Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, June 10, 2016, 18:53 (2882 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: We have agreed umpteeen times that these complex organs are saltations, and you have now agreed (under “Autonomy and Balance”) that “If we believe in common descent, speciation may have taken place through an autonomous inventive mechanism (AIM) or complexification mechanism (CM) within the cell communities.” If you agree to the possibility of an AIM or CM within the cell communities, how can you now inform us that the autonomous inventive mechanism or complexification mechanism is incapable of the mentation required for inventing or complexifying?-Because I envision the AIM or CM as following patterns with on-board instructions in the evolutionary scheme-> dhw: Yes, the AIM is a hypothesis not a proven fact, because nobody has observed innovations and we only know of minor adaptations, but your alternative is to abandon the AIM and the CM and go back to your 3.8-billion year computer programme or divine dabble for every innovation in the history of evolution.-I'm not abandoning. They best explain the h=p bush.-> DAVID: Good point. This is why I like the complexification approach. The human bush is an h-p bush like everything else, with the cream rising to the top.
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> dhw: Once again: if organisms (cell communities) work out their own solutions through an AIM or CM (but see above for the problem of a non-designing CM), thereby producing the h-p bush, with natural selection deciding which ones come out on top, how can you argue that cell communities are incapable of working out their own solutions?-Because all the cell communities have to do is decide to trigger the mechanisms which they contain and the mechanisms do their thing.