The Intelligent Cell (Origins)

by David Turell , Monday, December 19, 2011, 15:40 (4723 days ago) @ dhw

In other words, he planned randomness (the unpredictable environment) and created a mechanism that would enable some species to adapt and survive while others would perish. But since he did not plan each individual environmental change, he could hardly have planned which species did what, or when they did it.

My thoughts exactly. Have you entered my consciousness?

DAVID: Does God intervene? Not much if at all.

Without intervention, it seems to me that God was leaving an awful lot to chance if you still cling to the anthropocentric theory you’ve inherited from some of the established religions. (I can be naughty too!) How much simpler it would be to attribute diversity to the responses of intelligent cells to different environmental challenges.

You do not understand my theory. I'll repeat: I propose there is a mechanism in the genome to drive evolutionary compexity to the point that an organism will arrive like us or very much like us. This is the pre-planning. The UI wished to create a living being with consciousness. Not much is really left to chance, but a long time for the environment and epigenetics to work things out.

I go back to my extremely respectable – because it has an official name – theory of punctuated isolation equilibrium.

I amalgamated that name from Gould's theory; he proposed PE while species were in isolation.

What we have is exactly the same process as with other developments: environmental change, need to adapt, possible innovations, continued refinement. In this case, the chimpobos lose their tree habitat, come down to earth, exercise their brains to work out a new way of life, and gradually lose their chimpiness (or boboness) as their brains develop and their bodies adapt. Then you don’t need intervention, you don’t need pre-planning (other than the original mechanism for diverse forms of adaptation), you don’t need to explain the history of extinctions, and you don’t need to bother about God’s special focus on, interest in, purpose for Man. Then, David, you can say you believe in a UI without attributes!

Exactly!! As explained above. You have entered my consciousness. Don't rummage around too much. I have my secrets!