Bacterial Intelligence? self ID using a virus (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, April 20, 2019, 21:10 (2042 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I am always reassured when you acknowledge that intelligence is possible. Thank you. Your “intelligent instructions” can ONLY have been personally given ad hoc by your God (dabbling) or handed down by the first cells in a programme to deal with every new circumstance throughout life’s history. You have offered no alternative method. When last challenged on this, you said this hypothesis was not “at the level of belief”. Also reassuring. In your attacks on “actual intelligence”, you continually focus on automatic actions such as material means of perception and communication, ignoring actions that seem to denote intelligence: e.g. processing and use of information, decision-making, cooperation. Since you don’t actually believe that all these actions are dabbled/preprogrammed, I am at a loss as to why you are so opposed to my alternative (which apparently I share with the majority of modern scientists).

DAVID: Your confusion about my beliefs continues, because you launch ahead to defend your point about intelligence without stopping to realize what I always state. I maintain a cell's actions can look intelligent because it is following intelligent instructions. The odds are 50/50 I am correct since we cannot be sure of the two probabilities. Since I believe God runs the show I'll stick with my choice as logically consistent. How God does it are my guesses, since I cannot know for sure how He controls.

dhw: There is no confusion. I have thanked you for your willingness to accept that intelligence is possible. If by “God running the show” you mean he directly controls everything that happened (as opposed to allowing free rein), then of course your choice is logically consistent, but the only means of control you offer are preprogramming or dabbling the “intelligent instructions” for every single bacterial problem, evolutionary innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder throughout the history of life. If you yourself cannot believe in these two explanations, and cannot think of any other, I am surprised that you stick so rigidly to your choice of direct control while still maintaining that the odds are 50/50.

You are still confused about my thinking. Of course, if God is in control, as I believe, He has methods of exerting that control. In our discussions we have come up with three possibilities: nothing but pre-programming, dabbling, or an inventive mechanism for organisms use which I insist must be under guidelines to exact God's total control. I think that covers the possibilities for evolutionary God control. But they remain possibilities. The bold above I've created in your statement is off target. '50/50' has nothing to do with evolutionary control, and only concerns the issue over obviously intelligent cellular activity which I believe is due to intelligent instructions the cell carries as a result of being created by evolution.