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The cells move away from charges and toward charges. They are not thinking but using electrical attraction:-"The most likely explanation, they conclude, is that the electric field causes certain electrically charged proteins in the cell membrane to concentrate at the membrane edge, triggering a response"-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130328125100.htm-No evidence of pan-psychism here.

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DAVID: Cells move away from charges and toward charges. They are not thinking but using electrical attraction:-"The most likely explanation, they conclude, is that the electric field causes certain electrically charged proteins in the cell membrane to concentrate at the membrane edge, triggering a response"-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130328125100.htm-No evidence of pan-psychism here.-QUOTE: "Damage to tissue sets up a "short circuit," changing the flux direction and creating an electrical field that leads cells into the wound. But exactly how and why does this happen? That's unclear."-QUOTE: "We know that cells can respond to a weak electrical field, but we don't know how they sense it," said Min Zhao, professor of dermatology and ophthalmology and a researcher at UC Davis' stem cell center, the Institute for Regenerative Cures. "If we can understand the process better, we can make wound healing and tissue regeneration more effective."-There are two things to note here. Firstly, my panpsychist hypothesis is concerned especially with innovation. As I've said before, once a winning formula has been found, the cells will automatically stick to it, e.g. March 22 at 12.34 under "Trilobite eyes": "Every innovation is a departure from automatic behaviour, and only when a successful formula has been found will the chemicals and cells behave like automatons, which is why we only see them as such." This was also the point of the Talbott quote attacking the concept of what he calls "automatisms" as the root of genetic variation leading to evolutionary change.-Secondly, however, when cells (like ants and bees) are required to perform their particular tasks, we have no way of knowing to what extent they're using some kind of "intelligence"(see McClintock). According to the above quotes, the researchers still don't know how and why the cells behave as they do, or how they sense the weak field. The scientists are trying to "understand the process better". No evidence of panpsychism, and no evidence against panpsychism. Why assume that the "most likely explanation" is correct when even the researchers admit they don't understand what's going on? -Theists and atheists alike use the same subjective approach to all the major questions: the "most likely" explanation is the one they believe in. I'm not claiming that my panpsychist proposal is even likely. But I'm not going to abandon it in favour of the various god/chance proposals, just because different people think their own equally improbable hypotheses are the "most likely"!

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Just came across this news item via twitter:-http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/2013/04/01/in-nerve-cells-an-energy-source-nobody-knew-about/-A new energy source found in nerve cells. -"It propels the molecular "motors" that drag neurotransmitters from the nucleus where they're made. The "motors" are assemblies of molecules. They walk like clumsy robots, with a staggering gait, dragging a capsule of neurotransmitter "bullets" along microtubule "highways" between nucleus and synapses."-Weird stuff! Chemical robots with built-in batteries? Not minds though!

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GPJ

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Just came across this news item via twitter:
> 
> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/2013/04/01/in-nerve-cells-an-energy... 
> A new energy source found in nerve cells. 
> 
> "It propels the molecular "motors" that drag neurotransmitters from the nucleus where they're made. The "motors" are assemblies of molecules. They walk like clumsy robots, with a staggering gait, dragging a capsule of neurotransmitter "bullets" along microtubule "highways" between nucleus and synapses."
> 
> Weird stuff! Chemical robots with built-in batteries? Not minds though!-This is the same article I entered on april 1st: Monday, April 01, 2013, 20:54 -It is all automatic, nothing mental as George says.

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Energy is used by cells from nano-motors: -http://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=23760-This is all automatic in the kinesin enzyme molecule

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DAVID: Cells move away from charges and toward charges. They are not thinking but using electrical attraction:
> 
> "The most likely explanation, they conclude, is that the electric field causes certain electrically charged proteins in the cell membrane to concentrate at the membrane edge, triggering a response"
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130328125100.htm
> 
> No evidence of pan-psychism here.
> 
> QUOTE: "Damage to tissue sets up a "short circuit," changing the flux direction and creating an electrical field that leads cells into the wound. But exactly how and why does this happen? That's unclear."
> 
> QUOTE: "We know that cells can respond to a weak electrical field, but we don't know how they sense it," said Min Zhao, professor of dermatology and ophthalmology and a researcher at UC Davis' stem cell center, the Institute for Regenerative Cures. "If we can understand the process better, we can make wound healing and tissue regeneration more effective."
> -This article reports scientist observing cells responding to weak electrical fields and how they have yet to understand just how the cells sense each other. Yet other scientist are observing light, electromagnetism, photons, etc and observing just "how" it is that cells, not only sense each other, but communicate thru biophotons; the sending and receiving messages of light thru vibration. At some point scientist will get it together and begin to send and receive information between themselves. Science will then at last see God, in the sense, that they will finally recognize that All That Is, is a universe of senders and receivers of messages/information within a vibrational field. We (ATI) are all the orchestral music, sending and receiving sound/movement, thought, information throughout the universe in a continual vibrational hum. When science finally gets their heads together, they will be able to use this information to change the world and cure many diseases, clean up our world, and probably bring peace...who knows. Once mankind comprehends then uses this knowledge to effect what is, anything is possible.

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David and George referred us to the same article about cell responses:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130328125100.htm-DAVID: No evidence of pan-psychism here.
GEORGE: Weird stuff! [...] Not minds though.-Although this is a red letter day, with David and George actually joining forces, I must stress that I've never used the word "mind", as it has far too many human associations. "Intelligence" in inverted commas is the best I can do, and this is NOT to be equated with human thought or self-awareness. My detailed response, once more highlighting innovation and our ignorance of how the cells function, was posted on 3 April at 18.11, following on from the highlighted quotes below, which BBella has also taken up:-QUOTE: "Damage to tissue sets up a "short circuit," changing the flux direction and creating an electrical field that leads cells into the wound. But exactly how and why does this happen? That's unclear."
QUOTE: "We know that cells can respond to a weak electrical field, but we don't know how they sense it," said Min Zhao, professor of dermatology and ophthalmology and a researcher at UC Davis' stem cell center, the Institute for Regenerative Cures. "If we can understand the process better, we can make wound healing and tissue regeneration more effective."-BBELLA: This article reports scientist observing cells responding to weak electrical fields and how they have yet to understand just how the cells sense each other. Yet other scientist are observing light, electromagnetism, photons, etc and observing just "how" it is that cells, not only sense each other, but communicate thru biophotons; the sending and receiving messages of light thru vibration. At some point scientist will get it together and begin to send and receive information between themselves. Science will then at last see God, in the sense, that they will finally recognize that All That Is, is a universe of senders and receivers of messages/information within a vibrational field. We (ATI) are all the orchestral music, sending and receiving sound/movement, thought, information throughout the universe in a continual vibrational hum. When science finally gets their heads together, they will be able to use this information to change the world and cure many diseases, clean up our world, and probably bring peace...who knows. Once mankind comprehends then uses this knowledge to effect what is, anything is possible.-I have my doubts about the Utopian future, but otherwise this fits in well with the somewhat indeterminate form of panpsychism I'm tinkering with. The one point I'm very uncertain about in your insightful combination of science and metaphysics is your use of the word "God". As I tried to point out under "Evolution of Intelligence" on 2 April at 20.27, it means totally different things to different people. You've equated it with All That Is, but atheists will probably switch off immediately, and theists of all sorts will claim you as one of their own. Do you believe, for instance, that the ATI is a single entity which is aware of itself, deliberately created the universe and life from scratch, had a particular purpose for doing so, is watching us humans, and is possibly even listening to our prayers? I don't recall you ever writing about such a being, and although I know you had a religious upbringing, I always had the impression that you preferred to leave such questions open.

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dhw: Although this is a red letter day, with David and George actually joining forces, I must stress that I've never used the word "mind", as it has far too many human associations. "Intelligence" in inverted commas is the best I can do, and this is NOT to be equated with human thought or self-awareness. -OK, what do you mean by the word "intelligence"? There are millions of molecules in a single cell. They are stimulated by various modalities including chemical and electrical. They are built to automatically respond. The planning for this activity is coded into DNA, RNA and the rest of the genome. Is this your 'intelligence'? The 'mental' planning that created the code is a different issue. It is where we bog down in the debate. That code could not have created itelf by chance, as we have agreed. Conjuring up a vague 'intelligence' really begs the question, as I have repeatedly pointed out. Nagel simply defines the problem, and gives no answer, and you are immitating him. Unfortunately for your position, molecules are built to react, not have any type of 'mental' charcteristic. They are simply a form of cog wheel. Your automobile engine responds intelligently to your commands. What is the difference?

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dhw: Although this is a red letter day, with David and George actually joining forces, I must stress that I've never used the word "mind", as it has far too many human associations. "Intelligence" in inverted commas is the best I can do, and this is NOT to be equated with human thought or self-awareness. -DAVID: OK, what do you mean by the word "intelligence"? There are millions of molecules in a single cell. They are stimulated by various modalities including chemical and electrical. They are built to automatically respond. The planning for this activity is coded into DNA, RNA and the rest of the genome. Is this your 'intelligence'? [...] Unfortunately for your position, molecules are built to react, not have any type of 'mental' charcteristic. They are simply a form of cog wheel. 
[I've slightly rejigged your post, for the sake of coherence.]-The original heading was "the intelligent cell", which we agreed to rename "the intelligent genome". It was never "the intelligent molecule", and you will hardly expect me to know how the intelligent cell/genome gets its millions of molecules to act, react and interact.-DAVID: Your automobile engine responds intelligently to your commands. What is the difference?-The difference, as I keep stressing, lies first and foremost in innovation. My automobile engine does not come up with new forms of ignition, locomotion, fuel. It takes inventive intelligence to do that, and evolution depends on innovative processes. You can either attribute them to random mutations, to your God creating or preprogramming each one separately, or to an inbuilt mechanism which comes up with its own inventions (sex, legs, livers, eyes, wings etc.). That is what we agreed to call "the intelligent genome". Once the innovation functions, the cells will preserve it, and act like automatons, although even then they may have to take their own decisions. The ability to use information and create something new with it is the kind of "intelligence" I mean here.-DAVID: The 'mental' planning that created the code is a different issue. It is where we bog down in the debate. That code could not have created itelf by chance, as we have agreed. Conjuring up a vague 'intelligence' really begs the question, as I have repeatedly pointed out.
 
This is indeed our major issue. The intelligence you conjure up is your God, whose ineffable vagueness presents all sorts of problems for me, which you prefer to gloss over under the banner of "first cause" (which can just as easily be applied to mindless, evolving energy as to an eternal mind). And so I'm prepared to consider an equally vague "panpsychist" hypothesis. You rightly oppose that with all the arguments used to oppose your own God theory ... where did the information, the awareness, the inventiveness come from? Define it, explain it. I can't, any more than you can define or explain your hidden God. But that doesn't mean I should exclude it.
 
Meanwhile, what is our own "intelligence"? Materialists will tell you it's dependent on the cells and the chemical and electrical "modalities". They may be right. But you think there's more besides, because you believe in an afterlife in which our intelligence survives the death of the cells (and in a God whose intelligence never did depend on cells). Is energy the key? If our own cell combinations are guided by some kind of inner intelligent energy, then who's to say that some kind of intelligent energy does not reside in all cells?-DAVID: Nagel simply defines the problem, and gives no answer, and you are imitating him.-I haven't read Nagel's book, so I don't know if he has an answer. I am proposing a possible alternative to God and chance (though it needn't exclude either), so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be imitating. Talbott believes in some kind of inner intelligence which he calls logos (perhaps we shall learn more from later essays); McClintock wanted to investigate the degree to which cells had knowledge of themselves. BBella has drawn our attention to the manner in which cells communicate, as observed by experts in the field. Lynn Margulis (an agnostic by the way) saw cooperation between cells as a key element in evolution. No-one can claim to have THE answer, so why not consider all possibilities?

