More "miscellany" (General)

by dhw, Sunday, December 05, 2021, 08:29 (845 days ago) @ David Turell

Reality: God is a mathematician

DAVID: God set automatic processes into motion for the universe, not life's evolution.

dhw: How do you know?

DAVID: I believe in what God does, has done.

And how do you know that in the context of evolution 1) God’s only aim was sapiens plus food and therefore what he “did” was specially design every life form, food, lifestyle, natural wonder etc. “as part of the goal of evolving (= designing) humans” and their food, although the vast majority had no connection with humans and their food? And how do you know that your God 1) has not “done” a free-for-all, or 2) “done” experiments, or 3) “done” creating and destroying as he comes up with more and more new ideas?

DAVID (under "Monarchs and milkweed"): It is your lack of understanding the need for all ecosystems that is showing.

dhw: All ecosystems are necessary for the life forms that exist within them. What you do not seem to understand is that there have been different ecosystems and different life forms for 3.X billion years, and the vast majority had no connection with humans and their ecosystems, which makes nonsense of the above bolded theory.

DAVID: Why are you in the past, when all I am discussing in present necessary ecosystems.

Because you still insist that all past life forms and foods were “part of the goal of evolving [=designing] humans” This fixed belief of yours also applies to the present, with thousands of specially designed “necessary” species etc. dying out, but we still survive without them. See also under Denisovans.

Monarchs use toxic milkweed
DAVID: All caterpillars eat toxic milkweed!! Somehow a few lucky ones were not killed? You have theorized luck to avoid God's designs.

dhw: They do NOW! NOW they have the “antibodies”! Why do you ignore the point I have made above about bacteria and Covid? I am not theorizing luck. These are facts that are illustrated over and over again in our present. First comes the “invader”, then comes the response, and there are deaths and there are survivors before the defence is perfected.

DAVID: Again you are proposing luck.

Lucky to survive, OK. Do you deny that millions of bacteria die before the survivors come up with a solution (which is not luck)? That millions of humans have died from Covid-9, but millions have survived? Ditto every other plague in the history of humankind. Do you still refuse to accept, even today, that cells develop new responses (not luck) to new bacteria/viruses/poisons/diseases and are not already equipped with the specific “defence” against the specific invader?

DAVID: The Monarchs have a complex lifecycle and all young must use milkweed. I still think God designed the lifecycle and used milkweed as a requirement.

dhw: I have no idea what point you are making. Mine is that humans didn’t need all the life forms and foods of the past that had no connection with them, and even in the present we can survive without large numbers of the species etc. you say your purposeful God designed to be our food. So why did he design them if we don't need them?

Denisovans
DAVID: each group of early humans followed the same path of development of lifestyles as God's endpoint of evolution.

dhw: Same question: why do you think he designed them, if the only ones he wanted were sapiens?

DAVID: I am agreeing that He allowed a bush of hominins, specifically because He also recognized the bacteria and viruses could make mistakes in the wrong places and a group of homo species would add advantageous attributes, as previously noted.

Since you see him as all-powerful and full of good intentions and always in control, and since you see him as having only wanted to create one species(plus food), I still don’t understand why you think he deliberately created bacteria and viruses that made all these horrific blunders, or why he had to create lots and lots of different homos with different attributes, instead of simply creating the only one he wanted along with all the attributes. Sounds like one great big mess to me, unlike my alternatives listed under “God as a mathematician”, which all fit in perfectly with the history of life.

Human evolution: bushier than ever
Quote: "To me, however, all of human evolution, even well after our own species first emerged, is a mess of branches and dead ends. Our evolutionary history is complicated, and we should embrace that."

Sums it up – a mess of branches and dead ends, but it actually applies to the whole history of evolution. Fits in perfectly with the concept of a free-for-all.

DAVID: Argumentative voices add to our thoughts. I think the dhw theory is right on, but I come with a slightly different twist. God didn't want a free-for-all.

Which of my theories do you agree with, then?

God is too purposeful for that.

All my theories are purposeful, including the free-for-all. You always bang on about purposefulness, but complain if I propose a purpose that goes beyond the creation of H. sapiens plus food.

DAVID: Recognizing mistakes will happen in a free-flowing human living system as it is developed. many humanlike types scattered into many environments will naturally adapt many good attributes which will contribute to the final H. sapiens product.

See above under Denisovans


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum