Cellular intelligence: (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, January 11, 2022, 15:27 (1045 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: 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: It is not characterizing words that humanize. It is the way you propose actions God might take or want as free-for-all and experimenting into the future.

dhw: So when you tell us you are certain that your “kindly” God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, you are not “humanizing” him, but when I suggest that his purpose in creating life might have been to enjoy creating something that will interest him, that is “humanizing”.

Again you use describing words like 'kindly' which do not judge God's proposed actions. Stay on point, please, if you have an answer. I am looking at purpose in creation with God's enjoyment reaction as a side issue to guess at.

DAVID: Intelligent organisms can't plan for future speciation, which is the only way to explain the gaps in fossils as Cambrian or flowering plant bloom.

dhw: There is no planning for future speciation! You have agreed that speciation takes place IN RESPONSE to changing conditions and not in anticipation of them (see the thread on your theory of evolution).

I have only agreed that species modify to new changes as the same species.

DAVID: You keep ignoring my point God chose to evolve us from bacteria. All of evolution connected. Your constant illogical complaint slices it into disparate parts.

dhw: If God exists, he chose to evolve ALL life forms from bacteria, and the bush of life evolved into countless separate branches or “disparate parts”, most of which had no connection with humans.

Antibiotic resistance

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

dhw: 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!!

DAVID: Wrong 'finally'. An all-knowing God knew which system for life would work and used it recognizing errors were probable.

dhw: That is not what you wrote, which was that he “designed the system He wanted that He knew would work”. This can only mean that he did not want "errors" he could not control, so they were not errors, and he did not try in vain to correct them. They are the consequence of freedom of choice, and what you and I consider to be a “bad” bacterium or a cell "going wrong" would, if it could talk our language, tell us that it’s simply finding its own way to survive - just like the "good" bacteria and cells which try to fight off the invaders.

Of course it means he did not want the accompanying error potential, and provided editing. I repeat, an all-knowing God knew which system would work and which wouldn't. We live in the only one available.

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

DAVID: The straight answer, you know, is we can only observe outward appearances of cells actions which I believe are automatic. We have free will using huge, highly complex brains.

dhw: Your beliefs and the fact that we have big brains are not attributes that denote intelligence! These, I suggest, would include the ability to absorb and process information, remember it, pass it on to fellow members of the community, cooperate with them, reach decisions, implement those decisions. Please tell us what other attributes have convinced you that your fellow humans are intelligent and are not mere automatons.

Our free will discussions established that. And we live inside ourselves, while observing cells from their outside.