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dhw:you will hardly expect me to know how the intelligent cell/genome gets its millions of molecules to act, react and interact.-The answer is my previous paragraph, edited and adopted:-> David: They are stimulated by various modalities including chemical and electrical. They are built to automatically respond. The planning for this activity is coded into DNA, RNA and the rest of the genome. [/i][...] Unfortunately for your position, molecules are built to react, not have any type of 'mental' charcteristic. They are simply a form of cog wheel. -> 
> dhw: The difference, as I keep stressing, lies first and foremost in innovation. ............Once the innovation functions, the cells will preserve it, and act like automatons, although even then they may have to take their own decisions. The ability to use information and create something new with it is the kind of "intelligence" I mean here.-That is not intelligence as I define it. The genome has intelligent information, gleaned from an originating intelligence. It uses that information in the code automatically, unless it is stimulated to use an epigenetic mechanism, which it triggers to go into an automatic response changing the organism to some beneficial degree. This does not create new species, just variation.-> dhw: And so I'm prepared to consider an equally vague "panpsychist" hypothesis. You rightly oppose that with all the arguments used to oppose your own God theory ... where did the information, the awareness, the inventiveness come from? Define it, explain it. I can't, any more than you can define or explain your hidden God. But that doesn't mean I should exclude it.-I don't have to explain God. He is a necessary being, a first cause, and you have agreed there must be a first cause.
> 
> dhw: Meanwhile, what is our own "intelligence"? Materialists will tell you it's dependent on the cells and the chemical and electrical "modalities". They may be right. > 
> DAVID: Nagel simply defines the problem, and gives no answer, and you are imitating him.
> 
> dhw: I haven't read Nagel's book, so I don't know if he has an answer.-The immediate need is that you read Nagel. He has very cogent arguments, but no answer, since he won't accept a first cause, as he is not Aristotelian ( a word?) in his philosophic thought basis. Take his arguments and observations and add first cause, and it all fits together. The philosopher Ed Feser, who uses Aristotle, has no problem. Read Feser also.

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dhw: The difference, as I keep stressing, lies first and foremost in innovation. ............Once the innovation functions, the cells will preserve it, and act like automatons, although even then they may have to take their own decisions. The ability to use information and create something new with it is the kind of "intelligence" I mean here.-DAVID: That is not intelligence as I define it. The genome has intelligent information, gleaned from an originating intelligence. It uses that information in the code automatically, unless it is stimulated to use an epigenetic mechanism, which it triggers to go into an automatic response changing the organism to some beneficial degree. This does not create new species, just variation.-The section you have omitted is the section which deals with innovation! I gave sex, legs, livers, eyes, wings etc. as examples. Innovation is what leads to new species. The second phase of preservation (with variations or adaptations) is what you are commenting on. Let me repeat: you can either attribute innovations "to random mutations, to your God creating or preprogramming each one separately, or to an inbuilt mechanism which comes up with its own inventions. That is what we agreed to call "the intelligent genome"." If you do not agree that "the ability to use information and create something NEW with it" is a kind of intelligence, perhaps you could give me your own definition.-dhw: And so I'm prepared to consider an equally vague "panpsychist" hypothesis. You rightly oppose that with all the arguments used to oppose your own God theory ... where did the information, the awareness, the inventiveness come from? Define it, explain it. I can't, any more than you can define or explain your hidden God. But that doesn't mean I should exclude it.-DAVID: I don't have to explain God. He is a necessary being, a first cause, and you have agreed there must be a first cause.-Yes, and I wrote that the first cause "can just as easily be applied to mindless, evolving energy as to an eternal mind." If you don't have to explain the eternal mind you call God, I don't have to explain how first-cause mindless energy may have evolved into life and consciousness. It's simply a "necessary" process. -dhw: Meanwhile, what is our own "intelligence"? Materialists will tell you it's dependent on the cells and the chemical and electrical "modalities". They may be right. -You quoted this, but ignored what followed. Since you believe in an afterlife and in God, and both entail a form of intelligence that does not depend on material cells, why do you so firmly reject the idea of intelligent energy within material cells? -dhw: I haven't read Nagel's book, so I don't know if he has an answer.DAVID: The immediate need is that you read Nagel. He has very cogent arguments, but no answer, since he won't accept a first cause, as he is not Aristotelian ( a word?) in his philosophic thought basis. Take his arguments and observations and add first cause, and it all fits together. The philosopher Ed Feser, who uses Aristotle, has no problem. Read Feser also.-Nagel's arguments against materialism can hardly be more persuasive than your own, and I have long ago accepted these. No answer is no answer. That needn't stop me from proposing an answer, and obviously reading Nagel is not going to help me anyway! I assume Feser's arguments are also similar to your own, and I have my work cut out keeping up with you!

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dhw: The difference, as I keep stressing, lies first and foremost in innovation. ............Once the innovation functions, the cells will preserve it, and act like automatons, although even then they may have to take their own decisions. The ability to use information and create something new with it is the kind of "intelligence" I mean here.
> 
> DAVID: That is not intelligence as I define it. The genome has intelligent information, gleaned from an originating intelligence. We are just learning about innovation in the epigentic studies. The genome acts automatically with the information with which it has been supplied. It does not think, and to me intelligence implies thought.-The genome contains instructions. You are not using the word 'intelligence' as I would define it. There was a primary intelligence which formulated the instructins and put them into the genome codes. The cell molecules react automatically under these instructions to changes in the conditions affecting the cell. As the cells modify, the new changes are not information but simply modifications which can be carried forward for the life of the cell and at times for the new organism.-
> 
> dhw: The section you have omitted is the section which deals with innovation! I gave sex, legs, livers, eyes, wings etc. as examples. Innovation is what leads to new species.- Ignored purposely. We know that new species have new innovations. What we also know is that the fossil record does not show the gradualism of Darwin. Species arrive de novo and we do not know the mechanism. -> dhw: The second phase of preservation (with variations or adaptations) is what you are commenting on. Let me repeat: you can either attribute innovations "to random mutations, to your God creating or preprogramming each one separately, or to an inbuilt mechanism which comes up with its own inventions.-I doubt the 'random mutation mechanism' since most mutations are harmful or neutral and mutations do not seem to add 'new information' and may actually destroy existing information, a point which has been demonstrated. Choices two and three are birds of the same feather: pre-programming is a built-in mechanism.-> dhw: That is what we agreed to call "the intelligent genome"." If you do not agree that "the ability to use information and create something NEW with it" is a kind of intelligence, perhaps you could give me your own definition.
I have disagreed above. The intelligence wwe are discussing is prior to the genome's formation. The genome is information and instructions. The genome acts as if it is intelligent, appears intelligent, but it is only an automaton responding to its coded information. This is equivalent to Dawkins telling us evolution looks designed, but that is only an 'appearance of design'. The genome is designed to act as if it were thinking things out. It really doesn't.

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Dhw: The section you have omitted is the section which deals with innovation! I gave sex, legs, livers, eyes, wings etc. as examples. Innovation is what leads to new species.-DAVID: Ignored purposely. We know that new species have new innovations. What we also know is that the fossil record does not show the gradualism of Charles Darwin. Species arrive de novo and we do not know the mechanism.-We have long since agreed that Darwin's gradualism is out and Gould's punctuated equilibrium is in. The fact that we do not know the mechanism for innovation is hardly a reason for ignoring the problem and any possible explanations.-dhw: Let me repeat: you can either attribute innovations "to random mutations, to your God creating or preprogramming each one separately, or to an inbuilt mechanism which comes up with its own inventions."-DAVID: I doubt the 'random mutation mechanism' since most mutations are harmful or neutral and mutations do not seem to add 'new information' and may actually destroy existing information, a point which has been demonstrated. -Already agreed.-DAVID: Choices two and three are birds of the same feather: pre-programming is a built-in mechanism.-Choice two is that each innovation has been preprogrammed or created separately by your God; choice three, the one which you have clearly set your mind against, is that the mechanism COMES UP WITH ITS OWN INVENTIONS, i.e. that it has its own inventive intelligence. Birds of a very different feather.-dhw: That is what we agreed to call "the intelligent genome"." If you do not agree that "the ability to use information and create something NEW with it" is a kind of intelligence, perhaps you could give me your own definition.-DAVID: I have disagreed above. The intelligence we are discussing is prior to the genome's formation. The genome is information and instructions. The genome acts as if it is intelligent, appears intelligent, but it is only an automaton responding to its coded information. This is equivalent to Dawkins telling us evolution looks designed, but that is only an 'appearance of design'. The genome is designed to act as if it were thinking things out. It really doesn't.-Unless you agree with Dawkins that evolution is NOT designed, I'm afraid you're shooting yourself in the foot (no cowboy should ever do such a thing!). Dawkins tells us that appearances deceive: evolution looks designed, but it isn't. You are making the same sort of claim: the genome looks as if it thinks, but it doesn't. And you offer no more support for your claim than Dawkins offers for his. So here's the converse: if evolution looks designed, maybe it is; and if the genome looks as if it thinks, maybe it does. You have admitted that we don't know how the mechanism for innovation works. We have agreed to exclude chance. We are left with God creating or preprogramming every innovation separately, or a mechanism (which God may or may not have invented) that does its own inventing. Neither of us knows the answer, so why not keep an open mind?-Opponents of free will, which you believe in, would use exactly the same terms as yours: "humans act as if they are intelligent, appear intelligent, but are only automatons responding to their coded information." If you believe that humans, just like your God, have a form of intelligence that is independent of material cells (which presumably enables them to be themselves in the afterlife you also believe in), why can't you even countenance the possibility that the genome may be governed by its own "intelligence"? Repeating the claim that the genome is an automaton is no more scientific than Dawkins repeating the claim that life and the universe appeared to have been designed but aren't. You are both simply reiterating your unscientific beliefs.

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dhw: You are making the same sort of claim: the genome looks as if it thinks, but it doesn't. And you offer no more support for your claim than Dawkins offers for his. So here's the converse: if evolution looks designed, maybe it is; and if the genome looks as if it thinks, maybe it does. You have admitted that we don't know how the mechanism for innovation works. We have agreed to exclude chance. We are left with God creating or preprogramming every innovation separately, or a mechanism (which God may or may not have invented) that does its own inventing. Neither of us knows the answer, so why not keep an open mind?-Up to this point I will accept your statements, with the exeception that the genome does not really think. It is a densely packed brilliant code with many layers of activity. The cell is able to tap into that code automatically, but the code is intellectually created by God. That is the level where the thinking was.- 
> dhw: why can't you even countenance the possibility that the genome may be governed by its own "intelligence"? Repeating the claim that the genome is an automaton is no more scientific than Dawkins repeating the claim that life and the universe appeared to have been designed but aren't. You are both simply reiterating your unscientific beliefs.-My beliefs are entirely scientific. I know organic chemistry and I know that molecules are automatons responding to external electro-chemical signals of various types. The protein molecules are built with folding to have trigger points. This comparison with Dawkins is entirely off base. Dawkins is discussing a macro view of life's evolution. I am working at the molecular level which is the essence of life. At this micro level the processes are automatic. And this is why the appearance of consciousness is so confusing. How do automatic neuronal processes create thought? We don't know and that is not a cop out. We simply do not know.-I also know that the cell is govened by an intelligence given to it in the code of the genome. The code has built in responses to environmental threats or alterations. Unless your definition of 'cell intelligence' recognizes the genome's gift and recognizes the automaticity of the cell responses, your statement implies that the cell can think and analyze at a conscious level. The kidney can analyze your blood stream and adjust salt levels, but it does not do it by thought processes. It is all automatic chemistry, with levels set by the genome! -And even this mundane point has an implied proof of evolution. Life began in the salty oceans. Oceans are 0.9% salty. So is your blood, for no better reason than that! On this point Dawkins and I are in full agreement! Cells did not try to be inventive and use a different salt level in blood, because there was nothing to be gained. There was no automatic response because life works well at that salt level. Evolution is driven to complexify but knows when 'good enough' is OK. All due to the DNA codes, actively given by the first cause, God.
Passive reactivity from that point on.-Moral: DNA actively given and driving, driven cells automatically responding. You are misinterpreting the driving source of activity.

