Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, March 02, 2019, 11:03 (1883 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: (Under “Egnor”): My point was if nothing is mental in the universe how do cells know to create a mental capacity? Just another logical attack on your beloved cell groups.

Of course there has to be something mental in the universe. The question is whether there was something mental BEFORE the universe, or something mental evolved within the universe.

DAVID: I view God as pure energy forming the most brilliant mind around! Consciousness cannot appear de novo from gasses, rocks and minerals. I am conscious and I believe you are.

I too believe we are conscious. I know how you view God, and I gave you an answer last time which you have completely ignored, so here it is again: I don’t know how consciousness can evolve de novo from gases, rocks and minerals. Nor do I know how “pure energy” can simply BE conscious and can know all about materially generated life, sound, sight, smell, taste, touch even before the materials exist. The history of evolution only shows us what has been invented – not how it was invented. That is a mystery which you “solve” by creating an even greater mystery. But you may be right. I am an agnostic.

DAVID: […] My conclusions about God's actions are based on the reasons why I accepted that God exists, and all follow logically from my original conclusions. These are your problems as you study the concept of God from the outside.

dhw: Nobody can study the concept of God from the inside. Your belief that God exists is based on logical arguments for design, but they provide no justification for the beliefs summarized above.

DAVID: I'm simply proposing likely ways God controlled the process.

I have offered you several logical options concerning ways God controlled the process, but you have a fixed belief in the only one which you cannot explain.

DAVID: Shapiro studies bacteria which are responsible for their own survival.

dhw: I’m delighted at your agreement that bacteria are responsible for their own survival, as opposed to following instructions issued 3.8 billion years ago. They are individual living organisms.

DAVID: My view of bacteria differs: They have a library of possible responses as threats and environmental changes appear. Their survival ability depends upon choosing the correct responses, which they obviously can do, having survived since the start of life.
And:
DAVID: They have a few simple things they sense, listed in the past.

Opinion stated as fact. So please explain how they select the one set of relevant instructions from the 3.8-billion-year-old library of instructions for every life form and every situation in the history of life past, present and future.

dhw: …as I keep agreeing, we do not know whether they [cells/cell communities] are capable of the innovations which result in speciation. That is why, just like your library and your divine dabbling, it is a hypothesis and not a fact.

DAVID: Yes, it fills in for God, and admits something must design the future steps. To me God represents a specific purpose. Do cell committees have purpose other than immediate adaptability?

dhw: In my hypothesis they are not future steps but intelligent responses to current conditions. ... I also believe the purpose of cell communities is to ensure survival and, in my hypothesis, to improve chances of survival through innovation. That does not mean that the only reason they had to survive was to give your God 3.5+ billion years to design humans.

DAVID: That doesn't explain why we are here. We were never necessary as a logical step. The difference of Man theory.

Usual slither away from the fact that NO multicellular form of life was “necessary” as a logical step, since bacteria have survived perfectly well.

DAVID (under “Human evolution”: this an obvious transitional fossil, but full blown speciation requiring design. I don't believe the cells of the common ancestor of chimps and humans could conceive of how to design a foot and spine and pelvis for bipedal movement.

dhw: Hurray for all these transitional fossils, though I can’t help wondering why an always-in-control God should need to take 3.5+ billion years before specially designing big toes, spines and pelvises on the way to his sole aim of specially designing us. However, it is not inconceivable that improvements might gradually emerge as generation after generation of cell communities come up with new ideas. Just a hypothesis.

DAVID: Itty-bitty steps again. if we could only find the your hypotheses about cell inventions might have some credence. Mind the gaps!

It is you who have drawn attention to the itty-bitty steps. Specially designed big toes, spines, pelvises, legs and mini-to-maxi brains as apes turn into hominins turn into humans turn into H. sapiens. There's a gap in your sentence: “If we could only find the your hypotheses”...but perhaps you meant the transitional fossils which indicate itty-bitty steps. Amazingly, it seems that we are finding more and more of them, all specially designed according to you, as your always-in-control God for some inexplicable reason, after 3.5+ billion years of specially designing anything but H. sapiens, now specially designs the itty bits which will eventually become parts of H. sapiens, which is the only thing he ever wanted to specially design in the first place.