Cellular intelligence: (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, January 10, 2022, 15:19 (1046 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: A God who deliberately designs a system that allows mistakes and diseases is not a kindly God as we have discussed in theodicy.

dhw: And there’s you blaming me whenever I “humanize” God, and yet dismissing a logical theory on the grounds that it makes God seem “unkindly”. You and Adler agreed the other day that the chances of him loving us are 50/50! This is what we call “double standards”.

DAVID: I don't think a God who produced us would wish us evil, or create what we humans regard as evil.

I have never said he wished us evil! You dismiss my alternative theories because they “humanize” God, and because your God is “kindly” – as if that did not “humanize" him!

DAVID: In your desire to escape a designing God who deliberately heads for His exact goals…..

dhw: One of my alternative theories (you ignore the others) is that his exact goal was to create a vast variety of life forms which, you have agreed, would provide “something surprising and unpredictable” for him to watch.

DAVID: A purposeful God does not need self entertaining, again twisting my guesses about God. The vast diversity forms ecosystems for food, a point you purposely minimize.

dhw: […] I asked you to drop the word “need”, which makes him humanly “needy”. I use the word “want”. You thought God “wanted” to produce humans, maybe to admire his work or have a relationship with him. Why is “wanting” something interesting to watch not a purpose? The vast diversity does not mean that every diverse life form etc. was “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” plus our food – a point you purposely leave out when discussing ecosystems and food.

DAVID:… you have created a God who invites chaos.

dhw: […] Your all-knowing God would have known that his invention of autonomous intelligences would NOT lead to chaos. What is your problem?

DAVID: Free-for-all leads to chaos. Your intelligent organisms are your sole saving unproven theory, in which you turn to God to save your theories.

All theories are “unproven”, including the very existence of God. Intelligent organisms would explain why there isn’t chaos, and I do not “turn to God” but I include God as a possible first cause. I am an agnostic, not an atheist.

DAVID (later:)The large bush is necessary to provide enough food.

dhw: I do not believe that every econiche for the last 3.X billion years was “necessary” to provide food for humans.

DAVID: Past food for past organisms. Dodging again by slicing and dicing evolution.

What does “slicing and dicing” mean? You keep agreeing that past food was not for present humans, and so how can it and all the past organisms that also had no connection with humans have been part of God’s one and only goal of designing humans plus food? Over and over again you have told me to ask God to explain your theory because you can’t. So why do you keep defending it?

Antibiotic resistance
DAVID: In the real God's reality, it is required by necessary diversification to form sustaining ecosystems for the food supply. So I view bad infectious diseases as unescapable bad luck, not my God's doing.

dhw: Do you know the “real” God? Of course defence systems are required if organisms are to survive. Any intelligent organism will know that it has to defend itself! I don’t know why your all-powerful God would design a system in which he is powerless to stop “bad luck”! It makes more sense to me that an all-powerful God would simply design the system he wanted to design.

DAVID: Finally!! Yes, God designed the system He wanted that He knew would work.

Finally!! We agree. He didn’t “have to” design it with errors that he didn’t want and couldn’t correct, and the diseases were not “bad luck”. He got exactly what he wanted, and it works the way he wanted it to work. Perfectly in keeping with your belief that he is all-powerful and all-knowing. And you don’t need to draw any “humanized” conclusions about whether his nature is “kindly” or not. Finally!!

Biofilms
dhw: Please tell us what attributes convince you that humans are autonomously intelligent.

DAVID: Observed attributes from outside the organisms are comparisons, not proof of origin.

We are not talking about “proof of origin”. I asked you what human attributes convince you that humans are autonomously intelligent. Why can’t you give a straight answer?

Zebrafish inner ear
DAVID: My guesses about God are necessarily couched in human terms, but that does make my view of Him humanized as you weakly attempt to do.

dhw:So your “human terms” like “kindly” and “interested” and “enjoy” are not human, and mine – like “interested” and “enjoy” – are.

DAVID: Silly. All the terms we both use are human. There are no specific 'God' terms.

So please stop dismissing my alternative theories on the grounds that I use the same human terms as you do – though I have never suggested that he is “kindly”.