Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Friday, March 26, 2021, 15:11 (1336 days ago) @ dhw

Possums

DAVID: I can't answer the natural communication question, nor can you or did you. I'll stick with God pre-programming or dabbling or somehow instructing or designing origin of instincts.

dhw: So when I suggest that organisms communicate by demonstration, gestures, sounds, chemicals, it doesn’t count as an answer, whereas your God “somehow” preprogramming or dabbling or instructing is an answer you can accept and stick with.

Your 'communication' never explains how complex concepts like length of possum playing time is determined.

Penguins

dhw: So do you think he operated on penguin feet before they entered the water? And how do you think he “designed” migration and passed the information to every migrating bird for the rest of their time on Earth?

God speciates to anticipate use for new needs

Introducing the brain

DAVID: You are disagreeing with Egnor as I expected.

No I’m not. I’m simply asking what the half-second “gap” has to do with the soul.

DAVID: Aren't you surprised at Libet's discovery of the time delay by the brain.

dhw: Not in the least. I can completely understand why the sensation of pain might take half a second to travel from the finger to the brain and why people should actually think half a second = immediately.

For me the pinprick is instantaneous. Libet's subjects thought so also which created the gap in time.

dhw: My mind is not closed to the concept of a soul. I just don’t understand its relevance to a half-second gap for the feeling of pain to get from finger to brain. Please explain.

Egnor did. The soul recognizes the immediate pain.

Philosophy of science dead? Realism vs. empiricism
DAVID: We should stick to solid realistic research, rather than pursuing fantasies like

DAVID: Thanks for saving me!!! String theory has reached no conclusion after 50+ years of frustrating work. It just doesn't work, as Woit and Smolin's books show. Multiverse is an unproveable conjecture. We need to leave this universe to prove any of it. We should stick with thoughts/theories that allow a proof.

dhw: You refuse to be saved!!! God is an unprovable conjecture. We need to leave this Earth to prove any of it, and even then it can only be proved if we do not die when we die. So should we stick with thoughts/theories that allow a proof? If so, farewell to the AgnosticWeb….

I know God cannot be fully proved, as you are evidence, but strongly inferred from evidence, all of which confuses you, as you recognize evidence from obvious design.

Cell division controls of mitochondria
QUOTE: Certain types of cell divide asymmetrically and generate daughter cells with different fates.

dhw: This generally is how I envisage the basis of adaptation and innovation and also brain expansion. When necessary, cells reproduce themselves without change, but there is a built-in flexibility that enables them to produce cells that can serve new functions as and when required.

And who built in the flexibility? Natural chance?

DAVID: As the complexity is explored at sub-microscopic levels the evidence for a required designer grows.

dhw: As always, I accept your logic as a powerful response to atheism. I wish we had a committed resident atheist contributing to the forum, as happily you are here to defend the case for God against my scepticism, but in the context of complexity and design, I cannot in turn provide a defence for atheism.

Fair enough.