autonomy v. automaticity (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, January 20, 2018, 13:56 (2497 days ago)

DAVID’s comment (under “parasite controls plants’ defense"): The evolution of this arrangement must have been stepwise with the Dodder partially independent until it worked out a way to silence the plant's defenses and then become totally obligate. Living organisms show purposeful behavior. I think that was programmed into life when life originated. God at work.

dhw: Thank you for another fascinating natural wonder, and also for the long awaited acknowledgement that the Dodder must have worked out a way to silence the plant’s defences. Yes, indeed, living organisms show purposeful behaviour, and it may well be that when life originated, your God gave them the means to behave purposefully and to work out their own solutions to life's problems, as opposed to preprogramming their behaviour and all the solutions. Hallelujah! [/b](David’s bold)

DAVID: Hallelujah ha! The bolded sentence fits my theory perfectly. "Gave them the means" simply implies that God preprogrammed them with an inventive mechanism, as we have discussed before.

Excellent news. After all these years you have finally abandoned your hypothesis that cells/cellular communities (= living organisms) are automatons whose innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders were preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago (or had to be personally dabbled by your God). It now fits your theory perfectly that cells/cell communities like the weaverbird, the monarch butterfly, the skull-shrinking shrew, bacteria and even a brainless plant work out their own solutions with the inventive mechanism (= autonomous intelligence) that may have been given to them originally by your God. Another red-letter day in the history of the Agnosticweb. But hold on:

DAVID: (under “control of synapse transmission”): I'm impressed that you can tell from outside the cell, where we all must be as we study cells, that they are intrinsically intelligent, rather than operating with automaticity from onboard intelligent instructions.

You agree that living organisms work out their own solutions to problems, as opposed to being preprogrammed, and that this autonomy may have been given to them by your God, but you believe they operate “with automaticity from onboard intelligent instructions”, which can only mean they are preprogrammed. I am not impressed by your ability to “tell from outside the cell, where we must all be as we study cells”, that although in Post Number One cells/cell communities (living organisms) work out their own solutions (autonomy), using their inventive mechanism (intelligence), in Post Number Two you appear to be saying that they do not work out their own solutions, using their inventive mechanism (autonomous intelligence), but automatically obey instructions. However, it may be that your second post simply means that nobody can tell from the outside which of the two hypotheses is correct. I agree. In that case, I am simply delighted that you have now opted for autonomous intelligence instead of automatic preprogramming.