More Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 30, 2024, 20:13 (205 days ago) @ dhw

boredom and theodicy

DAVID: No, no one can be certain about God's attributes. My thoughts about God are within a faith structure. When I offer an opinion it will come across as if fact.

dhw: All agreed. This is particularly irksome when you use your contradictory opinions to dismiss any theory different from your own. For instance, your opinion one day is that your God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, but the next day when I propose that he might have created life in order to provide himself with interesting things to do and watch, you insist that he has no self-interest. You even propose that he would find puppets boring, which leads to his knowingly allowing evil and creating murderous bugs (for which you blame him) in order to avoid boredom, but again, he has no self-interest.

'Self-interest' means doing something to satisfy yourself. God does not require self-satisfaction as I view Him.

DAVID: No, in adaptability there are some minor processes that do not need instructions.

dhw; Please tell us which category the next item covers:

Aquatic spiders

DAVID: Why did the spiders go back to water? As with whales many physiological changes had to occur. God must have stepped in as a designer.

dhw: The article answers your question: “Presumably, the spiders that later returned to a life aquatic were strongly drawn by something to eat there, or driven by unsafe conditions on land.” […] you will not even consider the possibility that this wide variety of adaptations might be the result of intelligent cells responding to new conditions in their own different ways. And I’d better not ask why you think your God specially designed all these variations. Do we humans really need them or use them?

DAVID: They play a role in seaside ecosystems, of course. The authors spouted the usual reasons we all think of to explain such an unusual action.

dhw: And what do you find unacceptable in the usual reasons? Now please tell us why you think your God found it necessary to specially design all the different ways in which these spiders have adapted to life in the water.

Same OLD answer: they fit into a necessary ecosystem.

Cerebellum helps learning

QUOTES: Our research provides clear evidence that the cerebellum is not only important for learning how to perform skillful actions, but also for learning which actions are most valuable in certain situations," says Bostan.

"'It helps explain some of the non-motor difficulties in people with cerebellar disorders.'"

DAVID: the cerebellum is packed with specialized neurons. We see connections to the cortex and are still trying to find out how those connections work.

dhw; The brain, like the rest of the body, is a community of cellular communities, and these all communicate with one another. Even specialists can communicate with other specialists. Would it be too simple to suggest that the connections work because cells are intelligent, sentient, cognitive, information-processing, decision-making entities “that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth and proliferation” (James A. Shapiro)? (NB: This theory leaves open the possibility that your God was the designer of cellular intelligence.)

God is the best explanation.