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DAVID: My beliefs are entirely scientific. I know organic chemistry and I know that molecules are automatons responding to external electro-chemical signals of various types. [...] At this micro level the processes are automatic. And this is why the appearance of consciousness is so confusing. How do automatic neuronal processes create thought? We don't know and that is not a cop out. We simply do not know.-But as I keep repeating, and as you keep ignoring, you believe in free will, which is in direct contradiction to automatic neuronal processes, you believe in a God whose intelligence does NOT depend on automatic neuronal processes, and you believe in an afterlife in which human intelligence will NOT depend on automatic neuronal processes. And yet you insist that unlike your free will, your God, and your soul, the genome is an automaton, because automatic neuronal processes CREATE intelligence though we don't know how! And your beliefs are entirely scientific. (Incidentally, I wish you'd stop moleculing when our subject is the hypothetical "intelligence" that GOVERNS the genome's million molecules.) Barbara McClintock, the Nobel-Prizewinning geneticist, who also knew a thing or two about organic chemistry, said that "a goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself, and how it utilizes this knowledge in a 'thoughtful' manner when challenged." You quoted this and added: "Subsequent research has shown how far-seeing she was." You also quoted Talbott, who rubbished the idea of random "automatisms" as "the ultimate explanatory root of all genetic variations leading to evolutionary change." (I take this to be a reference to INNOVATION ... see below.) If these two scientists, whose writings you have recommended, are at the very least open to the idea that cells are NOT automatons and may have some sort of awareness, thoughtfulness, logos (but I prefer the vaguer term "intelligence"), can you at least understand why I greet your authoritative statements with a degree of scepticism?
 
DAVID: I also know that the cell is governed by an intelligence given to it in the code of the genome. The code has built in responses to environmental threats or alterations. Unless your definition of 'cell intelligence' recognizes the genome's gift and recognizes the automaticity of the cell responses, your statement implies that the cell can think and analyze at a conscious level.-You persuaded me to change "the intelligent cell" to "the intelligent genome" (though McClintock refers to the cell), so if the genome governs the cell through its "coded" intelligence, doesn't that mean the genome is "intelligent", and that the cell contains an "intelligent!" mechanism, which by extension would allow us to call the cell "intelligent"?-Think, analyse, conscious ... these words immediately make us anthropomorphize the cell, which I don't want to do despite McClintock's terminology. That's why I prefer the vaguer term "intelligence". You have given us countless examples of how flora and fauna have invented complex methods of hunting, building, navigating, surviving, cooperating. There must always have been a first time. Similarly with every innovation that has led from bacteria to humans, there must always have been a first time. Automatic responses simply do not account for those "first times". Automatic responses occur when the new "code" has been established. Unless your God pre-programmed or individually created every single innovation, what alternative can there be to a mechanism that does its own inventing, i.e. the "intelligent genome"? It's time for a straight answer.
 
Let me help you by quoting a scientist and thinker whom both of us admire and respect. When we were discussing how a non-flycatching sundew turned into a flycatching sundew ("Natures wonders: fly traps, 21 March at 14.56), you enthusiastically assured me that "God did not have to fiddle. The genome did it all by itself, it was so smart given the information God implanted into DNA in the beginning." On 22 March at 15.16, in response to your statement that "God's purpose was to produce inventive life", I wrote: "He left the course of evolution in the "hands" of his intelligent invention ... apparently preprogrammed to experiment and take its own decisions (much like us humans, then!)." You responded; "A good synopsis of my view of evolution." You even had your God "sitting back watching all of this and proud of his invention."
 
And so, when you have rejected chance and God's preprogramming or separate creation of every single innovation in the history of life, you will I'm sure acknowledge that there is no alternative to a mechanism that does its own inventing, and that any living thing that can experiment, take its own decisions, and invent something totally new must have some form of "intelligence", as opposed to being an automaton. If you then claim that such a complex, inventive, "intelligent" mechanism must be the product of design and not chance, I for one won't kick up a fuss, though we shall continue to have fun disputing the source of the design.

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> dhw: And so, when you have rejected chance and God's preprogramming or separate creation of every single innovation in the history of life, you will I'm sure acknowledge that there is no alternative to a mechanism that does its own inventing, and that any living thing that can experiment, take its own decisions, and invent something totally new must have some form of "intelligence", as opposed to being an automaton. If you then claim that such a complex, inventive, "intelligent" mechanism must be the product of design and not chance, I for one won't kick up a fuss, though we shall continue to have fun disputing the source of the design.-I have skipped all the rest of your piece, because I think it is beside the point and you have unknowingly, in my opinion, misinterpreted what the scientists are saying. Your definition of intelligence and mine are totally different. From the next entry today by dhw:-> dhw: If intelligence is energy within matter, and is not the product but the cause of cells interacting, it could survive the death of the cells whose actions it triggers. -
> David: I don't know that 'intelligence is energy within matter', is a good description by itself. When we look the development of consciousness, those who think out of the box look at quantum mechanics and put consciousness and mind at a quantum level, although that is just a general description and no one seems to know just how that concept works. Thre is a general connectivity of quantum particles throughout the universe. That would fit extrasensory and psi phenomena, and perhaps panpsychism, whatever that weird term means. To redefine terms, intelligence is not consciousness. The level of intelligence is the proper use of thought and learned knowledge. It is an aspect of consciousness. If cellular matter is not conscious, but acts as if it is, then it is not intelligent, but it is using information automatically from coding it has been given by intelligence existing before the formation of the cell. -This is my key concept. It is concept presented by the Intelligent Design folks. Cells are not intelligent. They are filled with information they are programmed to use. This is all automatic. Just how this is accomplished is still not fully understood, and that is the research the mainstream scientists are referring to when they refer to the cells acting intelligently. Of course they act intelligently: they are filled with the information to do it, and are programmed to use that information expeditiously. It is the massive amount of programming that creates the automaticity seen in the way cells operate. And that concept is what imoplies that only intelligent design could have created what we are discovering.

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dhw: And so, when you have rejected chance and God's preprogramming or separate creation of every single innovation in the history of life, you will I'm sure acknowledge that there is no alternative to a mechanism that does its own inventing, and that any living thing that can experiment, take its own decisions, and invent something totally new must have some form of "intelligence", as opposed to being an automaton. If you then claim that such a complex, inventive, "intelligent" mechanism must be the product of design and not chance, I for one won't kick up a fuss, though we shall continue to have fun disputing the source of the design.-DAVID: I have skipped all the rest of your piece, because I think it is beside the point and you have unknowingly, in my opinion, misinterpreted what the scientists are saying. Your definition of intelligence and mine are totally different. From the next entry today by dhw [Under "supernatural"]:-dhw: If intelligence is energy within matter, and is not the product but the cause of cells interacting, it could survive the death of the cells whose actions it triggers.
 
David: I don't know that 'intelligence is energy within matter' is a good description by itself.-It's not even a description "by itself", let alone a definition. In its original context of the supernatural, this refers to the substance not the qualities of intelligence, and it offers a hypothetical explanation of hypothetical psychic phenomena, e.g. spirits may be explained as intelligent energy surviving the death of the cells that contained it. On the current thread, as macro examples of intelligence that is independent of matter, I've applied three of your own beliefs (God, the afterlife and free will) to the micro of the cell, using evolutionary innovation as my prime argument against your insistence that the cell is an automaton. How can this be "beside the point"? Stop running away, cowboy, and draw!
 
The hypothesis of the intelligent genome/cell removes two weak links in Darwin's theory: gradualism and random mutations. In the sections you've skipped, I've used your example of the flycatching sundew plus your comment: "God did not have to fiddle. The genome did it all by itself, it was so smart given the information God implanted into DNA in the beginning." There could hardly be a clearer endorsement that there's a mechanism (perhaps invented by your God) within the genome that independently and intelligently does its own innovating. How can this be "beside the point"?-But with my customary patience, devotion and stubbornness, fortified by my affection and respect for my science mentor, who has provided most of the material he now wishes to ignore, I will answer the rest of your post.
 
DAVID: When we look the development of consciousness, those who think out of the box look at quantum mechanics and put consciousness and mind at a quantum level, although that is just a general description and no one seems to know just how that concept works.-Since no one understands the "quantum" concept, let alone knows how it works, might it not be compatible with panpsychism?
 
DAVID: To redefine terms, intelligence is not consciousness. The level of intelligence is the proper use of thought and learned knowledge. It is an aspect of consciousness. If cellular matter is not conscious, but acts as if it is, then it is not intelligent, but it is using information automatically from coding it has been given by intelligence existing before the formation of the cell.-IF cellular matter is not conscious, and intelligence includes consciousness, then of course it's not intelligent. Your "IF" is precisely what we're discussing! I'll accept your definition, though, so long as we don't anthropomorphize cells. The invention of a new organ requires 1) learned knowledge and consciousness of the environment; 2) learned knowledge and consciousness of what is and is not possible within that environment, and of what the organism will and will not be capable of; 3) thought that will use this information to create a new organ that will function. That, in my hypothesis. is how the genome produces the innovations that enable evolution to happen. And that, by your definition, constitutes intelligence. Your alternative explanations are chance, and God's preprogramming or individual creation of every single innovation in the history of life. You've rejected these alternatives, so please tell us why the "smart" genome which "did it all by itself" is not smart and did not do it all by itself.-DAVID: This is my key concept. It is concept presented by the Intelligent Design folks. Cells are not intelligent. They are filled with information they are programmed to use. This is all automatic. Just how this is accomplished is still not fully understood, and that is the research the mainstream scientists are referring to when they refer to the cells acting intelligently.-So when McClintock writes "a goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself", and when Talbott dismisses the idea of the cell as an "automatism", apparently they are really saying the cell is an automaton with no knowledge of itself. Come on, David, you can do better than that.

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dhw: Stop running away, cowboy, and draw!-I don't run. We are talking at cross purposes and two different levels.
> 
> dhw:The hypothesis of the intelligent genome/cell removes two weak links in Darwin's theory: gradualism and random mutations. In the sections you've skipped, I've used your example of the flycatching sundew plus your comment: "God did not have to fiddle. The genome did it all by itself, it was so smart given the information God implanted into DNA in the beginning." There could hardly be a clearer endorsement that there's a mechanism (perhaps invented by your God) within the genome that independently and intelligently does its own innovating. How can this be "beside the point"?-Your statement is correct as long as you accept that the innovation is an automatic response to the environmental stress causing it. The cell responds to imbedded information, and does no thinking on its own. 
> 
> dhw: IF cellular matter is not conscious, and intelligence includes consciousness, then of course it's not intelligent. Your "IF" is precisely what we're discussing! I'll accept your definition, though, so long as we don't anthropomorphize cells. The invention of a new organ requires 1) learned knowledge and consciousness of the environment;-Consciousness in this case is an automatic chemical response by cellular molecules, which trigger the change. -> dhw: 2) learned knowledge and consciousness of what is and is not possible within that environment, and of what the organism will and will not be capable of;-Sounds like you have the cell thinking. It can't.-> dhw: 3) thought that will use this information to create a new organ that will function. That, in my hypothesis. is how the genome produces the innovations that enable evolution to happen.-Again, the cell is thinking. Impossible.-> dhw: And that, by your definition, constitutes intelligence. Your alternative explanations are chance, and God's preprogramming or individual creation of every single innovation in the history of life. You've rejected these alternatives, so please tell us why the "smart" genome which "did it all by itself" is not smart and did not do it all by itself.-Because you persist in not seeing the progression of events to prepare for evolution. God in His intelligence coded DNA to contain all the information cells would need to respond to the environment and complexify as necessary. the cell molecules respond automatically.
> 
> DAVID: This is my key concept. It is concept presented by the Intelligent Design folks. Cells are not intelligent. They are filled with information they are programmed to use. This is all automatic. Just how this is accomplished is still not fully understood, and that is the research the mainstream scientists are referring to when they refer to the cells acting intelligently.
> 
> dhw: So when McClintock writes "a goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself", and when Talbott dismisses the idea of the cell as an "automatism", apparently they are really saying the cell is an automaton with no knowledge of itself. Come on, David, you can do better than that.-You are misinterpreting Mc Clintock: She does not know the extent of self-knowledge within the cell, if any, but is saying the issue has to be explored, to be sure we are not missing anything. Talbott may dismiss 'automatism' but that is his way of accommodating his philosophy. In my mind his theory is simply wrong, but his objections to Darwinism are correct. Simply put, if you accept my scenario, God has to exist.

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Last things first :-D AVID: You are misinterpreting Mc Clintock: She does not know the extent of self-knowledge within the cell, if any, but is saying the issue has to be explored, to be sure we are not missing anything.
 
