Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Sunday, June 27, 2021, 09:30 (1035 days ago) @ David Turell

Insect smell receptors
DAVID: I have to interpret from Darwinist articles. I can agree with an appearance of intelligence.

dhw: If you agree that these organisms appear to be intelligent, how can you dismiss the idea that they might actually BE intelligent? And why do you bring your pet hate Darwin into it? Meaningful patterns created through learning and experience coincide with Shapiro’s theory of cellular intelligence.

DAVID: As above all we can know is that they act as if intelligent. You can't argue past that.

An atheist can therefore say that all organisms look as if they are designed and you can’t argue past that. All our theories are based on extrapolations from what we know, but they remain theories. God the designer is one theoretical explanation for the appearance of evolutionary design; cellular intelligence is one theoretical explanation for the fact that cells appear intelligent; and cellular intelligence is one theoretical explanation for the appearance of evolutionary design, to which may be added one theoretical explanation for cellular intelligence: namely, God the designer. We constantly theorize “past” what we know.

Plant cell regulators
DAVID: God in charge is not far-fetched.

dhw: Of course God in charge is not far-fetched. If he exists and can create a universe, then he can do whatever he likes. But that doesn’t mean he has to be a control freak, or that his sole purpose was to create humans and their lunch, or that he needed to preprogramme or dabble every species, lifestyle etc. that ever lived in order to achieve that purpose. You constantly resort to these generalizations in your effort to dodge the disconnected details of your theory.

DAVID: My theory is not disconnected through accepting God's works. [...]

In the context of life’s evolution, God’s works - if he exists - consist of every form of life that ever existed (no matter how they were all produced). And so you accept every form of life that ever existed! Your theory is that every form of life was specially designed as “part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans” and their lunch, although 99% of them had no connection with humans or their lunch. Please stop conflating your God’s works with your theory about why and how he produced them.

Cosmic filaments spin
DAVID: You are objecting to my belief God designed this universe.

dhw: If God exists, I have no objection to your belief that he designed the universe. In that context, it is his existence that is the BIG question. But if he does exist, I object to your belief that he would have designed billions of galaxies extant and extinct and millions of life forms etc. extant and extinct solely in order to design H. sapiens plus lunch.

DAVID: God is my belief as to why we are here. How do you explain us?

I have no objection to your belief that, if God exists, he designed the system that produced us and every other life form that ever lived. In one of my alternative theistic explanations, I even allow for us being his goal: experimentation would explain the great variety of unconnected life forms that preceded us. Another theistic explanation is that the idea of a being like himself came to him later on in life's history. A third theistic explanation is that he set in motion a free-for-all that began with the comparatively rudimentary form of intelligence of single cell organisms and, over thousands of millions of years, evolved through that intelligence into increasingly complex and intelligent organisms, culminating in ourselves. Three theistic explanations (regardless of atheistic explanations) for you, which you have heard over and over again, and which you agree are all perfectly logical.

dhw (under “Jupiter and Saturn have fevers”): You agree that all these alternative explanations are logical, but prefer to cling to your fixed set of incompatible beliefs.

DAVID: The bold is always your escape valve. I have agreed your theories are logical only if applied to your humanized God. Obviously you position is so weak, you must leave out that part of my thinking.

I have never left out this silly objection. You have agreed in the past that your God probably/possibly has patterns of thought and emotions similar to ours, and you confirmed this only last week: “I am sure we mimic him in many ways as your statement shows, but just how much is unknown.” So you humanize him as a control freak who is single-minded, has one purpose, knows how to achieve it, plans it all advance, and always has good intentions. You even compare yourself to him through your experience of designing things. See also the thread on “A possible God….”

Shapiro
dhw: […] so long as you now accept that Shapiro’s theory of evolution is what both he and I say it is, and it is not designed to eliminate God or “reduce God’s power”, we can close this thread, which has diverged from its subject anyway.

DAVID: We completely left the subject of gaps because of poor Shapiro. We do not agree on how to interpret him, but both of us recognize his rich research contributions.

You claimed that he did NOT advocate cellular intelligence as the producer of evolutionary novelty, and that this was my extrapolation. I trust you have now withdrawn that misinterpretation.