Explaining natural wonders (Animals)

by David Turell , Monday, May 08, 2017, 18:12 (2755 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Of what importance is bacterial intelligence to you? Where does it lead you philosophically? I believe you are trying to produce a bottom up source for intelligence and consciousness from the start of life on a rocky Earth. I totally reject that approach.

dhw: I have said repeatedly that bacterial intelligence is crucial to the hypothesis of the autonomous (i.e. without divine instructions/guidelines) inventive mechanism as a driving force for evolution, as opposed to your own hypothesis of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for all life forms, styles and natural wonders supplemented by divine dabbles. And I have said repeatedly that it allows for your God as the inventor of the autonomous inventive intelligence. And I have said repeatedly that the panpsychist source of intelligence from the start of life is an alternative which I do not find any more credible than the God hypothesis. Even you accept the “bottom up” theory of biological evolution itself, beginning with the comparatively simple and developing into ever increasing complexities. The theistic question is therefore whether this bottom up process was preprogrammed and/or dabbled by God, or simply set in motion through his invention of an autonomous IM. Could it be that you are excluding the latter out of fear that it might open the door to an atheistic interpretation of evolution? If so, have no fear. There is no getting round the problem of the source of the autonomous IM, so you are safe to accept it as a POSSIBILITY, which is all I ask.

You have repeated all of our struggles. I have agreed that God could have used an IM, but always with the proviso that God would give it explicit guidelines or step in and dabble. The key to all of this is God is in control of evolution. You accept that as a possibility without accepting God, as you sit on your picket fence.