Brain expansion (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, May 31, 2020, 12:37 (1635 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: There is no reason to assume that your God could not have designed a mechanism (cellular intelligence) that would enable brains and other organs and organisms to restructure themselves “naturally” and autonomously in response to new requirements. You are against it because it runs contrary to your image of an all-controlling God, not because it is unreasonable in itself. I have no problem with the idea that intelligent instructions come from the genome and are carried out by the rest of the cell or the cell community in an ongoing process of cooperation. Your insistence that what looks like intelligence is in fact automatic is purely a matter of opinion even though you state it as if it were a fact.

DAVID: It is my opinion and I accept it as fact, because I find it much more logical of the two possibilities, as a design theorist.

Design theory has nothing to do with it. A God who designs an autonomous mechanism for change is no less a designer than a God who designs every change himself. Accepting one’s own opinion as fact is just about as unscientific a principle – not to mention other contexts of human life - as anyone can imagine.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Explained: all advances in evolution carefully coded in the genome that contains an IM. God, totally in charge, knows where He wants evolution to progress and how it should be done.

This does not explain why he couldn’t have invented an autonomous mechanism for expansion. It merely repeats your belief that he didn’t but instead either provided the first living cells with a programme for all advances in evolution, including brain expansion, or personally fiddled with the genome of every organ/organism that needed adjusting.

DAVID: We view God totally differently, and as long as we do we will not reach an agreement. I see humans as God's definite purpose and goal. You don't and give lip service to our vast difference in mind and body.

Your various guesses concerning your God’s nature, purpose and method are dealt with under your "theory of evolution". Yesterday (and repeated today) I also dealt with your total distortion of my views on the vast difference between ourselves and other animals, which you used as an excuse to distract attention from the illogicality of your theory. It has no place on this thread.