Natures wonders: killer penguins hunt in packs (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, October 02, 2017, 15:39 (2607 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I’ll settle for pigeons being bright. A little questionnaire for you. Which of these organisms do you believe are “bright” (i.e. have an autonomous intelligence): weaverbirds, rats, frogs, ants, Venus flytrap, E-coli?

DAVID: All but Venus flytrap and E. coli. All the others have a brain which allows for a degree of learned behaviour.

dhw: Learned behaviour, you have agreed, originates through the intelligence of the organisms concerned, which pass on their discoveries. So weaverbirds, rats, frogs and ants are autonomously intelligent (which as usual makes me wonder why you think the weaverbird can’t have designed its own nest). But apparently intelligence is impossible without a brain, and yet for a dualist like yourself, the brain is only a receiver of intelligence and is not the source. If we call the source the “soul”, anything with a soul is “bright”, but your God has to preprogramme or personally dabble all the responses, adaptations and strategies of plants and bacteria in no matter what environment. If you really believe that’s the case, don’t you wonder why he didn’t give some “soul” to them as he gave to the others – enough for them to devise their own adaptations etc.? (The materialist explanation of “brightness” in brainless organisms would be that it can have a different material source, i.e. the equivalent of a brain.)

Note the bold. The brain is the receiver of consciousness. Remember the degree of intelligence is variable and the brain is the mechanism through which it is developed to whatever degree it attains. The Jewish tradition is the animals have souls. Not of the same type as ours. I accept that. As for souls outside of brains, no.