That is far from saying, as you have done categorically, that the cell has no knowledge of itself.
 
DAVID: Talbott may dismiss 'automatism' but that is his way of accommodating his philosophy. In my mind his theory is simply wrong, but his objections to Darwinism are correct. Simply put, if you accept my scenario, God has to exist.-He would say your insistence on automatism is your way of accommodating your philosophy. And to his mind, your theory is simply wrong. And simply put, if you accept Dawkins' scenario, God doesn't exist.-And so to the main problem. In reply to my suggestion that knowledge and consciousness of the environment and of the organism's own potential, and the ability to use this information to invent a functioning NEW organ, constitute "intelligence", you wrote:
 
DAVID: "The cell responds to imbedded information, and does no thinking on its own." "Consciousness in this case is an automatic chemical response by cellular molecules, which trigger the change." "...you persist in not seeing the progression of events to prepare for evolution. God in His intelligence coded DNA to contain all the information cells would need to respond to the environment and complexify as necessary. The cell molecules respond automatically." -And of course you may well be right. Inventions like sexual reproduction, the digestive system, the immune system, blood circulation ... far more complex than anything we humans have ever come up with ... may be the result of what looks like thought but in fact is chemical responses by automatons. Every innovation leading from bacteria to the straightened spine and the hugely complex human brain may follow the same pattern, and maybe every innovation by every new organism is equally automatic: ant colonies, the navigational skills of monarch butterflies, and the rest of "Nature's Wonders". And this attribution of all innovations to chemical responses throughout the plant and animal kingdoms is borne out by science to the extent that science has never found any other explanation. Many scientists and philosophers follow the same line as you with regard to cellular behaviour (though they do not follow your theism), and they apply it to humans too, who are part of the animal kingdom. The general philosophical term for this, as you well know, is materialism, and in relation to humans it's anthropic mechanism. And since you are so firmly convinced that all cellular behaviour is a matter of chemical responses, and since all living creatures are composed of cells, why indeed should we ourselves not be classed as automatons? My 4-year-old grandson Keanu may have got it exactly right: "My brain tells me everything." The information comes in, the chemicals get to work, and out comes the answer or the new invention. After all, what is a computer or Beethoven's 9th, compared to the incalculable complexities of sexual reproduction? If I may adapt your comment on "Panpsychism and vitalism" about cells: "Humans appear to have thought...'Appear' is the key word. Humans do not think." -But you do not believe that humans are automatons (they have free will), and I remain open-minded on the subject. Perhaps you will understand, then, why I find this discussion confusingly inconsistent. I can grasp the argument that cells are automatons, but I see no logical reason why it should not apply to humans (God or no God). I can grasp the argument that humans are NOT automatons, but I see no logical reason why this should not apply to our fellow animals, plants, and cells (God or no God), especially in the context of evolutionary innovation. (As I said before, once the innovation is established, the cells will conform to the new pattern.) And so, since we don't have a clue how "intelligence" works, or how innovation works, why should we insist on any one theory to the exclusion of all others?

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Last things first:
> 
> DAVID: You are misinterpreting Mc Clintock: She does not know the extent of self-knowledge within the cell, if any, but is saying the issue has to be explored, to be sure we are not missing anything.
> 
> dhw:That is far from saying, as you have done categorically, that the cell has no knowledge of itself.-There are feedback mechanisms which require the cell to respond. I doubt there is anything more, but the issue can have further exploration to confrim my statement.
> 
> DAVID: Talbott may dismiss 'automatism' but that is his way of accommodating his philosophy. In my mind his theory is simply wrong, but his objections to Darwinism are correct. Simply put, if you accept my scenario, God has to exist.
> 
> dhw: He would say your insistence on automatism is your way of accommodating your philosophy. And to his mind, your theory is simply wrong. And simply put, if you accept Dawkins' scenario, God doesn't exist.-Understood, but as you know, I think Dawkins is all wet.-> 
> DAVID: "The cell responds to imbedded information, and does no thinking on its own." "Consciousness in this case is an automatic chemical response by cellular molecules, which trigger the change." "...you persist in not seeing the progression of events to prepare for evolution. God in His intelligence coded DNA to contain all the information cells would need to respond to the environment and complexify as necessary. The cell molecules respond automatically." 
> 
> dhw:And of course you may well be right..... If I may adapt your comment on "Panpsychism and vitalism" about cells: "Humans appear to have thought...'Appear' is the key word. Humans do not think." -Of course humans think and that is why we are not automotons. The emergent phenomenon of consciouus thought allows us to control our brain from within and without. My 'free' thoughts are not in my brain but are part of my 'self' or 'soul', and my attempts to think and to learn, we now know, actually cause my brain to develop new neurons and new connections automatically, from which my consciousness actualy expands. This is miraculous stuff, just like the origin if life. There you have two points for the existence of God.
> 
> dhw: But you do not believe that humans are automatons (they have free will), and I remain open-minded on the subject. Perhaps you will understand, then, why I find this discussion confusingly inconsistent. I can grasp the argument that cells are automatons, but I see no logical reason why it should not apply to humans (God or no God).-I've answered above, our free-wheeling consciousness.-> dhw: I can grasp the argument that humans are NOT automatons, but I see no logical reason why this should not apply to our fellow animals, plants, and cells (God or no God), especially in the context of evolutionary innovation. (As I said before, once the innovation is established, the cells will conform to the new pattern.) And so, since we don't have a clue how "intelligence" works, or how innovation works, why should we insist on any one theory to the exclusion of all others?-I have agreed that animals have some degree of consciousness, and it is well established that plants have reactions, but they are automatic. Plants do not have nervous systems, the basis for a degree of consciousness. I frankly have no understanding of your concept of 'intelligence'. I have explained to you that the informatin in living matter is put into the genome by prior timing from intelligence which I presume to be God. We are looking at a step-wise process. Again this is the basis of the Intelligent Design theory, with which I agree. Chance is the Dawkins approach, and you can suppose all the 'third ways' you wish, but no one has found one that is reasonable to consider. Cells do not think or plan. They can only react according to their pre-set programming. -Which is why livers are so wonderful. We have no idea how they could have been developed de novo by chance! Or any of the other wonderful complex organs we have.

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DAVID: Of course humans think and that is why we are not automotons. The emergent phenomenon of conscious thought allows us to control our brain from within and without. My 'free' thoughts are not in my brain but are part of my 'self' or 'soul', and my attempts to think and to learn, we now know, actually cause my brain to develop new neurons and new connections automatically, from which my consciousness actualy expands. This is miraculous stuff, just like the origin of life. There you have two points for the existence of God.-Since I share your feeling that I'm not an automaton controlled by my cells (many disagree), I'll only pursue the argument from that point onwards. What you've said is in line with my hypothesis on the supernatural thread: "intelligence" may be a form of "conscious" (also needs defining) energy which controls matter from within, and if you believe in psychic phenomena, this may explain how our intelligent self can leave its material confines and live on after the cells have died. Energy is the key.-DAVID: I have agreed that animals have some degree of consciousness, and it is well established that plants have reactions, but they are automatic. Plants do not have nervous systems, the basis for a degree of consciousness. I frankly have no understanding of your concept of 'intelligence'.-Your conscious 'soul' will not carry your nervous system or your brain into the afterlife which you believe in, so in your scenario "intelligence" and consciousness do not require a nervous system. What you call "miraculous stuff" is, in my hypothesis, the "intelligent" energy which controls matter. You agree that other animals have it, and since they have nervous systems, "intelligent energy" controls their animal behaviour much like our own. And so maybe plants also have "intelligent energy" to control their forms of behaviour, above all when it comes to inventing new ones and new uses of materials (e.g. the flycatcher). Once the innovation is established, the plant cells will conform to the new pattern (giving the appearance of automatism, much as ants fulfil their particular roles in the community). This concept of "intelligence" is indeed nebulous, just like your concepts of "quantum" and of "God". "Life" is also a nebulous concept, since no-one can define it. But we know it's not cells and chemicals, because when we die, the cells and chemicals are still there on the deathbed. Maybe we can define it as "intelligent energy". We're dealing with "miraculous stuff" we do not understand, so how can we put it into clear words? -DAVID: I have explained to you that the information in living matter is put into the genome by prior timing from intelligence which I presume to be God. We are looking at a step-wise process. Again this is the basis of the Intelligent Design theory, with which I agree. [...] Cells do not think or plan. They can only react according to their pre-set programming. (My bold)-If I've understood this correctly, you're now saying that, in direct contradiction to your claim that the flycatching sundew was a "byproduct", every innovation that ever took place in plants and animals was preprogrammed and even timed by God. (Please keep in mind that I'm focusing on innovation as the prime example of "intelligence" in my panpsychist hypothesis.) And God therefore knew precisely what was coming.
 
DAVID: Which is why livers are so wonderful. We have no idea how they could have been developed de novo by chance! Or any of the other wonderful complex organs we have.-Let me keep on my theist hat for the sake of this discussion, and offer you a different scenario. In the beginning God created the first forms of life, and he built into them a mechanism that would enable them not only to reproduce but also to adapt to changing environments and to invent new forms. He would have found it immensely boring if he'd known what was coming, and so this mechanism was in the form of "intelligent energy" like his own, which could exercise control over the materials in which he had embedded it (just as 'free thoughts' in humans are said to develop new neurons and connections in their brain). Then he sat back and watched, as his invention created more and more forms of life, both plant and animal. Some of the cells in which he had embedded this "intelligent energy" got together to create all kinds of wonderful mechanisms de novo ... sexual organs, eyes, livers, brains etc. Whenever a particular organ was successful, its cells settled into that particular pattern of behaviour, but with each new invention the "intelligent energy" embedded within the cells of the organism as a whole (because every organism is a community of cooperating cells) acquired more and more information, and so life forms became increasingly complex, and "intelligent energy" became increasingly intelligent. In due course, this process led to a form of life that was so intelligent that it even began to think about how it had become so intelligent.
 
Why is this scenario less believable than your own?

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"DAVID: But this does not travel down to the level of cells in other organs. They are automatically run by the information coded in their DNAs, by a prior event in which an intelligence created that code with that information."
 
> dhw: By "other organs" I presume you mean other than the brain, as the seat of our own "intelligence". I'm not saying that my liver and kidneys have a brain! But once there was no such thing as a brain or a liver or a kidney. And so according to my hypothesis, when the first brain, liver, kidney were invented, the "intelligence" that created them was within the originating and cooperating cells. Once the innovation is established, the cells may indeed behave like automatons, at least until they are confronted with new problems. I have continued this discussion on the "Cell response" thread, so let's confine this thread to any further thoughts on the supernatural."-I brought the above over to continue the badgering: I agree that the cells are intelligent, but not in the way you keep insisting upon. Their inteligence is that information which is coded in their DNA. They are secondarily intelligent. Your 'intelligent cell' is run by some sort of amorphous energy, and just what is that and where is it located in what oprganelle in the cell? I try to work with what we know about cellular function. You have jumped off into the wild blue yonder. I think it is another flying spaghetti monster.-> 
> DAVID: I have agreed that animals have some degree of consciousness, and it is well established that plants have reactions, but they are automatic. Plants do not have nervous systems, the basis for a degree of consciousness. I frankly have no understanding of your concept of 'intelligence'.
> 
> dhw: Your conscious 'soul' will not carry your nervous system or your brain into the afterlife which you believe in, so in your scenario "intelligence" and consciousness do not require a nervous system. What you call "miraculous stuff" is, in my hypothesis, the "intelligent" energy which controls matter. You agree that other animals have it, and since they have nervous systems, "intelligent energy" controls their animal behaviour much like our own..... We're dealing with "miraculous stuff" we do not understand, so how can we put it into clear words?-Since you cannot seem to define 'intelligent energy' any better than I can explain quantum mechanics, the closest thing to a bedrock idea is the quantum level of reality, which we have studied. It is at this level that the entire universe is interconnected, and it is at this level that scientists who study NDE's assume the experiences occur, as their best guess. When you recognize that every cell is a beehive of quantum activity, you might move your nebulous theory into the quantum realm. My quantum soul follows its interconnectedness to return to the Universal Intelligence.
> 
> DAVID: I have explained to you that the information in living matter is put into the genome by prior timing from intelligence which I presume to be God. We are looking at a step-wise process. Again this is the basis of the Intelligent Design theory, with which I agree. [...] Cells do not think or plan. They can only react according to their pre-set programming. (My bold)
> 
> dhw: If I've understood this correctly, you're now saying that, in direct contradiction to your claim that the flycatching sundew was a "byproduct", every innovation that ever took place in plants and animals was preprogrammed and even timed by God.-No, organisms were given the abilty to adapt and to invent in DNA. That is why life is a huge bush of invention. Evolution doesn't have free will but can go off in many diffeent directions as pushed by environmental changes. I'm not at all convinced God dabbled as much as you indicate. 
> 
> dhw: Let me keep on my theist hat for the sake of this discussion, and offer you a different scenario. In the beginning God created the first forms of life, and he built into them a mechanism that would enable them not only to reproduce but also to adapt to changing environments and to invent new forms. He would have found it immensely boring if he'd known what was coming, and so this mechanism was in the form of "intelligent energy" like his own, which could exercise control over the materials in which he had embedded it (just as 'free thoughts' in humans are said to develop new neurons and connections in their brain). -Your theistic theory is fine up to the point that the nebulous 'intelligent energy' appears. I suggest you fund a study to find this ghost of yours. -> Why is this scenario less believable than your own? -Because it is not based on anything we know about the function of cells. I prefer to start theorizing from what we know about life.

