Teleology & evolution (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Tuesday, October 15, 2013, 02:08 (3852 days ago)
Will wonders never cease! Open discussion of teleology and purpose-driven evolution:-http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bij.12061/abstract;jsessionid=35BFD6EE7C8CDC4AF59542F59E292E28.d02t03?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
Teleology & evolution
by George Jelliss 
, Crewe, Sunday, October 20, 2013, 11:59 (3847 days ago) @ David Turell
Have you (DT) come across this chap Birnbaum before? -http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/19/david-birnbaum-jeweller-philosopher-His idea apparently is that it's all down to "potential". This strikes me as being very much like your own teleological theories. Maybe you could persuade him to finance publication of your book!
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GPJ
Teleology & evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, October 20, 2013, 16:04 (3847 days ago) @ George Jelliss
George, I sincerely appreciate your following our discussions. The article has an important paragraph. I've read the Nagel book and agree with his thought that teleology must be accounted for. Unforunately he asks the question and has no answer (as an atheist):-"You may be raising your eyebrows at this. But Birnbaum's perspective isn't without precedent. Since Aristotle, some thinkers have been drawn to the notion that the world must be heading somewhere ... that there is some kind of force in the universe, pushing things forward. These teleological arguments are deeply unfashionable nowadays, but there's nothing inherently unscientific about them. In his controversial 2012 book Mind And Cosmos, the US philosopher Thomas Nagel argues that teleology might be the only way to account for the still unsolved mystery of why consciousness exists. Still, as Birnbaum explained his theory, I must have looked underwhelmed, because he leaned forward in his chair to emphasise his point. "It works!" he said. "It's powerful! And with all due respect to Harvard, Oxford, etcetera... it's more powerful than anything you got!"-As an atheist Nagel had no answers, just a wish. It sounds like Birnbaum has also forgotten about the possibililty of God. That is one of the philosophic possibilites. My thought has always been, why is there anything and why does it seem to have directionality from inorganic matter to sentient beings? Cause and effect seem obvious. Then at the basis of reality is the mysterious quantum mechanics level, which seems to require consciousness to function. And our conscious brains are not allowed to fully understand it. And so we have mysterious appearance of something we don't fully understand. And if you believe the statements of Richard Feynman we never will. -So you and I are at the opposite ends of faith. I have come to believe in a universal consciousness the religions call God and you have your faith in pure chance from what? -By the way my book is with a publisher and about to appear, with a full discussion of the necessity for a First Cause. I'm a follower of Aristotle and St. Thomas, and Ed Feser (former atheist) in my thinking.
Teleology & evolution
by George Jelliss , Crewe, Sunday, October 20, 2013, 17:04 (3847 days ago) @ David Turell
Good luck with your book. I do try to follow the discussions here, but mostly I find they have moved on too far and fast for me to catch up with them!-As regards teleology, I'm not entirely against it, but I would theorise that it might be the ultimate end of the universe that might in some way delimit what can happen on the way there.
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GPJ
Teleology & evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, October 20, 2013, 18:48 (3847 days ago) @ George Jelliss
> George: As regards teleology, I'm not entirely against it, > but I would theorise that it might be the ultimate end > of the universe that might in some way delimit > what can happen on the way there.-Theoretically, before the universe ends in 100 billion years our sun will blow up in 5 billion. So whatever is creating the teleology has an even closer time limit. Which for me raises the issue, is God on an stop snd start schedule?
Teleology & Neo-thomism
by David Turell , Monday, October 12, 2015, 20:37 (3125 days ago) @ David Turell
A good philosophic discussion of the onboard teleology of living organisms and how ID and neo-Thomism are not that far apart:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-id-about-internal-or-external-teleology/-"Teleology is synonymous with function, end, purpose, or goal. Design means conceiving hierarchies of functions. Therefore design and teleology are but the two faces of the same coin. -"So why can one say with confidence that a living being has internal teleology and a machine has only external teleology? Because the living, manifested beings come from the ontological Being; they are its direct manifestations. Since the Being is the metaphysical Unity without parts, the manifested beings inherit an high essential degree of unity. All their parts cooperate harmoniously to form a true whole. Their principle is neither in one of their parts nor in the sum of all their parts. All their parts are a unity without composition. Given their direct origin and their integration one says that a living being has intrinsic or internal teleology. We could say also that living beings have a priori finality.-***-" The natural vs. artificial difference is fundamental because is ontological. By the way, one of its consequences is that in principle no robot will ever compare with a living being. No IDer to my knowledge claims that the living beings are machines. How could we, also considering that their origin is so different? -"Also the claim that Aquinas' and Paley's views of design are in complete disagreement is not correct. Paley says that if he finds a watch in a ground he infers design. Paley does not say that living beings are machines in essence (that is what Descartes thought). -"Analogously, when an IDer notes that some characteristics of organisms can be described by mechanics, informatics, thermodynamics, control theory, etc. he is not saying that organisms are machines. To describe some properties of an entity in mechanical (or more generally in scientific) terms and to say the entity is only a machine are two different things. By way of analogy, if I say that the side view of a 3D pyramid is a triangle, I do not mean that the pyramid is only a triangle.-"IDers don't confuse living beings and machines. ID must be neither redutionistic nor simplistic. To analyze patterns and relations, to consider parts and calculate the probabilities of their aggregations, is to make scientific models and descriptions. They are necessarily defective, but they may nevertheless help human understanding.-"IDers do concur with Thomists in affirming that organisms show an internal teleological organization. ID recognizes the supremacy of natural teleology and doesn't confuse it with the external teleology of machines. Aquinas' views, properly understood, and ID arguments from design are compatible. Aquinas' are “metaphysical demonstrations” (as Feser puts it) while ID deals with scientific inferences. Nevertheless both point to a designer of nature.-" Neither is ID a form of deism. The Designer need not be anthropomorphic, a watchmaker who constructs a watch with hands and tool, puts it on a shelf, and then goes home. The universe is not at all external to its Designer (it is an effect in principle contained inside its cause). So the relation between the Designer and the universe cannot be seen mechanistically, as the relation between a watchmaker and a watch (external teleology). On the contrary, the universe can be considered as an idea/project in the “mind” of God (internal teleology)."-Comment: this forms the basis of my viewpoints
Teleology & Neo-thomism
DAVID: A good philosophic discussion of the onboard teleology of living organisms and how ID and neo-Thomism are not that far apart: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-id-about-internal-or-external-tele... -He raises two interesting points that seem relevant to two of the topics we have been discussing:-QUOTE: “...when an IDer notes that some characteristics of organisms can be described by mechanics, informatics, thermodynamics, control theory, etc. he is not saying that organisms are machines. To describe some properties of an entity in mechanical (or more generally in scientific) terms and to say the entity is only a machine are two different things.”-Excellent observation. A bacterium is an organism. You may spend as long as you like describing its characteristics in mechanical terms, but that does not make it a machine. Some eminent biologists also believe that every component of a multicellular organism is an organism in its own right. Quote: "Neither is ID a form of deism. The Designer need not be anthropomorphic, a watchmaker who constructs a watch with hands and tool, puts it on a shelf, and then goes home. The universe is not at all external to its Designer (it is an effect in principle contained inside its cause). So the relation between the Designer and the universe cannot be seen mechanistically, as the relation between a watchmaker and a watch (external teleology). On the contrary, the universe can be considered as an idea/project in the “mind” of God (internal teleology)."-The fact that the designer “need not be anthropomorphic” is far from saying that he IS not anthropomorphic. “Cannot be considered mechanistically” excludes external teleology, but on what authority does the author claim that the universe is "inside" its cause, or is "in" the mind of God? I do wish people would confine Intelligent Design to intelligent design instead of adding their own particular metaphysical and religious slant on it. However, this poses a problem as regards free will. If you (not just you personally, but anyone) believe that God has given you the wherewithal to take your own decisions independently of your being contained within him, then you will have to grant that it is perfectly possible for him to give the same independence to the rest of the universe, i.e. that he can exclude himself if he wants to, and leave the world to run its own course. ID may not in itself be a form of deism, but it allows for deism and it allows for anthropomorphism.
Teleology & Neo-thomism
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 14, 2015, 15:15 (3123 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: QUOTE: “...when an IDer notes that some characteristics of organisms can be described by mechanics, informatics, thermodynamics, control theory, etc. he is not saying that organisms are machines. To describe some properties of an entity in mechanical (or more generally in scientific) terms and to say the entity is only a machine are two different things.” > > Excellent observation. A bacterium is an organism. You may spend as long as you like describing its characteristics in mechanical terms, but that does not make it a machine.-Life is machinery but also that something extra we call 'living matter'. So far no researcher in OOL struggles has crossed that threshold. We have no idea where the threshold is. All we have is life and non-living.- > dhw: Some eminent biologists also believe that every component of a multicellular organism is an organism in its own right. My liver, my heart, and my kidneys are all separate organisms? I don't think they believe that. I certainly don't. Who are these eminent biologists out in left field?- >dhw: However, this poses a problem as regards free will. If you (not just you personally, but anyone) believe that God has given you the wherewithal to take your own decisions independently of your being contained within him, then you will have to grant that it is perfectly possible for him to give the same independence to the rest of the universe, i.e. that he can exclude himself if he wants to, and leave the world to run its own course. ID may not in itself be a form of deism, but it allows for deism and it allows for anthropomorphism.-It certainly allows for deism, but an anthropomorphic God is in the eye of the individual person.
Teleology & Neo-thomism
Dhw: QUOTE: “...when an ID-er notes that some characteristics of organisms can be described by mechanics,informatics, thermodynamics, control theory, etc. he is not saying that organisms are machines. To describe some properties of an entity in mechanical (or more generally in scientific) terms and to say the entity is only a machine are two different things.” Dhw: Excellent observation. A bacterium is an organism. You may spend as long as you like describing its characteristics in mechanical terms, but that does not make it a machine.-DAVID: Life is machinery but also that something extra we call 'living matter'. So far no researcher in OOL struggles has crossed that threshold. We have no idea where the threshold is. All we have is life and non-living.-Perhaps the other way round: living matter is machinery but also that something extra we call ‘life'. Some biologists would say that ‘life' entails sentience, cognition, intelligence, awareness - attributes which you are willing to recognize in larger organisms but refuse even to contemplate in micro-organisms, which you insist act only as machines. I doubt if your author really thinks his readers can't tell the difference between a living organism and a non-living machine, but in any case his observation fits in neatly with the studies of the eminent biologists you accuse of “hyperbole”.-dhw: Some eminent biologists also believe that every component of a multicellular organism is an organism in its own right. -DAVID [erroneously attributed to me in your post]: My liver, my heart, and my kidneys are all separate organisms? I don't think they believe that. I certainly don't. Who are these eminent biologists out in left field?-I take them to mean that these organs are individual cellular communities (= organisms) within a cellular community (organism), all cooperating with one another, just as each ant is an individual organism within a community of organisms. Please explain what else could be meant by “Every component of the organism is as much of an organism as every other part” (McClintock); “...our highest capacities...are objectively imaged in our own biological organism right down to the molecular activity of our cells...” (Lenny Moss); “...what does it mean to say that the idea of the arrangement of the whole is at work in each of the parts? For this to be true, each of the parts must have the ability to entertain an idea, i.e. mind” (Talbott - not a biologist, but you claim him as one of your favourite authors)…-dhw: ID may not in itself be a form of deism, but it allows for deism and it allows for anthropomorphism. DAVID: It certainly allows for deism, but an anthropomorphic God is in the eye of the individual person.-Deism is also in the eye of the individual. Intelligent design (lower case) tells us absolutely nothing about the nature of the designer - that is a different subject altogether. Your author is simply imposing his own beliefs on the science. Free will allows for the possibility of your God detaching himself (deism), and design allows for the possibility that the design will reflect the designer (anthropomorphism).
Teleology & Neo-thomism
by David Turell , Friday, October 16, 2015, 01:30 (3121 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Life is machinery but also that something extra we call 'living matter'. So far no researcher in OOL struggles has crossed that threshold. We have no idea where the threshold is. All we have is life and non-living. > > dhw: I doubt if your author really thinks his readers can't tell the difference between a living organism and a non-living machine, but in any case his observation fits in neatly with the studies of the eminent biologists you accuse of “hyperbole”.-I don't see how. Either it is alive or it isn't > > dhw; I take them to mean that these organs are individual cellular communities (= organisms) within a cellular community (organism), all cooperating with one another, just as each ant is an individual organism within a community of organisms.-Of course organs are intact cellular communities, each with strict instructions as to how to operate for the good of the whole. And they send instructions to each other automatically to conduct their business of a whole functioning organism -] > > dhw: Intelligent design (lower case) tells us absolutely nothing about the nature of the designer - that is a different subject altogether. Your author is simply imposing his own beliefs on the science. Free will allows for the possibility of your God detaching himself (deism), and design allows for the possibility that the design will reflect the designer (anthropomorphism).-ID does not define the designer. Anthropomorphism implies human characteristics to God, which is a different statement than yours, unless you limit that definition only to the design of humans. ID looks at design in everything.
Teleology & Neo-thomism
dhw: I doubt if your author really thinks his readers can't tell the difference between a living organism and a non-living machine, but in any case his observation fits in neatly with the studies of the eminent biologists you accuse of “hyperbole”. DAVID: I don't see how. Either it is alive or it isn't.-And I reckon most people will be able to judge the difference. That is why I am suggesting that your author's comment that organisms are not machines may well have been referring to such attributes as sentience and cognition and intelligence rather than merely being alive. In any case, his comment fits in with that hypothesis.-dhw; I take them to mean that these organs are individual cellular communities (= organisms) within a cellular community (organism), all cooperating with one another, just as each ant is an individual organism within a community of organisms.-DAVID: Of course organs are intact cellular communities, each with strict instructions as to how to operate for the good of the whole. And they send instructions to each other automatically to conduct their business of a whole functioning organism. -You had challenged the hypothesis that organs such as liver, heart and kidneys were separate organisms, and asked who were the eminent biologists “out in left field”. I gave you the quotes and asked what else they could mean, and your reply is to repeat your own conviction that these cell communities act automatically. That is the point at issue: are cells automatons, or are they cognitive beings? I'm happy with the 50/50 you keep acknowledging, but unhappy with the “absolutely wrong” of your earlier posts, which you still seem to cling to. -dhw: Intelligent design (lower case) tells us absolutely nothing about the nature of the designer - that is a different subject altogether. Your author is simply imposing his own beliefs on the science. Free will allows for the possibility of your God detaching himself (deism), and design allows for the possibility that the design will reflect the designer (anthropomorphism).-DAVID: ID does not define the designer. Anthropomorphism implies human characteristics to God, which is a different statement than yours, unless you limit that definition only to the design of humans. ID looks at design in everything.-I agree that ID does not define the designer. That is why I argued against your author's assumption that “the relation between the Designer and the universe cannot be seen mechanistically, as the relation between a watchmaker and a watch (external teleology).” Design tells us nothing about that relationship, and so for the reasons given above, deism and anthropomorphism are perfectly compatible with intelligent design.
