Explaining natural wonders (Animals)

by dhw, Friday, September 16, 2016, 13:50 (2773 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It seems to be anathema to you to even consider the possibility that as well as learning, animals, insects and even plants may be able to invent. 
DAVID: I try to present a reasonable example of the complexity of living biochemistry. I don't believe you can fully appreciate it without the same training I have. From my training and knowledge, it is so complex that it requires a planning mind/intellect to create the solutions of increasing complexity seen in evolution. Your proposal only works if God gave them the ability in a mechanism we have not yet discovered. Nothing else is reasonable.-You succeed admirably in presenting the complexities. So do the many researchers whom you quote, and I expect some of them are theists, some are atheists, and some are agnostics. IMHO it would be absurd to ignore the possibility that a mind designed these complexities. But my proposal is that they were designed by the minds of the organisms themselves, and yet you keep insisting that my proposal DOESN'T work: your God has to guide every innovation and natural wonder. I have said over and over again that the disagreement is over the evolutionary process itself - preprogramming/ dabbling versus autonomous intelligence. I have at all times agreed that the intelligence (my proposal) may have been God-given. 
 
BBella: But isnt it reasonable that complex innovation happening moment by moment within all life prove there is a built in mechanism, even though that mechanism hasn't been discovered/named (by scientific agreement)? That the FACT it is happening all the time seems reasonable proof there is a mechanism to me! We may not understand or can name the mechanism that makes consciousness do its thing, but we know consciousness is - which is reasonable proof that there is a "mechanism" that makes it work! Because we haven't dis-covered a mechanism for something and able to name it, doesnt mean there's no other explanation than God took time out of his busy schedule to make it happen in the moment a living organism needs to make a change. How is that reasonable?-DAVID: You must remember jumps to new species in evolution are true jumps with major changes in biochemistry that really require advanced planning to coordinate all the new parts. However this mechanism works is unknown, but it is unfair to compare it to consciousness whose origin we don't understand and may not require a specialized mechanism. You are comparing required engineering for a new model. We know the brain is required to receive consciousness, while consciousness can survive an inoperative brain.-There is no doubt that evolutionary saltation requires coordination, though “advanced planning” is open to definition. How advanced is advanced planning - not just in terms of complexity but also in terms of time? If innovation is triggered by changes in the environment, the changes must come first, and the innovation will be a response to the new conditions. The whole point of my hypothesis, and of BBella's response to your post, is not the origin of consciousness but the existence of consciousness, i.e. a crucial part of the unknown mechanism is the conscious intelligence of organisms which enables them to work out their own innovations, without God having to set up an undiscovered 3.7-billion-year-old computer programme for everything, or to take “time out of his busy schedule”.