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DAVID: Your 'intelligent cell' is run by some sort of amorphous energy, and just what is that and where is it located in what organelle in the cell? I try to work with what we know about cellular function. You have jumped off into the wild blue yonder. I think it is another flying spaghetti monster.-DAVID (contd.): Since you cannot seem to define 'intelligent energy' any better than I can explain quantum mechanics, the closest thing to a bedrock idea is the quantum level of reality, which we have studied. It is at this level that the entire universe is interconnected, and it is at this level that scientists who study NDE's assume the experiences occur, as their best guess. When you recognize that every cell is a beehive of quantum activity, you might move your nebulous theory into the quantum realm. My quantum soul follows its interconnectedness to return to the Universal Intelligence.-I find all your objections very reasonable, and of course I neither believe nor disbelieve in my panpsychist hypothesis. What is surprising, however, is that you do believe in a "quantum soul". Can you define it, and say where it is located in your skull? You don't understand what I mean by "intelligent energy", and yet you do believe in first-cause energy which you call "Universal Intelligence". Can you define this universal "intelligent energy"? You believe that your own version of "intelligent energy" is within and without the universe, but it's not within any of the materials it created: it merely programmed them and left them to react. So where exactly is it? Sitting on a strand of spaghetti in the wild blue yonder? Just as Dawkins hopes that science will support his materialism, you hope quantum research will support your theism, but Dawkins is "all wet". You called your own theory about quantum behaviour "nebulous" (April 10 at 19.54), but your nebulousness is no barrier to belief, whereas my nebulousness engenders disbelief. Do you detect a pattern here? 
 
DAVID: I have explained to you that the information in living matter is put into the genome by prior timing from intelligence which I presume to be God. We are looking at a step-wise process. Again this is the basis of the Intelligent Design theory, with which I agree. [..] Cells do not think or plan. They can only react according to their pre-set programming. (My bold)-dhw: If I've understood this correctly, you're now saying that, in direct contradiction to your claim that the flycatching sundew was a "byproduct", every innovation that ever took place in plants and animals was preprogrammed and even timed by God.-DAVID: No, organisms were given the ability to adapt and to invent in DNA. That is why life is a huge bush of invention. Evolution doesn't have free will but can go off in many different directions as pushed by environmental changes. I'm not at all convinced God dabbled as much as you indicate.-I'm indicating nothing, but am trying to understand your own scenario. "Prior timing" and "pre-set programming" seem to suggest that God timed the programming of every single innovation. Your explanation now is that innovations depend totally on the interaction between automated cells and an unpredictable environment. So what exactly was timed and preprogrammed? This can only mean that the invention of eyes, sex, livers, brains etc. was a matter of chance unless God preprogrammed the necessary changes in the environment as well. Or perhaps he typed into the first little blobs of life: "To whom it may concern. If it raineth, thou shalt invent fins. If it snoweth, thou shalt invent fur. If it be hot and dry, thou shalt invent a hump and a built-in air conditioner. Pass this on."-DAVID: Your theistic theory is fine up to the point that the nebulous 'intelligent energy' appears. I suggest you fund a study to find this ghost of yours. [The panpsychist hypothesis is not believable] because it is not based on anything we know about the function of cells. I prefer to start theorizing from what we know about life.-A very fair comment. But of course, despite your preferences, it applies to all your own ideas about the origin of life, the mechanisms for evolution, consciousness, the 'soul', 'God'. For anyone who is sceptical of pure materialism, the only way out is a "ghost" of some kind, and it will be as nebulous as my hypothesis and yours.

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DAVID: Your theistic theory is fine up to the point that the nebulous 'intelligent energy' appears. I suggest you fund a study to find this ghost of yours. [The panpsychist hypothesis is not believable] because it is not based on anything we know about the function of cells. I prefer to start theorizing from what we know about life.
> 
> dhw: A very fair comment. But of course, despite your preferences, it applies to all your own ideas about the origin of life, the mechanisms for evolution, consciousness, the 'soul', 'God'. For anyone who is sceptical of pure materialism, the only way out is a "ghost" of some kind, and it will be as nebulous as my hypothesis and yours.-Yours is a fair comment also. "We do not know" and perhaps "cannot know" covers much of our discussion. My only objection to your suppositions is I have tried to start theorizing from what we actually know about the electro-chemical physiology of living matter and its controlling information, and you have not. The huge mysteries have been clearly defined by Nagel, Talbott, etc. But they flounder and offer no 'third way' as I have described my definition of their desire. I admire you willingness to jump into the gap with your third way. If intelligent energy really existed, you have a reasonable solution. So far there is no evidence of intelligent energy. Raw quantum mechanics demonstrates 'spookiness at a distance', but automatic controls between daughter particles is not intelligence. On the other hand, conscious energy will have a degree of intelligence, an energy IQ.-Surely you will see where this is taking us. You and I are the same in thought. My conscious energy (God) which pervades everything and your intelligent energy are really one and the same! Your panpsychism solves the problem as you have proclaimed. It is obvious your panpsychism is really God by another name.

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DAVID: Surely you will see where this is taking us. You and I are the same in thought. My conscious energy (God) which pervades everything and your intelligent energy are really one and the same! Your panpsychism solves the problem as you have proclaimed. It is obvious your panpsychism is really God by another name.-This is a lovely post, and an ingenious response. Indeed if my "intelligent energy" or your "conscious energy" existed, they would both solve the problem equally well, but alas they are not one and the same. Your first cause energy has been eternally self-aware, purposefully designed the universe, purposefully designed life, pre-programmed the first living organisms to innovate until they reached his special target, which was humans (though his concept of preprogrammed, planned and unplanned evolution is still very unclear to me), and humans have a soul which somehow returns to him.-It may all be so. And other people's god(s) may have done things differently. The alternative panpsychist hypothesis that I am proposing is based on the model of evolution: I believe that all forms of life go back to the first living organisms, and that "intelligence" has evolved by degrees from the lowest to the highest, from bacteria (or whatever) to ourselves. And so by analogy my first cause is unconscious energy which also acquires consciousness by degrees, through and within the matter it has formed. No single, eternally self-aware, purposeful god required. We needn't repeat all the details or your objections, which I consider no more and no less valid than my objections to your eternally self-conscious energy. -However, there is an interesting in-between scenario which has been niggling away at the back of my mind, and which you, BBella and others including myself discussed at length. I went hunting through some of Frank's posts from several years ago, and came across this passage, which is a good summary:-FRANK: "Everything is "made out of" God. When God "pulverizes" himself, the most fundamental "pieces" of himself are the fundamental particles of nature, whatever they are (strings? who knows!). Since the fundamental particles are little pieces of God, supremely unconscious pieces of God because they are so simple, it stands to reason that when they collect together into higher and higher forms, following their own nature and coming to a focus in a "higher" being, they become more and more conscious, eventually reaching the point where they can turn right around and look inside themselves and "see" God in his fullness down deep inside, in what we call mystical experience."-I'm not sure to what extent you can go along with this, but my own hypothesis follows the same pattern, except that it doesn't require Frank's God! The fundamental particles are simple and unconscious, but they collect together into higher and higher forms which become increasingly conscious. Where, we will both ask, does the early consciousness come from? -According to Frank: "As for the origin of consciousness, Griffin has an answer, stemming from Whitehead, that I think is unassailable. Experience "goes all the way down" to the fundamental particles. In the fundamental particles, it is just "minimally there." It is manifest for example when one particle encounters another and there is a mutual reaction or transformation. They are "experiencing" each other. Problems only arise when you assume that experience suddenly emerges at some level of complexity from no precursors."-It's worth pointing out that A.N. Whitehead, the shining light of process theology, believed in panexperientialism (a variation of panpsychism). In my hypothesis, matter contains "particles" of the energy that formed it, and this energy's "experience" of matter (through endless encounters, reactions and transformations) brings about the first glimmerings of consciousness from which eventually everything else evolves. But of course, my hypothesis also removes the problem of believing in a form of consciousness that emerges at the highest conceivable level of complexity from no precursors: namely the God that you and Frank believe in, and in whom I neither believe nor disbelieve.

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> dhw: This is a lovely post, and an ingenious response. Indeed if my "intelligent energy" or your "conscious energy" existed, they would both solve the problem equally well, but alas they are not one and the same.-I think you are trying to 'butter me up'.But I remain alert to pounce. You are right, not the same, your amorphous 'intelligent energy' is a weak sister.
 
 
> 
> FRANK: "Everything is "made out of" God.
 
> dhw:I'm not sure to what extent you can go along with this, but my own hypothesis follows the same pattern, except that it doesn't require Frank's God!-No it doesn't follow Frank, because he starts with the organized energy of God, that can think plan and create. You start with an idea that has both feet planted firmly in mid-air! Use the universe as a pattern. Plasma of quantum particles coalescing into the material physical universe we see today. The universe is organized, planned and follows a large number of laws that allow life, but I fail to note the large universal brain discovered by the Hubble. My universal consciousness is not at a material level. Your theory requires God, you just don't realize it. Amorphous energy cannot plan, and cannot organize to reach the thought patterns that Frank describes in his next quote.--> 
> According to Frank: "As for the origin of consciousness, Griffin has an answer, stemming from Whitehead, that I think is unassailable. Experience "goes all the way down" to the fundamental particles. In the fundamental particles, it is just "minimally there." It is manifest for example when one particle encounters another and there is a mutual reaction or transformation. They are "experiencing" each other. Problems only arise when you assume that experience suddenly emerges at some level of complexity from no precursors."-Exactly my thoughts in the bold.
> 
> dhw: It's worth pointing out that A.N. Whitehead, the shining light of process theology, believed in panexperientialism (a variation of panpsychism). In my hypothesis, matter contains "particles" of the energy that formed it, and this energy's "experience" of matter (through endless encounters, reactions and transformations) brings about the first glimmerings of consciousness from which eventually everything else evolves.-Nerve cells are the basis of the consciousness 'receiver' kind of like your home radio, in current quantum theory of consciousness. So to have your pansychic theory, your matter some how or other invented DNA which then had the attributes to figure out how to make a neuron after almost 3 billion years of simple life as life entered the Cambrian era. Sounds like chance and natural selection to me, the part of Darwminism you have left behind.

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dhw: This is a lovely post, and an ingenious response. Indeed if my "intelligent energy" or your "conscious energy" existed, they would both solve the problem equally well, but alas they are not one and the same.-DAVID: I think you are trying to 'butter me up'. But I remain alert to pounce. You are right, not the same, your amorphous 'intelligent energy' is a weak sister.-It was a lovely post because of your butter-smooth invitation to pretend that my shapeless panpsychist hypothesis was the same shape as your shapeless God hypothesis. ("You and I are the same in thought. [...] It is obvious your panpsychism is really God by another name".) I'm afraid your pounce feels more like a tickle when you affirm that I am right, they are not the same. Referring to Frank's version of process theology, I wrote: "...my own hypothesis follows the same pattern, except that it doesn't require Frank's God!" You have "pounced" again: "No it doesn't follow Frank, because he starts with the organized energy of God, that can think plan and create." Yes, that is the exception I was referring to. Unconscious particles that "collect together in higher and higher forms" and "become more and more conscious" is, however, precisely the process my hypothesis describes.
 
