Miscellaneous (General)

by dhw, Thursday, November 14, 2024, 11:54 (19 days ago) @ David Turell

Immunity system complexity (C elegans, and also the brain’s fractal organization)

QUOTE: "Dillin and his team showed that C. elegans worms’ sense of smell coordinates a mitochondrial response, particularly in intestinal cells, to resist bacterial infection. The researchers speculate that this process is conserved in mammals for pathogen detection and immune regulation.”

DAVID: this is a clear example of an automatic protein trigger for response to a specific danger. No thought involved.

dhw: The fact that scientists have observed the material mechanisms by which organisms defend themselves does not mean that the processes do not require thought of some kind. You have always accepted that this is true of bacteria. So now you have intelligent bacteria and robot worms, the latter having somehow been preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago to switch on whatever set of instructions your God planted in the cells which evolved into C. elegans and into every other species you can think of. Not too far-fetched for you?

DAVID: Your prejudice bites you. This single example is clearly automatic. The C elegans may have simple thoughts in some other way.

Do you believe that 3.8 billion years ago, your God designed every response to every threat that C elegans would ever face from all invading bacteria for the rest of C elegans’ history? Ditto for all other bacterial threats to all other species. Or is it possible that he designed a mechanism by which C elegans and all other species might try to work out their own means of countering bacterial threats? (I say “try”, because we should not forget the many cases of failure, which of course would highlight the inadequacy of your omniscient God’s instructions.)

A theoretical God

DAVID: Following Adler, the appearance of humans through natural evolution is so unusual a result, we are God's primary purpose in evolving us.

dhw: […] the massive complexity of the biochemistry of life is so “unusual” that every single species – including all those that had no connection with humans – must have been part of your God’s purpose. “Primary” is not the same as one and only, and you have never accepted any other purpose. This, as you have agreed right from the start, presents you with an insoluble problem, because if your God’s powers are endless, it makes absolutely no sense that he designed and had to cull 99.9% of species that had no connection with the one and only purpose you impose on him.

DAVID: Stop blaming God for choosing to evolve us.

I am not blaming God for any such thing! I am blaming you for coming up with a theory that you agree makes no sense. If God exists, he chose to “evolve” ALL species, and YOU call him imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient for designing and having to cull 99.9% of them.

dhw: Thank you for accepting the fact that you are continually contradicting yourself. It would be nice to think that this awareness might help you to explore possibilities to which so far you have closed your mind! (See the “evolution” thread for further discussion.)

DAVID: At least I keep trying.

You keep trying to defend your fixed beliefs and to dismiss alternatives, although you admit that these provide logical explanations for problems you can’t solve.

Theoretical origin of life: Space is filled with organics

QUOTES: The Rosetta mission and others have shown just how ubiquitous organic molecules are in space, too.

[…] as comets and asteroids reveal, the nonliving world is complex in its own right. Compounds thought to be biosignatures have been found on lifeless rocks...

DAVID: the non-living world is filled with organic molecules. Living matter was destined, but we just don't know how it happened.

I must confess I don’t understand what this “discovery” is meant to prove. If organic molecules are not living organisms, we are still back where we started as regards the origin of life. Or is this an indirect reference to some kind of panpsychism?