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

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 01, 2025, 20:51 (1 day, 11 hours, 46 min. ago) @ dhw

Theodicy

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.

dhw: 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.

Under this present discussion I accept your desired free-for-all as a major part of dog-eat-dog fight for food for all forms. But contrarily I don't see a struggle for survival producing such items as our magnificent brain.

Evolution

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

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

dhw: 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.

Let's not go back to fighting over the 99.9% extinction rate which produced us.

Cellular intelligence

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

dhw: 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.

Yes, the body obeys the brain. And cells obey adaptive instructions in DNA

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.

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

The key is 'free-living'. Bacteria must use many automatic reactions to challenges. 'Multicellular-living' means all the cells cooperate with each other automatically.