causation (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, June 08, 2014, 15:01 (3609 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw:Your questions have nothing to do with pre-programming, which would mean that the cell communities had no freedom of their own but simply did as they had been instructed to do - the exact opposite of an organism that "guides its own destiny". How did the mechanisms come into being? Maybe your God created them. All of the comments referred to the course of evolution, not to the origin of the mechanisms that enable evolution to take place.-DAVID: But in my mind the mechanisms that allow organisms to self-direct and the processes that use mutation and natural selection are all part of evolution, working with informaton encoded in DNA and all the oher layers of genomic activity.
 
Agreed. These are the mechanisms that enable individual organisms to adapt and innovate.-DAVID: You are splitting things up. It is demonstrated that all of this is at work at the same time. Did each part ofhe evolutionary process start at the same time or did each part develop separately? I am on the side of 'same time'.-The only split I'm making is between the origin of the mechanisms for adaptation and innovation, and the manner in which evolution proceeded. Maybe your God created the mechanisms all at the same time. Who knows? This discussion is not about the origin. You have constantly insisted on preprogramming, preplanning and divine intervention as integral to the way evolution progressed. I find this inconsistent with the higgledy-piggledy bush, and have repeatedly suggested instead (I'm not as insistent on theories as you are) that the mechanisms are within the organisms, which do their own adapting and innovating in accordance with a changing environment. Since you have tactfully omitted it, let me repeat the seminal moment in your discussion with Romansh:
 
ROMANSH: ...evolution is guided by the environment a living creature finds itself. So in that sense it is guided.
DAVID: Have you followed the epigenetic mechanisms in which the organism seems to mimic Lamark? And guides its own destiny?-You said it: the organism guides its own destiny. I repeat: Hallelujah!