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

by dhw, Tuesday, April 01, 2025, 16:02 (1 day, 16 hours, 47 min. ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

DAVID: Humans and bacteria create evil.

dhw: So a possible answer to the problem set by theodicy is that evil is not an unintended by-product or side-effect of your cumbersome, messy, inefficient God’s good works, but instead he deliberately gave freedom of action to his creatures. We humans invented the concepts of “good” and “evil” to mean whatever was good or bad for us, but all creatures simply do what they think is good for them in the great free-for-all of life’s history. However, you prefer to believe that evil is due to your God’s incompetence.

DAVID: Evil has nothing to do with God's incompetence. How did you conclude that? God is not incompetent. Evil is the result, as you state, of freedom of action or free will.

After your initial solution (ignore the evil and only think about the good), you declared that evil was a by-product or side-effect of God’s good works, and you defined these terms as “the unintended result of any action.” If your God produced something he had not intended to produce, I would suggest that is a sign of incompetence, which goes hand in hand with your belief in an inefficient designer (see your illogical theory of evolution). However, you have now explicitly supported the theory that your God created a free-for-all. Thank you. Another red-letter day for the AgnosticWeb.

Evolution

DAVID: I obviously have no answer as to why God used evolution to evolve us. I am convinced we ere His purpose.

dhw: It is only cumbersome and inefficient if you impose a purpose on it and then insist that your God personally designed but had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to his purpose! But you would rather ridicule your God than open your mind to any alternative theory, because as you once confessed: “I first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.”

DAVID: Teleology is something you must exclude from evolution because it evokes a designer.

dhw: You never cease to try and divert attention from your ridicule of your God by pretending that my alternatives are atheistic. This whole discussion concerns your God’s possible nature, purpose and method. If he exists, he must have had a purpose for creating life. […] Elsewhere, however, you have expressed your belief that he would not have created life if he had not enjoyed doing so and had not been interested in his own creations. That will provide you with your “teleology”. You also proposed that he might have created us because he wanted us to recognize and worship him. More teleology. If he exists, I have no objections to your proposals. It’s you who oppose them and prefer to ridicule him.

DAVID: Ridicule of God is your invention. That He uses cumbersome evolution is His choice to achieve Human intelligence actually shows that it works.

I have never heard anyone use the terms “messy, cumbersome and inefficient” as a compliment, just as I have never heard of a bad, unintended result being regarded as a sign of competence. These are terms of your invention, not mine. However, you have now accepted the free-for-all theory in the context of theodicy, so perhaps you will also accept it as a possible and logical explanation for the 99.9% of species that had no connection with the purpose you have imposed on your God.

Cellular intelligence

DAVID: Intelligent actions can come from intelligent instructions.

dhw: You agreed that the “code” might create autonomous intelligence, but you defined that as meaning “automatic, no thought involved”. The fact that intelligent actions can come from intelligent instructions does not mean that when you accepted my description of the autonomous, information-processing, communicating, decision-making, instruction-giving cell, I actually meant an automatic, non-processing, non-communicating, non-decision-making, non-instruction-giving cell!

DAVID: At all times you think cells can think. Nonsense.

What do you mean by “at all times”? Most of the time, cellular behaviour is automatic – it has to be if organs and organisms are to remain stable. I keep telling you when intelligence is needed: e.g. if there are new problems, requirements, conditions. Then cells must process the new information, communicate, make decisions, and issue instructions. But even then, there are cells whose function is simply to obey those instructions. When your intelligent self instructs your arm and hands and fingers to pick up a gun and shoot yourself in the foot, the arm and hands and fingers will automatically obey.

Fish use tools

QUOTE: "Scientists have debunked the belief that using tools is unique to mammals and birds,….

dhw: One of these days, perhaps some people will also realize that long ago, some scientists debunked the belief that micro-organisms right down to single cells cannot be intelligent. All that is needed is to rid oneself of what Shapiro calls “large organisms chauvinism”.

DAVID: Fish have brains, therefore they think.

Bacteria have no brains, but you agree that they can also think. So why not other single cells and cell communities?