Innovation (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, May 11, 2013, 11:44 (4014 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Since life began with single cell organisms, every development had to be through cells combining in a new way, and every innovation had to take place within an existing organism. Of course each one had to be integrated with whatever was already there! If your God didn't "reach in" and manipulate the cells for every single new organ, then what you and I have agreed to call "the intelligent genome" did it through cooperation.
 
DAVID: You don't understand biology; not your fault. Organs are made up with different kinds of cells that must follow a plan just like the plan that built your house. Yes, all the parts have to cooperate, that is obvious, but individual pieces of limber, electric wires, air ducts, plumbing pipes all have their places of traverse and of operation. And by themselves they don't know where or how to set up unless they are used by builders who understand the house plan which is also their goal. No matter how smart the genome is, it has to contain a plan and a goal. Your house needed an architect It appears most likely the original separate organs did also. Talk about the chicken and the egg! [...]-I know your response will be the intelligent genome of each cell follows the master plan and the cells cooperate. Yes, they are forced to by the central plan in the genome. Who was the architect plan in the genome? It just cooperated itself among the cells to that final success of a competent liver? Your proposal is a hodgepodge. The development of the organs of the body need cental planning just as the Soviets did, but they failed, and our great planner gave us glorious bodies to enjoy. (my bold)-My thanks for a great lesson on how the liver works. But in between the house image and the biology lesson, you have confirmed that the PROCESS of innovation is exactly as I described it in the paragraph you have quoted. If I had said that this PROCESS, whereby cells cooperate in the invention of new organs as directed by the genome, was organized by God, you would have accepted everything I wrote. But because I suggest that the intelligent genome itself rather than God may be the architect, you focus on the biology!-As you well know, I do not believe or disbelieve my panpsychist version, and you are quite right to be incredulous. But perhaps you could explain to me HOW ELSE your own version might work. The invention of new organs is linked, we believe, to random changes in the environment. Does this mean, then, that God waits to see what is happening and then reaches into existing organisms to put in a new liver-inventing programme? Or did he preprogramme the very first forms of life to enable their descendants to produce a liver if a few million years later the environment should happen to demand one? The latter would mean that he preprogrammed every single innovation from the word go. The former would mean that he had to intervene to invent every new organ, in which case you might as well subscribe to separate creation rather than evolution. So do please tell us exactly how you think God organized innovation, and while you're at it, please explain how he intervenes. Does his infinite intelligence hone in telekinetically on the chosen few, or does he take them to his great lab in the sky, or merely say "Let there be livers..."? (My question is serious.)-dhw: Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.-DAVID: Evolution looks a lot more organized to me with a central drive toward more complexity.-DAVID: I left this to show how you are so wrong. You are describing chance response to chance changes to threats and environment.-No, I'm describing intelligent response to chance changes.-dhw: That is because you believe in a God with a purpose. The drive towards complexity is clear.-DAVID: The drive to complexity is 'clear' because evolution reeks of teleology.-I meant that it was clear because we can all see that it happened. My panpsychist hypothesis allows for teleology, in so far as every innovation has a purpose. But your teleology, of course, is divine.