Biological complexity: managing cellular oxygen levels (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, October 28, 2019, 14:05 (1853 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: 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?

DAVID: 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.

dhw: We are not talking about introspection, which of course I acknowledge as a major difference between ants and us. We are talking about the origin of ant marching (which, incidentally, is totally different from human marching).

I love how you quibble. Have you ever marched? In marching we are all automatons, ants or humans.

dhw: You assume that ants did not devise their own way of marching – and, incidentally, of training, since we know that ants teach their fellow ants –

Remember in the ant bridge study each ant did its individual role, all ants the same. All automatons

dhw: but your God preprogrammed it 3.8 billion years ago or himself popped in to show them the way. I propose that they worked it out for themselves and passed on the instructions, just as someone or the other devised a way of marching to be passed on to your high school and army trainers, and from them to you. Now please explain how you can tell that their march was preprogrammed and yours was not.

I was trained, ants were programmed.