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

by David Turell , Thursday, April 18, 2019, 19:54 (2044 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Weird comment. What don't you understand about the meaning of 'free'? If organisms have the free ability to evolve whatever they want, why knows what might have developed and how could have any purposeful result? Evolution with purpose means evolving toward a living goal of a specific organism.

dhw: Over and over again you hammer home the idea of purpose. Why does your concept of purpose stop at producing humans? When challenged, you yourself suggested that your God might enjoy watching his creations as a painter enjoys looking at his paintings, and his purpose in producing humans was to have us admire his work and to form a relationship with him. “Who knows what might develop?” is precisely the attraction of “free expression”. Which would you “enjoy” more (your term), a totally predictable spectacle, or one filled with unexpected delights? But we still have the option of dabbling. What we do not have is the total illogicality of your God spending 3.5+ billion years not designing the only thing he wants to design.

You are totally hung up over the issue of time and the timing of the appearance of humans. We have covered all the possible reasons why God might have chosen the method of evolution to perform creation of what He desired to create. If God made that choice it is not illogical to Him. Further, consider this: God has been around forever, so it it logical time means nothing to Him, although it bugs you. Which means the 3.5 billion year 'delay' to produce humans is your 'delay' as time means much more to you than it obviously means to God. The illogicality is in your Head where you prefer to puzzle over every aspect of our history.

DAVID: I can only interpret the history. I've simply described it and attributed it to God's right to choose a method of development/creation.

dhw: Of course he has the right to choose. That does not mean he chose the incomprehensible combination of purpose and method that you impose on him.

It is only incomprehensible to you. It was not incomprehensible to Nahmanides whose description of the seven day creation in Genesis describes the Big Bang. Other scholars accept The time God took: Rashi and Maimonides in their commentaries, both know that "Yom" in the original Hebrew meant any length of time from an instant to an eon.

DAVID: You keep implying God should have instantly created humans, but that isn't what actually happened. Assuming God was in charge, and you do for discussion purposes, it is patently obvious He chose to evolve humans over lots of time.

dhw: No, it isn’t what happened, and that is why it is illogical to claim that his only purpose was to produce humans, but he spent 3.5+ billion years not producing humans! What is patently obvious is that there have been millions of different life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders, and the latest of these is humans. If God exists, he must have wanted millions of different life forms etc. – not just one! I have offered a variety of ways to interpret this history, with different combinations of purpose and method, and the only one that neither you nor I can understand is yours.

If God chose to evolve the very complex human form from single-celled organisms step by step, of course it would take time. Of course God would have produced the bush of life on the way. His ultimate purpose is not a concept that negates what He produced in advance of humans. There is a huge hole in your analysis of my thinking. All of what you describe in the bush obviously is something God knew He had to produce in advance of humans. I fully understand what happened and God and I are fully logical in my construct. You simply do not understand or are confused. I never have been.