Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, October 02, 2021, 15:41 (1148 days ago) @ dhw

Survival
dhw: So your God designs all the changes that lead to speciation in order to ensure the survival of the respective life forms, but evolution does not come about because of your God’s efforts to ensure that the respective life forms will survive.

DAVID: My point is God designs evolution stage by stage. He is the driver.

dhw: And my point is that even if this were true, you yourself keep telling us that “new species are designed by God to ensure future survival following their appearance”. If that is his purpose, I suggest that the changes that lead to speciation and hence to evolution are driven by his desire to ensure their survival. It is therefore absurd to claim that “survival has nothing to do with the appearance of new species”.

That still makes God the driver.

Reductionism

DAVID: Since biological design is so intricate it requires a designer. Since there was a start to reality in our BB from nothing it requires a cause, and therefore an eternal mind.

dhw: But that is not the problem, as you well know. An even greater mystery than biological design is that of an “eternal mind” that is simply “there”, had no origin, and yet is capable of creating a universe and life and conscious beings like ourselves. Unimaginable.

I guess that agnosticism requires a lack of imagination.

Your gut has a big brain
DAVID: We eat, we defecate, all without having to think about it. The proper nutrients are absorbed. This developed in evolution without interspecies or intraspecies conflict, which Darwinism favors as causing evolution. Why is it there? By design.

dhw: I have no idea why you have brought Darwin into this, but since you have, let me remind you that Lynn Margulis proposed that cooperation was at least as important to evolution as conflict, and she believed in cellular intelligence. The brainy gut is a prime example of how intelligent cells cooperate in order to design functioning communities. (It is possible that your God gave them their intelligence.)

I'll accept your possibility about God.

Guth and David on “time”
DAVID: I am unchanged. Your bolded comment makes the point. We do not know of any prior BB's. Our BB may be the only one ever!!!

dhw: And it may not be, as you have acknowledged: “I hadn’t considered the possibility of prior BB’s seventeen years ago. With that point made, it is obvious there was prior time within prior possible BB’s.”

DAVID: Yes, possible time in possible previous BB's doesn't change past statements or make them untrue at the time they are made.

dhw: It certainly doesn’t change your July statement that: “there is no before before the BB. Time didn’t exist. This was proven by Guth, Borde and Valenkin by mathematics years ago, presented by my books and here.” However, I can’t follow your logic in maintaining that in July your statement was NOT untrue, whereas in August/September/October it WAS/IS untrue. May I humbly suggest that you have now changed your mind, realize that your July statement was untrue, and therefore – perish the thought – back in July you made a mistake and your statement was wrong. I suggest you drop the subject.

DAVID: The context at each time was correct so the statements in the context of their times were correct. An example is Darwin. At his time he was fully correct for the knowledge available. Research now shows his deficiencies.

dhw: Firstly, the statements were not correct, but many people thought they were. Secondly, in July you thought your bolded statement was correct and I didn’t. You now agree with me. So please don’t tell me now that your bolded statement was correct in July! And please drop this subject as your arguments are getting sillier and sillier.

We'll stop. Both positions are well outlined.