Biological complexity: managing cellular oxygen levels (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, October 27, 2019, 17:20 (1854 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Individual ants work in unison as programmed, while humans act individually. No conceptualization required.

dhw: Why “as programmed”? Yes, they work in unison – so do humans when the action requires teamwork. And you still refuse to acknowledge that all strategies such as bridge-building must have had an origin which requires an inventive intelligence, and once a solution had been found to a particular problem, it would have been passed down to subsequent generations.

DAVID: That the ants start and stop or move along in unison is their individual programming. If you have ever marched. as I did in the Army, you'd understand. Soldiers don't bump in formations.

dhw: So did your God preprogramme your march 3.8 billion years ago? Or did he pop in to give you marching lessons?

DAVID: If I was trained to act like ants, the ant instinct could give the same result. You wouldn't want to bump into other people.

dhw: I can’t follow this.

Of course you can. I was trained in high school and the Army to march. While in formation I acted just like the ants marched.

dhw: If you were trained to act like ants, your behaviour would be the same as that of ants. But you think you have an autonomous intelligence and they don’t. We’re back to the same point made on the “Dennett” thread. If we can’t tell from the outside whether their behaviour is preprogrammed or autonomous, the same applies to our own. So please answer my question: since you firmly believe that your God preprogrammed the ant march 3.8 billion years ago, or popped in to give them marching lessons, do you believe he did the same for you? If not, how can you tell the difference?

If you now understand my marching point, my point, I know I differ from the ant on being automatic, like him marching , but, unlike him, i introspectively understand what I am doing as a result of training.