autonomy v. automaticity (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 11, 2018, 20:59 (2416 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Of course the energy has to be present for life to continue, but that does not mean that life continued for the sole purpose of producing sapiens’ brain, or that your God had to personally design the weaverbird’s nest. Life continues in whatever form, with or without the human brain and the weaverbird’s nest, so long as there is food to sustain it. That is why “balance of nature” is irrelevant to your anthropocentric interpretation of evolution, and to your claim that organisms are incapable of designing their own nests, lifestyles and wonders.

The need for energy is a truism. Balance simply describes the mechanism of supply. The balance has nothing to do with the argument that evolution has a purpose. We all know that. The argument about design involves the analysis of complexity and whether that complexity requires a designing mind, as in Behe's 'irreducible complexity' (IC). I stand on the position that if IC is present design is required.

DAVID: First, He is not human. He is purposely hidden, so that you must come to believe in Him. If the faith requirement were not an issue, He could perform an obvious miracle and convince all of us. That would be a humanized God!
dhw: Fine, but you have not explained WHY he wants us to have faith in him, which is what I asked.
DAVID: We assume He wants faith. He may not. Religions tell us He loves non-believers also.

dhw: YOU assume it, since you said it in the first place, along with your assumption that he wants us to recognize him and to have a relationship with him, and that was the reason why he created the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution. I offer the alternative that he created the bush as an ever changing spectacle that he could “watch with interest” (your words), but you dismiss this as “humanizing”, whereas you cannot see that your own assumptions are every bit as “humanizing”.

What you don't seem to remember is that you asked me for possible reasons for God's purposes, so I gave you some, but over and over I've said we really can't know because He is a person like no other person.

DAVID (under “sentient cells”): Evolution had to proceed under God's direction because of His purpose to produce humans. I think God knew what He wanted to do from the point that He started he universe. You produce a doubtful hesitant God in your mind's meanderings about Him.

dhw: Cart before horse. Of course he had to direct it IF from the start he wanted to produce humans. That is the big IF, since you can’t tell me why he had to “direct” the weaverbird’s nest etc. if he wanted to produce humans.

Weaverbirds are a part of an econiche that produces energy for evolution, nothing more. You keep trying to tie the design issue into the final production of the human brain. Chance could never have designed the human brain. It required a designer.

dhw: I shan’t repeat all the anomalies and contradictions your own meanderings have led you to, but will suggest that if someone deliberately creates a spectacle that he can watch with interest, or has a fixed idea (humans) and experiments in order to achieve it, or has a bright new idea (humans) which he implements, that does not make him doubtful or hesitant. But at least this is a different objection from “humanizing” (which you keep indulging in yourself), so keep trying.

You can't seem to avoid a human suggestion about what God might have planned or wished. All we see is the result: the miraculous appearance of life on a very specialized planet with an evolution of the most complex item in the universe, our brain. And you doubt a designer must exist. Makes no sense to me.