More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 22, 2024, 17:55 (25 days ago) @ dhw

Sapiens brain

DAVID: The enormous complexity of our brain was shown in a previous entry. It well may represent a huge gap, denying Darwinism.

dhw: I am not denying the enormous complexity of our brain, which you have just agreed has been created by the brain itself. And the brain itself evolved from ancestral brains, as per Darwin.

As designed by God, as it is obvious natural evolution won't accomplish our brain.

New fossils found

dhw (re Shapiro’s theory): You said “unsupported”. How many scientists actively support your theory that your God inherited a rule that forced him to design 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with his one and only purpose?

DAVID: Scientists don't mention God, by rule.

dhw: I thought you said that many ID scientists now talk explicitly of God. How many of them support the above theory?

DAVID: ID accepts God designed humans by evolving them.

dhw: So it’s not true that scientists don’t mention God by rule. How many of your ID scientists tell us that their God inherited a rule that forced him to inefficiently design 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with his one and only purpose?

ID scientists are the exception. 'ID accepts God designed humans by evolving them."

Neanderthal genes in humans

DAVID: this answers the question of why so many forms of human ancestors if God was in charge. Why not go directly to sapiens? Both Neanderthal and Denisovan genes have supplied helpful genes. That is an answer.

dhw: No it isn’t. You go on and on about his power to create species “de novo”, so if he’d only wanted sapiens, he could have popped in all the genes he’d wanted without bothering with all the genes that were irrelevant to sapiens. The many forms fit in perfectly, however, with an experimenting God.

DAVID: A woolly stumbling God who has to experiment? Find a theologian who supports that view of God!

dhw: If early forms of flight were successful and continued experimentation led to jet planes and rockets, or if early tools led to more and more new inventions, is that “woolly and stumbling”? Find a theologian who supports your view that your God is so inefficient that he deliberate designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species, because they had nothing to do with his one and only purpose.

All of ID folks.

Philosopher on free will

dhw: No need for analysis here, but it always surprises me that people discussing the subject don’t start off by defining what “will” is supposed to be free from. We had long discussions on this in the past. Clearly our will is not free to make impossible decisions. I can’t waggle my ears and fly, or break out of jail, or force peace on Hamas and the Israelis. And so the question is whether, within given constraints, we do or don’t have freedom. My own conclusion is that if you define it as being free from influences beyond your control, then you don’t have it. None of us can possibly know to what extent our decisions have been formed by our genes, upbringing, environment, illness, accident, chance occurrences etc. However, the converse argument will be that all those influences have gone to make up the unique identity of our individual self (see the Nibbana thread), and so every decision we make is made by our self and by nobody else. In that sense, it is free.

DAVID: Your usual good analysis.

dhw: Thank you. Are you there, Matt? I’d like to hear your views on this.

Stephen Talbott’s view

QUOTES: And given a human culture upon which all life and evolution on earth now depends, we are, you might say, the alpha and omega of the evolutionary story. What seems incontrovertible is that we represent the highest and furthest reach of the thinking — which is to say, the ideas and meaning — taking form in evolving earthly life."

And so we have the privilege of discovering ever more fully the connections, not only between our highest functioning and the intelligence of the cells in our bodies, but also between our own minds and the entire, far-from-mindless creative drama of life on this planet."

DAVID: for Talbott there is an agency which caused evolution. We are the pinnacle of that process, and now we control it. Do not denigrate our exceptionality! It has its own important meaning in this reality.

dhw; I don’t know who you think might denigrate our exceptionality. This is a superb summing-up of our exceptionality and our responsibilities (which I take to be a reference to the manner in which we are currently threatening life on earth), and even including a direct confirmation of the theory of cellular intelligence! Thank you, David and Stephen.

Talbott is fascinated by purpose in all biological activity. He sees agency.