My turn to pounce :-D AVID: My universal consciousness is not at a material level. Your theory requires God, you just don't realize it. Amorphous energy cannot plan, and cannot organize to reach the thought patterns that Frank describes in his next quote.-I really don't know how your immaterial, universally conscious, first-cause energy can have a shape (tell us what it is), and so your theory requires amorphous energy that CAN plan, but you just don't realize it. Perhaps you meant unconscious energy cannot plan. Very true. But my hypothesis is that the universe and life evolved as consciousness evolved, and there was NO plan. Your version unfolds according to a written score; mine is improvised.-dhw: According to Frank: "As for the origin of consciousness, Griffin has an answer, stemming from Whitehead, that I think is unassailable. Experience "goes all the way down" to the fundamental particles. In the fundamental particles, it is just "minimally there." It is manifest for example when one particle encounters another and there is a mutual reaction or transformation. They are "experiencing" each other. Problems only arise when you assume that experience suddenly emerges at some level of complexity from no precursors."-DAVID: Exactly my thoughts in the bold.-And exactly mine too. Your God, who is so experienced that he has all the information necessary to create a universe and life, suddenly emerges at the highest possible level of complexity from no precursors. And that is a problem.
 
DAVID: Nerve cells are the basis of the consciousness 'receiver' kind of like your home radio, in current quantum theory of consciousness. So to have your pansychic theory, your matter some how or other invented DNA which then had the attributes to figure out how to make a neuron after almost 3 billion years of simple life as life entered the Cambrian era. Sounds like chance and natural selection to me, the part of Darwinism you have left behind.-Chance, no (the "intelligent genome" knows what it's doing); natural selection, yes (if the innovation doesn't work, it doesn't survive - and I've never left that behind). So let us see if we can pin down your God's preprogrammed, planned and unplanned technique of innovation.
 
DAVID: [...] Information in living matter is put into the genome by prior timing from intelligence which I presume to be God. [...] Cells do not think or plan. They can only react according to their pre-set programming. [...] Evolution doesn't have free will but can go off in many different directions as pushed by environmental changes.-So God preprogrammed the first living organisms in such a way that through zillions of generations they would pass on the ability to invent DNA automatically, when millions of years later by sheer good fortune environmental conditions triggered his heritable DNA-inventing programme. Then 3 billion or so years later their descendants were able to invent neurons automatically, when by sheer good fortune the Cambrian era presented environmental conditions that triggered his heritable neuron-inventing programme. In fact, every single innovation was preprogrammed right from the start (um...except for non-preprogrammed byproducts like the flycatcher), to be triggered by a lucky break in the weather. And that, boys and girls, is how God turned bacteria into humans. Sounds like chance and Hans Andersen to me, the parts of Darwinism and fairy tales you have left behind.

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> dhw:So God preprogrammed the first living organisms in such a way that through zillions of generations they would pass on the ability to invent DNA automatically, when millions of years later by sheer good fortune environmental conditions triggered his heritable DNA-inventing programme. Then 3 billion or so years later their descendants were able to invent neurons automatically, when by sheer good fortune the Cambrian era presented environmental conditions that triggered his heritable neuron-inventing programme. In fact, every single innovation was preprogrammed right from the start (um...except for non-preprogrammed byproducts like the flycatcher), to be triggered by a lucky break in the weather. And that, boys and girls, is how God turned bacteria into humans. Sounds like chance and Hans Andersen to me, the parts of Darwinism and fairy tales you have left behind.-I have preserved this paragraph of yours because with a few misconceptions it is right on! The bolded area must be corrected. Evolution is not fully pre-programmed. The preprogramming in the first sentence, italicised, is correct. DNA has been given the ability to invent. We now call that aspect epigenetics, but it not yet fully understood or appreciated. But as you so clearly point out, inventions like the flycatcher are quite striking in their inventiveness, but they are not a real contribution to the mainline of evolution, just part of the bush. The main thrust of evolution is to evolve humans. The program was highly successful. We are here. -There is a retrospective type of proof taken right from the Darwinist obsession with 'fitness' an arcane form of mathematical masterbation. Bacteria are extremely fit. They live in every extreme environment invented by the Earth. Why bother to advance to multicellular forms with nuclei and all sorts of organs and the willingness to die? Bacteria don't die, but continuously multiply.-To continue the proof I offer, the primates were semi-upright so they had some use of their hands, had great mobililty through the trees, and were safe from the ground-dwelling kings of the jungle, lions and tigers. A very fit design. Why bother, then, to make complete uprightness which caused ground dwelling and danger. That requirement for cunning to survive developed a great brain for planning. Lots of bother. They should have stayed in the trees. In fact there is a 'bottleneck' in hominin development when it is theorized from genetics that only a large handful of humanoids survived, but these few made it past that point and a bush of hominins appeared. That thrust of so many forms is confusing. We are still not sure our exact line of descent.-Conclusion we had no 'fitness' need to leave the trees (per Darwin) and then we had our own bush of development, until the best form appered and knocked out the others.-Conclusion: DNA was present in the very first fully developed living prokaryotes, single-celled and still here, the largest bio-mass on Earth. Inventive DNA was programmed to respond very cleverly to challenges creating evolutonary advances, in large jumps, not Darwin's gradualism. We still don't understand the jumps, but that is why science is fun. We still have much to learn, and I predict our learning will confirm my theory about the control of evolution as arrange by God. I am a good predictor. In my last book 
I predicted the newly discovered complexity of the genome, and said it will prove God beyond a reasonable doubt. Science is doing that now and will continue into the future. An inexorable tide of knowledge overwhelming Darwin and the atheists. This is not a Grimm fairytale!

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Unanswered questions: You keep asking where in the cell my "intelligent energy" is located. Your First Cause is energy called Universal Intelligence and is "within and without" the universe. Since all organisms are composed of cells, none of your "universal intelligent energy" can therefore be located in the materials it's supposed to have created. Where is it located? You believe in a "soul" which returns after death to the "universal intelligent energy". Where in the body is it located?-*************-dhw: So God preprogrammed the first living organisms in such a way that through zillions of generations they would pass on the ability to invent DNA automatically, when millions of years later by sheer good fortune environmental conditions triggered his heritable DNA-inventing programme. [...] In fact, every single innovation was preprogrammed right from the start (um...except for non-preprogrammed byproducts like the flycatcher), to be triggered by a lucky break in the weather. And that, boys and girls, is how God turned bacteria into humans.
 
DAVID: I have preserved this paragraph of yours because with a few misconceptions it is right on! The bolded area must be corrected. Evolution is not fully pre-programmed.-My "um" parenthesis about the flycatching byproduct already pinpointed the massive contradiction. How does an automaton create something so complex as a fly-catching mechanism without being programmed and without having an inventive intelligence of its own? If one organism can create something new and functional without being preprogrammed, then so can they all. And how do you personally know which organisms have been preprogrammed and which haven't? (See your next but one puzzling comment.)-DAVID: The preprogramming in the first sentence, italicised, is correct. DNA has been given the ability to invent. We now call that aspect epigenetics, but it not yet fully understood or appreciated.
 
According to you, pre-DNA organisms were preprogrammed to invent DNA, which in turn was preprogrammed to invent some innovations but not others. Hardly surprising that it's not yet fully understood! At least you agree that your God's preprogramming relied on the luck of climate change. One up for chance, one down for God's clever planning.-DAVID: But as you so clearly point out, inventions like the flycatcher are quite striking in their inventiveness, but they are not a real contribution to the mainline of evolution, just part of the bush. The main thrust of evolution is to evolve humans. The program was highly successful. We are here.-So any invention that was not related to the human "mainline" was a byproduct which invented itself because it wasn't preprogrammed, but didn't invent itself because it had no "intelligence" of its own. Dinosaurs, then, were by-products which non-invented themselves automatically, and bonobos were preprogrammed. All somewhat confusing.
 
You rightly point out that neither bacteria nor primates had any need to evolve, and this is clear evidence of "intelligence" at work. But even your fellow believers can come up with less contradictory hypotheses than yours: 1) God created every species separately; 2) God kept intervening; 3) God invented a mechanism to do its own inventing, independently of himself. If we drop the anthropocentric hypothesis, they all fit in with the higgledy-piggledy bush, as do materialistic chance and my panpsychist evolution of "intelligences" within matter, making their own experiments as they gathered more and more information.-DAVID: Conclusion: DNA was present in the very first fully developed living prokaryotes, single-celled and still here, the largest bio-mass on Earth. Inventive DNA was programmed to respond very cleverly to challenges creating evolutionary advances, in large jumps, not Darwin's gradualism. We still don't understand the jumps...-Your explanation is that some jumps were preplanned billions of years in advance, and others just sort of happened, and they all depended on chance environmental changes. My alternative explanation is that the evolving, internal "intelligence" of genomes used the changing conditions as they arose. Your theory still doesn't explain unpreprogrammed and yet automated "byproducts" like flycatchers and brontosauruses, whereas mine does.
 
DAVID: ...but that is why science is fun. We still have much to learn, and I predict our learning will confirm my theory about the control of evolution as arranged by God.-Your theory is that evolution was only partly controlled by your God, so please tell us how to differentiate between what was and wasn't controlled, and how the uncontrolled by-products were able to invent complex mechanisms without being pre-programmed. It's as if their DNA had a mind of its own. One might even say it was "intelligent"! -DAVID: I am a good predictor. In my last book I predicted the newly discovered complexity of the genome, and said it will prove God beyond a reasonable doubt. Science is doing that now and will continue into the future.
 
You are a good advocate for the David Turell Guide to Self-Confidence. And with all these huge gaps and contradictions in your hypothesis, I have to agree 100% with the incontrovertible truth contained in your statement prior to the above: "We still have much to learn".

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dhw: You keep asking where in the cell my "intelligent energy" is located. Where is it located? You believe in a "soul" which returns after death to the "universal intelligent energy". Where in the body is it located?-The universe is composed at its base of a quantum mechanical network of communicating particles. The consciousness that survives NDE's appears to show that consciousness is part of that network. Our consciousness is part of the universal conscousness and all of it is at the quantum level, behind the wall of uncertainty. All at an energy level, no material parts.
 