Teleology & Neo-thomism
by David Turell , Friday, October 16, 2015, 14:51 (3121 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: You had challenged the hypothesis that organs such as liver, heart and kidneys were separate organisms, and asked who were the eminent biologists “out in left field”. I gave you the quotes and asked what else they could mean, and your reply is to repeat your own conviction that these cell communities act automatically. That is the point at issue: are cells automatons, or are they cognitive beings? I'm happy with the 50/50 you keep acknowledging, but unhappy with the “absolutely wrong” of your earlier posts, which you still seem to cling to. -My 50/50 explains why the debate even exists. I'm still fully committed to my side of the 50/50, based on how I see cells and organs react in the human body, purposefully under strict instructions.-> > dhw: I agree that ID does not define the designer. That is why I argued against your author's assumption that “the relation between the Designer and the universe cannot be seen mechanistically, as the relation between a watchmaker and a watch (external teleology).” Design tells us nothing about that relationship, and so for the reasons given above, deism and anthropomorphism are perfectly compatible with intelligent design.-And I've responded deism and anthropomorphism are choices made by the beholder, and there are other choices such as universal consciousness all from the same observations.
Teleology & Neo-thomism
dhw: You had challenged the hypothesis that organs such as liver, heart and kidneys were separate organisms, and asked who were the eminent biologists “out in left field”. I gave you the quotes and asked what else they could mean, and your reply is to repeat your own conviction that these cell communities act automatically. That is the point at issue: are cells automatons, or are they cognitive beings? I'm happy with the 50/50 you keep acknowledging, but unhappy with the “absolutely wrong” of your earlier posts, which you still seem to cling to. -DAVID: My 50/50 explains why the debate even exists. I'm still fully committed to my side of the 50/50, based on how I see cells and organs react in the human body, purposefully under strict instructions.-Strict instructions in your scenario can only = divine preprogramming or divine dabbling. In mine they would come from the autonomous, perhaps God-given “brain” of the cell/cell community. But I know that you are fully committed to one side, and I know you are basing your decision on how you see things rather than how other experts in the field see things. And the debate exists because there is a 50/50 chance of you're being wrong. That is the case with most of the subjects we discuss, and that is why in the end any decision either way depends not on science but on faith. -dhw: I agree that ID does not define the designer. That is why I argued against your author's assumption that “the relation between the Designer and the universe cannot be seen mechanistically, as the relation between a watchmaker and a watch (external teleology).” Design tells us nothing about that relationship, and so for the reasons given above, deism and anthropomorphism are perfectly compatible with intelligent design.-DAVID: And I've responded deism and anthropomorphism are choices made by the beholder, and there are other choices such as universal consciousness all from the same observations.-Precisely. And that is why I criticized your author for imposing his own choices on ID and excluding other choices. We are in agreement.
Teleology & Neo-thomism
by David Turell , Saturday, October 17, 2015, 22:25 (3120 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: And the debate exists because there is a 50/50 chance of you're being wrong. That is the case with most of the subjects we discuss, and that is why in the end any decision either way depends not on science but on faith.-And I have strong faith I am right.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Sunday, June 05, 2016, 20:44 (2888 days ago) @ David Turell
This is a long essay which discusses the fact that obvious teleology exists in cellular and organismal actions, source of the intelligence behind this not discussed. Natural selection is taken from its grand position as a driver of evolution into what it really is, an arbiter for survival working with variations presented to it. Talbott is one of my favorite authors for the questions, like Nagel, he presents: - http://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2016/teleology_30.htm - "Of course, rejecting the natural looks rather like bad karma. But then, embracing strictly material meaninglessness is not an obvious key to enlightenment. - *** - "we need only observe the remarkable display of wisdom and carefully coordinated, apparently goal-directed activity so evident in dividing cells, developing embryos, mating animals, and organisms seeking food. We can hardly dismiss the evolutionary relevance of these adroit, adaptive, and seemingly intentional performances. - *** - "Darwin's biology does not deny — rather, it reaffirms — the immanent teleology displayed in the striving of each living being to fulfill its specific ends ... Reproduction, growth, feeding, healing, courtship, parental care for the young — these and many other activities of organisms are goal-directed”. - "Here, however, is where a strange ambiguity begins. For even if what Arp points out seems obvious, he cannot quite bring himself to accept it at face value. So he hedges those remarks with a crucial qualification: “with respect to organisms, it is useful to think as if these entities have traits and processes that function in goal-directed ways” (his emphasis). In other words, the organism's purposive behavior is not quite what it seems. - "This “as if” has long been a cliché of evolutionary biology. - *** - "Of course, Dawkins' own strong predilection runs toward purposeless design by natural selection, a “blind watchmaker”13 who gives us an apparent purpose that — no need to worry! — isn't quite the real thing. On the other hand, many of the opponents Dawkins commonly has in mind prefer an intelligent designer. - *** - "Or, which is much the same thing: “Darwin assumed only variation and natural selection, resulting in adaptation. The ‘results' are the same as if they had been ‘intended'”. We might want to ask, “If the results really are the same as if they were intended, what makes them not really intended?” But perhaps it's not worth the bother. - "The thing to hold onto in all this is natural selection. If there seems to be real purpose in organisms, so we're told, then natural selection explains it, or explains it away, in non-purposive terms. If there is only an illusion of purpose, natural selection is the responsible agent behind the illusion. Just as we trace the machine's intelligence and intentions to a human designer, we must trace the organism's intelligence and intentions, such as they may be, to natural selection, the blind, mindless, unintelligent, yet wondrously effective designer whose existence Darwin exposed. - *** - "So the organism possesses, or is, a power of origination. It constantly brings about something new — something never wholly implied or determined by the physical relations of a moment ago.16 We could also think of it as a power of self-realization. The “design work” accounting for the organism is an activity inseparable from the organism's own life. It is an expression of that life rather than a cause of it. - *** - "It needs adding, finally, that our recognition of intelligent and intentional expressions does not require us to understand everything about their source. - *** - Hugo de Vries [quotes]: - "Natural selection is a sieve. It creates nothing, as is so often assumed; it only sifts. It retains only what variability puts into the sieve. - *** - "Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest”. - *** - "What is life? How can we understand the striving of organisms — a striving that seems altogether hidden to conventional modes of understanding? What makes for the integral unity of every living creature, and how can this unity be understood if we're thinking in purely material and machine-like terms? Does it make sense to dismiss as illusory the compelling appearance of intelligent and intentional agency in organisms? - "No one can deny that our answers to these questions could be critically important even for the most basic understanding of evolution. But we have no answers." - Comment: This essay is on point for our discussion. There is a long discussion on the initiation of variation. Please read it all.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
Thank you for this superb analysis of the different points we have been discussing for so long. I have selected a few more quotes which could scarcely offer a clearer case for the intelligent cell and for the argument that organisms intentionally pursue their own individual purposes. (Although he mentions "something new", he hasn't really got onto evolutionary innovations yet.) These points need to be considered as a whole to get the full picture. To start with, I see the third essay is entitled ‘The Intentional Organism', which already suggests the above. -“A rather odd urgency sounds through all this earnest insistence that, while organisms certainly look as if they possessed intelligent agency, we should not be so foolish as to be compelled by the evidence of our own eyes.”-I don't suppose you are too keen on this observation, after your fifty years of dogmatic insistence that cells only look as if they are intelligent.-“In reality, the organism's life is a continual “self-redesigning” — or, better, a self-expressing, or self-transforming. Its parts are not assembled once for all; they are grown on the spot during development, so that the functional unity of the organism — the way its parts play together, and even what the parts are — obviously must be changing all along the way.”-If we bear in mind that organisms are communities of cells, it is clear that cell communities are continually cooperating (play together) to produce all the processes that accompany the colossal range of behaviour that goes to make up an organism's life, but please note:-“Biologists speak incessantly of mechanisms and of machine-like or programmed activity in organisms. But this is empty rhetoric. No one has ever pointed to a computer-like program in DNA, or in a cell, or in any larger structure. Nor has anyone shown us any physical machinery for executing such program instructions.”-If cell communities are not programmed, how do they take their decisions if not with their own intelligence? However, in partial defence of David's dogmatism, I would still suggest that once an organ like the liver or kidney has been invented, the cell communities perform their tasks more or less automatically, i.e. without “thought”, until they are confronted with problems. I've never worked in a factory, but I suspect that in the days before automation, workers would perform their allotted tasks in the same way. I don't know Talbott's view on this. “As we have seen, the life of the organism is itself the designing power. Its agency is immanent in its own being, and is somehow expressed at the very roots of material causation. It brings forth this or that kind of growth with no need for the artifice of an alien hand arbitrarily intervening to arrange parts and causal relations this way or that. The choreographing is brought about, it would appear, from that same depth of reality where the causal forces themselves arise, not from “outside”.-If the agency is immanent in its own being, we have an autonomous inventive mechanism. I'd be interested to know just what he is referring to with his “alien hand”, but once an autonomous inventive mechanism is in place, by definition it won't need to be dabbled with. (But see below re source.) The only “outside” causal forces would then be environmental conditions, which either demand or allow change. -“At the same time, we ourselves possess varieties of conscious activity that other organisms do not. When I refer to the organism's intelligent agency, or its purposiveness, or its directed coordination of means to serve particular ends, I do not imply anything equivalent to our own conscious purposing or planning. But neither do I suggest something inferior to our particular sort of wisdom and power of action. If anything, we must consider organic life — for example, the life of our cells — to be an expression of a higher sort of intelligence and intention than we ourselves can yet imagine consciously achieving in the technological realm.”-Talbott has obviously encountered his own equivalent of a David Turell! The intelligence of organisms (i.e. cell communities) is not to be equated with human consciousness. “It needs adding, finally, that our recognition of intelligent and intentional expressions does not require us to understand everything about their source. The existence of intelligence does not oblige us to say where that intelligence comes from." -I can't find any indication of Talbott's beliefs on Google, but I suspect from his moderate, balanced, carefully reasoned tone that he is an agnostic! (You may have told us already, David, but I can't remember.) Thank you again for this essay. I'm looking forward to the next two.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Monday, June 06, 2016, 17:39 (2887 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Monday, June 06, 2016, 18:13
dhw: “A rather odd urgency sounds through all this earnest insistence that, while organisms certainly look as if they possessed intelligent agency, we should not be so foolish as to be compelled by the evidence of our own eyes.” > > I don't suppose you are too keen on this observation, after your fifty years of dogmatic insistence that cells only look as if they are intelligent.-Just what do you think he means? He may mean our interpretation of actual intelligence may be fooling us, and they are intelligently designed. Remember he is neutrally debating natural materialism vs. ID > > dhw; If we bear in mind that organisms are communities of cells, it is clear that cell communities are continually cooperating (play together) to produce all the processes that accompany the colossal range of behaviour that goes to make up an organism's life, -It is easy to say they are purposely designed that way.-> dhw: If cell communities are not programmed, how do they take their decisions if not with their own intelligence? However, in partial defence of David's dogmatism, I would still suggest that once an organ like the liver or kidney has been invented, the cell communities perform their tasks more or less automatically, i.e. without “thought”, until they are confronted with problems. -Why 'acting intelligently' only after their invention? Intelligently designed processes can certainly act intelligently before and after.-> > “As we have seen, the life of the organism is itself the designing power. Its agency is immanent in its own being, and is somehow expressed at the very roots of material causation. It brings forth this or that kind of growth with no need for the artifice of an alien hand arbitrarily intervening to arrange parts and causal relations this way or that. The choreographing is brought about, it would appear, from that same depth of reality where the causal forces themselves arise, not from “outside”. > > dhw: If the agency is immanent in its own being, we have an autonomous inventive mechanism. I'd be interested to know just what he is referring to with his “alien hand”, but once an autonomous inventive mechanism is in place, by definition it won't need to be dabbled with. (But see below re source.) The only “outside” causal forces would then be environmental conditions, which either demand or allow change. -He can certainly be referring to a designer. Remember his premise: evolution is a natural event or the result of ID.-> > dhw: Talbott has obviously encountered his own equivalent of a David Turell! The intelligence of organisms (i.e. cell communities) is not to be equated with human consciousness.-Of course he knows my thinking. He sees it in the ID movement. And I agree with him. The apparent intelligence in cells or organs is the result of intelligent planning. It is not at our level of consciousness-> > dhw: I can't find any indication of Talbott's beliefs on Google, but I suspect from his moderate, balanced, carefully reasoned tone that he is an agnostic! -He seems agnostic to me also. Bethell's review of Talbott is here and expresses the opinion that he is agnostic: -http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/03/its_life_all_th057251.html-Note this is from an ID site, very comfortable with Talbott.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
QUOTE: “A rather odd urgency sounds through all this earnest insistence that, while organisms certainly look as if they possessed intelligent agency, we should not be so foolish as to be compelled by the evidence of our own eyes.” I don't suppose you are too keen on this observation, after your fifty years of dogmatic insistence that cells only look as if they are intelligent. DAVID: Just what do you think he means? He may mean our interpretation of actual intelligence may be fooling us, and they are intelligently designed. Remember he is neutrally debating natural materialism vs. ID-Since his whole argument is based on the intentionality of organisms,I think he means some people (like you) accept that organisms look as if they are intelligent but insist that they are not intelligent. I don't see any reference whatsoever to intelligent design in the above statement. In any case, the website you later refer to is quite explicit on the subject of design: “In fact, Talbott himself is uncomfortable with the idea of design and his worldview doesn't seem to include a God, either. "The word [design] has its legitimate uses," he writes, but "you will not find me speaking of design." “-dhw; If we bear in mind that organisms are communities of cells, it is clear that cell communities are continually cooperating (play together) to produce all the processes that accompany the colossal range of behaviour that goes to make up an organism's life. DAVID: It is easy to say they are purposely designed that way.-Talbott is arguing that cell communities (organisms) act intentionally. Whether their intelligence was designed or not is another matter.-dhw: If cell communities are not programmed, how do they take their decisions if not with their own intelligence? However, in partial defence of David's dogmatism, I would still suggest that once an organ like the liver or kidney has been invented, the cell communities perform their tasks more or less automatically, i.e. without “thought”, until they are confronted with problems DAVID: Why 'acting intelligently' only after their invention? Intelligently designed processes can certainly act intelligently before and after.-I'm afraid I don't understand what you are getting at. I am suggesting that the cell communities themselves act intelligently when they invent the organ, but once the organ is functioning, they will continue to do the same thing over and over again (without “thought”) until problems arise, when they will again need to do some original “thinking”. This explains what you see as the apparently “automatic” behaviour of our organs.-QUOTE: “It brings forth this or that kind of growth with no need for the artifice of an alien hand arbitrarily intervening to arrange parts and causal relations this way or that.” dhw: I'd be interested to know just what he is referring to with his “alien hand”, but once an autonomous inventive mechanism is in place, by definition it won't need to be dabbled with. DAVID: He can certainly be referring to a designer. Remember his premise: evolution is a natural event or the result of ID.