Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing: cognition (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, October 29, 2021, 12:26 (1122 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Our difference is I accept that God created all reality. Humans are here, therefore He wanted us.

dhw: If you believe he created all reality, then you believe he wanted every single life form that ever existed, and not just humans. How does that come to mean that every single life form that ever existed was “part of the goal of evolving [=specially designing] humans” and their food,

DAVID: Part of a goal is what you object to. Look at is as a desired endpoint of evolution.

Not “a” goal but “the” goal. Substituting “endpoint”, which marks the completion of evolution (itself a dubious claim), for “goal” does not resolve the issue. But since you have no idea how to explain your theory (you tell me to go and ask God), we are doomed to your endless dodging.

Immunity system complexity
dhw: you claimed that the theory [cellular intelligence] was outdated, whereas I directed you to loads of websites in which it is still current (see "Theodicy"). […]. More dodging.

DAVID: And I showed you your websites were non-supportive.

You did no such thing! Your only response was to point out that some scientists don’t believe it. Yet another dodge. (See below for another supportive essay.)

Common design
dhw: Your problem is the two gross contradictions at the start of this post. [See below]

DAVID: Continuity of biological processes is the answer.

dhw: […] all life entails biological processes, but that does not mean all life serves the purpose of fulfilling your God’s alleged single goal of producing humans, and it does not explain how humans can be descended from bacteria if they are descended from life forms which your God created de novo, i.e. without any precursors.

DAVID: Because God created them. Gaps of form disprove Darwin. He never heard of biochemistry.

dhw: So you believe your God created humans in a continuous line from bacteria, but you believe he didn’t because he created them out of a line that began with life forms that had no precursors. And that is explained by the fact that Darwin had never heard of biochemistry. I’m having trouble following your logic.

DAVID: Life processes are a required first in designs. Body forms are secondary designs. The real continuity is biochemistry. Darwin only knew body form (anatomy). Not confusing.

All you are saying is that all life forms depend on biochemical processes. How does this explain your theory that humans are directly descended from bacteria, but humans are descended from life forms that had no predecessors?

dhw: But why do you consider autonomous design to be useless and secondhand?

DAVID: Explained many times. As a designer I've found I do it better myself than instructing others.

So your God gave you the autonomous power to do your own designing. But according to your theory, your God gave instructions to cells. I’m suggesting (theistic version) that he gave them the same autonomous power to do their own designing. The result is the same history of evolution, so why do you think the designs are secondhand and useless unless the cells carried out your God’s instructions?

dhw: Do you agree that nobody knows how cells reach the decisions which trigger automatic processes to implement those decisions?

DAVID: I agree we don't have proof. What I see is all the automatic processes produce life automatically, no decision making required.

We’re not talking about “producing life” but about the manner in which live organisms cope with conditions. And this interaction constantly requires decisions. So do you agree that nobody knows how cells make their decisions?

Introducing the brain
QUOTE: 'A strong intuition among many neuroscientists is that individual neurons are exquisitely complicated: They have all of these back-propagating action potentials, they have dendritic compartments that are independent, they have all these different channels there. And so a single neuron might even itself be a network.'

I’m deeply impressed by this intuition. In the brain and elsewhere , every individual cell is part of a community of cells, and every community is part of a wider community, and they cooperate and communicate and make decisions when they respond to changing conditions. It chimes in perfectly with the concept of each neuron being an individual cognitive unit, just like those single-celled organisms that live independently.

DAVID: we've invented fantastic ways of analyzing the brain and don't have a way of understanding how it really works. A reductionism approach won't work. Will anything? The designer is laughing.

If the designer exists, I expect he is laughing (and I’m so pleased that you humanize him by giving him a sense of humour). All the clues are there, as summarized in the article you quoted last week:

QUOTES: "Perception, memory, valence, learning, decision-making, anticipation, communication – all once thought the preserve of humankind – are found in a wide variety of living things, including bacteria, unicellular eukaryotes, plants, fungi, non-neuronal animals, and animals with simple nervous systems and brains.”

GOD: David thinks I preprogrammed every cell with every decision, or kept popping in to tell ‘em all what to do. He just can’t imagine me getting them to do their own designing. Ha, ha, ha!