More Denton: A new book (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 02, 2016, 13:15 (2978 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: As cars don't invent anything new, I'm afraid the analogy doesn't work, but as far as the meaning of “autonomous” is concerned, it fits once we replace “navigation” with the appropriate characteristics and designer: an autonomous inventive mechanism is a mechanism that is capable of sensing its environment, taking decisions, adapting AND INVENTING without divine input.-DAVID: You still miss my point. If God produced an IM with the characteristics you feel it should have, it can work perfectly well, autonomously using God's wishes by having His guidance software onboard at its invention.-And you still miss my point, which is that an autonomous organism by definition does not “use” anyone's wishes except its own and is not guided. Your self-navigating car was invented by humans so that it could navigate “without human input”, and my inventive mechanism was (or rather, may have been) invented by God so that it could invent without God's input. If you really want an analogy, it is one that I have already given you before. You believe humans have free will. That means, in theistic terms, your God gave humans the ability and the mechanism with which to make their own decisions, independently of his wishes and without any “guidance software on board”. Do you believe God programmed Beethoven to write his symphonies? If you don't, then the analogy can be applied to all organisms: your God gave them the ability and the mechanism with which to make their own decisions. That is autonomy. You may not believe organisms have such a mechanism, but please do not define autonomous as being guided by God to obey what you believe to be his wishes.