Natures wonders: ants farm fungus for food (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, April 15, 2017, 15:05 (2777 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: since ants have brains, you have answered your own question: your God gave ants brains to solve environmental problems – he did not have to help – and the same should apply to all organisms with brains. No “help” needed. Congratulations to the monarch, the cuttlefish, and maybe even those fish that first tested out life on dry land.

Yes, I think ants can solve simple problems of daily living. But you've gone a giant step too far in your congratulations: the monarch migrates thousands of miles to the same places each year that have milkweed, through eight or so repeated metamorphoses of phenotypes. Not done by brain power, but by God-give genetic instructions. No one has explained insect metamorphosis.

dhw; If you insist that intelligent behaviour could be a cover for automatism, the principle must be valid for all forms of intelligence - which is why some people deny that we have free will. Through this example you have inadvertently confirmed that God is willing and able to sacrifice control.

You have extended a so-called principal to an illogical conclusion. Intelligent action is seen at all levels of activity, simple and high complex, which alters the interpretation of what is intelligent action and what isn't. Bacterial lifestyle is simplicity itself. Your lifestyle is highly complex, yet you might have no free will? Your broad principal doesn't work.