New Miscellany Part 1: evolution, intelligence, the brain (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 23, 2025, 17:55 (3 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: So the human brain just appeared by chance is your answer.

dhw: I ask you to look yet again at the theory of cellular intelligence, and you conclude that I believe in chance! Nobody knows how ANY complex organ/organism developed out of the initial single cells, but the theory that cells – as exemplified by bacteria – have the perhaps God-given intelligence to design their own changes dispenses with chance, and would allow you to stop ridiculing your God for his inefficiency, since he would have wanted the vast variety as opposed to his having wanted only 0.1% of what he produced. Stop dodging!

In the bolded, are you saying the vast variety on Earth isn't vast enough!

dhw: For the hundredth time:
dhw: Do you believe that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all creatures that ever lived?
DAVID: No. From the 0.1% surviving.

dhw: 99.9% of species with no descendants plus 0.1% of species with descendants = 100%. Please explain to me how the 99.9% with no descendants can produce descendants. Better still, stop disagreeing with yourself.

DAVID: Evolution took millions of years supported by the groups that went extinct. They should be recognized, not discarded.

dhw: Yes indeed, the process of evolution produced every species, extant and extinct, and it is totally absurd of you to insist that your inefficient version of God designed them all but had to “discard” or cull them because they did not fit the purpose you impose on him. At last you are beginning to realize that if he exists, he may have wanted what he created. There is hope yet!

Of course He wanted what He created.

A start of multicellularity

dhw: I cannot see how you can be so certain that intelligent cells lose their intelligence when they form communities. Please explain your logic.

DAVID: As organs each cell type has its prescribed duties with the ability to make minor variations.

dhw: As per Shapiro, the duties are “prescribed” by the decision-making members of the cell communities, in accordance with the requirements of the situation. For some reason, you insist that any changes can only be minor, and your God must step in whenever there is the need or opportunity for a major change. (Alternatively, 3.8 billion years ago he apparently preprogrammed the first cells with every major change for the rest of life’s history.) And for good measure, 99.9% of these major changes were irrelevant to his one and only purpose.

The 'some reason' is I think God is a designer in charge.

The human brain

DAVID: In the now bolded is my choice. Our use of the miraculous brain created what we are today.

dhw: That’s a relief. You are no longer telling us that 315,000 years ago your God provided us with new cells which were not used until thousands of years later, for the future events he’d seen in his crystal ball. Instead, our autonomous intelligence uses the original cells as and when required. That (yet again) should be the end of this discussion.

DAVID: Yes, our brain allows to use our intelligence.

dhw: As opposed to your crystal ball theory as described above. Once again, we agree and can end this discussion.

Yes, the new extra neurons were used from the beginning. An end I hope