Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, April 10, 2021, 20:17 (1114 days ago) @ dhw

Survival

dhw: Random mutation and natural selection, Shapiro’s cellular intelligence, your God’s 3.8 billion-year-old computer programme, or personal dabbles are all possible mechanisms for producing the innovations. But the source of the mechanism is God or chance. The purpose of the changes that result in evolution is the quest for survival. Even with your nebulous concept of God “guaranteeing” survival, he is still designing the innovations for that same purpose: survival, as per Darwin.

No!!! Survival does not drive evolution. chance doesn't. God does with new designs.

Information

dhw: […] Now please tell me what information is “coded” and what informational instructions I receive from my DNA when I decide to go for my walk.

DAVID: Coded information made nerve cells and in your brain you received information about the weather and used your neurons to decide to drive your muscles into walking. And did you ever note most commentators on evolution are amazed at the miraculous appearance of nerve cells. Not by natural cause.

dhw: We can all marvel at life's complexities. I agree that my brain receives information about the weather – that is what I mean by “information”: passive details about a situation, event, etc. And yes, I use my neurons to drive my muscles. Thank you for not treating me to something like “neuronal information”. And I find it confusing to be told that I use information which was created by information in order to make active use of passive information. And I thought you believed your God made nerve cells.

Your usual persistent confusion. Life runs by using information which is interpreted by God's nerve cells.

EVOLUTION OF THE EYE

dhw: Neither the bold nor the article itself supports pre-planning. They simply explain how evolution progresses, as later organisms build on the innovations of their earlier predecessors.

DAVID: It evolved thousands of generation earlier than needed, and that is not pre-planning?

dhw: You seem to think the only creature that found vision to be an advantage was H. sapiens! Do you honestly believe the gar fish didn’t use its eyes to see with?

Of course they saw with a forerunner of the special mechanism we use.

Evolution: bacteria that don't evolve

dhw: You have finally understood the nature of stasis. Nothing changes until change becomes necessary.

DAVID: But stasis means the ability appears far in advance of discovering how to use it. Do you understand that? And you can't explain it by any natural causes.

dhw: Stasis means no change or development. Sapiens had no new requirements for 245,000 years. But then came new ideas, and this is what you always leave out: the brain was then NOT adequate to implement the new ideas.

The new ideas appeared because the extra neurons allowed their appearance by human use.

dhw: new tools, structures etc. could not be created without new cells or new complexifications. You seem to think the brain’s ability to implement all the new ideas was ready and waiting for 245,000 years.

But exactly for 245,000 years the cells were there to be used and weren't: so stasis!

dhw: But modern research has shown us that implementation CHANGES the brain. In taxi drivers it even expands part of the brain. The hippocampus had not already expanded 315,000 years ago in anticipation of the work it had to do.

So God designed the hippocampus to have the ability to add extra cells solely for the purpose of adding additional memory capacity, not complex immaterial concepts which the existing extra cells elsewhere in the newly expanded frontal and prefrontal cortices provided for.

dhw: “Natural causes”? Your God may have invented the intelligent cells which have the ability to complexify or add to their number when necessary.

Only in the hippocampus