Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, January 12, 2024, 12:28 (106 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: What driving emotional force made God create, if there was one? That is our discussion. My answer for your might-be's is no force. God simply creates with no motives. He has secondary responses.

dhw: Your once all-purposeful God is now a purposeless zombie. If God had no motive for creating life, why did he bother? And if he had no motive, how could his motive have been to design us and our food? And you still haven’t told us why your earlier might-be purposes (to be worshipped, recognized, have a relationship with us) are less “needy” and less “human” than the purpose of enjoyment and interest?

DAVID: More evidence God must be like humans, in your mind.

Not “like” humans (how many humans can design universes or create life from scratch?) but with certain thought patterns and emotions in common with his, just as you yourself have indicated in the past. The above list of might-be’s was yours, as was your certainty that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, but as usual you have dodged every single question I have asked above.

99.9& versus 0.1%

dhw: Having agreed last week that we plus food are descended from 0.1% of past species, you now tell us that we plus food are descended from 990 out of 1000 Ediacarans, but maybe from NONE of the 1000 dinosaurs. Simple question: do you believe that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all the creatures that ever lived? Yes or no?

DAVID: No. From the 0.1% surviving. The 99.9% are the ancestors of the currently living 0.1%, of which we are a tiny portion.

I’m getting worried about you, as these self-contradictions are becoming embarrassing. You do not believe that we (plus food) are directly descended from the 99.9%, and yet the 99.9% are our ancestors. Don’t you realize that “ancestors” are the line of life forms from which we are descended? You have just answered my question with no and yes!

The immune system

DAVID: […] you still don't understand the ID view of speciation by a designing mind.

dhw: […] you still don’t understand that design by intelligent cells (perhaps themselves designed by your God) is also intelligent design, though not by a single mind.

DAVID: Totally rejected. Design requires consciousness. Are your cell committees' conscious?

There are different degrees of consciousness. Obviously our own consciousness is vastly greater than that of our fellow animals: we can assume that your dog does not psychoanalyse his own behaviour, or wonder how the universe began, concoct theories about it, write books about it etc. But do you think he goes through life with no consciousness of you or of his environment or of his needs? You have accepted that single celled organisms such as bacteria are conscious of the conditions in which they find themselves, and respond accordingly. Of course that is not human consciousness, but without being conscious of those conditions, how could they possibly respond to them? The cell communities of all organisms respond to conditions. Shapiro says they are cognitive (sentient) beings which possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities. We have no idea of the precise degree of their consciousness (which is why Shapiro's theory is still theory, not fact), but my answer to your question is a resounding yes.

Theodicy
DAVID: Godel should be of interest in this website.

dhw: See “Miscellany Part Two” for his daft hypothesis concerning an afterlife. I still don’t know why, after we had agreed not to repeat the discussion on theodicy, you decided to start it again by telling us Godel thinks God is perfect.

DAVID: Godel is a famous thinker in logic. Note his incompleteness theorem. His opinions are worth something to those with open minds.

I can only comment on what you tell us, and even you could not accept the so-called logic of his theory that our failure to fulfil our potential in this life means there MUST be an afterlife in which we can do so. And do you really want to re-open the discussion on theodicy, just because Godel says God is perfect?