Brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, May 29, 2020, 23:19 (1637 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You finally agreed that he could have invented an autonomous mechanism for expansion, but he would “have careful guidelines”. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to define these guidelines for us.

DAVID: Just mutational guides to advance complexity until human are achieved

dhw: We are trying explain expansion. “Mutational” simply means changes to the structure! I have proposed (theistic version) that the changes to the structure would have occurred through the autonomous responses of the intelligent cell communities to new requirements (with God as the inventor of cellular intelligence). Your guidelines, as usual, turn out to be the exact opposite: God dabbled the changes via mutations.

Of course. I use God to explain evolution under direct control. You really seek a natural cause for evolution. Cellular intelligence is deduced from programmed automatic activity by the cells, but that is how I believe God works.

dhw: Your theory that God did it with multiple dabbles is also unproven.

DAVID: Again you return to intelligent cells. Without an active God please explain how cells become intelligent naturally.

dhw: Again you refuse to recognize that your own theory is as unproven as mine, and so this is no reason to reject mine. On both threads you have now suddenly decided to ignore the subjects under discussion in order to focus on the possible origin of cellular intelligence. Nobody knows the origin of any form of intelligence, from your God’s through humans’ and all the way down to that of bacteria. The alternatives (see “David’s theory of evolution”) are 1) an unknown intelligence with no origin which we call God, 2) a stroke of luck arising out of an eternal and infinite process of energy and matter forming different combinations, and 3) a variant on panpsychism which entails all matter having some form of intelligence. Now let’s get back to the subject of brain expansion.

I'll take (1). (2) is strange. Energy =s matter and unless there is a driving force it wouldn't change from its ground state. What force are you contemplating? (3) Panpsychism is just a light form of us created within God's consciousness.

DAVID: My God would not allow a mechanism that produces changes on its own. If He knows what will happen, it has guidelines...

Your guidelines have turned out to be direct dabbling, and next they turn into “instructions”:

DAVID: God's instructions has neurons acting with the appearance of intelligence.

dhw: So back we go: You believe that your God invented a mechanism to allow autonomous complexification. Why, then do you believe he could not have invented an autonomous mechanism for expansion? Your previous answer was: “God could but He would have careful guidelines…”. The guidelines turn out to be the exact opposite of autonomous, so please explain the above restriction to his capabilities.

It is no restriction. God is very purposeful and wants His goals reached, so He either does it himself or instructs the genome just how to do it.

dhw: The rest of your post is devoted to the diversionary tactic of focusing on the origin of intelligence, as dealt with above.

No diversion. You keep putting it into cells which are just a bag of coordinated molecular reactions under strict informational instructions from the genome. All information supplied by God, or if you wish, the designing mind behind all of this.