Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 10, 2021, 11:48 (1144 days ago) @ David Turell

Your gut has a big brain

dhw: It seems far more logical to me that your God would have provided the means for all the billions of cells and cell communities to do their own communicating and cooperating than for him to provide 3.8-billion-year-old programmes or personal tuition for every single form of behaviour throughout life’s history.

DAVID: They communicate because of His programming.

dhw: I would have thought they communicated because they had something to tell one another. I view the theory that your God gave them the ABILITY to do so as a possibility. Could this be what you mean? Or do you mean that every single communication was programmed 3.8 billion years ago?

DAVID: I know cells can communicate with God-given mechanisms that occur today without new design or help.

The basis of the whole theory of cellular intelligence is that cells act autonomously. If they can communicate without new design or help, then (theistic version) the mechanisms your God gave them has made them autonomous.

Bioluminescence

QUOTE: The relationship between the Hawaiian bobtail squid and the bioluminescent bacteria living in its light organ has been studied for decades as a model of symbiosis.

DAVID: I wonder how this cooperation happened. All organisms are born with some general immunity. For this cooperation to come about the immunity has to be stopped. It appears designed to me.

Of course it’s designed. The whole of life depends on symbiotic relationships, as cells learn to cooperate in different ways. However, I find it difficult to imagine that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the first cells with a programme for the bobtail squid and the bioluminescent bacteria to help one another, or that he popped in to give them a special course, or indeed that this example of symbiosis was “a part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans”. Perhaps you might consider the possibility that these organisms design their own form of symbiosis, using their perhaps God-given intelligence?

ID explained: are cells intelligent

DAVID: Since we are on the outside of cells our answer is a 50/50 probability as to which interpretation is correct, that is, primary intelligent activity or following intelligent instructions?. All ID folks side with the latter. (dhw's bold)

dhw: [...] I am happy with your 50/50. That should be enough for anyone to take the possibility very seriously indeed – especially when considering the alternative, which boils down to one of two options: that there is a God who 3.8 billion years ago preprogrammed every decision taken for the rest of history, or who steps in to give cells and bacteria courses on what to do whenever new problems arise. I wonder how many ID folks subscribe to these two explanations of what looks like intelligent behaviour.

DAVID: ID doesn't discuss how God works His designs. God is not mentioned, only the need for a designer.

And so ID folks do NOT side with your theory that your God issued instructions 3.8 billion years ago, or keeps popping in to give courses.

Defining life

QUOTE: “We don’t want to know what the word life means to us,” Cleland said. “We want to know what life is.” And if we want to satisfy our desire, Cleland argues, we need to give up our search for a definition."

Hilarious! I wonder how much people get paid for concluding that their research is pointless.