-I agree, and if we are right, this clearly means that evolution does not need any divine dabbling (i.e. the mechanism for evolution is autonomous). -dhw: Talbott has obviously encountered his own equivalent of a David Turell! The intelligence of organisms (i.e. cell communities) is not to be equated with human consciousness. DAVID: Of course he knows my thinking. He sees it in the ID movement. And I agree with him. The apparent intelligence in cells or organs is the result of intelligent planning. It is not at our level of consciousness.-But he does not agree with you. His whole case is based on the argument that the intelligence is not “apparent” but real, and he is not interested in whether this real intelligence is the result of your God's intelligent planning. But he, you and I do agree that the intelligence of cell communities is not the same as human consciousness.-dhw: I can't find any indication of Talbott's beliefs on Google, but I suspect from his moderate, balanced, carefully reasoned tone that he is an agnostic! DAVID: He seems agnostic to me also. Bethell's review of Talbott is here and expresses the opinion that he is agnostic: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/03/its_life_all_th057251.html Note this is from an ID site, very comfortable with Talbott.-There is no reason why an ID site should be uncomfortable with this view of evolution, as it still allows for your God to have created the autonomous inventive mechanism. Talbott is not discussing the existence of God but only the question of how evolution works. In my amateurish way, that is precisely what I have also been doing.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 07, 2016, 15:59 (2886 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Since his whole argument is based on the intentionality of organisms,I think he means some people (like you) accept that organisms look as if they are intelligent but insist that they are not intelligent.... “In fact, Talbott himself is uncomfortable with the idea of design and his worldview doesn't seem to include a God, either. "The word [design] has its legitimate uses," he writes, but "you will not find me speaking of design." -I didn't say he preferred design, but he is discussing the difference in the two approaches and trying to sit comfortably in a neutral zone.-> DAVID: Why 'acting intelligently' only after their invention? Intelligently designed processes can certainly act intelligently before and after. > > dhw: I'm afraid I don't understand what you are getting at. I am suggesting that the cell communities themselves act intelligently when they invent the organ, but once the organ is functioning, they will continue to do the same thing over and over again (without “thought”) until problems arise, when they will again need to do some original “thinking”. This explains what you see as the apparently “automatic” behaviour of our organs.-'Apparently automatic' behaviour of organs is not 'apparently'; it is absolutely automatic in our bodies. > > dhw: There is no reason why an ID site should be uncomfortable with this view of evolution, as it still allows for your God to have created the autonomous inventive mechanism. Talbott is not discussing the existence of God but only the question of how evolution works. In my amateurish way, that is precisely what I have also been doing.-Me too.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
DAVID: I didn't say he preferred design, but he is discussing the difference in the two approaches and trying to sit comfortably in a neutral zone.-I didn't say you said he preferred design. He wrote: “A rather odd urgency sounds through all this earnest insistence that, while organisms certainly look as if they possessed intelligent agency, we should not be so foolish as to be compelled by the evidence of our own eyes.” You asked me what I thought he meant, and went on: “He may mean our interpretation of actual intelligence may be fooling us, and they are intelligently designed.” I can only repeat my response to this view of what he meant: -"Since his whole argument is based on the intentionality of organisms, I think he means some people (like you) accept that organisms look as if they are intelligent but insist that they are not intelligent.“ I don't see any reference whatsoever to intelligent design in the above statement. In any case, the website you later refer to is quite explicit on the subject of design: “In fact, Talbott himself is uncomfortable with the idea of design and his worldview doesn't seem to include a God, either. "The word [design] has its legitimate uses," he writes, but "you will not find me speaking of design."”-DAVID: Why 'acting intelligently' only after their invention? Intelligently designed processes can certainly act intelligently before and after. dhw: I'm afraid I don't understand what you are getting at. I am suggesting that the cell communities themselves act intelligently when they invent the organ, but once the organ is functioning, they will continue to do the same thing over and over again (without “thought”) until problems arise, when they will again need to do some original “thinking”. This explains what you see as the apparently “automatic” behaviour of our organs.-DAVID: 'Apparently automatic' behaviour of organs is not 'apparently'; it is absolutely automatic in our bodies.-The invention of the organ clearly cannot have been automatic unless you wish to return to your earlier hypothesis that all innovations are preprogrammed or the result of divine dabbling (which you admit is less compatible with the bush of life). If the cellular communities possess an autonomous inventive mechanism that enables them to design a new organ, we can hardly expect this form of intelligence to disappear, and so it is quite logical that the same intelligence will also apply itself when there are new problems to solve. Otherwise, it will repeat the behaviour that has enabled the new organ to function, which it will do automatically until the next problem arises.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Thursday, June 09, 2016, 22:38 (2884 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: 'Apparently automatic' behaviour of organs is not 'apparently'; it is absolutely automatic in our bodies. > > dhw: The invention of the organ clearly cannot have been automatic unless you wish to return to your earlier hypothesis that all innovations are preprogrammed or the result of divine dabbling (which you admit is less compatible with the bush of life). If the cellular communities possess an autonomous inventive mechanism that enables them to design a new organ, we can hardly expect this form of intelligence to disappear, and so it is quite logical that the same intelligence will also apply itself when there are new problems to solve. Otherwise, it will repeat the behaviour that has enabled the new organ to function, which it will do automatically until the next problem arises. -Where we continue to have a wide gulf of understanding is my point that complex organs that currently exist in even the least advanced animals with organ systems, require exquisite planning to create. Darwin tiny steps are not seen in the fossil record. Therefore these organs are saltations, and the result of very complex mentation, not available in cell communities. All we are aware of currently are minor epigenetic adaptations.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
DAVID: 'Apparently automatic' behaviour of organs is not 'apparently'; it is absolutely automatic in our bodies.-dhw: The invention of the organ clearly cannot have been automatic unless you wish to return to your earlier hypothesis that all innovations are preprogrammed or the result of divine dabbling (which you admit is less compatible with the bush of life). If the cellular communities possess an autonomous inventive mechanism that enables them to design a new organ, we can hardly expect this form of intelligence to disappear, and so it is quite logical that the same intelligence will also apply itself when there are new problems to solve. Otherwise, it will repeat the behaviour that has enabled the new organ to function, which it will do automatically until the next problem arises. -DAVID: Where we continue to have a wide gulf of understanding is my point that complex organs that currently exist in even the least advanced animals with organ systems, require exquisite planning to create. Darwin tiny steps are not seen in the fossil record. Therefore these organs are saltations, and the result of very complex mentation, not available in cell communities. All we are aware of currently are minor epigenetic adaptations.-No gulf, except for your usual dogma about cell communities. We have agreed umpteeen times that these complex organs are saltations, and you have now agreed (under “Autonomy and Balance”) that “If we believe in common descent, speciation may have taken place through an autonomous inventive mechanism (AIM) or complexification mechanism (CM) within the cell communities.” If you agree to the possibility of an AIM or CM within the cell communities, how can you now inform us that the autonomous inventive mechanism or complexification mechanism is incapable of the mentation required for inventing or complexifying? And if your CM produces complex organs without designing them, you might as well believe in random mutations. Yes, the AIM is a hypothesis not a proven fact, because nobody has observed innovations and we only know of minor adaptations, but your alternative is to abandon the AIM and the CM and go back to your 3.8-billion year computer programme or divine dabble for every innovation in the history of evolution. dhw: (under “Lucy”) I am saying the evidence shows that if he exists, he left the organisms to work out their own solutions, with natural selection being the final arbiter of which will survive. This “scattergun approach” is NOT “guidance”. Alternatively, you might believe that God dabbled in order to ensure that homo sapiens came out on top, but that is very different from “God's guidance of evolution” to the endpoint of humans. DAVID: Good point. This is why I like the complexification approach. The human bush is an h-p bush like everything else, with the cream rising to the top.-Once again: if organisms (cell communities) work out their own solutions through an AIM or CM (but see above for the problem of a non-designing CM), thereby producing the h-p bush, with natural selection deciding which ones come out on top, how can you argue that cell communities are incapable of working out their own solutions?
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Friday, June 10, 2016, 18:53 (2883 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: We have agreed umpteeen times that these complex organs are saltations, and you have now agreed (under “Autonomy and Balance”) that “If we believe in common descent, speciation may have taken place through an autonomous inventive mechanism (AIM) or complexification mechanism (CM) within the cell communities.” If you agree to the possibility of an AIM or CM within the cell communities, how can you now inform us that the autonomous inventive mechanism or complexification mechanism is incapable of the mentation required for inventing or complexifying?-Because I envision the AIM or CM as following patterns with on-board instructions in the evolutionary scheme-> dhw: Yes, the AIM is a hypothesis not a proven fact, because nobody has observed innovations and we only know of minor adaptations, but your alternative is to abandon the AIM and the CM and go back to your 3.8-billion year computer programme or divine dabble for every innovation in the history of evolution.-I'm not abandoning. They best explain the h=p bush.-> DAVID: Good point. This is why I like the complexification approach. The human bush is an h-p bush like everything else, with the cream rising to the top. > > dhw: Once again: if organisms (cell communities) work out their own solutions through an AIM or CM (but see above for the problem of a non-designing CM), thereby producing the h-p bush, with natural selection deciding which ones come out on top, how can you argue that cell communities are incapable of working out their own solutions?-Because all the cell communities have to do is decide to trigger the mechanisms which they contain and the mechanisms do their thing.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
Once again, I am telescoping threads as they all deal with the same subject.-dhw (under “slime mold”): Why look for cellular intelligence? Because if organisms have an autonomous inventive or complexification mechanism, it can ONLY be run by the intelligence of the cell communities! And so if unicellular organisms are shown to be intelligent, this would add powerful support to the AIM hypothesis. DAVID: The mechanisms don't need intelligence to run them. They are not driving an automobile but sitting in a driverless automobile.-How can an autonomous inventive or complexification mechanism create new organs, lifestyles, ”natural wonders” without being intelligent? The word “autonomous” means able to determine one's own actions, take one's own decisions, and in this case do one's own inventing/complexifying. dhw: We have agreed umpteeen times that these complex organs are saltations, and you have now agreed (under “Autonomy and Balance”) that “If we believe in common descent, speciation may have taken place through an autonomous inventive mechanism (AIM) or complexification mechanism (CM) within the cell communities.” If you agree to the possibility of an AIM or CM within the cell communities, how can you now inform us that the autonomous inventive mechanism or complexification mechanism is incapable of the mentation required for inventing or complexifying?-DAVID: Because I envision the AIM or CM as following patterns with on-board instructions in the evolutionary scheme.-We are back to square one! On Thursday 9 June you agreed that an autonomous inventive mechanism was possible, and that your God would have provided it and may have dabbled “to correct problems” (i.e. after the innovation had been autonomously created). Now you are excluding that possibility and reverting to the hypothesis that all the innovations were preprogrammed, and the cellular communities have no autonomy but merely follow instructions!-dhw: Yes, the AIM is a hypothesis not a proven fact, because nobody has observed innovations and we only know of minor adaptations, but your alternative is to abandon the AIM and the CM and go back to your 3.8-billion year computer programme or divine dabble for every innovation in the history of evolution. DAVID: I'm not abandoning. They best explain the h=p bush.-The reason why the AIM or CM best explains the bush is it makes its own decisions and is NOT preprogrammed. If you insist that it only follows instructions, of course you are abandoning that hypothesis.-Dhw (under “Lucy”): I am saying the evidence shows that if he exists, he left the organisms to work out their own solutions, with natural selection being the final arbiter of which will survive. This “scattergun approach” is NOT “guidance”. Alternatively, you might believe that God dabbled in order to ensure that homo sapiens came out on top, but that is very different from “God's guidance of evolution” to the endpoint of humans. DAVID: Good point. This is why I like the complexification approach. The human bush is an h-p bush like everything else, with the cream rising to the top.-dhw: Once again: if organisms (cell communities) work out their own solutions through an AIM or CM (but see above for the problem of a non-designing CM), thereby producing the h-p bush, with natural selection deciding which ones come out on top, how can you argue that cell communities are incapable of working out their own solutions? DAVID: Because all the cell communities have to do is decide to trigger the mechanisms which they contain and the mechanisms do their thing.-So I made the “good point” that organisms were left to work out their own solutions, which meant that your God's “scattergun approach” was NOT guidance - though he might have dabbled afterwards - but now apparently the organisms do not work out their own solutions because all they do is follow “patterns with on-board instructions”. -On Thursday 9 June the sun shone brightly, and my friend David finally agreed to the possibility that his God had provided cells/cell communities with an autonomous inventive or complexification mechanism, which best explained the higgledy-piggledy evolutionary bush. On Friday 10 June, he withdrew his agreement, and the sun disappeared behind the clouds, leaving us all in darkness. Woe is me. But let us not despair: he who can do a backward somersault on a Friday may do a forward somersault on a Saturday.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Saturday, June 11, 2016, 19:27 (2882 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The mechanisms don't need intelligence to run them. They are not driving an automobile but sitting in a driverless automobile. > > dhw; How can an autonomous inventive or complexification mechanism create new organs, lifestyles, ”natural wonders” without being intelligent? The word “autonomous” means able to determine one's own actions, take one's own decisions, and in this case do one's own inventing/complexifying.-Look carefully at my driverless car analogy. The complexity mechanism sitting somewhere in a layer of the genome looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of new complexity. The cell can turn on the mechanism in response to some external stimulus, more oxygen, predator threats, ice age, etc. The cell is the passenger with an on-off switch for an intelligently designed CM. The cell does not intelligence to do this, just recognize the opportunity environmental stimulus and trip the switch. > > dhw; We are back to square one! On Thursday 9 June you agreed that an autonomous inventive mechanism was possible, and that your God would have provided it and may have dabbled “to correct problems” (i.e. after the innovation had been autonomously created). Now you are excluding that possibility and reverting to the hypothesis that all the innovations were preprogrammed, and the cellular communities have no autonomy but merely follow instructions!-See explanation above.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
