An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, October 06, 2014, 00:01 (3490 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: It's your God or the organisms themselves that are inventive.) Then you go on to say “there is not absolutely tight pre-programming”. All of this amounts to autonomy, but the very idea that “inventive” = able to create new things and perform new actions that have not been preprogrammed ...The schism in your thinking is also clear from your final comment as regards the cell:
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> DAVID: Every process in the cell is like this. Each molecule acts as if it were individualy alive and thinking, just like workers in a factory. But they are simply following biochemical instructions-What I am describing is contrained autonomy, changes under guidelines tying the future to the past. I will never believe in complete autonomy of cells to do their own thing.
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> dhw: So where is the latitude, the sort of autonomy, the non-tight pre-programming? -Explained above as best I can. Innovation under constraint.-> dhw: You offer an example of the problem on your often breathtaking thread of “Nature's Wonders”, for which I can only go on thanking you:-> 
> So do you think your God preplanned these drastic morphological changes 3.7 billion years ago? Did he dabble personally.-No and no. Invention under provided guidelines. --> 
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> dhw:Thank you for the very important Talbott essay. I will get back to it tomorrow.-He sounds a lot like Shapiro, whom he quotes.