Explaining natural wonders: bacterial intelligence (Animals)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 31, 2017, 01:22 (2732 days ago) @ dhw

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DAVID: Makes no sense. 'Potential solutions' are the existing alternative pathways, which bacteria that have them can switch on, as current studies show.

dhw: 1) so please tell me if the following is a correct reading of your hypothesis: A) 3.8 billion years ago, your God preprogrammed some bacteria to create diseases. B) Humans (presumably not preprogrammed) use existing materials to kill the bacteria that create those diseases. C) 3.8 billion years ago your God preprogrammed some bacteria to use existing “pathways” to combat current human use of existing materials that kill bacteria.

I take exception to the wording of A. God did not purposefully design disease bacteria. The disease they cause are a result of their natural lifestyle taking them to the wrong place for them to live. This is accidental.

2) I accept that we do not “know” if bacteria are intelligent or not – it is a hypothesis – but please tell me why it makes no sense to argue that they might use their intelligence to solve problems, as opposed to the equally unproven 1).

Because the source of intelligence when first life appeared is totally a pipedream to me, if it supposedly appeared de novo by chance. I view chance or design as the only alternatives. A designing mind is required.

DAVID: I used 'run wild' as an expression of exuberance. I have not separated a drive to complexity as separate from God's control. It appears to me as a method He uses. And it sure helps explain the whales.

dhw: So God specially created the whales (and all the other species, lifestyles and natural wonders, extant and extinct) out of exuberance – the sheer joy of creating so many different things. This makes a lot more sense than the hypothesis that his sole purpose was to create humans and everything else was related to it. The only difference between our theistic hypotheses now seems to be special creation of everything versus his design of an autonomous IM. And in his exuberance he can still dabble or experiment to create humans, or have new ideas as he goes along. I am delighted at this sudden rapprochement.

I'm simply exploring newly thought of possibilities. Humans are always the goal. Complexity has always been the evolutionary drive. Creating complexity beautifully explains those darn whales.

DAVID: You use 'survival' and 'competition' which are Darwin terms. I have never considered the idea of the struggle to survive as the driving force in evolution. Back to bacteria who arrived early and have had no problem surviving. Something else drives evolution. God. Darwin and you think God not needed.

dhw: Forget your blind prejudice against any word of Darwin’s and please note that there are TWO driving forces mentioned above: the drive for survival and/or improvement or complexity. And there are TWO major influences on the outcome: competition and/or cooperation. Whether this whole process was devised by a god is an open question, and does not in any way affect either Darwin’s concept of the evolutionary process or my own (which differs from his in several aspects).

You have again repeated Darwin. Competition and cooperation may have no role to play. This is unproven theorizing. Bacteria tell us survival can be easy. We are attempting to find a reason why life advanced beyond them, and we have no reasonable answer, so we theorize.