DAVID: The mechanisms don't need intelligence to run them. They are not driving an automobile but sitting in a driverless automobile. dhw; How can an autonomous inventive or complexification mechanism create new organs, lifestyles, ”natural wonders” without being intelligent? The word “autonomous” means able to determine one's own actions, take one's own decisions, and in this case do one's own inventing/complexifying.-DAVID: Look carefully at my driverless car analogy. The complexity mechanism sitting somewhere in a layer of the genome looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of new complexity. The cell can turn on the mechanism in response to some external stimulus, more oxygen, predator threats, ice age, etc. The cell is the passenger with an on-off switch for an intelligently designed CM. The cell does not intelligence to do this, just recognize the opportunity environmental stimulus and trip the switch.-“Looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of complexity…in response to some external stimulus” is the key to the whole process. Your whole analogy is false. A driverless car does not produce innovations. To look at something that exists and then create something new requires intelligence. You yourself have (in my view quite rightly) argued over and over again that adding layers of complexity that create functioning new organs requires intelligent design. If the innovations have not been preprogrammed or divinely dabbled, the intelligent design can only come from the cells themselves, which means they have autonomous intelligence (the inventive mechanism), not that they follow “on-board instructions”. In my scenario, the “brain equivalent” (intelligence/inventive mechanism) of the cell communities says: “Predator threats! We must start inventing.” In yours, the message is: “Predator threats! Turn on God's 3.8-billion-year-old complexity programme containing on-board instructions for predator threats!” Or alternatively: “Predator threats! Better call God to come and invent something!” Sorry, but I don't know how you can call that a free, autonomous inventive/complexification mechanism.-dhw; We are back to square one! On Thursday 9 June you agreed that an autonomous inventive mechanism was possible, and that your God would have provided it and may have dabbled “to correct problems” (i.e. after the innovation had been autonomously created). Now you are excluding that possibility and reverting to the hypothesis that all the innovations were preprogrammed, and the cellular communities have no autonomy but merely follow instructions! DAVID: See explanation above.-See explanation above.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Sunday, June 12, 2016, 22:46 (2881 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: Look carefully at my driverless car analogy. The complexity mechanism sitting somewhere in a layer of the genome looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of new complexity. The cell can turn on the mechanism in response to some external stimulus, -> dhw: “Looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of complexity…in response to some external stimulus” is the key to the whole process. Your whole analogy is false. A driverless car does not produce innovations.-You totally missed the point of the analogy. When the person (cell) enters a driverless car, he turns a key which starts the computer and engine and run the car as a self-sufficient module. I envision the cell to turn on such a module to create invention or complexity for evolution. Natural selection judges the results or God steps in to modify.->dhw: To look at something that exists and then create something new requires intelligence.-No problem: My inventive module has onboard intelligent instructions. The cell does not require intelligence, just a response to changing stimuli as described.-> dhw: You yourself have (in my view quite rightly) argued over and over again that adding layers of complexity that create functioning new organs requires intelligent design. -Of course-> dhw:If the innovations have not been preprogrammed or divinely dabbled, the intelligent design can only come from the cells themselves, which means they have autonomous intelligence (the inventive mechanism), not that they follow “on-board instructions”.-Answered above. Of course the inventive module has intelligent guidance.-> dhwIn my scenario, the “brain equivalent” (intelligence/inventive mechanism) of the cell communities says: “Predator threats! We must start inventing.” In yours, the message is: “Predator threats! Turn on God's 3.8-billion-year-old complexity programme containing on-board instructions for predator threats!” Or alternatively: “Predator threats! Better call God to come and invent something!” Sorry, but I don't know how you can call that a free, autonomous inventive/complexification mechanism. > We are back to square one! -We've never left square one. God is in charge. I've added a complexity mechanism to simple pre-programming, with dabbling always allowed if needed.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
I am telescoping threads again.-Under the Chomsky language thread:-dhw: ALL language, from individual cells to humans, must stem from cooperation of some sort, since it is always a means of communication. My suggestion is that the human level of consciousness has almost infinitely expanded the subject matter to be communicated. A small range of sounds could not encompass the concepts they had to convey. For the range to expand, the physical tools also had to expand, and this may have been the spur to the anatomical changes that enabled us to make new sounds. (We must remember that writing is a much later addition to our language tools.) Using my favoured hypothesis: the inventive mechanism (intelligence) of the cell communities would have reorganized the vocal mechanisms in response to the need for greater complexity of sound. (David's bold)-DAVID: My bold is a key point in regard to your cell communities: To be humanly vocal our bodies had to change in many ways from apes: high arched palate, dropped larynx which requires a special epiglottis, specialized lip and tongue muscle development, and development in the brain of speech and hearing centers. If the development is not gradual, and you've agreed to that, we are dealing with a complex saltation, way beyond the learning capacities of cell committees unless they have a complexity mechanism they can turn on to guide the development.-“Turning on” a “complexity mechanism” is what I call cell communities using their autonomous inventive mechanism or intelligence. Just as a community of ants can build a complex city, I am proposing that communities of cells can also build the complexities of evolutionary adaptations and innovations, such as high arched palate, dropped epiglottis etc. on their own initiative. We do not know how far the learning capacities of “cell committees” extend, which is why my proposal remains a hypothesis. We now need to be clear about your own proposals
AVID: Look carefully at my driverless car analogy. The complexity mechanism sitting somewhere in a layer of the genome looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of new complexity. The cell can turn on the mechanism in response to some external stimulus, dhw: “Looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of complexity…in response to some external stimulus” is the key to the whole process. Your whole analogy is false. A driverless car does not produce innovations. DAVID: You totally missed the point of the analogy. When the person (cell) enters a driverless car, he turns a key which starts the computer and engine and run the car as a self-sufficient module. I envision the cell to turn on such a module to create invention or complexity for evolution. Natural selection judges the results or God steps in to modify.-I still don't see the point of your analogy. The cell doesn't enter itself and switch on a separate "module". The "module" (inventive/complexification mechanism) has to be part of the cell community. Much simpler to talk about the cells/cell communities themselves! Either the cells “think” independently with their own inventive mechanism (just as you think with your inventive brain), or your God gives them instructions. The latter hypothesis is all you now seem prepared to accept: DAVID: No problem: My inventive module has onboard intelligent instructions. The cell does not require intelligence, just a response to changing stimuli as described.-"Onboard instructions" means your God has preprogrammed all the innovations throughout the history of evolution, the cells do not have autonomous, inventive intelligence, and the “stimuli” simply trigger the correct programme. We are back to square one! -DAVID: We've never left square one. God is in charge. I've added a complexity mechanism to simple pre-programming, with dabbling always allowed if needed.-Your “complexity mechanism” is apparently nothing but the carrying-out of onboard instructions - which is no different from preprogramming. And yet on Tuesday 7 June, you agreed that an autonomous or “free” mechanism, creating its own innovations/complexifications with your God only dabbling AFTERWARDS to “correct problems”, was an acceptable alternative to your God being “hands on all the way along in evolution”. The latter hypothesis, you said, was “not as compatible with the h-p bush of life”. You have now rejected the alternative you accepted a week ago. Under “Simon Conway Morris”: dhw: Every innovation requires “exquisite planning”, and all our hypotheses are an attempt to explain how the planning takes place. We have observed cells and cell communities adapting to changing conditions, communicating, cooperating, solving problems (“external observations”), but nobody has observed a computer programme of on-board instructions for all innovations, or a God personally intervening to deliver new instructions.-DAVID: Another big IF. Exquisite planning requires an exquisite mind. God supplies the necessary mind.-The IF is the extent of cellular intelligence. I have accepted the possibility that your God supplied the “mind” of the cells, and on 7 June you accepted the possibility that cells did their own autonomous inventing/complexifying, which requires such a mind. How can onboard instructions offer a “free” alternative to preprogramming and dabbling?
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Monday, June 13, 2016, 19:50 (2880 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: “Turning on” a “complexity mechanism” is what I call cell communities using their autonomous inventive mechanism or intelligence. Just as a community of ants can build a complex city, I am proposing that communities of cells can also build the complexities of evolutionary adaptations and innovations, such as high arched palate, dropped epiglottis etc. on their own initiative.-The human anatomic changes for speech are far more complex than a network of ant tunnels. If you want to compare to ants, use the level of anatomic changes in the ant bodies themselves. Your example is light years removed from what happened in human evolution. It now appears that Neanderthals have a portion of what humans have for speech, and there is no other in between species to take away the impression of an anatomic saltation to accommodate human speech, thus requiring exquisite planning.-> > dhw: I still don't see the point of your analogy. The cell doesn't enter itself and switch on a separate "module". The "module" (inventive/complexification mechanism) has to be part of the cell community.-No, it just has to be part of the genome for whole animals. We are discussing at different definitions. Your cell communities are whole animals, which is what I view in this discussion. > > dhw:Your “complexity mechanism” is apparently nothing but the carrying-out of onboard instructions - which is no different from preprogramming. And yet on Tuesday 7 June, you agreed that an autonomous or “free” mechanism, creating its own innovations/complexifications with your God only dabbling AFTERWARDS to “correct problems”, was an acceptable alternative to your God being “hands on all the way along in evolution”. The latter hypothesis, you said, was “not as compatible with the h-p bush of life”. You have now rejected the alternative you accepted a week ago.-No I haven't. I'm in the middle of looking at reasonable theory and your comments help. We are never going to come to agreement with your agnostic position. A complexification module which can offer several complexities explains the h-p. It must be part of whole animal genomes, single cell or cell community discussions just confuse the issue.-> dhw: The IF is the extent of cellular intelligence. I have accepted the possibility that your God supplied the “mind” of the cells, and on 7 June you accepted the possibility that cells did their own autonomous inventing/complexifying, which requires such a mind. How can onboard instructions offer a “free” alternative to preprogramming and dabbling?-I am envisioning a complexity-planning layer of the whole animal genome which offers several solutions to noxious or inviting stimuli, thus producing an h-p bush. God can then step in to help if problem results turned up. The animals can turn it on, but they cannot do any planning themselves.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
dhw: “Turning on” a “complexity mechanism” is what I call cell communities using their autonomous inventive mechanism or intelligence. Just as a community of ants can build a complex city, I am proposing that communities of cells can also build the complexities of evolutionary adaptations and innovations, such as high arched palate, dropped epiglottis etc. on their own initiative. DAVID: The human anatomic changes for speech are far more complex than a network of ant tunnels. If you want to compare to ants, use the level of anatomic changes in the ant bodies themselves. Your example is light years removed from what happened in human evolution. It now appears that Neanderthals have a portion of what humans have for speech, and there is no other in between species to take away the impression of an anatomic saltation to accommodate human speech, thus requiring exquisite planning.-My analogy concerns the manner in which non-human communities build complexities which require intelligent design. As we keep repeating, nobody knows the extent of cellular intelligence. As for the latest discoveries about Neanderthals, they once again highlight the problems of your focus on homo sapiens as your God's evolutionary purpose. The history of hominins suggests a higgledy-piggledy development, with natural selection deciding which should survive. dhw: I still don't see the point of your analogy. The cell doesn't enter itself and switch on a separate "module". The "module" (inventive/complexification mechanism) has to be part of the cell community. DAVID: No, it just has to be part of the genome for whole animals. We are discussing at different definitions. Your cell communities are whole animals, which is what I view in this discussion.-I don't understand your “no”. Whole animals are communities of cells. In my hypothesis, any innovation requires the cooperation of the cell communities that make up the single community we call an organism. I don't have a problem with the inventive mechanism being part of the genome, but you seem to be suggesting that the genome is separate from the cell or cell community! dhw:Your “complexity mechanism” is apparently nothing but the carrying-out of onboard instructions - which is no different from preprogramming. And yet on Tuesday 7 June, you agreed that an autonomous or “free” mechanism, creating its own innovations/complexifications with your God only dabbling AFTERWARDS to “correct problems”, was an acceptable alternative to your God being “hands on all the way along in evolution”. The latter hypothesis, you said, was “not as compatible with the h-p bush of life”. You have now rejected the alternative you accepted a week ago. DAVID: No I haven't. […] A complexification module which can offer several complexities explains the h-p. It must be part of whole animal genomes, single cell or cell community discussions just confuse the issue.-I don't know why you have switched from “mechanism” to “module”, unless you think that module somehow justifies your concept of a divine computer programme. Nor do I know why you find cells/cell communities confusing, when you know as well as I do that the genome is part of the cell or of the organism, and that organisms are a community of cell communities. dhw: How can onboard instructions offer a “free” alternative to preprogramming and dabbling? DAVID: I am envisioning a complexity-planning layer of the whole animal genome which offers several solutions to noxious or inviting stimuli, thus producing an h-p bush. God can then step in to help if problem results turned up. The animals can turn it on, but they cannot do any planning themselves.-If organisms cannot do any planning, what you appear to be saying is that your God has preprogrammed the first living cells to pass on multiple choice responses to every stimulus throughout the history of life on Earth. Organisms then “turn on” the appropriate multiple choice programme when the appropriate conditions arise. Presumably, since you said the mechanism could be “free”, you envisage some cell communities saying to themselves: “Time to switch on Programme No. XYZ million and forty-two. Here are five options. I'll go for Number Three - high arched palate, dropped epiglottis etc.” Whereas other cell communities go for Number Two, and never get to talk like humans. Is this a fair summary of your hypothesis? If not, please correct any errors.-My own hypothesis - just to clarify the colossal differences - has the cell communities that make up a single organism reacting to stimuli by saying to themselves: “We have a new problem/opportunity. Let's work together to find a solution.” In the context of human language, the problem was to create new sounds in order to communicate the vastly expanded range of subject matter resulting from a new level of consciousness. The solution devised by some cell communities, using their own (possibly God-given) intelligence - embedded in their genome, if you like - was to change the structure of the larynx, epiglottis etc. Other organisms (cell communities) that did not have the same level of consciousness, remained as they were. Neanderthals, and perhaps other species of human as well, may have come up with their own new design - I don't know enough about the anatomies of earlier human species to detail any differences. Maybe our palaeontologists don't either.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 14, 2016, 19:11 (2879 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: As for the latest discoveries about Neanderthals, they once again highlight the problems of your focus on homo sapiens as your God's evolutionary purpose. The history of hominins suggests a higgledy-piggledy development, with natural selection deciding which should survive.-This fits my idea that a complexification mechanism is at work with an h-p of hominids as you suggest.-> dhw: I don't have a problem with the inventive mechanism being part of the genome, but you seem to be suggesting that the genome is separate from the cell or cell community!-Not separate, but perhaps a different genome layer than has been discovered. Note today's entry about gene drives, which are artificial DNA sections that can be put into living DNA to change a species. Is it possible this exists in life, but not found as yet: -https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gene-drives-spread-their-wings-> > dhw: I don't know why you have switched from “mechanism” to “module”, unless you think that module somehow justifies your concept of a divine computer programme.-Just to make it sound like a very separate area of the genome layers. > > dhw: If organisms cannot do any planning, what you appear to be saying is that your God has preprogrammed the first living cells to pass on multiple choice responses to every stimulus throughout the history of life on Earth. Organisms then “turn on” the appropriate multiple choice programme when the appropriate conditions arise. Presumably, since you said the mechanism could be “free”, you envisage some cell communities saying to themselves: “Time to switch on Programme No. XYZ million and forty-two. Here are five options. I'll go for Number Three - high arched palate, dropped epiglottis etc.” Whereas other cell communities go for Number Two, and never get to talk like humans. Is this a fair summary of your hypothesis? If not, please correct any errors.-Yes! > > dhw: The solution devised by some cell communities, using their own (possibly God-given) intelligence - embedded in their genome, if you like - was to change the structure of the larynx, epiglottis etc. Other organisms (cell communities) that did not have the same level of consciousness, remained as they were. Neanderthals, and perhaps other species of human as well, may have come up with their own new design - I don't know enough about the anatomies of earlier human species to detail any differences. Maybe our palaeontologists don't either.-The book, The Ape That Spoke, gives answers. H. erectus had a slightly arched palate and is thought to have been able to grunt a few words, but primarily used gestures, etc. Neanderthals have a weak apelike chin and not much arch to the palate, which suggests that could not have the clear and rapid speech we have. Once again we are different in kind, the result of complex planning of many anatomic changes. We are still left with not knowing whether God dabbles or a planning module is on-board. The inventions that come from biomimetics research (example, Velcro)refutes your conflation of cell intelligence with really having the intelligent planning required.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