> dhw: So God preprogrammed the first living organisms in such a way that through zillions of generations they would pass on the ability to invent DNA automatically, when millions of years later by sheer good fortune environmental conditions triggered his heritable DNA-inventing programme. [...] In fact, every single innovation was preprogrammed right from the start to be triggered by a lucky break in the weather. -Don't turn up your nose at this story. You have over-emphasized preprogramming, but your description is quite good.
> 
> DAVID: I have preserved this paragraph of yours because with a few misconceptions it is right on! The bolded area must be corrected. Evolution is not fully pre-programmed.
> 
> dhw:. How does an automaton create something so complex as a fly-catching mechanism without being programmed and without having an inventive intelligence of its own?-You are commenting from incredulity. The bush of life and my multiple entries of natures wonders fully demonstrate how inventive life is when its DNA contains the provided intelligent information from God.-> 
> DAVID: The preprogramming in the first sentence, italicised, is correct. DNA has been given the ability to invent. We now call that aspect epigenetics, but it not yet fully understood or appreciated.
> 
> dhw: According to you, pre-DNA organisms were preprogrammed to invent DNA, which in turn was preprogrammed to invent some innovations but not others. Hardly surprising that it's not yet fully understood! At least you agree that your God's preprogramming relied on the luck of climate change. -
You are again correct. Some of the bush of life is the result of inventiveness from chance changes in environment. The responses of life are not by chance. DNA is programmed to respond and solve problems of how to stay alive.
> 
> DAVID: But as you so clearly point out, inventions like the flycatcher are quite striking in their inventiveness, but they are not a real contribution to the mainline of evolution, just part of the bush. The main thrust of evolution is to evolve humans. .
> 
> dhw: So any invention that was not related to the human "mainline" was a byproduct which invented itself because it wasn't preprogrammed, but didn't invent itself because it had no "intelligence" of its own. Dinosaurs, then, were by-products which non-invented themselves automatically, and bonobos were preprogrammed. All somewhat confusing.-Yes, you are confused. Bonobos are part of the bush. There were four types of humans. We had a bush of our own. Life was obviously meant to explode in many directions
> 
> dhw: You rightly point out that neither bacteria nor primates had any need to evolve, and this is clear evidence of "intelligence" at work. ..... If we drop the anthropocentric hypothesis, they all fit in with the higgledy-piggledy bush, as do materialistic chance and my panpsychist evolution of "intelligences" within matter, -
All well and good, but there is no scientific evidence of your panpsychic energy except in your brain.
> 
> DAVID: Conclusion: DNA was present in the very first fully developed living prokaryotes, single-celled and still here, the largest bio-mass on Earth. Inventive DNA was programmed to respond very cleverly to challenges creating evolutionary advances, in large jumps, not Darwin's gradualism. We still don't understand the jumps...
> 
> dhw: Your explanation is that some jumps were preplanned billions of years in advance, and others just sort of happened, and they all depended on chance environmental changes. -I know that species appear out of thin air, but I haven't stated they were pre-planned. I don't think that whales were pre-planned. The bush of life invented them. It is the inventiveness of DNA you keep ignoring. 
> 
> dhw: Your theory is that evolution was only partly controlled by your God, so please tell us how to differentiate between what was and wasn't controlled, -
Frankly, I don't know the degree of God's control. I know He placed extremely complex information into DNA (using that term for the whole genome). And as I keep stating, the resulting very inventive life keep inventing some amazing out- comes.
> 
> DAVID: I am a good predictor. In my last book I predicted the newly discovered complexity of the genome, and said it will prove God beyond a reasonable doubt. Science is doing that now and will continue into the future.
> 
> dhw:You are a good advocate for the David Turell Guide to Self-Confidence. And with all these huge gaps and contradictions in your hypothesis, I have to agree 100% with the incontrovertible truth contained in your statement prior to the above: "We still have much to learn".-I only work with what I see and try to apply some underlying structure to it.

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DAVID: I don't think that whales were pre-planned. The bush of life invented them. It is the inventiveness of DNA you keep ignoring. -The bush could not invent anything. The bush is the result of all the inventions. And if whales were not preprogrammed by your God, but DNA invented them, it is the "intelligence" of DNA you keep ignoring.-Let us review the situation. According to you, the cell/genome/DNA is an automaton: it has no consciousness/thought/intelligence of its own but can only react to its environment. The first forms of life handed down God's programme first to produce DNA and then thousands of millions of years later to produce bonobos and all the other organisms essential for the end product, which was humans. Other forms of life, such as flycatchers, brontosauruses and whales, were byproducts which the genome invented without preprogramming, and without having a clue what it was doing.-Questions:
1) If the genome invented whales without being preprogrammed, how do you know it didn't also invent bonobos without being preprogrammed?
2) If God's preprogramming of bonobos depended on unpredictable changes in the environment, is it not true to say that the evolution of the human bush depended on chance?
3) Bearing in mind that Darwin's theory allows for your God creating the first forms of life and the mechanisms for evolution, and if you believe that unpreprogrammed, unconscious, unintelligent DNA could invent all the complex innovations necessary to create flycatchers, whales and brontosauruses, why can't you believe that random mutations could do the same thing? (I find both hypotheses and the three-billion-year preprogramming of bonobos equally incredible.)
4) If an unpreprogrammed organism perceives, responds, solves problems, calculates what it is capable of doing in a given environment, and then invents something totally new and functional, what else would it need for you to acknowledge its "intelligence"?
5) You say: "consciousness is part of the universal consciousness and all of it is at the quantum level, behind the wall of uncertainty. All at an energy level, no material parts." So how do you know that the consciousness of the human 'soul' exists but the consciousness of the genome does not?-DAVID: I only work with what I see and try to apply some underlying structure to it.-So do we all. And there are many other possible structures, including at least three alternative theistic ones I offered you last time. Why do you cling to the least coherent of them all? Why leap so decisively into such quicksands of illogic when you can sit safely on the fence with me and contemplate other options with calm and rational detachment?

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DAVID: I don't think that whales were pre-planned. The bush of life invented them. It is the inventiveness of DNA you keep ignoring. 
> 
> dhw:The bush could not invent anything. The bush is the result of all the inventions. And if whales were not preprogrammed by your God, but DNA invented them, it is the "intelligence" of DNA you keep ignoring.-I misspoke: the bush is the result of DNA inventiveness. I meant the 'bushing process'. But you are the one who is ignoring the correct interpretation of the intelligence of DNA. DNA operates from a very intelligent coded information it contains. DNA is just a giant molecule. It cannot think or plan, only react. 
> 
> dhw: Let us review the situation. According to you, the cell/genome/DNA is an automaton: it has no consciousness/thought/intelligence of its own but can only react to its environment. The first forms of life .....['and] Other forms of life, were byproducts which the genome invented without preprogramming, and without having a clue what it was doing.-Generally, yes, but I suspect there is an underlying layer of coding that directed evolution to human development. There is too much sense of teleology in this regard for me to ignore.
> 
> dhw: Questions:
> 1) If the genome invented whales without being preprogrammed, how do you know it didn't also invent bonobos without being preprogrammed? -It did.DNA is programmed only to respond to changes. -> dhw:2) If God's preprogramming of bonobos depended on unpredictable changes in the environment, is it not true to say that the evolution of the human bush depended on chance?-Possibly, but note my comment above. The whole thing smells of teleology.-
> 3) Bearing in mind that Darwin's theory allows for your God creating the first forms of life and the mechanisms for evolution, and if you believe that unpreprogrammed, unconscious, unintelligent DNA could invent all the complex innovations necessary to create flycatchers, whales and brontosauruses, why can't you believe that random mutations could do the same thing? -Because most mutations are not beneficial, and the time line is too short to allow for Darwin's gradualism. Note punctuated equilibrium, and all species arrive de novo in the fossil record. Epigenetics is a part of the genome which came at the origin of life.-> dhw: 4) If an unpreprogrammed organism perceives, responds, solves problems, calculates what it is capable of doing in a given environment, and then invents something totally new and functional, what else would it need for you to acknowledge its "intelligence"?-You refuse to acknowledge my scenario. The DNA is an automaton using the information it is given.-
> 5) dhw: how do you know that the consciousness of the human 'soul' exists but the consciousness of the genome does not?-I have faith the human soul exists, but consciousness is related only to nervous tissue. However, since the quantum network pervades the universe, it may have some effect upon individual molecules in a way that science has not yet descovered.
> 
> DAVID: I only work with what I see and try to apply some underlying structure to it.
> 
> dhw: Why leap so decisively into such quicksands of illogic when you can sit safely on the fence with me and contemplate other options with calm and rational detachment?-Because I can only see one side of your picket fence as rational. I only see your head in the sand.

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dhw: Questions:
1) If the genome invented whales without being preprogrammed, how do you know it didn't also invent bonobos without being preprogrammed? 
DAVID: It did.DNA is programmed only to respond to changes.-Let's start again. You think God preplanned the human bush (which would include bonobos), and left the rest to inventive DNA, although DNA has no intelligence of its own. Please explain how to differentiate between the invention of unplanned, unpreprogrammed whales and the invention of planned, preprogrammed bonobos. If there's no difference, how do you know that the human bush was planned and preprogrammed and the rest was not?-2) If God's preprogramming of bonobos depended on unpredictable changes in the environment, is it not true to say that the evolution of the human bush depended on chance?
DAVID: Possibly, but note my comment above. The whole thing smells of teleology.-It smells of your anthropocentric teleology if you sprinkle a branch or two of the bush with Chanel Homo Sapiens. It smells of higgledy-piggledy if you sniff the bush as a whole. You'd have a better case, I think, if you opted for higgledy-piggledy as your teleology (e.g. your God experimenting, having fun, and/or leaving everything to his intelligent invention the genome, instead of all this alleged preprogramming of the human branch).-3) Bearing in mind that Darwin's theory allows for your God creating the first forms of life and the mechanisms for evolution, and if you believe that unpreprogrammed, unconscious, unintelligent DNA could invent all the complex innovations necessary to create flycatchers, whales and brontosauruses, why can't you believe that random mutations could do the same thing? 
DAVID: Because most mutations are not beneficial, and the time line is too short to allow for Darwin's gradualism. Note punctuated equilibrium, and all species arrive de novo in the fossil record. Epigenetics is a part of the genome which came at the origin of life.-Sorry, my question was badly phrased, but you missed out my parenthesis saying I find both scenarios equally unbelievable. I agree that random mutations are not credible, but you haven't given any reason for believing the equally incredible hypothesis that an unpreprogrammed, unconscious, unintelligent mechanism could invent all the complex innovations necessary to create flycatchers, whales and brontosauruses.
 
4) If an unpreprogrammed organism perceives, responds, solves problems, calculates what it is capable of doing in a given environment, and then invents something totally new and functional, what else would it need for you to acknowledge its "intelligence"?
DAVID: You refuse to acknowledge my scenario. The DNA is an automaton using the information it is given.-Yes, I refuse to acknowledge your scenario, and you refuse to tell me what else the genome would need for you to acknowledge its "intelligence". In order to invent something totally new and functional, I maintain that it requires intelligence to use the information available. (Isn't that the whole basis of ID?) Automatons cannot innovate! They can only obey instructions. But you say the whale was not preplanned ... in which case the genome was not instructed to produce whales. McClintock (Nobel-Prize-winning geneticist): "A goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself." Why do you insist that you already know the answer, and the answer is NONE? Why not keep an open mind?
 
5) How do you know that the consciousness of the human 'soul' exists but the consciousness of the genome does not?
DAVID: I have faith the human soul exists, but consciousness is related only to nervous tissue. -What does "related to" mean? If, as you believe, the soul is conscious and survives the death of nervous tissues, consciousness can only be in the form of energy ... see David Turell, 18 April: "All at an energy level. No material parts."-DAVID: However, since the quantum network pervades the universe, it may have some effect upon individual molecules in a way that science has not yet discovered.-Yes indeed. If our consciousness is all energy and can direct our material parts, maybe "in a way that science has not yet discovered" this energy exists on a micro level and can direct the material parts of the cell. I'm not asking you to believe it ... only to be as open-minded as McClintock.-dhw: Why leap so decisively into such quicksands of illogic when you can sit safely on the fence with me and contemplate other options with calm and rational detachment?
DAVID: Because I can only see one side of your picket fence as rational. I only see your head in the sand.-I am sitting on a fence. Unless my fence has sunk below ground level (in which case it can't be called a fence), it is not possible for my head to be in the sand. Ah, more confusion! But, dear David, you are older than me, and I must make allowances!

