Introducing the brain: why so big? Part two (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, August 08, 2024, 09:24 (105 days ago) @ David Turell

This thread has digressed in various directions, which entail repetitions of points made elsewhere. I will try to redistribute the themes when I have more time.

dhw: […] If God exists, he gave us the ability to design our machines, art, institutions etc. He did not preprogramme these into the new cells of 300,000 years ago.

I then asked why your God could not have given the same autonomy to other cells.

DAVID: God could have, but there is no evidence other types of cells than neurons can act like neurons.

dhw: Thank you for agreeing that he could have. There is no evidence that your God fiddled with every other type of cell. Your God’s role in evolution – if he exists – is as unknown as his purposes and his nature. All our theories, as you keep telling us, are guesswork.

DAVID: At least I stick to reasoning from the available science of His works.

The “available science" does not tell us that your God fiddled with every type of cell.

Free will and a free-for-all

DAVID: God gave up total control by giving us free will.

dhw: And that is why it is perfectly possible that (if he exists) he gave up total control by setting in motion a free-for-all, whereby organisms did their own designing.

Not answered.

DAVID: No need. Previous discussions found no evidence for that theory.

dhw: Once more: there is no evidence for ANY of our theories, including yours. We can only discuss feasibility.

DAVID: Your form of God has feasibility for anything human.

Off you go again, insisting that your imperfect, inefficient designer of 99.9% irrelevances is more godlike than a designer who knows precisely what he wants and designs it (a free-for-all).

DAVID: God used evolution to create us, no matter what the Raup statistics show.

dhw: If God exists, he used evolution to create every organism that ever lived, whether directly or indirectly.

DAVID: Of course.

So why do you keep harping on about us and forgetting about the 99.9 out of 100 species that he apparently designed and had to cull because they had nothing to do with us (or our contemporaries)?

“De novo” (The Cambrian)

DAVID: What proof do you need in your wishful blind hope. It [The Cambrian Gap] is no longer a theory, but a huge gap.

dhw: Nobody has said that the Cambrian Gap is a theory!!!

DAVID: You did: "dhw: First of all, “de novo” creation in the Cambrian remains a theory." Tuesday, July 23, 2024, 18:15

dhw: Your Mr Hyde is making a fool of you. The theory is “de novo” creation!!! That is your guesswork solution to the mystery of the Cambrian Gap.

No response. You make these ridiculous accusations, and then scurry away.

dhw: The Cambrian Gap is a real mystery, and there are theories which try to explain it! We have considered three: the fossil record is bound to be incomplete; cellular intelligence may be sufficiently advanced to make major jumps when conditions allow them; there is an unknown, sourceless mind which designed species “de novo”.

DAVID: Such new complex organisms with brains, eyes, guts, demand a designer to explain them.

dhw: You have chosen the third of the three theoretical explanations.

DAVID: Yes, there is a gap followed by enormous unexplained complexity. Nothing here is gradual. For more than 160+ years later, now with many deposits of Cambrian animals found all over the world, no new fossils of precursors! Only a designer fits.

“Gradual” is a relative term. The Cambrian period lasted for approx. 53.4 million years. That is an enormous period of time, allowing for millions of generations of intelligent cells to evolve millions of innovations, especially if your God had designed them to do so.