New Miscellany Part 2: zombies, fine-tuning, symbiosis (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 22, 2025, 08:23 (3 hours, 46 minutes ago) @ dhw

Zombification

QUOTE: The zombifiers are diverse. The hosts that they zombify are diverse. The mechanisms that they use are very diverse,” said Weisberger. “So individually, all of these examples are really exciting, but together, they also added up to this really interesting picture. Just what is behavior manipulation? Why is this strategy so successful? And why are so many organisms doing it?

DAVID: One can only wonder how they evolve...

dhw:[…] . In answer to the question why they do it, I would suggest it’s BECAUSE it’s a successful way to survive. As for how they do it, the alternative to your God specially designing them (apparently for our benefit) would be that they use their intelligence (possibly God-given, and probably through periods of trial and error) to perfect their design.

DAVID: Trial and error to create such a mechanism is not a logical route. The ants must learn to attach themselves and attack the host's brains. A two-step process in which the first step alone serves no purpose.

That makes them even cleverer than I had supposed. Do you believe your God preprogrammed this strategy 3.8 billion years ago, or suddenly decided that zombification would be a great help to us humans (his sole purpose) and popped in to give zombification courses to all his potential parasites.? Please answer.

Possible alien life

DAVID: I follow your view that life's presence indicates fine-tuning! Inverted: life can appear wherever there is fine-tuning. Potential vs. actual.

dhw: Without the environmental and biological “fine-tuning” factors life is impossible. These factors do not exist everywhere in the universe, but only in individual places. It is therefore nonsense to say that the universe is fine-tuned for life. […] Please stop trying to justify your earlier statement although you’ve agreed that it is wrong. […] Your own questions basically revolve around your obsession with your theory that your God created the entire universe in order to produce humans plus food.

DAVID: Fine-tuning involves more than 20 integrated factors, NOT minuscule. Now you have my belief as an obsession!!! Do not name-call!

dhw: It’s not the number of factors that is minuscule but the number of heavenly bodies which combine ALL the factors necessary for life. There is no name-calling: almost all your questions revolved round the importance of humans, because you reject any theory that conflicts with your belief that we were your God’s sole purpose from the very beginning, even though this makes you ridicule him for his inefficiency.

DAVID: The factors involve the way this universe is made. This is a life friendly universe. And yes, I think evolution is an inefficient method of creation.

And the way the universe is made is such that the only place we know to be fine-tuned for life is Planet Earth. Your “friendly” obfuscation is trillions of miles away from telling us that the whole universe is finely tuned for life! And the reason why you think God is an inefficient designer is that you insist that he designed 99.9% out of 100 species that had no connection with the purpose you impose on him. You cannot imagine that all 100 species, whether he designed them or not, might have been what he wanted in the first place – for instance, by designing a free-for-all.

Plate tectonics join Asia and Africa

DAVID: contingent events strongly effected migrations and evolution. It is a two-way street: life transforms the Earth and a changing Earth transforms life.

It’s easy to see how a changing Earth affects life, but you’ve set me thinking about the reverse process. There’s no question that human life has transformed the Earth, as we discussed under “climate change” and human destruction of species. Microorganisms have changed as conditions have changed, and perhaps we can also say that the changes in microorganisms have in turn transformed the Earth. Is this what you mean? I’m not looking for a debate but just for information.

SYMBIOSIS

DAVID: You are always fussing about the darkness in some areas of the world. I have no control over happenings in Gaza, Ukraine or Sudan, so why should I fret? I do sympathize with the Ukraine people and their horrible history with Russia.

dhw: Sadly, this ties in with your attempts to brush aside the very existence of evil in your effort to ignore the problem of theodicy. I really can’t see why anyone should reject my proposal that peace is preferable to war, and my regret that humans so often opt for competition as opposed to symbiosis. I never imagined that this would lead to any sort of disagreement. I wasn’t asking you to go out on a crusade.

DAVID: But that is exactly what your rhetoric calls for.

dhw: It does no more than reiterate basic principles which would make for a better world, and these principles apply at every level of life, whether individual, social, political, national or international.

DAVID: All of us agree with you idealistically. Realistically, it is not what happens.

And that is the pity of it. One would have hoped that all our great leaders would have recognized this obvious truth!