Different in degree or kind: animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, December 31, 2015, 13:07 (3040 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Did the birds have to do that? No, they chose to do it, for whatever reasons. I asked whether God had to do it in order to produce humans, but you have not responded.
DAVID: I've seen all sorts of animals making choices of action, but choices of planning, I doubt it. -I don't know why you insist on ”planning”. Adaptation is not planned. Why can't improvements take place without prior planning? An organism can have an idea and if it works, it is retained. You seem to exclude trial and success from your evolutionary thinking.-DAVID: As for God's intentions, I've answered that over and over. I really don't know how the nest relates to human arrival. It may have nothing to do with it at all. You seem to require God to plan every little detail of everything. Did He is a good question. You've seen my reasoning as to why He planned for humans.-This is precisely the reason why I have constantly nagged you over the weaverbird's nest. See below.-dhw: I see giant changes from bacteria to all of them, and one such giant change is the colossal gap between our (current) mental powers and those of our fellow creatures. (I don't know about the earliest hominins.)But regardless of degree versus kind, what I cannot accept is that every other form of life throughout the history of evolution existed or exists for the benefit of humans.-DAVID: I don't know that everything exists for humans. You have extrapolated to that postulate question. All I contend is that humans were the goal and that diversity of animals and plants was required for the balance of nature for everyone.
-This is what I find so confusing. If God personally designed the weaverbird's nest, it is clearly absurd to say that humans were “THE goal”, unless you think God personally designed all of nature's wonders in his sleep, or they were all geared to THE goal. The balance of nature “for everyone” is also clearly absurd, because 99% of species have disappeared, so the balance of nature didn't work for “everyone”, did it? If humans were “THE goal”, you might say the 99% were not necessary for humans, in which case why design them in the first place? The weaverbird's nest presumably is necessary, but you don't know why. And here comes the crunch: You say to me: “You seem to require God to plan every little detail of everything.” It's not me, it's you who insist that God planned every little detail, like the weaverbird's nest! My proposal is that God, if he exists, did NOT plan every little detail of everything. He left it to the organisms to do their own thing. (If he does not exist, they did their own thing anyway.) As far as humans are concerned, the above scenario (a free for all) would not prevent your God from dabbling in order to get to humans, but it removes the claim that humans were “THE goal”.-dhw: The higgledy-piggledy bush of varieties, extinctions and survivals seems to me to favour a free for all, though if there is a God, he could always do a dabble.

DAVID: A weird bush, yes, but my answer above accepts that reality, i.e., so what! Must every detail be logical, with everything tied up in a neat package of explanations?-It is you who want a neat package, because you are so resolutely opposed to the concept of organisms having the ability to do their own thing. Your God “coded DNA for all of evolution from the beginning of life” and humans were ”THE goal” (my bold). I am proposing the exact opposite of your neat package: that from the beginning of life, organisms had the ability (possibly God-given) to work out their own evolution. They were not predetermined to pursue any goal other than their own survival and possible improvement, and this explains why evolution is NOT a neat package preprogrammed from the beginning, but a higgledy-piggledy bush of comings and goings and constant shifts in the balance of nature.