More "miscellany" PARTS ONE & TWO (General)

by David Turell @, Tuesday, December 13, 2022, 16:47 (472 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Wrong. He creates environments, but climate patterns are free to react, change, etc.

dhw: So if a tropical forest turned into a desert because of an uncontrolled change in climate patterns, what role did he play in changing the tropical forest environment into a desert environment?

None. The Earth runs its own weather patterns.


DAVID: Your never understand the principal concept of an all-powerful God. What is in history is what He produced. What is here is what He produced. Because He felt they were necessary. Complain all you wish about how messy an evolutionary system is to reach a goal. But that is what it is, warts and all. All you are wondering is why God didn't clean it up to run more efficiently.

dhw: All dealt with on the evolutionary thread, and you have completely ignored the question of the role played by luck in your theory – a subject you yourself raised when you quoted Raup. You make these statements, but when I develop the implications, you go scooting off in a different direction.

Luck is just that, which God does not control, just like climate.


Pigeon brains

dhw: We agree that the brain has plasticity, and that was not my question. Again: the brain changes as it responds to needs? Yes or no?

DAVID: I've already agreed.

dhw: Thank you. I will quote you next time we discuss your theory that your God changed brains and other parts of existing bodies in anticipation of future needs.[/b]

DAVID: Stop stretching my answers to suit your purposes. My agreement is brains have plasticity, nothing more.

dhw: We had already agreed on plasticity. You have just agreed that the brain changes as it responds to needs. Read the exchange! There seems to be an almost automatic process going on here: whenever you find yourself in agreement with me, it takes just a few hours for you to decide you’d better withdraw your agreement!

There you go again. Plasticity is plasticity. We agree. The bold above is your usual unprovoked attack. Which is why I carefully specify.

dhw: The same problem with your description of your God’s mistakes as “failed experiments”. When I pointed out that this fitted in with one of my alternative explanations for dead ends (God experiments in his quest to create a being like himself), whoosh! No, your God doesn’t experiment, although his specially designed dead ends are failed experiments. I don't know why you can't just agree if something makes sense to you.

Dead ends are failed experiments of living organisms, all planned purposively by God to advance designed evolution. This never means evolution is unplanned, but not experimenting toward the goal,us.


Cells move by electric charges

DAVID: What Shapiro produced is very thorough scientific analysis as to how bacteria can edit their DNA. The rest is his extrapolated evolution theory, a wish you love.


dhw: All theories, including your own, are “extrapolated” from available information. I quoted his theory word for word, and you accused me of distorting it. However, I suppose that is as a good a way as any of dodging the actual issue, which is how cells arrive at their decisions, and not what automatic processes are set in motion by their decisions.

Cells in multicellular organisms work automatically. Bacteria have special attributes of self acitons.


Intelligent octopuses

QUOTE: a study in Science Advances suggests that their intelligence is due to the dramatic assortment of microRNA types in their brain tissues — an assortment that they seem to share with a wide variety of vertebrates, including our own species.

dhw: It is this sort of discovery that raises questions concerning dualism and materialism. Does it mean that the “dramatic assortment” of microRNA types is the source of intelligence. Or are they the mechanism whereby the intelligent octopus’s “soul” is able to implement its ideas and decisions? The same question arises with other life forms that may be more or less intelligent than octopuses. If I remember rightly, David, you said Jews believe animals have souls. Buddhists don’t believe in even a human soul, and so I wonder what actually gets reborn until Nirvana has been achieved.

DAVID: I'll maintain my belief in an immaterial soul using my brain under my personal control. Matt rejects reborn it seems.

dhw: Do you also believe that octopus intelligence springs from a soul?

In Jewish thought animals have their own form of soul. I don't reject it.


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