Miscellaneous (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 10, 2024, 11:47 (12 days ago) @ David Turell

Cellular intelligence: renal cell memory

dhw: Thank you for repeating the point I have just made. They have the ability to change when required. That requires intelligence.

DAVID: Or following intelligent instructions.

dhw: Now please explain why cells that follow your omniscient, omnipotent God’s instructions sometimes fail to survive.

DAVID: Life is not perfect as produced by God. Death is an expected outcome. No one lives forever.

You keep repeating the obvious and ignoring the point at issue, just as you do when we discuss theodicy. Yes, death, suffering and evil are all REAL. In the context of this particular discussion, you tell us that in order to repel invaders, cells automatically obey your God’s instructions. I point out that cells frequently fail to repel invaders, so what does that tell us about your God’s instructions? Then you dodge and doge and dodge. But you said that cells have the ability to change when required, which could suggest that their ability has nothing to do with instructions, and refers solely to their autonomous ability to process information and make decisions on what actions to take. Sometimes THEY will get it wrong. THEY are not supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent.

Fighting off asteroid hits

DAVID: God's purposes and method are quite clear to produce us. It is His nature where there must be great debates.

dhw: God’s purposes and methods are obviously NOT clear since your own interpretation of them leads you to ridicule him as messy and inefficient, whereas I have offered alternative interpretations which allow him to appear perfectly efficient in achieving different purposes from yours, or even the same one.

DAVID: My God produced us by His evolutionary method. He did not enjoy a free-for-all or have to experiment to achieve the goal like you unrecognizable guy.

Although you accept that all my (and your own) alternative theories relating to your God’s purposes, methods and nature are possible, they are impossible for you because they are different from your own fixed wishes and beliefs, including your astonishing conclusion that your perfect God is a messy and inefficient designer.

LUCA

DAVID: Your refusal to look at the biochemistry of life as a continuum from its beginning is wrong. You look at phenotypical evolution at the simplistic Darwin level. form is not function. Once life is formed, it can have any shape God desires. Thus the Cambrian appears with no form predecessors but with all the necessary life mechanisms in place. The literature is filled with de novo gaps like the Cambrian but of smaller degree.

dhw: Of course LUCA must be the original cells from which all life forms have evolved in a continuous process – but the process has been one of diversification! The exact opposite of your theory that the process was meant to head solely towards one species plus its food! It is you who focus on speciation and not on biochemistry, and so it makes no sense to claim that we were its sole purpose! That is why you are at a total loss to explain why your God didn’t create our species directly instead of creating and having to cull 100 out of 100 irrelevant pre-Cambrians, and 99 out of 100 post-Cambrians.

DAVID: You still skip over what evolution produced: us a huge numbers and all the living resources on Earth for our use. Yes God culled, as a normal part of any evolution, but what is here is all necessary to be here for us.

You accuse me of ignoring the biochemistry. I give you a complete response, and so you ignore it and change the subject back to one that has already been demolished time after time: current numbers are descended from the 0.1% survivors out of the 100% that ever existed, 99.9% of which were irrelevant to us and our food. Even the fact that we use whatever resources are here does mean that we would die without them. Many are useful, but not necessary. Now please explain why your perfect God had to create and cull 99 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to the purpose you impose on him. If you can’t, then please say so and stop changing the subject.

What does the universe expand into?

DAVID: so we are left with the concept that the universe expands into itself. There is nothing out there to expand into. Wow! In creating the universe God has left us with puzzles. Not just that the basis of our universe is quantum mechanics.

If 95% (approx.) of the universe consists of dark matter, and 68% of dark energy – i.e. matter and energy we know nothing about – how do we know WHAT is the basis of our universe? An atheist would argue that in creating God, humans have left us with even more puzzles than a godless universe. We agnostics simply confess that we are puzzled, though that needn’t stop us from looking for clues. Hence this website!