responding, for example, to each challenge as it arises, or exploiting each opportunity – but directly from inside each organism. And since some bacteria fail to adapt while others succeed, and the same applies to all species (with a 99% extinction rate), you’ll have to agree that the divine IM works differently in individual organisms as well as in different species. Therefore each IM is an autonomous piece of your God. And you can’t possibly tell the difference between it being an autonomous piece of your God and an autonomous intelligence invented by your God. And so, according to you, an autonomous, intelligent, inventive mechanism is possible if God IS the mechanism, but it’s "not in your considerations, ever!" if God has invented it. I wouldn’t call that a dilemma. I’d call it disjointed thinking.

DAVID: I read the whole paragraph and agreed with it until the final bit. Of course it is possible God is in everything, or that He could invent an inventive mechanism itself as His double ganger. As the first possibility has Him in total control, why should He produce an IM that is totally autonomous, giving up that total control? That is your disjoined thinking.

I have already answered your question many times, in my hypothetical theistic explanation of the higgledy-piggledy history of life’s comings and goings. God would give up that total control because he wanted to. Why? Perhaps because the creation of life was an experiment, a show, an entertainment, a means of relieving eternal boredom. Do you enjoy shows that are utterly predictable? My hypothesis still leaves room for dabbling, though. Experiments can lead to new ideas and new experiments, and he can resume control if he wants to. Maybe humans are the culmination of the experiment – I have no idea what lies ahead in the next 3.8 billion years. But if you can indulge in reading the mind of God (time doesn’t matter to him, he created the universe for the sake of humans, humans matter to him, he wants a relationship with humans), then so can I, and I would suggest that my hypothesis at least offers a more convincing explanation of the seemingly random comings and goings than your total control in order to “balance nature” in order to produce humans. But I’m pleased to see that although autonomous intelligent inventive mechanisms are “not in your considerations, ever!” unless we call them “God”, you agree that they are possible. Since there is no more evidence for your hypotheses than mine, I can only assume you refuse to consider mine because you happen to know what matters to God and I don’t!:-(


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