autonomy v. automaticity (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 04, 2018, 14:36 (2454 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Evolution has so far lasted 3.8 billion years, whether you’re a theist, a deist, or an atheist. Your "balance of nature" merely means life keeps going until it stops, regardless of which forms survive – totally irrelevant to our discussion.
DAVID: But balance of nature allowed the stretch of 3.8 billion years. You constantly forget the time factor.

How can I have forgotten it when I’ve just pointed out that evolution has so far lasted 3.8 billion years? Balance of nature didn’t “allow” anything. Living organisms and changing environments have gone on producing an ever changing balance of nature all this time, and will continue to do so until there is no life left.

Again forgetting that imbalance in nature has led to extinctions. Everyone has to eat. Nature's balance supplies that need. Nothing more to understand.

dhw: My hypothesis is an AUTONOMOUS IM, i.e. the weaverbird worked out how to build its nest without any instructions from your God, and with absolutely no role to play in the production of the human brain.
DAVID: Look at the knots. Even you would have trouble tying them.

dhw" I would also have trouble flying, climbing trees, living underwater, and doing the vast majority of things our fellow organisms do naturally. And they would have trouble typing messages to you. To each his own. It doesn’t mean God had to teach the weaverbird to tie complicated knots so that life could go on until he produced the human brain.

We do all the things you describe, just differently with our amazing brains supplied by God.

dhw: Not as simple as some people think. Maybe ants think. And maybe bacteria think. Intelligent behaviour in humans and dogs and crows is attributed to autonomous intelligence. So maybe we might just consider the possibility that intelligent behaviour in other organisms can also be attributed to autonomous intelligence, if only we could put our 'large organisms chauvinism' (Shapiro) behind us.
DAVID: Read the whole article, not my summary. The experimentation clearly proved the individual ant was totally automatic. Talk of close minded!

dhw: Read Gauci: “Maybe they’re not as simple as people think.” Read Turell: “There could be a degree of group think not yet uncovered.” Have you forgotten that all organs and organisms are groups of cells?

I did which is why I commented as I did. And each cell in an organ has its automatic duty, just like the automatic ants so beautifully outlined in the study.