I am juxtaposing sections of our latest exchange in order to try and clarify the arguments. -dhw: If organisms cannot do any planning, what you appear to be saying is that your God has preprogrammed the first living cells to pass on multiple choice responses to every stimulus throughout the history of life on Earth. Organisms then “turn on” the appropriate multiple choice programme when the appropriate conditions arise. Presumably, since you said the mechanism could be “free”, you envisage some cell communities saying to themselves: “Time to switch on Programme No. XYZ million and forty-two. Here are five options. I'll go for Number Three - high arched palate, dropped epiglottis etc.” Whereas other cell communities go for Number Two, and never get to talk like humans. Is this a fair summary of your hypothesis? If not, please correct any errors.-DAVID: Yes!-dhw: As for the latest discoveries about Neanderthals, they once again highlight the problems of your focus on homo sapiens as your God's evolutionary purpose. The history of hominins suggests a higgledy-piggledy development, with natural selection deciding which should survive. DAVID: This fits my idea that a complexification mechanism is at work with an h-p of hominids as you suggest.-So 3.8 billion years ago he provided the first cells with a multichoice programme of palates and epiglottises (your complexification mechanism) to be passed down to all the pre-humans, and some chose one type and became homo erectus, and others chose another type and became Neanderthal. Homo sap picked the right one, and bingo he talked like us, and the rest died out. (Though maybe God told him which one was the lucky ticket.) This sort of lottery was built into the first cells to cover every single innovation and natural wonder throughout the entire history of evolution, except when God dabbled. Is that still correct? -My alternative was: "The solution devised by some cell communities, using their own (possibly God-given) intelligence - embedded in their genome, if you like - was to change the structure of the larynx, epiglottis etc. Other organisms (cell communities) that did not have the same level of consciousness, remained as they were. Neanderthals, and perhaps other species of human as well, may have come up with their own new design - I don't know enough about the anatomies of earlier human species to detail any differences. Maybe our palaeontologists don't either."-DAVID: The book, The Ape That Spoke, gives answers. H. erectus had a slightly arched palate and is thought to have been able to grunt a few words, but primarily used gestures, etc. Neanderthals have a weak apelike chin and not much arch to the palate, which suggests that could not have the clear and rapid speech we have. -Thank you. “Thought to have” and “suggests” is nice and vague. I can't help wondering why your God would have preprogrammed these different choices 3.8 billion years ago when he only wanted homo sap. DAVID: Once again we are different in kind, the result of complex planning of many anatomic changes. We are still left with not knowing whether God dabbles or a planning module is on-board.-All these hominins had larynxes and epiglottises, not to mention eyes, legs, hearts, brains. What is different in “kind” between an arched palate and a more arched palate? How do we know that less clear and rapid (unproven anyway) is different “in kind” from more clear and rapid? And we are still left not knowing whether God dabbles, there is a multiple choice programme on board for every possible innovation, or cell communities have their own means of reorganizing themselves both adaptively and inventively. Please don't forget the third of the multiple choices!-dhw: I don't have a problem with the inventive mechanism being part of the genome, but you seem to be suggesting that the genome is separate from the cell or cell community! DAVID: Not separate, but perhaps a different genome layer than has been discovered. Note today's entry about gene drives, which are artificial DNA sections that can be put into living DNA to change a species. Is it possible this exists in life, but not found as yet: -https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gene-drives-spread-their-wings-Too technical for me, I'm afraid, but my point is that if the inventive mechanism is situated in the genome, it is still integral to the cell community, and evolutionary innovation is only possible if the different cell communities cooperate.-dhw: I don't know why you have switched from “mechanism” to “module”, unless you think that module somehow justifies your concept of a divine computer programme.DAVID: Just to make it sound like a very separate area of the genome layers.-An inventive mechanism can also be a separate area.-DAVID: The inventions that come from biomimetics research (example, Velcro) refutes your conflation of cell intelligence with really having the intelligent planning required.-I don't follow. If it takes human intelligence to copy the work of natural organisms, how does that prove that natural organisms do not have intelligence? I'm not saying the burr is another Einstein, but I would not discount cellular intelligence even in plants.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 15, 2016, 20:09 (2878 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: This fits my idea that a complexification mechanism is at work with an h-p of hominids as you suggest. > > dhw: So 3.8 billion years ago he provided the first cells with a multichoice programme ...This sort of lottery was built into the first cells to cover every single innovation and natural wonder throughout the entire history of evolution, except when God dabbled. Is that still correct?-Awhile ago I proposed that evolution follows primary patterns. I think that fits. The concept of complexification then allows for inventions that branch out into several possibilities of complexity, at which point natural selection picks a winner. If a complex mechanism needs help to work properly, God dabbles. Not really multiple choice so much as multiple invention pathways, several of which can appear at the same time, presuming that such a complexity mechanism (module) is somewhere hidden in the layers of the genome. > > > dhw: Thank you. “Thought to have” and “suggests” is nice and vague. I can't help wondering why your God would have preprogrammed these different choices 3.8 billion years ago when he only wanted homo sap.-Because God uses evolution, not His direction, which allows for several pathways to a desired result.-> DAVID: Not separate, but perhaps a different genome layer than has been discovered. Note today's entry about gene drives, which are artificial DNA sections that can be put into living DNA to change a species. Is it possible this exists in life, but not found as yet: > > https://www.sciencenews.org/article/gene-drives-spread-their-wings > > dhw: Too technical for me, I'm afraid, but my point is that if the inventive mechanism is situated in the genome, it is still integral to the cell community, and evolutionary innovation is only possible if the different cell communities cooperate.-It is not too technical to understand! Humans have demonstrated that driving genetic changes is possible. Ours are artificial, but natural ones may exist. That is what we have been discussing all along. > > dhw: I don't know why you have switched from “mechanism” to “module”, unless you think that module somehow justifies your concept of a divine computer programme.-DAVID: Just to make it sound like a very separate area of the genome layers. > > An inventive mechanism can also be a separate area.-Yes, and an IM can be a CM (complexity)-> dhw: If it takes human intelligence to copy the work of natural organisms, how does that prove that natural organisms do not have intelligence? I'm not saying the burr is another Einstein, but I would not discount cellular intelligence even in plants.-It doesn't take much intelligence to copy biomechanisms in nature, but my point is these natural mechanisms are gifts to us to use that we don't have the capacity to invent with our big brains. Why do you think cells without brains can do these amazing mechanisms? I know the answer: Shapiro's single-celled bacteria make meaningful responses to stimuli. Not the same level of inventive capacity!
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
DAVID: This fits my idea that a complexification mechanism is at work with an h-p of hominids as you suggest. dhw: So 3.8 billion years ago he provided the first cells with a multichoice programme ...This sort of lottery was built into the first cells to cover every single innovation and natural wonder throughout the entire history of evolution, except when God dabbled. Is that still correct?-DAVID: A while ago I proposed that evolution follows primary patterns. I think that fits.-If we believe in common descent, then it is obvious that patterns will be handed down.-DAVID: The concept of complexification then allows for inventions that branch out into several possibilities of complexity, at which point natural selection picks a winner. If a complex mechanism needs help to work properly, God dabbles. Not really multiple choice so much as multiple invention pathways, several of which can appear at the same time, presuming that such a complexity mechanism (module) is somewhere hidden in the layers of the genome.-In passing, “work properly” shows that complexity is not an end in itself. It has to have a function. However, the burning question is HOW this complexity mechanism works. Once again, your thinking blocks out the fact that either the complexities/ pathways/inventions have been preprogrammed/dabbled by your God, or the mechanism (possibly God-given) produces them autonomously. If they were not dabbled, all the choices or pathways or whatever you want to call them were preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago in the very first cells. That means every single innovation and variation (multiple choice/pathway) in the history of evolution had to be handed down through every generation of organisms and every change in the environment. The only freedom you have allowed organisms is to choose between different sets of on-board instructions, and the higgledy-piggledy bush is explained by God providing every higgledy-piggledy variation for them to choose from. -Do you not think it more feasible that all these higgledy-piggledy innovations, variations, convergences have come about through the organisms themselves finding their own individual ways to cope with or exploit the environment, instead of your God having to provide them with every single solution? dhw: If it takes human intelligence to copy the work of natural organisms, how does that prove that natural organisms do not have intelligence? I'm not saying the burr is another Einstein, but I would not discount cellular intelligence even in plants. DAVID: It doesn't take much intelligence to copy biomechanisms in nature, but my point is these natural mechanisms are gifts to us to use that we don't have the capacity to invent with our big brains. Why do you think cells without brains can do these amazing mechanisms? I know the answer: Shapiro's single-celled bacteria make meaningful responses to stimuli. Not the same level of inventive capacity!-With our big brains we don't have the capacity to invent these amazing mechanisms, and the reason why cells without brains can invent them is that bacteria do not have the same level of inventive capacity as….as…what? Once again: do you really believe that your God personally dabbled or preprogrammed the first cells to pass on every single natural wonder, from prickly burrs to weaverbirds' nests, as well as every single evolutionary innovation from eukaryotes to humans?
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Friday, June 17, 2016, 00:15 (2876 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: That means every single innovation and variation (multiple choice/pathway) in the history of evolution had to be handed down through every generation of organisms and every change in the environment. The only freedom you have allowed organisms is to choose between different sets of on-board instructions, and the higgledy-piggledy bush is explained by God providing every higgledy-piggledy variation for them to choose from. - If God created the universe and everything living, it is reasonable to assume, since he uses an evolving technique of common descent, I would think He would be watching carefully and stepping in as needed. I do not favor a deistic God. > > dhw: Do you not think it more feasible that all these higgledy-piggledy innovations, variations, convergences have come about through the organisms themselves finding their own individual ways to cope with or exploit the environment, instead of your God having to provide them with every single solution? - Answered above, and I would again state that a complexity drive can make a h-p bush, > > > dhw: With our big brains we don't have the capacity to invent these amazing mechanisms, and the reason why cells without brains can invent them is that bacteria do not have the same level of inventive capacity as….as…what? - When nature is smarter than humans in creating complex mechanisms, something brighter than humans is at work, and it is not the descendants of the original bacteria from the start of life. - > dhw: Once again: do you really believe that your God personally dabbled or preprogrammed the first cells to pass on every single natural wonder, from prickly burrs to weaverbirds' nests, as well as every single evolutionary innovation from eukaryotes to humans? - Very likely.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
I will juxtapose our exchanges again, to keep the argument clear: -dhw: Once again: do you really believe that your God personally dabbled or preprogrammed the first cells to pass on every single natural wonder, from prickly burrs to weaverbirds' nests, as well as every single evolutionary innovation from eukaryotes to humans? DAVID: Very likely.-A discouraging turn-around since your agreement last week to the possibility of an autonomous inventive (or complexification) mechanism.-dhw: Do you not think it more feasible that all these higgledy-piggledy innovations, variations, convergences have come about through the organisms themselves finding their own individual ways to cope with or exploit the environment, instead of your God having to provide them with every single solution? DAVID: Answered above, and I would again state that a complexity drive can make a h-p bush.-Your “complexity drive” is meaningless if your God preprogrammed or dabbled every single innovation and variation and natural wonder that makes up the bush. DAVID: When nature is smarter than humans in creating complex mechanisms, something brighter than humans is at work, and it is not the descendants of the original bacteria from the start of life. -If you believe in common descent, even we are the descendants of the original cells, which you now think were “very likely” preprogrammed with every evolutionary development. Our many-layered consciousness has given us a capacity for invention far in advance of any other organism, but that does not mean we have a monopoly on inventive intelligence. DAVID (under “bat and moth”): Those organisms are planned to look as if they have a degree of mentation.-Your God set out to deceive some of us humans, did he? You are not even prepared now to consider the possibility that they may look intelligent because they ARE intelligent.-DAVID: (under “bacteria live on electrons”): What the article tells me is these bacteria have an amazing ability for adaptation, which may well have been endowed as God created them.-Their ability is certainly amazing, and they manifest all the signs of intelligence, which your God may well have endowed them with. But apparently he deliberately planned them to look that way, and you just happen to know they are not intelligent. DAVID (under “Neanderthal”): QUOTE: “According to the new findings, published in Genetics this month, Neanderthal genomes were rife with harmful DNA that significantly reduced the species' fitness. The researchers conclude that Neanderthals were roughly 40 percent less fit than modern humans, meaning they were less likely to produce offspring.”- Did your God deliberately plan their harmful DNA so they would die out? And did he plan every external environmental change that destroyed his carefully planned old species or encouraged his carefully planned new species? DAVID (under “Homo naledi”) The human bush has all sorts of early groups. It fits the shotgun fashion of all of evolution. This website is from a creationist source, but it accepts the great age of these fossils. I see no reason to presume, if God wanted humans, ask why the bush? All of evolution is a bush. It is God's pattern of development.-But it is not shotgun according to you. It is all planned! Organisms are not capable of doing anything except follow God's on-board instructions or succumb to his dabbling. Without autonomy, they are all his puppets.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Friday, June 17, 2016, 20:34 (2876 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: A discouraging turn-around since your agreement last week to the possibility of an autonomous inventive (or complexification) mechanism.-I can imagine a complexification IM (or CM) that is programmed to produce several alternative complex mechanisms to solve changing environmental challenges. As stated then natural selection comes into play and one or more survive. -> > dhw:Your “complexity drive” is meaningless if your God preprogrammed or dabbled every single innovation and variation and natural wonder that makes up the bush.-I don't know that He would have to dabble, if Natural Selection found a suitable advance of complexity originating from the choices in the CM > > DAVID: When nature is smarter than humans in creating complex mechanisms, something brighter than humans is at work, and it is not the descendants of the original bacteria from the start of life. > > dhw:If you believe in common descent, even we are the descendants of the original cells, which you now think were “very likely” preprogrammed with every evolutionary development. Our many-layered consciousness has given us a capacity for invention far in advance of any other organism, but that does not mean we have a monopoly on inventive intelligence. -Just because bacteria look as if they have intelligence, doesn't mean they are intelligent, but certainly can be intelligently planned. > > DAVID (under “bat and moth”): Those organisms are planned to look as if they have a degree of mentation. > > Your God set out to deceive some of us humans, did he? You are not even prepared now to consider the possibility that they may look intelligent because they ARE intelligent.-I don't think God every tries to deceive, but agnostics might think so. > > DAVID: (under “bacteria live on electrons”): What the article tells me is these bacteria have an amazing ability for adaptation, which may well have been endowed as God created them. > > dhw: Their ability is certainly amazing, and they manifest all the signs of intelligence, which your God may well have endowed them with. But apparently he deliberately planned them to look that way, and you just happen to know they are not intelligent.-That is my view. > > dhw: DAVID (under “Neanderthal”): > QUOTE: “According to the new findings, published in Genetics this month, Neanderthal genomes were rife with harmful DNA that significantly reduced the species' fitness. The researchers conclude that Neanderthals were roughly 40 percent less fit than modern humans, meaning they were less likely to produce offspring.” > > > dhw: Did your God deliberately plan their harmful DNA so they would die out? And did he plan every external environmental change that destroyed his carefully planned old species or encouraged his carefully planned new species? -You know I have no way of knowing. I know He uses evolution to produce a bush of possible advanced results at all stages of evolution and very probably lets them battle it out > > DAVID (under “Homo naledi”) The human bush has all sorts of early groups. It fits the shotgun fashion of all of evolution. This website is from a creationist source, but it accepts the great age of these fossils. I see no reason to presume, if God wanted humans, ask why the bush? All of evolution is a bush. It is God's pattern of development. > > dhw: But it is not shotgun according to you. It is all planned! Organisms are not capable of doing anything except follow God's on-board instructions or succumb to his dabbling. Without autonomy, they are all his puppets.-No, my concept of a CM is that once turned on it can produce several varieties of programmed complexity. When it is turned on, it is at the request of the stressed or opportunistic organism (i.e.,oxygen appears) Just an attempt to explain how h-p the bush is.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
