Explaining natural wonders: bacterial intelligence (Animals)

by dhw, Friday, June 16, 2017, 12:45 (2716 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: That a designing mind is absolutely required to create life and subsequent evolution.
dhw: That was not what I asked. Your answer suggests that you don’t even have support from your ID scientists on the subjects I asked about.
DAVID: What they discuss is what I said, not the specifics you offered.

We were discussing the specific issue of cellular intelligence, to which I added your anthropocentric theory of evolution, and you said your ID scientists agreed with you. It would seem from your answer that they don’t.

dhw: As for chance versus design, not only have we agreed a hundred times that this is one of the most powerful arguments for the existence of God (the other being various so-called psychic experiences), but we have also a hundred times discussed a third choice, which is some form of panpsychism: the evolution of countless intelligences, as opposed to the eternal existence of one intelligence. I’m sorry, but that subject does not in any way alter the fact that your exclusively anthropocentric view of God’s evolutionary motives and methods doesn’t make sense, even to you.

DAVID: Panpsychism may suggest that the universe or objects in it are conscious, but that does not tell us that the level of consciousness is capable of advancing evolution in the multiple complex biologic systems we see. And once again I view the hypothesis of panpsychism is simply a version of God's mind gone lite.

You had accused me of going off at a tangent, and I pointed out that the tangent was yours, trying to divert attention from the flaws in your anthropocentric interpretation of God’s motives and methods by returning to the chance versus design debate. I can appreciate that you are far more comfortable dealing with that subject, but I have already agreed with you a hundred times that the panpsychist option has as many flaws as those of atheist chance and of your monotheism (we never seem to bother about polytheism, but the same applies). No doubt we shall in due course return to the flaws in your anthropocentric reading of your God’s mind. (See, for instance, the latest post about whales.)