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

by dhw, Saturday, June 18, 2016, 13:13 (2875 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: A discouraging turn-around since your agreement last week to the possibility of an autonomous inventive (or complexification) mechanism.-DAVID: I can imagine a complexification IM (or CM) that is programmed to produce several alternative complex mechanisms to solve changing environmental challenges -Also: ...my concept of a CM is that once turned on it can produce several varieties of programmed complexity. When it is turned on, it is at the request of the stressed or opportunistic organism...-So back you go to your multiple choice, but since each one is preprogrammed, the only freedom your organisms might have is to choose one of the given alternatives. Do you mean they can choose a right one (“I've changed but I'm still alive!”) or a wrong one ("Farewell, world!”), or they can choose to become a horse, a hippo or a hyena? Can you really imagine those first tiny cells containing and passing on all those millions of multiple choice programmes for every species and variation and natural wonder in the history of life, all of them somehow surviving the environmental changes, not to mention the “bad luck, wrong choice” blunders? Well yes, obviously you can. I'm afraid I can't. Especially when there is a simpler alternative: just imagine that what looks intelligent might actually be intelligent. But that's apparently too much for your imagination.