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

by David Turell , Sunday, June 12, 2016, 22:46 (2880 days ago) @ dhw


> DAVID: Look carefully at my driverless car analogy. The complexity mechanism sitting somewhere in a layer of the genome looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of new complexity. The cell can turn on the mechanism in response to some external stimulus, -> dhw: “Looks at preceding patterns and has the ability to add layers of complexity…in response to some external stimulus” is the key to the whole process. Your whole analogy is false. A driverless car does not produce innovations.-You totally missed the point of the analogy. When the person (cell) enters a driverless car, he turns a key which starts the computer and engine and run the car as a self-sufficient module. I envision the cell to turn on such a module to create invention or complexity for evolution. Natural selection judges the results or God steps in to modify.->dhw: To look at something that exists and then create something new requires intelligence.-No problem: My inventive module has onboard intelligent instructions. The cell does not require intelligence, just a response to changing stimuli as described.-> dhw: You yourself have (in my view quite rightly) argued over and over again that adding layers of complexity that create functioning new organs requires intelligent design. -Of course-> dhw:If the innovations have not been preprogrammed or divinely dabbled, the intelligent design can only come from the cells themselves, which means they have autonomous intelligence (the inventive mechanism), not that they follow “on-board instructions”.-Answered above. Of course the inventive module has intelligent guidance.-> dhwIn my scenario, the “brain equivalent” (intelligence/inventive mechanism) of the cell communities says: “Predator threats! We must start inventing.” In yours, the message is: “Predator threats! Turn on God's 3.8-billion-year-old complexity programme containing on-board instructions for predator threats!” Or alternatively: “Predator threats! Better call God to come and invent something!” Sorry, but I don't know how you can call that a free, autonomous inventive/complexification mechanism.
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 We are back to square one! -We've never left square one. God is in charge. I've added a complexity mechanism to simple pre-programming, with dabbling always allowed if needed.