dhw: A discouraging turn-around since your agreement last week to the possibility of an autonomous inventive (or complexification) mechanism.-DAVID: I can imagine a complexification IM (or CM) that is programmed to produce several alternative complex mechanisms to solve changing environmental challenges -Also: ...my concept of a CM is that once turned on it can produce several varieties of programmed complexity. When it is turned on, it is at the request of the stressed or opportunistic organism...-So back you go to your multiple choice, but since each one is preprogrammed, the only freedom your organisms might have is to choose one of the given alternatives. Do you mean they can choose a right one (“I've changed but I'm still alive!”) or a wrong one ("Farewell, world!”), or they can choose to become a horse, a hippo or a hyena? Can you really imagine those first tiny cells containing and passing on all those millions of multiple choice programmes for every species and variation and natural wonder in the history of life, all of them somehow surviving the environmental changes, not to mention the “bad luck, wrong choice” blunders? Well yes, obviously you can. I'm afraid I can't. Especially when there is a simpler alternative: just imagine that what looks intelligent might actually be intelligent. But that's apparently too much for your imagination.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Saturday, June 18, 2016, 14:26 (2875 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Can you really imagine those first tiny cells containing and passing on all those millions of multiple choice programmes for every species and variation and natural wonder in the history of life, all of them somehow surviving the environmental changes, not to mention the “bad luck, wrong choice” blunders? Well yes, obviously you can. I'm afraid I can't. Especially when there is a simpler alternative: just imagine that what looks intelligent might actually be intelligent. But that's apparently too much for your imagination.-And I would again ask you, where does that cellular intelligence come from? That is as deep an issue as how did life start? Remember life's origin and afterward is a continuum. Intelligence was present at the beginning or it developed by learning. How do simple cells have the capacity to learn unless they develop it or are given the capacity. I have all the imagination you have, but my biologic training has conditioned me to accept only the point of view I express. You just invoke your wild imagination to gloss over these questions, or you give a nod of your head to the possibility of God. More than a possibility.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
dhw: Can you really imagine those first tiny cells containing and passing on all those millions of multiple choice programmes for every species and variation and natural wonder in the history of life, all of them somehow surviving the environmental changes, not to mention the “bad luck, wrong choice” blunders? Well yes, obviously you can. I'm afraid I can't. Especially when there is a simpler alternative: just imagine that what looks intelligent might actually be intelligent. But that's apparently too much for your imagination.-DAVID: And I would again ask you, where does that cellular intelligence come from? That is as deep an issue as how did life start? Remember life's origin and afterward is a continuum. Intelligence was present at the beginning or it developed by learning. How do simple cells have the capacity to learn unless they develop it or are given the capacity. I have all the imagination you have, but my biologic training has conditioned me to accept only the point of view I express. You just invoke your wild imagination to gloss over these questions, or you give a nod of your head to the possibility of God. More than a possibility.-There is no glossing over on my part. The difference between us lies in your refusal to accept the possibility of cellular intelligence. I have acknowledged a hundred times that your God MAY have created it, but you would not accept it even if I said categorically that your God MUST have created it. As far as your biologic training is concerned, it may have taught you that cells are automatons, but please don't tell me it taught you that your God provided the first cells with multiple choice programmes to be passed on through countless generations of organisms and countless environmental changes, to produce every innovation and natural wonder in the history of evolution (apart from when he dabbled). Do you truly find this imagining less “wild” than the possibility that what looks intelligent might actually be intelligent?
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Sunday, June 19, 2016, 15:12 (2874 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: There is no glossing over on my part. The difference between us lies in your refusal to accept the possibility of cellular intelligence. I have acknowledged a hundred times that your God MAY have created it, but you would not accept it even if I said categorically that your God MUST have created it.-I know that is as close as you can get to recognizing intelligent design, which results in cells that look intelligent.-> dhw; As far as your biologic training is concerned, it may have taught you that cells are automatons, but please don't tell me it taught you that your God provided the first cells with multiple choice programmes to be passed on through countless generations of organisms and countless environmental changes, to produce every innovation and natural wonder in the history of evolution (apart from when he dabbled). Do you truly find this imagining less “wild” than the possibility that what looks intelligent might actually be intelligent?-We look at Shapiro's bacteria only from outside and we see intelligent responses. After that all we have interpretation. I'll stay with mine that they are designed to react intelligently to stimuli.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
dhw: There is no glossing over on my part. The difference between us lies in your refusal to accept the possibility of cellular intelligence. I have acknowledged a hundred times that your God MAY have created it, but you would not accept it even if I said categorically that your God MUST have created it. DAVID: I know that is as close as you can get to recognizing intelligent design, which results in cells that look intelligent.-Ugh, they are intelligently designed to look intelligent? The theistic choice here is between cells divinely preprogrammed and cells divinely endowed with their own intelligence. And if we cannot tell the difference, we cannot dismiss either hypothesis. dhw; As far as your biologic training is concerned, it may have taught you that cells are automatons, but please don't tell me it taught you that your God provided the first cells with multiple choice programmes to be passed on through countless generations of organisms and countless environmental changes, to produce every innovation and natural wonder in the history of evolution (apart from when he dabbled). Do you truly find this imagining less “wild” than the possibility that what looks intelligent might actually be intelligent? DAVID: We look at Shapiro's bacteria only from outside and we see intelligent responses. After that all we have interpretation. I'll stay with mine that they are designed to react intelligently to stimuli.-Your last sentence fits in with my hypothesis (theistic version): your God designed them so that they would use their intelligence to react intelligently. Your version is that they are designed to react automatically to stimuli, since they can do nothing but obey God's 3.8-billion-year-old instructions on how to deal with every imaginable stimulus. Meanwhile, you continue to “gloss over” the ever multiplying complexities and anomalies of your own hypothesis. Perhaps when you return you will finally tell us which of the two hypotheses makes the greater demands on the imagination.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Sunday, June 26, 2016, 15:30 (2867 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We look at Shapiro's bacteria only from outside and we see intelligent responses. After that all we have interpretation. I'll stay with mine that they are designed to react intelligently to stimuli. > > dhw: Your last sentence fits in with my hypothesis (theistic version): your God designed them so that they would use their intelligence to react intelligently. Your version is that they are designed to react automatically to stimuli, since they can do nothing but obey God's 3.8-billion-year-old instructions on how to deal with every imaginable stimulus. Meanwhile, you continue to “gloss over” the ever multiplying complexities and anomalies of your own hypothesis. Perhaps when you return you will finally tell us which of the two hypotheses makes the greater demands on the imagination.-I'm back, unchanged. I don't see the complexities you see. I don't imagine that bacteria are intelligent. They are intelligently designed. Period.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
DAVID: We look at Shapiro's bacteria only from outside and we see intelligent responses. After that all we have interpretation. I'll stay with mine that they are designed to react intelligently to stimuli.-dhw: Your last sentence fits in with my hypothesis (theistic version): your God designed them so that they would use their intelligence to react intelligently. Your version is that they are designed to react automatically to stimuli, since they can do nothing but obey God's 3.8-billion-year-old instructions on how to deal with every imaginable stimulus. Meanwhile, you continue to “gloss over” the ever multiplying complexities and anomalies of your own hypothesis. Perhaps when you return you will finally tell us which of the two hypotheses makes the greater demands on the imagination.-DAVID: I'm back, unchanged. I don't see the complexities you see. I don't imagine that bacteria are intelligent. They are intelligently designed. Period.-Aw, come on. You don't see the complexities involved in providing the first cells with a computer programme to create every single innovation and natural wonder in the 3.8-billion- year history of life on Earth so far (possibly even with multiple choices to select from), and to equip bacteria with the solution to every single problem - all this to be passed down through millions of generations and organisms, surviving countless environmental changes that may or may not have been planned as well? You don't see these complexities? And yet you complain when atheists don't see the complexities of organisms as evidence for design. (See the “Sex” thread for more on this and for dabbling.)
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 28, 2016, 21:04 (2865 days ago) @ dhw
dhw; You don't see the complexities involved in providing the first cells with a computer programme to create every single innovation and natural wonder in the 3.8-billion- year history of life on Earth so far (possibly even with multiple choices to select from), - You are creating more complexities for the origin of life by leaving out the alternate concept of dabbling. That is why I offer both. - > dhw: and to equip bacteria with the solution to every single problem - all this to be passed down through millions of generations and organisms, surviving countless environmental changes that may or may not have been planned as well? - Again, not remembering: bacteria only have a few reactions to exhibit. Approach food, avoid noxious material, quorum sense, horizontally transfer DNA. Not many reactions, are there? Not overly complex. And besides the very first E. coli still exists, because all they do to reproduce is split in two. Where is the complexity?
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
dhw; You don't see the complexities involved in providing the first cells with a computer programme to create every single innovation and natural wonder in the 3.8-billion- year history of life on Earth so far (possibly even with multiple choices to select from)... - DAVID: You are creating more complexities for the origin of life by leaving out the alternate concept of dabbling. That is why I offer both. - I usually remember to put it in (as you will see in the other posts), but the choice between God preprogramming and personally dabbling the countless millions of innovations and wonders (all for the sake of humans) only adds to the complexities which you apparently cannot see! - dhw: ...and to equip bacteria with the solution to every single problem - all this to be passed down through millions of generations and organisms, surviving countless environmental changes that may or may not have been planned as well? - DAVID: Again, not remembering: bacteria only have a few reactions to exhibit. Approach food, avoid noxious material, quorum sense, horizontally transfer DNA. Not many reactions, are there? Not overly complex. And besides the very first E. coli still exists, because all they do to reproduce is split in two. Where is the complexity? - What you have quoted was all one sentence: all the innovations and natural wonders and solutions for bacteria to be passed down through millions of generations etc. You have ignored the latter complexity. - However, I am not saying bacteria lead complex lives. The point is that they seem able to adapt themselves to virtually any environment and any threat (i.e. to solve all kinds of problems). As I've mentioned a couple of times before, I find it somewhat difficult to believe that (let alone understand why) your God either preprogrammed them to resist antibiotics, for instance, or went rushing round the world teaching them what to do in order to counter the threat. These are the complexities you say you cannot see.
Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 29, 2016, 15:02 (2864 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: You are creating more complexities for the origin of life by leaving out the alternate concept of dabbling. That is why I offer both. > > dhw: I usually remember to put it in (as you will see in the other posts), but the choice between God preprogramming and personally dabbling the countless millions of innovations and wonders (all for the sake of humans) only adds to the complexities which you apparently cannot see!-I see all of it. It is the reason for dabbles. > > dhw: However, I am not saying bacteria lead complex lives. The point is that they seem able to adapt themselves to virtually any environment and any threat (i.e. to solve all kinds of problems). As I've mentioned a couple of times before, I find it somewhat difficult to believe that (let alone understand why) your God either preprogrammed them to resist antibiotics, for instance, or went rushing round the world teaching them what to do in order to counter the threat. These are the complexities you say you cannot see.-I'm the guy who has presented extremophiles! These are not simple adaptations. For me it must be saltations, or dabbles, because at this level we are talking about the intricacies of metabolism, not simple living reactions. This is species creation. You are the one who is not seeing the difference clearly.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Friday, June 17, 2016, 01:19 (2876 days ago) @ dhw
These organs are amazing instruments with a huge range of sound, and it appears we are not using all of it!-http://phys.org/news/2016-06-pitch-range-vocal-cords.html-"It's absolutely amazing how nature has created a compound, laminated string to cover a pitch range that is difficult, by any stretch of the imagination, to cover with one string," Titze says.-***-"At birth, vocal cords are composed of a uniform, gel-like material. As the vocal cords mature, fibers develop within the gel, eventually forming a multilayered, laminated string. Imagine a set of guitar strings glued close together with gelatin.-"Fibers throughout the vocal cord layers are linked together, however, so that while some layers may be under different amounts of tension than others, the layers do not vibrate independently of each other. Returning to our guitar-strings-in-gelatin analogy, when one string is plucked, the entire gel-fiber set shakes along with it. The muscles in the larynx further modulate the sound the cords produce, lengthening and shortening the cords to change the pitch.-***-"Titze's investigations into vocal cord structure also reveal something more primitive. Titze says that vocalization evolved to help primates communicate over long distances by using high and loud calls. Modern human speech communication, however, does not make much use of the wide pitch and loudness range of the mammalian larynx.-"That capacity is still inherent in our vocal cords, he says, but so much of our communication is electronically modulated and amplified, with even professional singers aided by microphones, that our vocal cords are rarely put to their full use.-"'If you never stretch your vocal cords and never do high pitches or loud voice, eventually the ligament will atrophy into a simpler structure and you won't have that range available to you," Titze says.-***-"Despite the complexities of the vocal cord structure, Titze says he was surprised at how well the model of a simple vibrating string explained the cord's range. "Most people would laugh at using a simple vibrating string model for something as complicated as a 3-D, nonhomogeneous tissue structure," he says. "But the string model does an incredibly good job of explaining this range of frequencies.'" -Comment: We have been given an amazing organ in the vocal cords, more capacity than we need. A good question is why they have all of this capacity when not required by evolution? Perhaps given as an extra complex design?
