Cellular intelligence: (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, January 06, 2022, 11:45 (1050 days ago) @ David Turell

We're still mainly on David's theory of evolution rather than cellular intelligence, but I can't telescope the threads yet.

DAVID: 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!

dhw: What logic? If God can do anything he wants, then if he wanted an error-free system, he would have created it!!! The logic here is that if he could do anything he wanted, this must have been the system he wanted.

DAVID: The logic follows. An all-powerful God must produce the system according to His analysis that will work. This follows since He is all knowing!!!

An all-powerful God will produce the system he wants, and of course it will work. It will work the way he wants it to. He is not forced against his will to use a system that will contain errors which he doesn’t want and which he can’t correct! Ergo, this system with what you call “errors” is what he wanted, and so I suggest they are not “errors” but reflect a built-in freedom to allow for infinite variations, including what we call “good” and “bad” cells.

dhw: ...what you call the “editing systems” are simply the responses of what we call good cells as they fight for survival against what we call bad cells.

DAVID: Remember in my view God designed those cells to be editors to solve error problems. In your quasi-theist approach you recognize all-powerful so you must also recognize all-knowing.

Of course I remember your illogical view that an all-powerful, all-knowing God had no choice but to produce an error-strewn system which he could not control.

T cells
dhw: 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.

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

dhw: Of course they did. And evolution is the history of how comparatively simple forms, including immune systems, developed into comparatively complex forms, as cells developed new responses to new challenges. Bones, brains, penises and T cells were not “complete from the beginning”. I suggest that what was there “at the beginning” was the (perhaps God-given) mechanism [cellular flexibility and intelligence] that would produce them all.

DAVID: Back to a weak form of God. God designs cells with purposeful duties, but design for future forms is God's role.

There is nothing “weak” about a God who purposefully provides cells with a mechanism which can produce the vast, increasingly complex bush of life that constitutes evolution’s history. Stop dodging. T cells were not present “at the beginning”.

Zebrafish inner ear
DAVID: If God used Chixculub He had it as part of His plan.

dhw: So do you believe he planned every change in environmental conditions, global and local, and every response, species, econiche, lifestyle, natural wonder, and problem plus solution right at the very beginning? Never dabbled because he had a new idea? Or because new conditions required his intervention?

DAVID: I said if. My position is still an initial program in genome and steps in along the way as necessary. Percentage of either action is unknown.

So you now leave open the possibility that your God did NOT plan everything in advance, but “stepped in as necessary”. Why would he find it “necessary” to step in if he’d planned us humans right from the beginning and then designed every step himself? With him designing all those life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc. that had no connection with humans plus food, it sounds to me as if he was experimenting or getting new ideas as he went along. He might even have allowed a free-for-all, and then “stepped in” because he didn’t like the direction in which it was heading.

DAVID: 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: Why have you ignored your own past “humanizing” answers? That he perhaps wanted us humans to recognize his work and form a relationship with him, that he enjoys creating, that he watches his creations with interest? Of course if he exists, he knows what he wants and does it with purpose.

DAVID: Back to resurrecting my guesses. An all-powerful, all-knowing God does not need free-for-alls, entertainment, etc. He creates whatever He wishes for His own reasons and likely watches humans who can do all sorts of surprising things with the God-given free will since they are now unpredictable compared to all previous organisms He designed.

You are gradually beginning to cotton on. An all-powerful God does what he wants. Being all-powerful does not mean not wanting something! Maybe forget the word “need”. You can want something without needing it. So maybe he created surprising, unpredictable humans and “likely watches” them, because he wanted to create something surprising and unpredictable to watch. Ditto the rest of evolution. Welcome to one of my theories.