Biological complexity: homeostasis (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, October 25, 2018, 18:51 (2221 days ago) @ dhw

TONY: It's pretty darn simple, all three of us seem to agree that blind chance doesn't really stand a chance. Yay! Which means that, unless otherwise necessary, we don't really have to keep kicking that dead horse.
That leaves purposeful design, from SOME source or another. DHW favors panpsychism, where each organism has some form of undetected(undetectable) degree of extreme intelligence, foresight, and community that allows it to dictate its own design. Or, at least, that is how it comes across. As an agnostic, getting him to commit to something is damn difficult which, by nature, makes conversations frustrating. No biggie.

dhw: It is indeed damn difficult to get me to commit to believe explanations that defy reason. And of course it makes conversations frustrating, because the whole damn universe and the whole damn history of life is one frustratingly insoluble mystery! But I appreciate that it is doubly frustrating for people like you and David who think they know the answers. No, I do not favour panpsychism. I offer it as a bottom-up alternative to your concept of a single top-down mind, but it throws up as many unanswerable questions as your God theory.

As for the intelligence of organisms, however, it is hardly undetected or undetectable, since David’s thread of “natural wonders” lists vast numbers of examples. You and David appear to regard these organisms as automatons, merely obeying the instructions your God has planted in them. I see no reason to assume that their intelligent actions are not the product of their own intelligence, and I see no reason why a theist should not believe it possible that his God invented the mechanisms that provided them with the ability to do their own designing. Presumably you believe that is precisely what he did for humans. That does not, of course, mean their intelligences are the same as ours. But in my view it is sheer arrogance for humans to assume that other organisms are not intelligent. However…(yes, there is always a “however”)…like everyone else, I am mystified by speciation, and I am not convinced that the intelligence of the cell communities of which all organisms are composed is powerful enough to invent the innovations that have driven evolution from the single cell to the vast complexities of us humans. That is why for me it remains a hypothesis. If I were an atheist, though, I would consider it far more convincing than random chance.

TONY: So lets take one box and label it "Things we think we understand", another labeled "Things we don't understand", and a third called "Things we can't understand". [...]
That means we can focus on that which it is possible to understand, but which we do not understand yet. Then try to find a road map to get from ignorance to understanding. Given that we all seem to agree that 'random chance' is right out, we can examine each individual organism under a lens of 'individual purpose', or 'environmental role' if the word purpose makes your eyes twitch. And just in case you aren't sure there is one, just ask the basic question of "What would the host environment be like if <insert organism> did not exist and reproduce, or consume, produce, and/or convert materials?"

dhw: Of course this would be an endless topic of discussion, since we would have to examine the role of every organism throughout the history of life, but I doubt if we would be any the wiser at the end of it! I expect the environment with trilobites and dinosaurs was different from the environment without trilobites and dinosaurs. Our own environment without bacteria would undergo the most dramatic changes, but I doubt if it would be radically changed if the duckbilled platypus went extinct. The word "purpose" doesn't make my eyes twitch. We had a long discussion about it, if you remember, and with my theist's hat on, I proposed that your God devised a mechanism to create the vast spectacle of life as we know it, thereby perhaps relieving the tedium of everlasting isolation. You didn't like that, though.

DAVID: We can agree that the complexity demands a designing mind, but that won't budge dhw whose thinking is stuck in mid-air..

dhw: Your thinking is stuck on the concept of a single "designing mind”. I agree that the complexity demands intelligence.

Intelligence implies the ability to plan and design, being able to view future needs theoretically. Cells can't do this, but they can be designed to act intelligently, which is exactly what we see, nothing more.