Cellular intelligence: (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, January 03, 2022, 20:39 (1053 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I do not believe that your all-powerful God was incapable of designing a system without errors, and was incapable of correcting some of those errors but left it to us to do so.

DAVID: The bold is your invention of a concept of God that assumes He can do anything. My approach is exactly the same but my theory also notes that He presented the only working system available. And that concept is strongly supported by all the editing systems built in by God who knew of the problem!

dhw: So your approach is that he is all-powerful, can do anything, but is incapable of designing a system without errors and is incapable of correcting some of the errors his design has produced. And this apparently makes him stronger than my proposed God, who deliberately created the system in such a way that cells would be flexible enough to vary their nature in pursuit of their own survival.

My purposeful God is way stronger than your humanized one as previously explained. Why can't you accept my theory that this is the only form of life system to an all-powerful God. If God can do anything He wants, and this is what He produced to create life, this must be the only way possible. Defy that logic!

T cells
dhw: How can the immune system of humans, including their T cells, have been “complete from the beginning” when the only life forms were single-celled bacteria?

DAVID: Strange comment. Remember I think species were designed prepared for their existence. All forms after bacteria are more complex in stages, but bacteria had much of the necessary cellular biochemistry needed to go forward with more complex designs.

dhw: I propose that the first cells had the mechanism needed to produce all the innovations that led from them to worms, dinosaurs, humans and the duck-billed platypus: namely the flexibility and intelligence to change their structure in cooperation with other cells and in response to changing conditions. Once more: single-celled bacteria did not have T cells. I propose that these evolved when vertebrates first came on the scene, and new solutions were required by the arrival of new problems, thus mirroring the whole course of evolution.

Crazy idea. Before vertebrates evolved earlier forms must have had precursor forms of T cells or an equivalent. All earlier forms had immune systems.

Zebrafish inner ear

dhw: Agreed, except that if intervention was “required”, it suggests that your God had to respond to new conditions, which suggests that he had not got everything planned “from the beginning”.

DAVID: God may have changed the conditions Himself. Schroeder wondered if God threw Chixculub.

Agreed. I offered the same example. Did Schroeder and do you believe God planned Chixculub “from the beginning”, or could it be that as evolution progressed, God decided to change its course…sort of learning as he went along, or losing interest in what then existed and looking to create something different?

If God used Chixculub He had it as part of His plan.

DAVID: I know you can't tell me His underlying thoughts either, but I'll ask the same of you. Posing as a sort-of theist what were God's purposes?

dhw: I agree with you. If he watches his creations with interest, I suggest his purpose may have been to provide himself with something interesting to watch, added to the enjoyment of creation. And I would further suggest that it is far more interesting to watch events that are unpredictable than to know in advance exactly what is going to happen.

All humanizing approaches to an imagined God. God is above needing enjoyments, tantalizing events for entertainment. God knows what He wants and does it with purpose.

dhw: Hence the free-for-all, with the vast variety of wonders, as all the different life forms work out their own ways of survival. But maybe an occasional dabble (Chixculub, or the Cambrian) when the spectacle could do with a bit of new life. It all fits in perfectly with the history of life, don’t you think? But so too does experimentation, to try and create a life form with consciousness more like his own, or experimentation to find out what will happen if…

Your turn now.

God knows exactly what He wants and does it without requiring any human needs for His enjoyment or entertainment. He creates by using a stepwise form of evolution as we interpret it. All goals are known in advance to Him. All goals are shown in historical endpoints. Usual note. I don't know why He picked the goals He picked, but you constantly demand guesswork, which makes it your problem.