Extended Evolutionary Synthesis; another view (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, August 10, 2015, 13:08 (3181 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Monday, August 10, 2015, 14:43

dhw: ...if one cannot tell the difference from outside, and one can't get inside, the only means of access is through testing and observing..... Are you really so convinced that they are all deluded? 
DAVID: Not deluded, just a different interpretation of the known fact-“Deluded” = believing something that is not true. Since you are convinced that bacteria are automatons, you believe that Shapiro believes something that is not true. Dawkins believes that people who believe in God are deluded. You are - thank heavens! - more polite than Dawkins, but perhaps my use of the word will make you hesitate to dismiss completely the many years of research into what after all is a highly specialized subject. I am not denying your right to your opinion - I just wish it was a little less firm!-TONY: I don't doubt that organism have intelligence. I doubt the degree of that intelligence. Some intelligence is obviously needed for survival, but interspecies communication, planning, and coordination all take a level of communication that I've seen no evidence for.
dhw: The evidence is in the symbiosis itself. What evidence have you seen that God preprogrammed the various prototypes so that certain descendants (ah, common descent again!) would automatically communicate, plan and coordinate?-DAVID: Chicken and egg problem. The complicated relationships of symbiosis cannot develop by chance. Each organism has to plan its response in advance of the experimental relationship. The negotiations of the biochemical relationship would be as complex as the US-Iran 'deal'.-I like the example of the Egyptian plover and the Nile crocodile because it doesn't involve biochemical relationships - only communication and cooperation between the two organisms. Not so complex, but perhaps a guide as to how the process develops. Yes, all symbiotic relationships raise the chicken and egg problem, but I don't agree that each organism has to plan its response in advance of the experiment. I don't see why they shouldn't (sometimes) follow the same path as we often do, when we set out to see what will happen if....The first step might simply be communication and an agreement to cooperate. Tony's explanation (if he rejects autonomous intelligence) apparently entails God's preprogramming both variations of their respective prototypes at the same time, which at least is not quite so convoluted as your hypotheses that each programme for the organisms themselves and their symbiotic relationship was passed down by the first living cells (whose purpose was to create humans), or was the result of a personal dabble by God (whose purpose was to create humans).