Life as Evolving Software... (Chaitin) (Humans)

by dhw, Sunday, January 01, 2012, 14:41 (4709 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt and I have now agreed on the subject of gradualism, but I would like to follow up on his post to David, because I think this is a richly rewarding discussion with a lot of fascinating potential.

MATT: To me, again, epigenetics-->if it can be demonstrated that they can cause massive, inheritable phenotypical changes, it still doesn't change the fact that there is an environmental cause that leads to the effect, and as such, still doesn't leave a strong case for intense preplanning.

I agree entirely. What intrigues me about epigenetics is the fact that if, as you say, it can be proved that they cause massive changes, this will drastically reduce the role of random mutations, and link change fairly and squarely to the impact of the environment. THAT is where chance steps in. But there is a catch in your wording – namely, the word “intense”. If pre-planning refers to a mechanism that will respond to environmental change and will therefore produce a huge variety of species, theism and atheism can follow exactly the same evolutionary scenario. We simply (???) have to decide if the mechanism was the product of design or of chance. But if pre-planning means that the process was deliberately targeted towards the production of humans (= “intense”?), there is no choice: only a divinely inspired, conventionally religious, anthropocentric view of evolution is possible. I think this may be where your species and mine split off from David’s!

MATT: The same effect would be created by having amassed a huge number of changes that don't manifest until the environment changes in the right way. I find the idea of cellular biochemical components "predicting the future" a pretty hard hill to climb, especially considering we've all agreed they aren't sentient.

This may be David’s idea of pre-planning (he will tell us) – that the changes are already potentially in situ, waiting for their moment. Too much for me to swallow as well, in the light of what I like to call the higgledy-piggledy history of life. But I’m not so sure now about cells and sentience – hence the thread on the Intelligent Cell. I don’t mean sentient/conscious in the way that we are. The various functioning combinations that make up our organs work quite independently of our control, and so in some ways they “sense” what they have to do. Similarly, each response to the environment, each new organ, each new species is the result of “intelligent” combination. As Lynn Margulis pointed out, our trillions of cells were once free-living creatures “before being incorporated into the symbiotic life forms which were our distant ancestors”.

MATT: The proper place for discussing God in relation to the universe, is at the level of human consciousness.

I don’t see why there has to be just one proper place. I agree absolutely that consciousness is a prime subject right at the very foreground. But the more we learn about the mechanisms of life, the more complex they seem to be, and I think the evolutionary process in the context of chance vs design is an equally “proper” approach to the existence of a possible designer and its relation to the universe.

It sounds as if your wife's choice of Christmas presents will be of benefit to us all! I'm afraid I shan't be sharing my pyjamas, office-tidier, chocolates, or other goodies with you folks, but Happy New Year all the same.