Genome complexity: how humans correct errors; dhw confusion (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 09, 2020, 10:50 (1476 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: These quotes are from a totally different entry , but his discussion is appropriate to this entry from yesterday website:
https://aeon.co/essays/human-culture-and-cognition-evolved-through-the-emotions?utm_sou...

QUOTES: We need to think about consciousness itself as an archaeologist thinks about layers of sedimentary strata. At the lower layers, we have basic drives that prod us (and other animals) out into the environment for the exploitation of resources. Thirst, lust, fear and so on are triggers in evolutionarily earlier regions of the brain that stimulate vertebrates toward satisfaction and a return to homeostasis (physiological balance).

"It is probably most accurate to say that primary and secondary emotions have phenomenal consciousness (experiential feeling), but lack access consciousness (the ability to rationally access, manipulate and reflect upon emotions).

dhw: This is what I mean when I talk of different levels of intelligence/consciousness. But in the context of evolution, the basic drive is not confined to the brain and the exploitation of resources (i.e. finding food) – it also encompasses finding different modes of survival (e.g. avoiding predators, using or building shelters, countering every threat to existence). And I would suggest that this all begins at cellular level, with “phenomenally conscious” cells cooperating over billions of years to form increasingly complex structures, INCLUDING the brain and every other organ we know of and every other life form we know of. This is the “continuum” of evolution that David talks of, as organisms branch out into an ever more variegated bush, with just one of millions of “lines” leading to humans. The cell communities that form the brain itself would have followed precisely the same process of complexification as they responded to new requirements, including control of their new organs. The brains of most life forms would have settled once they had achieved “satisfaction and homeostasis” but, as we know, the human brain continued to expand as “access consciousness” enabled early humans to rationalize and manipulate – not just in terms of reflecting on emotions etc, but also reflecting on and implementing new methods of surviving and/or exploiting their environment.

DAVID: dhw is correct: Every branch of the bush reached satisfactory level of survival ability and stopped evolving. I have constantly pointed out apes did just fine until we overran the world and pushed them aside into small survival areas. This brings back my philosophic point: why did a single branch push forward and enlarge their brain? Darwin survival theory offers no significant answer.

Nobody knows how we acquired our extra degrees of consciousness – and nobody knows how consciousness arose in the first place. That is why we have so many different theories.

DAVID: The earliest ape/hominin transitional forms COULD NOT have any foresight of what their cells needed to develop to achieve what we have now.

This is a major difference between us. What I propose does not require one iota of foresight. My proposal, as you well know, is that every advance was made IN RESPONSE TO new requirements – not in anticipation of them. One simple example: you tell us your God turned pre-whale legs into fins before the pre-whale entered the water. To me it seems sheer common sense that fins would have resulted from adaptation to life in the water, once the pre-whale discovered that the marine environment was more favourable for its survival.

DAVID: This is one major reason I left agnosticism. Some agent drove this. Further, my lifelong knowledge and study of biochemistry easily recognized the degree of complexity that requires design of the systems. Acceptance of a designing God is the only reasonable answer. The key is full understanding of the extreme biochemical complexity, which could not appear by chance.

Over and over again, I have agreed with you that the extreme biochemical complexity provides the best possible evidence for design, but the theory I have proposed above promotes the design theory and does not preclude the existence of a designer God! You know perfectly well that it allows for God as the designer of the intelligent cell, and there is no mention of chance as the designer of the complexities. Now perhaps you will point out which aspects of my theory are confused.