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
QUOTES: "Titze's investigations into vocal cord structure also reveal something more primitive. Titze says that vocalization evolved to help primates communicate over long distances by using high and loud calls. Modern human speech communication, however, does not make much use of the wide pitch and loudness range of the mammalian larynx.-"That capacity is still inherent in our vocal cords, he says, but so much of our communication is electronically modulated and amplified, with even professional singers aided by microphones, that our vocal cords are rarely put to their full use. "'If you never stretch your vocal cords and never do high pitches or loud voice, eventually the ligament will atrophy into a simpler structure and you won't have that range available to you," Titze says.-David's comment: We have been given an amazing organ in the vocal cords, more capacity than we need. A good question is why they have all of this capacity when not required by evolution? Perhaps given as an extra complex design?-The quotes give a clear explanation: our ancestors needed the greater range, but when we developed our more sophisticated means of communication, the greater range became unnecessary. It's only a problem if you think your God planned every inch of your anatomy for a special purpose.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Friday, June 17, 2016, 20:18 (2876 days ago) @ dhw
> David's comment: We have been given an amazing organ in the vocal cords, more capacity than we need. A good question is why they have all of this capacity when not required by evolution? Perhaps given as an extra complex design? > > dhw: The quotes give a clear explanation: our ancestors needed the greater range, but when we developed our more sophisticated means of communication, the greater range became unnecessary. It's only a problem if you think your God planned every inch of your anatomy for a special purpose.-I don't know that He did, but the clear choice is our voice mechanism is very advanced and different in degree and kind from the apes. God probably knew we would have opera singers as we invented great music with our constructive imaginations. I haven't heard an ape-produced anthem yet.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Saturday, December 10, 2016, 23:38 (2699 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Sunday, December 11, 2016, 00:05
Current research on monkeys, using special x-ray video techniques, finds that monkeys have the facility to speak with their current anatomy if they only had a brain to employ the ability. They don't:
http://medienportal.univie.ac.at/presse/aktuelle-pressemeldungen/detailansicht/artikel/...
"Monkeys and apes are unable to learn new vocalizations, and for decades it has been widely believed that this inability results from limitations of their vocal anatomy: larynx, tongue and lips. But an international team of scientists, led by Tecumseh Fitch at the University of Vienna and Asif Ghazanfar at Princeton University, has now looked inside monkeys' vocal tracts with x-rays, and found them to be much more flexible than thought before. The study indicates that the limitations that keep nonhuman primates from speaking are in their brains, rather than their vocal anatomy.
"The scientists used x-ray video to see within the mouth and throat of macaque monkeys induced to vocalize, eat food, or make facial expressions. They then used these x-rays to build a computer model of a monkey vocal tract, allowing them to answer the question "what would monkey speech sound like, if a human brain were in control?" This showed that monkeys could easily produce many different sounds, enough to produce thousands of distinct words. Examples of synthesized monkey speech can be heard here:
"This implies that a basic form of spoken language could have evolved at any time in human evolution, without requiring any changes in vocal anatomy."
Another source article:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2115693-monkeys-should-be-able-to-talk-just-like-u...
"No one can say now that there’s a vocal anatomy problem with monkey speech,” says Asif Ghazanfar at Princeton University, and co-leader of the study team. “They have a speech-ready vocal anatomy, but not a speech-ready brain. Now we need to find out why the human but not the monkey brain can produce language.”
***
"What we’ve discovered is that the monkey vocal anatomy is capable of creating speech intelligible to us,” says Ghazanfar. But, he says, the macaques lack a speech-ready brain to control it.
"The team says its study also implies that the evolution of human speech capabilities required neural changes rather than modifications to vocal anatomy.
"There’s a growing body of evidence from all great ape species that there are few neural limitations,” he says. “Our closest relatives can vocally learn new vowel-like and consonant-like calls, both in the wild and in captivity.”
"Ghazanfar agrees that the evidence for their ability to make speech-like sounds is increasing, but says it is still limited. For example, he says, no monkey or ape comes close to the range of human-speech like sounds produced by one-year-old human babies.
Comment: Be sure to listen to the computer generated 'speech' examples on both websites. It appears our human specialized anatomy for speech improves our use of language, but is not required for a basic spoken language.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
DAVID: Current research on monkeys, using special x-ray video techniques, finds that monkeys have the facility to speak with their current anatomy if they only had a brain to employ the ability. They don't:
http://medienportal.univie.ac.at/presse/aktuelle-pressemeldungen/detailansicht/artikel/...
Unfortunately, I couldn’t gain access to the whole article, but I must once more thank you for your integrity in presenting evidence that runs contrary to your own theories. Throughout this particular discussion, you have emphasized the enormous physical changes needed for human speech. You argued that God must have preprogrammed or dabbled such changes, and I argued that the need for new sounds would have triggered the cell communities to make the changes. If this latest research is correct, we were both wrong. It would seem that the need for new sounds (engendered by our enhanced consciousness giving us access to so many more aspects of the world around us) simply triggered far more expansive use of existing vocal mechanisms. An important contribution to the case for common descent, though of course it does not solve the mystery of our enhanced consciousness.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Sunday, December 11, 2016, 15:52 (2699 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Current research on monkeys, using special x-ray video techniques, finds that monkeys have the facility to speak with their current anatomy if they only had a brain to employ the ability. They don't:
http://medienportal.univie.ac.at/presse/aktuelle-pressemeldungen/detailansicht/artikel/...
dhw: Unfortunately, I couldn’t gain access to the whole article, but I must once more thank you for your integrity in presenting evidence that runs contrary to your own theories. Throughout this particular discussion, you have emphasized the enormous physical changes needed for human speech. You argued that God must have preprogrammed or dabbled such changes, and I argued that the need for new sounds would have triggered the cell communities to make the changes. If this latest research is correct, we were both wrong. It would seem that the need for new sounds (engendered by our enhanced consciousness giving us access to so many more aspects of the world around us) simply triggered far more expansive use of existing vocal mechanisms. An important contribution to the case for common descent, though of course it does not solve the mystery of our enhanced consciousness.
Don't jump to conclusions. We are not 'both wrong'. It is true this research shows monkeys could speak if they had the brain power. But in human evolution marked changes in the anatomy of the vocal tract preceded the use of language as the brain enlarged. One must pay attention to the sequence of evolutionary events.
As for your difficulty to get to the website, it appears to be a problem in this website. When I return to my entry the site appears easily. I have had problems in past entries to have sites reappear. I've alerted Neil to the problem earlier this week with an example but he has not responded as yet.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
DAVID: Current research on monkeys, using special x-ray video techniques, finds that monkeys have the facility to speak with their current anatomy if they only had a brain to employ the ability. They don't:
http://medienportal.univie.ac.at/presse/aktuelle-pressemeldungen/detailansicht/artikel/...
dhw: Unfortunately, I couldn’t gain access to the whole article, but I must once more thank you for your integrity in presenting evidence that runs contrary to your own theories. Throughout this particular discussion, you have emphasized the enormous physical changes needed for human speech. You argued that God must have preprogrammed or dabbled such changes, and I argued that the need for new sounds would have triggered the cell communities to make the changes. If this latest research is correct, we were both wrong. It would seem that the need for new sounds (engendered by our enhanced consciousness giving us access to so many more aspects of the world around us) simply triggered far more expansive use of existing vocal mechanisms. An important contribution to the case for common descent, though of course it does not solve the mystery of our enhanced consciousness.
DAVID: Don't jump to conclusions. We are not 'both wrong'. It is true this research shows monkeys could speak if they had the brain power. But in human evolution marked changes in the anatomy of the vocal tract preceded the use of language as the brain enlarged. One must pay attention to the sequence of evolutionary events.
QUOTE: "Monkeys and apes are unable to learn new vocalizations, and for decades it has been widely believed that this inability results from limitations of their vocal anatomy: larynx, tongue and lips. But an international team of scientists, led by Tecumseh Fitch at the University of Vienna and Asif Ghazanfar at Princeton University, has now looked inside monkeys' vocal tracts with x-rays, and found them to be much more flexible than thought before. The study indicates that the limitations that keep nonhuman primates from speaking are in their brains, rather than their vocal anatomy.”
I’m in no position to argue with them or with you about the anatomical details. My comments were based on what the researchers have told us, and if they are correct, then there is no point arguing that human language was made possible by changes to the larynx, tongue and lips. If they are wrong, then you will stick to your divine preparatory dabbling, and I will stick to my cell communities responding to the need for new sounds.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Monday, December 12, 2016, 17:28 (2698 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Don't jump to conclusions. We are not 'both wrong'. It is true this research shows monkeys could speak if they had the brain power. But in human evolution marked changes in the anatomy of the vocal tract preceded the use of language as the brain enlarged. One must pay attention to the sequence of evolutionary events.QUOTE: "Monkeys and apes are unable to learn new vocalizations, and for decades it has been widely believed that this inability results from limitations of their vocal anatomy: larynx, tongue and lips. But an international team of scientists, led by Tecumseh Fitch at the University of Vienna and Asif Ghazanfar at Princeton University, has now looked inside monkeys' vocal tracts with x-rays, and found them to be much more flexible than thought before. The study indicates that the limitations that keep nonhuman primates from speaking are in their brains, rather than their vocal anatomy.”
dhw: I’m in no position to argue with them or with you about the anatomical details. My comments were based on what the researchers have told us, and if they are correct, then there is no point arguing that human language was made possible by changes to the larynx, tongue and lips. If they are wrong, then you will stick to your divine preparatory dabbling, and I will stick to my cell communities responding to the need for new sounds.
To protect your favorite theory, you persist in ignoring facts I present to you. In his book, The Ape that Spoke , Mc Crone discusses vocal tract changes in pre-sapiens human fossils million of years before modern language appeared. He describes what H. erectus speech might have sounded like, before modern language appeared. And if they needed it, why did ape and monkey cell communities fail to develop their brains for speech since you make it sound so simple whenever you call it into play..
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
QUOTE: "Monkeys and apes are unable to learn new vocalizations, and for decades it has been widely believed that this inability results from limitations of their vocal anatomy: larynx, tongue and lips. But an international team of scientists, led by Tecumseh Fitch at the University of Vienna and Asif Ghazanfar at Princeton University, has now looked inside monkeys' vocal tracts with x-rays, and found them to be much more flexible than thought before. The study indicates that the limitations that keep nonhuman primates from speaking are in their brains, rather than their vocal anatomy.”
dhw: I’m in no position to argue with them or with you about the anatomical details. My comments were based on what the researchers have told us, and if they are correct, then there is no point arguing that human language was made possible by changes to the larynx, tongue and lips. If they are wrong, then you will stick to your divine preparatory dabbling, and I will stick to my cell communities responding to the need for new sounds.
DAVID: To protect your favorite theory, you persist in ignoring facts I present to you. In his book, The Ape that Spoke , Mc Crone discusses vocal tract changes in pre-sapiens human fossils million of years before modern language appeared. He describes what H. erectus speech might have sounded like, before modern language appeared. And if they needed it, why did ape and monkey cell communities fail to develop their brains for speech since you make it sound so simple whenever you call it into play.
Once again, I can only judge by what the experts tell us. I assume that McCrone shares your belief that certain changes were essential to the appearance of what you call “modern language”. The new research tells us they were not, and that monkey vocal organs are not as restricted as we thought they were. Did McCrone know that? He is of course welcome to imagine what homo erectus’s speech might have sounded like. We have already discussed what you mean by “modern language”. I proposed that early humans communicated with limited sounds, just like their fellow animals, but these gradually became more complex as their enhanced consciousness required more and more of them. No “modern language” as such – just a step-by-step evolution of sounds and structures, in precisely the same manner as languages continue to evolve today, though we now have the written word as well. The only new factor we have now is the suggestion that early humans didn't need specially developed voice mechanisms to begin this process. As regards the "failure" to develop the brain, you have ignored my earlier comment, which was that this new research does not explain our enhanced consciousness. That is one of the great mysteries which enable me to accept the possibility of divine intervention, though perhaps you have forgotten that I am an agnostic.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 13, 2016, 19:34 (2697 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Once again, I can only judge by what the experts tell us. I assume that McCrone shares your belief that certain changes were essential to the appearance of what you call “modern language”. The new research tells us they were not, and that monkey vocal organs are not as restricted as we thought they were. Did McCrone know that?
McCrone (1991) did not know what has been discovered now about monkeys and apes. But his point that our speech anatomy changed tremendously before modern language developed is still the same.
dhw: I proposed that early humans communicated with limited sounds, just like their fellow animals, but these gradually became more complex as their enhanced consciousness required more and more of them. No “modern language” as such – just a step-by-step evolution of sounds and structures,
Again structure came first, but you are correct, our ancestors had to learn to use their new anatomy and gradually developed proto-language which gradually modernized. The arrival of H. sapiens cemented the final event which was complex language, spoken reading, and writing.
dhw: in precisely the same manner as languages continue to evolve today, though we now have the written word as well. The only new factor we have now is the suggestion that early humans didn't need specially developed voice mechanisms to begin this process.
Once again an atomic changes came early and before current language usage.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
dhw: Once again, I can only judge by what the experts tell us. I assume that McCrone shares your belief that certain changes were essential to the appearance of what you call “modern language”. The new research tells us they were not, and that monkey vocal organs are not as restricted as we thought they were. Did McCrone know that?
DAVID: McCrone (1991) did not know what has been discovered now about monkeys and apes. But his point that our speech anatomy changed tremendously before modern language developed is still the same.
I don’t know where ancient languages ended and “modern” languages began. Nor does anyone else. I regard my proposal below as being just as reasonable as the hypothesis that there was a sudden change when God intervened and fiddled with our vocal tracts. And if it is true that monkeys are capable of making the same sounds as us, I would regard that as supporting my case.
dhw: I proposed that early humans communicated with limited sounds, just like their fellow animals, but these gradually became more complex as their enhanced consciousness required more and more of them. No “modern language” as such – just a step-by-step evolution of sounds and structures, in precisely the same manner as languages continue to evolve today, though we now have the written word as well. The only new factor we have now is the suggestion that early humans didn't need specially developed voice mechanisms to begin this process.
DAVID: Again structure came first, but you are correct, our ancestors had to learn to use their new anatomy and gradually developed proto-language which gradually modernized. The arrival of H. sapiens cemented the final event which was complex language, spoken reading, and writing.
I agree that proto-language evolved into the complex language we have today. What preceded protolanguage is a matter of speculation.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 14, 2016, 15:03 (2696 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:I regard my proposal below as being just as reasonable as the hypothesis that there was a sudden change when God intervened and fiddled with our vocal tracts.
