New Miscellany 1: theodicy, evolution, cellular intelligence (General)

by dhw, Friday, March 28, 2025, 12:33 (7 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

DAVID: In a dog-eat-dog sense your analysis is correct. It is purely a deist view. It throws out ethics and morals for humans. As a theist I can not accept is implications.

dhw: Of course it doesn’t throw out ethics and morals for humans! Have you not realized that ethics and morals are GOOD for humans – they are a vital part of our species’ ability to survive! But I’m suggesting they are OUR invention, not your God’s. I remain surprised that as a theist you continue to regard your God as the inventor of good and evil, refuse even to consider a logical reason to exonerate him from the creation of the latter, and also continue to ridicule him as an inefficient designer.

DAVID: Most evil is not God's doing: free will allows humans to create evil. Freedom of action allows bugs to create evil, all by-products of God's good works.

First you reject my proposal because it excludes morals and ethics. I point out that it doesn’t, so you try to change the subject! You agree that good and evil are concepts invented by humans solely in accordance with what is good or bad for US, and you agree that we (and bacteria) are involved in a free-for-all. If your God has given organisms free will, then their actions, whether good for bad for us, are THEIR products, not by-products of God’s good works. Or are you still arguing that we are incapable of designing what is good for us (e.g. ethics and morals)?

Next comes yet another ridiculous response:

Evolution

DAVID: I'm disagreeing with you. What is here in all the ecosystems that support us, is analyzed to show how evolution is a dispensary process, while achieving its results.

dhw: No one will deny that the ecosystems that are here are here, and no one will deny that vast numbers of species and ecosystems have been and gone and are therefore not here. As a result, give or take a few decimal points, 99.9% of what was here is not here now. You agree that the remaining 0.1% is descended from the 0.1% of survivors, i.e. is NOT descended from the 99.9% of all creatures that ever lived, but now you propose that every creature that is here now had 100 sets of mummies and daddies. For example, one set of figures tells us that there were 900 species of dinosaur, only four of which (therapods) have survived as birds. That leaves you with 896 species of dinosaur with no descendants although according to you they were all the mummies and daddies of birds! Please stop this nonsense and stick to your explicit agreement that the mummies and daddies of current species were the 0.1% of survivors and not the 99.9% which produced no survivors[/b].

DAVID: When will you realize the statistics cover all of evolution in a generalized way, that the 0.1% CAME from the 99.9%. It does not consider specific lines.

When will you stop obfuscating? What do you mean by “came from” if you don’t mean “descended from”? Are you now denying that the history of evolution is one of different species or “lines” or “branches” that have come and gone? You try to forget that you have logically and unequivocally agreed that the 0.1% alive today have “come from” the 0.1% that survived extinction, and you have ignored the dinosaur example, as you strive to distract attention from your belief that your God is a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer. Please explain what other reason you can give for ridiculing him in this way?

Cellular intelligence

DAVID: With a coded DNA conducting design, simple coding changes advance evolution.

dhw: […] Why is it unthinkable for you that the “code” is what creates the cell’s equivalent of a brain that processes all the information, decides what to do with it, and passes its instructions on to the rest of the community?

DAVID: That is exactly what DNA does from God's design.

dhw: Thank you for at last agreeing that your God might have designed autonomous cellular intelligence, instead of 3.8 billion years’ worth of preprogramming and ad hoc dabbling. […]

DAVID: I agree with your description recognizing it is all automatic, no thought involved.

dhw: You have quoted my argument in bold above: that the code (perhaps God-given) might be the equivalent of a brain which acts autonomously, and you dare to pretend that a brain which independently processes, decides and instructs means a brain that does not independently process, decide and instruct. Next you will be telling me that the word “intelligent” means “without intelligence”. Please stop it.

DAVID: The responses to our thoughtful mental actions are automatic. It is our intelligence in action, not the brain's.

Yet again you simply ignore what you have just agreed: namely, that your God might have “coded” cellular intelligence. We are not arguing about dualism versus materialism (which separates the brain from intelligence), but at least your digression invalidates your objection that cells don’t have brains. Once more: the cell’s autonomous intelligence (perhaps God-given) – just like ours – will do the processing, communicating and decision-making, and I agree that other components will automatically obey its instructions.