New Miscellany Parts 1 &:2: evolution, intelligence, eco (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 07, 2025, 10:52 (2 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolution and intelligence

DAVID: Your fantasies are now hallucinations. All dogs can think as can all prey animals

dhw: As can all other animals, birds, insects, fish. And even single-cell bacteria, which have no brains, can think. That's how they all survive. It is YOUR fantasy/hallucination that your God has to teach possums to play dead, weaverbirds to build their nests…in fact to give instructions to all cells (including our own immune cells) to become the enemy or to resist the enemy, as well as to change their structures in order to meet or exploit new conditions. Indeed, so fantastic is your belief that you attribute the eventual FAILURE of 99.9% to make those changes, not to limited cellular intelligence but to your God’s own incompetence, because despite his omnipotence and omniscience, he has designed and had to cull them as they were not what he wanted to design! None of this excludes the theory of a God that designed cellular intelligence. But you refuse to recognize that dog-eat-dog = a free-for-all which DEMANDS the autonomous intelligence at both strategic and physical levels, which you keep rejecting.

DAVID: I said above all prey animals think, as can all predators. Not single cells in organisms. They fallow strict instructions for minor adjustments.

I know you said that. You always reiterate your beliefs as if they were facts. All life forms must protect themselves against predators and harmful environments and yet you insist that the possum could not possibly have used its intelligence to devise its play-dead strategy, and the weaverbird could not have designed its own nest. If you have now changed your mind, and agree that they can think for themselves, please say so. You have agreed that single-celled bacteria can also think (how else could they outwit our attempts to destroy them?) and you have no reason to insist that single cells in a community cannot participate in the thought processes that lead to the decisions essential to the community’s survival.

I have spelt out the implications of your God issuing instructions for what you agree is the dog-eat-dog history of evolution. This you have totally ignored, and so I have bolded it.

How bacteria control phages

QUOTE: Animal and bacterial cells use nucleotidyltransferase (NTase) enzymes to respond to viral infection and control major forms of immune signalling

DAVID: […] Note these are considered molecular guards against phage infection, no thought involved.

You have agreed many times over that bacteria have autonomous intelligence. The article and the quote above tell us how both bacterial and animal cells USE molecules to defend themselves. Since when did “using” something mean that the user can’t think?

Mind and cosmos

dhw: So when you and I disagree about your God’s existence, nature, purpose, method, you think he is arguing with himself and passing his thoughts onto us. We are merely “tapping into his mind”.

DAVID: The theory is we use His consciousness structure to form our consciousness.

How about putting it a different way: if he exists, he has provided our cells with consciousness? Doesn’t that make more sense?

Theoretical origin of life

DAVID: For the umpteenth time, God evolved us in a cumbersome way, but that was His choice. It was quite effective. We are here running the world.

dhw: We could also still be here running the world if he had WANTED the species you say he designed and culled: for example through a free-for-all (perhaps with occasional interventions), experiments to discover the potential of his invention etc. Why MUST he be a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer, when history allows an interpretation that has him designing precisely what he wants to design? Ah, but you “first choose a God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.”” Why do you wish to believe in an inefficient designer?

Not answered.

DAVID: I fully accept God's methods.

But you don’t know them. You simply assume the method you impose on him to fulfil the purpose you impose on him is correct. And so you accept your ridicule of him as a messy, cumbersome and inefficient designer.

Whale’s contribution to nutrition (now extended to eco-disaster)

dhw: […] the USA continues to expand its already huge fossil fuel industries, which will have vastly more impact on our “ability to balance the global carbon budget”.

DAVID: Just accept your Petrol will cost less.

dhw: Even that is doubtful, but why should I just “accept” the fact that thousands more people will die because fossil fuels are toxic? And just to anticipate your response: no, I’m not arguing for immediate banning of fossil fuels. That would be impractical and indeed ruinous in the modern world. I’m arguing for a practical phasing out, geared to intensified research on alternatives. Destroying the world’s economic and social systems would be just as ruinous as continuing the practices that are currently destroying the environment.

DAVID: Fools' logic! Fossil fuels will never be stopped in use.

I really can’t see why it’s fool’s logic to advocate the practical approach I have outlined, and I’m afraid I do not have much faith in your gift of prophecy. “Never”? How about a hundred/thousand/ten thousand years from now (if humans are still around)?