Miscellaneous (General)

by dhw, Saturday, November 23, 2024, 12:05 (2 hours, 59 minutes ago) @ David Turell

Immune system complexity: sniffing out invaders

dhw: The work of the molecules triggers specific responses. Something within the cell has to process the new information and decide on the appropriate responses. We have no idea what that “something” is, but some scientists believe it is a form of intelligence. You tell us that somehow the molecules automatically switch on the right instructions which your God planted inside the first cells 3.8 billion years ago, or he has just popped in to make the decision for them.

DAVID: You've summarized my position.

I doubt if even your ID-ers would support such a theory, but you pride yourself on your independent thinking, although you condemn my mixture of deism and process theology for not being mainstream.

Theoretical origin of life: Space is filled with organics

dhw: why did he leave them floating around for about 1000,000,000 years, and then use them to create and cull all kinds of life forms, if all he wanted to do was create us and our food?

This was followed by a dispute over the figures, but the accuracy of these is irrelevant to our main question, which you now answer with a non-answer:

DAVID: Your human view of billions of galaxies does not know how important all those galaxies are. God knows.

This is your defence of all your theories: his creation of billions of galaxies, just like his creation of 99 out of 100 irrelevant species, makes no sense to you, but you cannot conceive of the possibility that your wishful theory that we should be your God’s one and only purpose might be wrong. And indeed the billions of galaxies especially might be taken as support for agnosticism and atheism.

DAVID (under “Milky Way”): Again, your tiny mind knows better than God's.

My tiny mind does not even know if God exists, and it most certainly does not assume – as yours does – that if he exists, it knows God’s purpose and it knows that God is a messy, inefficient designer who designs billions of galaxies and thousands of species which come and go, having no conceivable connection with that purpose.

Introducing the brain: consciousness as ephaptic fields

dhw: You said that the article “comfortably fits my underlying dualism”. If neurons are the source of consciousness, I don’t see how this can be said to support dualism.

DAVID: The theory is the neurons receive consciousness, not create it.

dhw: That is the theory of dualism. Materialism is the theory that neurons create it. The article does not claim that neurons receive consciousness.

DAVID: All I said was the new field could receive consciousness.

And I presume you think the sender is the dualist’s immaterial soul and not the neurons. OK. If you think the article supports your theory, so be it.

Different birds build different nests

QUOTE: Researchers analyzed more than 400 structures built by 43 different groups of White-browed Sparrow-Weavers in the Kalahari Desert

DAVID: Not rigid like the weaverbirds, these birds sort of build whatever they wish. It is as if the DNA says build whatever you wish, as long as it is effective.

dhw: Yes indeed. One might even believe that different organisms have an inbuilt intelligence
which enables them to do their own designing. A very different theory from that of a dear friend of mine, who is convinced that, for instance, the weaverbird could only have built its nest if it followed his God’s instructions.

DAVID: In that instance the weaverbirds only followed one designated design.

Does that mean God designed the weaverbird’s nest but all the other birds were able to design their own?