dhw: big brain evolution:comparing chimp and brain organoids (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, April 11, 2019, 14:43 (2051 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You are demanding knowledge of God's mind I cannot have. Your complaint is totally illogical. Read your own first sentence.

dhw: But you claim that you do have knowledge of your God’s mind: his one and only purpose was to design the brain of H. sapiens, and he chose to spend 3.5+ billion years designing every other life form so that they could eat or not eat one another until he designed the only thing he wanted to design, and you have no idea why. My first sentence accepts that he would have had a purpose and would have chosen his method to achieve that purpose. And I have proposed different purposes and methods, all of which you have agreed fit logically into the history of life on Earth.

You have mirrored my interpretation exactly. I cannot know why God chose His method, We have discussed all the possible reasons and all are logic al guesses.

dhw: Once more, my objections are to your personal interpretation of your God’s motives and purposes. And how can you possibly insist that you know God’s choices, can’t understand them, but find them logical?

DAVID: I simply accept God chose to evolve His purpose or purposes. You've agreed He has that right. You simply object to my opinion that God's major purpose was human minds.

dhw: I have offered you a logical explanation of evolution IF God’s one and only purpose was H. sapiens’ brain. I “simply” object to your combined opinions that humans were his only purpose and he therefore chose to design anything but humans for 3.5+ billion years, and you have no idea why. I note your reference to purpose or purposes and to major purpose. When I asked you before to name other purposes, you said that your God might enjoy watching his creations as a painter enjoys looking at his paintings, but then you complained that I had made you humanize him.

The majesty of the human brain declares His purpose. It cannot have appeared by chance.

dhw: Under "...updated Adler:)

QUOTE: "What other species builds civilizations, records history, creates art, makes music, thinks abstractly, communicates in language, envisions and fabricates machinery, improves life through science and engineering, or explores the deeper truths found in philosophy and religion? What other species can ponder “seizing control” of its own evolution, as transhumanists do? Which has true freedom? Not a one.”

DAVID: In answering the philosophy of Transhumanism he is echoing Adler's main point .

dhw: For me, all the above is blindingly obvious – yes, we are unique in our abilities. I couldn’t care less about Transhumanism. What bothers me is the assumption that our uniqueness somehow proves the existence of an unknown, sourceless mind you call God, proves that we were your God’s sole purpose from the beginning, and proves that the whole history of life extant and extinct was geared to this single purpose.

DAVID: This is why you persist in agnosticism which is your right. You still accept the possibility that we are here by chance mechanisms, producing the extraordinary result of 'us'.

dhw: You know perfectly well that I find major faults with all of the hypotheses, and therefore can neither accept nor reject any of them.

Understood.

Under “Convoluted human evolution”:

"Once they reached the islands of south-east Asia, they could have evolved into separate species on different islands, much as occurred with tortoises and other animals on the Galapagos Islands.
“'You could have hominin species on all the different large islands in the Philippines,” says Piper. “It's absolutely incredible to think about."

DAVID: All I can say is here we go again.

dhw: And all I can say is that I sympathize with you when you say you have no idea why your God chose to design all these different hominins and hominids when the only homo he wanted to design was sapiens.

He certainly gave them wanderlust to travel all over and adapt to new climates and locations.