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

by dhw, Saturday, March 29, 2025, 13:21 (6 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

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.

dhw: 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)?

DAVID: Come on, free-will or free actions from God ALLOW evil, obviously byproduct.

Free will ALLOWS what we call good and what we call evil. Decent David decides to earn a living by becoming a doctor, and Dirty Dave decides to become a robber. Billy bacterium survives by doing things we consider nice, and Basil bacterium survives by doing things we consider nasty. These are not “by-products of God’s good works” but products of autonomous decision-making! And since God does not dictate the decisions, clearly we have a free-for-all.

dhw: 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.
And:
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.

dhw: 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 ["a dispensary process"] is one of different species or “lines” or “branches” that have come and gone?

Not answered.

dhw: 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….

Not answered.

Dhw: ….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?

No explanation given.

DAVID: You don't look at Raup's statistical approach as I do.

Obviously! You pretend that somehow it supports your view that your God had to design 99.9 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to the purpose you impose on him, although on March 24 you admit that “Raup in no way supports me.”

DAVID: I view God's evolution as messy. But as His choice it worked. We are here running the show.

I asked you to explain your reasons for thinking it was messy and inefficient, not whether you did. The fact that we are here running (and trying hard to ruin) the show does not invalidate the theory that your God deliberately created a free-for-all! Raup attributes survival to “luck”. Or your God could have been experimenting with different life forms, or hit upon humans as one of many new ideas as he went along. Why do you insist that he deliberately, knowingly, messily, cumbersomely, inefficiently went on designing and culling irrelevant species although you also insist that he was perfectly capable of directly designing what he wanted?

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?[/b]

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: He coded DNA to give responses automatically.

More obfuscation. If something harms us, of course we automatically try to escape from it or find a way of removing it. And so our intelligence leads us to processing the new information, communicating with others, taking decisions, giving instructions…You agreed with my description of this process, as applied to cells/cell communities, and now you pretend that autonomous intelligence means automatic obedience.