The fossil record is incontrovertible that the vocal tracts changed with each prior species of Homo prior to sapiens and with sapiens.
dhw: And if it is true that monkeys are capable of making the same sounds as us, I would regard that as supporting my case.
Their ability to speak as we do is theoretical. Mc Crone talks about tongue muscle control, lip control, clipped breath control as issues to be handled. Monkeys could learn all of that as muscles are trained, if they had the brains. Muscle controls must be developed.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
dhw:I regard my proposal below as being just as reasonable as the hypothesis that there was a sudden change when God intervened and fiddled with our vocal tracts.
DAVID: The fossil record is incontrovertible that the vocal tracts changed with each prior species of Homo prior to sapiens and with sapiens.
But that does not mean God intervened and fiddled with our vocal tracts before we could speak. My alternative is that the need to make new sounds resulted in changes to the vocal tract, just as physical exercises can develop muscles.
dhw: And if it is true that monkeys are capable of making the same sounds as us, I would regard that as supporting my case.
DAVID: Their ability to speak as we do is theoretical. Mc Crone talks about tongue muscle control, lip control, clipped breath control as issues to be handled. Monkeys could learn all of that as muscles are trained, if they had the brains. Muscle controls must be developed.
Agreed. The case made by the new research is that monkeys can’t speak like us because they don’t have the brains, not because they don’t have the vocal apparatus. But it doesn’t really make any difference to our disagreement. You think your God gave us the apparatus first, just as you think he gave pre-whales their new anatomy before they entered the water. I suggest a natural process the other way round: we and the whales developed new apparatus as a result of new – perhaps self-imposed – needs (to make new sounds, to adopt an aquatic way of life). And both hypotheses are theoretical.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Thursday, December 15, 2016, 20:35 (2695 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Their ability to speak as we do is theoretical. Mc Crone talks about tongue muscle control, lip control, clipped breath control as issues to be handled. Monkeys could learn all of that as muscles are trained, if they had the brains. Muscle controls must be developed.dhw: Agreed. The case made by the new research is that monkeys can’t speak like us because they don’t have the brains, not because they don’t have the vocal apparatus. But it doesn’t really make any difference to our disagreement. You think your God gave us the apparatus first, just as you think he gave pre-whales their new anatomy before they entered the water. I suggest a natural process the other way round: we and the whales developed new apparatus as a result of new – perhaps self-imposed – needs (to make new sounds, to adopt an aquatic way of life). And both hypotheses are theoretical.
Except, we have fully accepted evidence that anatomic vocal tract bony changes started with or before H. habilis, a couple million years ago. Habilis appeared with the changes. Do you think Australopithecus thought, I need to find a way to communicate better than hand gestures? I still think God makes species, species don't make new ones by themselves.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
dhw: The case made by the new research is that monkeys can’t speak like us because they don’t have the brains, not because they don’t have the vocal apparatus. But it doesn’t really make any difference to our disagreement. You think your God gave us the apparatus first, just as you think he gave pre-whales their new anatomy before they entered the water. I suggest a natural process the other way round: we and the whales developed new apparatus as a result of new – perhaps self-imposed – needs (to make new sounds, to adopt an aquatic way of life). And both hypotheses are theoretical.
DAVID: Except, we have fully accepted evidence that anatomic vocal tract bony changes started with or before H. habilis, a couple million years ago. Habilis appeared with the changes. Do you think Australopithecus thought, I need to find a way to communicate better than hand gestures? I still think God makes species, species don't make new ones by themselves.
Our ancestors had voices. Monkeys have voices. Monkeys communicate with their voices and their hands. My guess is that early humans did the same. And as their enhanced consciousness brought the need for enhanced communication, they used their voices to produce new sounds, and just as physical exercise can influence the muscles, the effort to produce new sounds brought changes to the vocal tracts. As I said, the new discovery doesn't actually change our basic premise. But I still think it favours mine over yours, if it's true that the physical capability was already present in monkeys. No need, then, for your God to fiddle around.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Friday, December 16, 2016, 20:07 (2694 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Except, we have fully accepted evidence that anatomic vocal tract bony changes started with or before H. habilis, a couple million years ago. Habilis appeared with the changes. Do you think Australopithecus thought, I need to find a way to communicate better than hand gestures? I still think God makes species, species don't make new ones by themselves.
dhw: Our ancestors had voices. Monkeys have voices. Monkeys communicate with their voices and their hands. My guess is that early humans did the same. And as their enhanced consciousness brought the need for enhanced communication, they used their voices to produce new sounds, and just as physical exercise can influence the muscles, the effort to produce new sounds brought changes to the vocal tracts. As I said, the new discovery doesn't actually change our basic premise. But I still think it favours mine over yours, if it's true that the physical capability was already present in monkeys. No need, then, for your God to fiddle around.
You stated above: "the effort to produce new sounds brought changes to the vocal tracts". Really? Produced new hominin species just by vocalizing? The vocal tract changes in each new pre-sapiens form also came with all sorts of other phenotypic alterations at the same time. I'll stick with God as the producer of new species with all their newly changed parts.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
DAVID: Except, we have fully accepted evidence that anatomic vocal tract bony changes started with or before H. habilis, a couple million years ago. Habilis appeared with the changes. Do you think Australopithecus thought, I need to find a way to communicate better than hand gestures? I still think God makes species, species don't make new ones by themselves.
dhw: Our ancestors had voices. Monkeys have voices. Monkeys communicate with their voices and their hands. My guess is that early humans did the same. And as their enhanced consciousness brought the need for enhanced communication, they used their voices to produce new sounds, and just as physical exercise can influence the muscles, the effort to produce new sounds brought changes to the vocal tracts. As I said, the new discovery doesn't actually change our basic premise. But I still think it favours mine over yours, if it's true that the physical capability was already present in monkeys. No need, then, for your God to fiddle around.
DAVID: You stated above: "the effort to produce new sounds brought changes to the vocal tracts". Really? Produced new hominin species just by vocalizing? The vocal tract changes in each new pre-sapiens form also came with all sorts of other phenotypic alterations at the same time. I'll stick with God as the producer of new species with all their newly changed parts.
That is an absurd exaggeration of my proposal. Nowhere have I suggested that vocalization caused speciation! Nobody knows how speciation happens, and nobody knows the cause of enhanced human consciousness. Two points arise from this discussion of vocal tracts. Firstly, you insist that your God dabbled or preprogrammed all the different vocal tracts and all the different phenotypic alterations that resulted in different species of hominin, although his purpose was to produce sapiens. Why do you think he did so, instead of going straight to sapiens if sapiens was his purpose?
Secondly, as regards the vocal tracts themselves, unless I’ve misunderstood you, your suggestion is that thanks to your God changing the physiology, humans discovered they could make new sounds, and the fact that they could make new sounds enabled them to enhance their consciousness. I suggest that enhanced consciousness (cause unknown) required new sounds, which led to developments in the vocal tracts. You believe the ability to make new sounds led to thought, whereas I propose that thought led to the ability to make new sounds. Speech before thought, or thought before speech? I know which one I consider more logical.
Xxxxx
Thank you for the extremely interesting article on big brain evolution, which really does expand our discussion and raises important questions relating to all the above. I will get back to you on this.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Saturday, December 17, 2016, 14:52 (2693 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Firstly, you insist that your God dabbled or preprogrammed all the different vocal tracts and all the different phenotypic alterations that resulted in different species of hominin, although his purpose was to produce sapiens. Why do you think he did so, instead of going straight to sapiens if sapiens was his purpose?
Answered many times before: God uses the evolutionary method for progress. Only religions use the Garden of Eden.
dhw: You believe the ability to make new sounds led to thought, whereas I propose that thought led to the ability to make new sounds. Speech before thought, or thought before speech? I know which one I consider more logical.
Many thoughtful folks I read point out that we think in words which is what expands our ability to conceptualize and develop abstract thought. Speech before deep thought.
Xxxxxdhw: Thank you for the extremely interesting article on big brain evolution, which really does expand our discussion and raises important questions relating to all the above. I will get back to you on this.
I was delighted to discover that article. Thank you.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
dhw: Firstly, you insist that your God dabbled or preprogrammed all the different vocal tracts and all the different phenotypic alterations that resulted in different species of hominin, although his purpose was to produce sapiens. Why do you think he did so, instead of going straight to sapiens if sapiens was his purpose?
DAVID: Answered many times before: God uses the evolutionary method for progress. Only religions use the Garden of Eden.
And yet (4 December at 17.33 under "automatic molecular actions") you can’t actually explain why he didn’t start at the Garden of Eden. You simply assume that you know his purpose, and so it doesn’t matter if the method doesn’t make sense to you. Whereas if your God intended organisms to find their own ways of survival and improvement, that would explain why different species of hominin came and went, and 99% of other species also came and went, in the great higgledy-piggledy of evolution. At a stroke it would rid you of all those aspects of evolutionary history you find so puzzling.
dhw: You believe the ability to make new sounds led to thought, whereas I propose that thought led to the ability to make new sounds. Speech before thought, or thought before speech? I know which one I consider more logical.
DAVID: Many thoughtful folks I read point out that we think in words which is what expands our ability to conceptualize and develop abstract thought. Speech before deep thought.
Of course we think in words that have already been invented, but how do you imagine words get invented in the first place? Do you believe your God says to somebody “computer” and then somebody invents a computer? Every word in the great collective store of every language must have had its origin in an object or idea that needed a NEW “sound” (word) to express it. The object or thought precedes the invention of the word that describes it. Then, and only then, do we the inheritors use the words in our thoughts.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Sunday, December 18, 2016, 21:39 (2692 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Many thoughtful folks I read point out that we think in words which is what expands our ability to conceptualize and develop abstract thought. Speech before deep thought.dhw: Of course we think in words that have already been invented, but how do you imagine words get invented in the first place? Do you believe your God says to somebody “computer” and then somebody invents a computer? Every word in the great collective store of every language must have had its origin in an object or idea that needed a NEW “sound” (word) to express it. The object or thought precedes the invention of the word that describes it. Then, and only then, do we the inheritors use the words in our thoughts.
We are in agreement. Of course sounds with meaning, words, come first.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
DAVID: Many thoughtful folks I read point out that we think in words which is what expands our ability to conceptualize and develop abstract thought. Speech before deep thought.
dhw: Of course we think in words that have already been invented, but how do you imagine words get invented in the first place? Do you believe your God says to somebody “computer” and then somebody invents a computer? Every word in the great collective store of every language must have had its origin in an object or idea that needed a NEW “sound” (word) to express it. The object or thought precedes the invention of the word that describes it. Then, and only then, do we the inheritors use the words in our thoughts.
DAVID: We are in agreement. Of course sounds with meaning, words, come first.
You are agreeing with the exact opposite of what I have written. The object or thought comes first, and someone invents a word to describe it. Only after its invention does it become part of our thinking.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Monday, December 19, 2016, 15:31 (2691 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We are in agreement. Of course sounds with meaning, words, come first.dhw: You are agreeing with the exact opposite of what I have written. The object or thought comes first, and someone invents a word to describe it. Only after its invention does it become part of our thinking.
Objects certainly come first, and are given sounds to describe them. A thought like 'let us walk over there' has a more complex beginning. Each part of the thought has to have words developed to get rid of gesturing. I'm sure as you must think that the need for meaningful sounds created the drive for words, using the new larger brain
provided by evolution. Brain first, new words next.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
DAVID: We are in agreement. Of course sounds with meaning, words, come first.
dhw: You are agreeing with the exact opposite of what I have written. The object or thought comes first, and someone invents a word to describe it. Only after its invention does it become part of our thinking.
DAVID: Objects certainly come first, and are given sounds to describe them. A thought like 'let us walk over there' has a more complex beginning. Each part of the thought has to have words developed to get rid of gesturing.
The fact that some thoughts are more complex than others does not mean that the invention of the words precedes the thought!
DAVID: I'm sure as you must think that the need for meaningful sounds created the drive for words, using the new larger brain provided by evolution. Brain first, new words next.
I don’t understand your syntax, but yes, I believe the need for meaningful sounds to express each thought/object/perception/suggestion/decision etc. created the drive for words. And yes, I believe humans use their brain, just as our fellow animals do. And yes, without a brain, humans would not be able to think the thoughts that require the sounds out of which humans have made words. How does this support your view that the sounds/words were invented before the objects/thoughts they describe?
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Tuesday, December 20, 2016, 19:16 (2690 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: The fact that some thoughts are more complex than others does not mean that the invention of the words precedes the thought!DAVID: I'm sure as you must think that the need for meaningful sounds created the drive for words, using the new larger brain provided by evolution. Brain first, new words next.
I don’t understand your syntax, but yes, I believe the need for meaningful sounds to express each thought/object/perception/suggestion/decision etc. created the drive for words. And yes, I believe humans use their brain, just as our fellow animals do. And yes, without a brain, humans would not be able to think the thoughts that require the sounds out of which humans have made words. How does this support your view that the sounds/words were invented before the objects/thoughts they describe?
I think in words. How do you think? My dog goes to the kitchen for water because he knows it is there, no thought involved but the recognition of thirst.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
dhw: The fact that some thoughts are more complex than others does not mean that the invention of the words precedes the thought!
DAVID: I'm sure as you must think that the need for meaningful sounds created the drive for words, using the new larger brain provided by evolution. Brain first, new words next.
dhw: I don’t understand your syntax, but yes, I believe the need for meaningful sounds to express each thought/object/perception/suggestion/decision etc. created the drive for words. And yes, I believe humans use their brain, just as our fellow animals do. And yes, without a brain, humans would not be able to think the thoughts that require the sounds out of which humans have made words. How does this support your view that the sounds/words were invented before the objects/thoughts they describe?
DAVID: I think in words. How do you think? My dog goes to the kitchen for water because he knows it is there, no thought involved but the recognition of thirst.
An excellent example of how the process works, except that you have conveniently overlooked the fact that it illustrates how the thought would have preceded the INVENTION of the words. Our subject is the origin of language, not how words are used once they have been invented. Humans also recognized thirst, and invented a word to express it. Do you honestly believe that they would not have felt thirsty if they hadn’t had a word for it? Thirst first, then the word. But once the word has been invented, we use it in our thoughts.
Teleology & evolution: Vocal cord development
by David Turell , Wednesday, December 21, 2016, 21:00 (2689 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I think in words. How do you think? My dog goes to the kitchen for water because he knows it is there, no thought involved but the recognition of thirst.
dhw: An excellent example of how the process works, except that you have conveniently overlooked the fact that it illustrates how the thought would have preceded the INVENTION of the words. Our subject is the origin of language, not how words are used once they have been invented. Humans also recognized thirst, and invented a word to express it. Do you honestly believe that they would not have felt thirsty if they hadn’t had a word for it? Thirst first, then the word. But once the word has been invented, we use it in our thoughts.
You are generally correct. Our brains developed language when the brain we ere given had the proper neurological setup to handle it. Brain first, functions second.