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> dhw: Let's start again. You think God preplanned the human bush (which would include bonobos), and left the rest to inventive DNA, although DNA has no intelligence of its own. Please explain how to differentiate between the invention of unplanned, unpreprogrammed whales and the invention of planned, preprogrammed bonobos. If there's no difference, how do you know that the human bush was planned and preprogrammed and the rest was not?-I don't know for sure, obviously. The evidence of leaving the trees, when not necessary suggests a built-in program. 
> 
> dhw: I agree that random mutations are not credible, but you haven't given any reason for believing the equally incredible hypothesis that an unpreprogrammed, unconscious, unintelligent mechanism could invent all the complex innovations necessary to create flycatchers, whales and brontosauruses.-If you an accept, as I do, that a brilliant mind created a multilayered code filled with intelligent information, then a preprogrammed evolution is entirely possible. This is a directed evolution that responds to environmental changes with a multitude of attempts to advance the complexity of life. Thus the bush with 'natures wonders'. This is theistic evolution, process theology at its core. 
> 
> dhw: Yes, I refuse to acknowledge your scenario, ....... I maintain that it requires intelligence to use the information available. (Isn't that the whole basis of ID?) Automatons cannot innovate! They can only obey instructions. But you say the whale was not preplanned ... in which case the genome was not instructed to produce whales. McClintock (Nobel-Prize-winning geneticist): "A goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself." -If the genome is completely automatic it does not have intelligence in its own right. If we live long enough for the scienctific elucidation of the complete story of the genome, my viewpoint will be verified. Barbara M is right to ask for that study of cellular self-knowledge. My prediction is that thre will be no self-knowledge. Negative results are just as important as positive ones in the study of the genome.- 
> 
> dhw: If, as you believe, the soul is conscious and survives the death of nervous tissues, consciousness can only be in the form of energy ... see David Turell, 18 April: "All at an energy level. No material parts."-Agreed.
> 
> dhw: Yes indeed. If our consciousness is all energy and can direct our material parts, maybe "in a way that science has not yet discovered" this energy exists on a micro level and can direct the material parts of the cell. I'm not asking you to believe it ... only to be as open-minded as McClintock.-I am open-minded. Quantum energy is interconnected throughout the universe and our minds certainly affect our bodies in many ways. Some obvious as nerve controls, hormone cotrols, but we are not sure how placebos work. What you keep ignoring is the theory that our brain reacts as a receiver for consciousness, which is individual and also universal. I ascribe to that theory because of the inferrences from NDE's. - 
> dhw; Ah, more confusion! But, dear David, you are older than me, and I must make allowances!-I am trying to undo your confusion. As older I must guide you out of your muddled morass of thought. I've had more time and more openness to science to realize there must be a greater power. As a child your exposure to religion caused confusion and an unreasonable picture of God. So reasonably you left the fold, never to return. Don't return to religion. They are as confused as you are. My third way is a reasonable alternative. God as demonstrated by His works. Only chance and design are available. John Leslie told us there is a choice: God or a multiverse. Same idea. Your nebulous third way is just a cloud of obsfuscation. I want you to be clear-headed.

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Dhw: ...how do you know that the human bush was planned and preprogrammed and the rest was not?-DAVID: I don't know for sure, obviously. The evidence of leaving the trees, when not necessary suggests a built-in program.
 
Maybe it WAS necessary under certain local conditions. Anyway, your "evidence" means that any innovation that was not "necessary" (i.e. essential for survival) suggests a built-in programme. Since early organisms managed and have survived perfectly well without eyes, livers, lungs etc., we must therefore assume that all our fellow animals were part of a built-in programme, but you believe they were not (viz. the whale and the brontosaurus). Only humans were. With no criteria by which to distinguish between what was and what wasn't preprogrammed, your anthropocentric evolutionary hypothesis hangs on nothing but a strand of faith. (However, see our next exchange.)-DAVID: If you can accept, as I do, that a brilliant mind created a multilayered code filled with intelligent information, then a preprogrammed evolution is entirely possible. This is a directed evolution that responds to environmental changes with a multitude of attempts to advance the complexity of life. Thus the bush with 'natures wonders'. This is theistic evolution, process theology at its core.-The question is WHAT is preprogrammed, and you are trying to combine two very different arguments. One is that humans were preprogrammed from the beginning, and the other is that God invented a mechanism to experiment with "a multitude of attempts to advance the complexity of life". The latter leads to the higgledy-piggledy bush which you are saying here was directed to be higgledy-piggledy ... i.e. there was no single ultimate purpose (humans) but only diversity. That makes much more sense to me than your anthropocentric preprogramming plus a colossal range of "byproducts".
 
DAVID: If the genome is completely automatic it does not have intelligence in its own right.-Obviously. We are discussing whether it IS completely automatic.-DAVID: If we live long enough for the scientific elucidation of the complete story of the genome, my viewpoint will be verified. Barbara M is right to ask for that study of cellular self-knowledge. My prediction is that there will be no self-knowledge. Negative results are just as important as positive ones in the study of the genome.-Dawkins makes similar predictions about his own theories. But I suggest that it is too soon to claim, as you keep doing, that the cell IS an automaton. I'm glad you've now reduced your authoritative statements to the status of a prediction.
 
DAVID: I am open-minded. Quantum energy is interconnected throughout the universe and our minds certainly affect our bodies in many ways. Some obvious as nerve controls, hormone controls, but we are not sure how placebos work. What you keep ignoring is the theory that our brain reacts as a receiver for consciousness, which is individual and also universal. I ascribe to that theory because of the inferences from NDE's.-We know that the body affects the mind, and the mind the body, but that is not what I'm talking about at all. In my hypothesis, I AM arguing that the brain may be a receiver! If the soul survives our materials, then all our thoughts, memories, imaginings, emotions must be energy and not materials, and it's the intelligent energy within the skull that sends messages to the brain. By analogy, in my panpsychic hypothesis, I'm suggesting that innovations may be caused by the intelligent energy in the cell sending messages to the chemicals.-DAVID: Your nebulous third way is just a cloud of obfuscation. I want you to be clear-headed.-And I appreciate your efforts! You are quite right that this panpsychist hypothesis is a cloud of obfuscation, which is the very nature of all attempts to explain the mystery of our existence and our consciousness. That is why I consider my hypothesis neither more nor less credible than the head-in-the-clouds faith of the theist and the head-in-the-sand faith of the atheist.

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> dhw: The question is WHAT is preprogrammed, and you are trying to combine two very different arguments. One is that humans were preprogrammed from the beginning, and the other is that God invented a mechanism to experiment with "a multitude of attempts to advance the complexity of life". -I am stuck with the fact of the rapidity of development of the hominin skeletal changes and then the very rapid development of the brain, especially the frontal lobe, when compared to the prior development of primates preceeding the appearance of hominins.-> 
> DAVID: If the genome is completely automatic it does not have intelligence in its own right.
> 
> dhw:Obviously. We are discussing whether it IS completely automatic.-Agreed and it is:-See this video just entered into the forum:-http://www.metacafe.com/watch/10335610/the_origin_of_life_requires_intelligence_kirk_durston_phd/
> 
> dhw:We know that the body affects the mind, and the mind the body, but that is not what I'm talking about at all. In my hypothesis, I AM arguing that the brain may be a receiver! 
 
> 
> dhw:And I appreciate your efforts! You are quite right that this panpsychist hypothesis is a cloud of obfuscation,-Thank you for accepting the brain as a receiver! And I admit you are a master obfuscator!

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dhw: The question is WHAT is preprogrammed, and you are trying to combine two very different arguments. One is that humans were preprogrammed from the beginning, and the other is that God invented a mechanism to experiment with "a multitude of attempts to advance the complexity of life". -DAVID: I am stuck with the fact of the rapidity of development of the hominin skeletal changes and then the very rapid development of the brain, especially the frontal lobe, when compared to the prior development of primates preceeding the appearance of hominins.-You are stuck because you want to stick ... namely, to the two contradictory hypotheses quoted above. The anthropocentric one depends a) on random changes in the environment (a strange form of preplanning), and (b) on innovations that humans share with countless species which you say were NOT preprogrammed. And so you have no way of judging whether anything at all was preprogrammed. As for rapidity, ALL innovations must work rapidly if they are to survive. Hence your (in my view justified) emphasis on evolutionary jumps.-DAVID: If the genome is completely automatic it does not have intelligence in its own right.
dhw:Obviously. We are discussing whether it IS completely automatic.
DAVID: Agreed and it is:
See this video just entered into the forum:-http://www.metacafe.com/watch/10335610/the_origin_of_life_requires_intelligence_kirk_du...-I couldn't find out how to play it (I think you have to subscribe). But even if the video shows that life requires intelligence, does it prove your intelligent God did not invent a mechanism that has its OWN inventive intelligence (i.e. is not an automaton)? Unless God himself made the video, I doubt that it will justify your turning your prediction into a fact (see below).-dhw: We know that the body affects the mind, and the mind the body, but that is not what I'm talking about at all. In my hypothesis, I AM arguing that the brain may be a receiver! 
dhw: [...] You are quite right that this panpsychist hypothesis is a cloud of obfuscation.
DAVID: Thank you for accepting the brain as a receiver! And I admit you are a master obfuscator!-You are a master twister! First, the brain as receiver is a hypothesis (not a belief), and second, "may be" is not the same as "is". When you say repeatedly that the cell IS an automaton, what you really mean is that you believe it is an automaton, and when you predict that your belief will be verified, you make it clear that your original statement that the cell IS an automaton was a dreadful obfuscation. It was an attempt to pass off an opinion as a fact. Whereas I always make it abundantly clear that the various hypotheses I am putting forward are ALL suspect and ALL equally incredible. So which of us is the master obfuscator? Gotcher.-Under "Max Planck":
M.P.: I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.
dhw: I agree that consciousness is fundamental. Whether matter derives from consciousness or consciousness derives from matter is one of the great divides between theists and atheists.........The source of consciousness is the key.DAVID: Be careful. Your thoughts are creeping close to mine! Consciousness is not matter,but it must relate to energy in some way. And energy is at the base all there is.-Many of my thoughts do indeed creep close to yours. And many creep close to George's. For example, with regard to consciousness, I have no idea whether it is a form of energy that springs from matter (materialistic atheism), has been deliberately introduced into matter (theism), or has evolved within the matter produced by non-conscious first-cause energy (my panpsychic hypothesis). And so inevitably my thoughts creep in all directions, including yours.

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> dhw: The anthropocentric one depends a) on random changes in the environment (a strange form of preplanning), and (b) on innovations that humans share with countless species which you say were NOT preprogrammed. And so you have no way of judging whether anything at all was preprogrammed. As for rapidity, ALL innovations must work rapidly if they are to survive. Hence your (in my view justified) emphasis on evolutionary jumps.-Your pargraph is filled with strange assumptions. I specifically reject the idea that climate change took the hominins out of trees. The assumption that the appearance of savannah brought them out of trees has been recently questioned. And part of my theory is the pattern of behavior of the primates they left behind, who remained in the trees to this day! And as for punctuated equilibrium, it is simply a fact. -
> dhw:Obviously. We are discussing whether it [the genome] IS completely automatic.-> DAVID: Agreed and it is:
> See this video just entered into the forum:
> 
> http://www.metacafe.com/watch/10335610/the_origin_of_life_requires_intelligence_kirk_du... 
> dhw:I couldn't find out how to play it (I think you have to subscribe). But even if the video shows that life requires intelligence, does it prove your intelligent God did not invent a mechanism that has its OWN inventive intelligence (i.e. is not an automaton)? -Do I have to buy a new computer for you? The link works just fine on my four-year-old Dell, and it is a replica of my assertion that the genome is automatic, run by intelligent code. There is no subscription, just a You tube like website.-> dhw: When you say repeatedly that the cell IS an automaton, what you really mean is that you believe it is an automaton,..... -Not true! The science of evolution expressly shows that the genome is an automaton. The atheists depend on this viewpoint. Otherwise they have to identify the source of the intelligent information in the code. The code simply invented itself by chance(!), no source (God) of intelligent information required.-
> Under "Max Planck":
> M.P.: I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.-> dhw: I agree that consciousness is fundamental. Whether matter derives from consciousness or consciousness derives from matter is one of the great divides between theists and atheists.........The source of consciousness is the key.-> DAVID: Be careful. Your thoughts are creeping close to mine!-> dhw:Consciousness is not matter,but it must relate to energy in some way. And energy is at the base all there is......And so inevitably my thoughts creep in all directions, including yours.-I am proud of your thought creep. Your brain is plastic, not cemented like the atheists. We have been arguing for five years and I have you accepting much of my thoughts. Not all I admit. But I will get you there.

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David believes that the human branch of the evolutionary bush was planned and preprogrammed from the beginning, whereas all other species are the result of "a directed evolution that responds to environmental changes with a multitude of attempts to advance the complexity of life." He has mentioned whales as an example of such a "byproduct". I keep pointing out that every innovation that has led from bacteria to humans (eyes, lungs, livers, brains) must therefore have been triggered by random environmental changes, in which case the human branch depended on chance. The only alternative would be that all eyes, lungs, livers, brains depended on environmental change, except for the eyes, lungs, livers, brains of humans and their ancestors, which were planned and preprogrammed from the beginning, independently of environmental change! David has now leapt from the beginning to the end of the chain :-D AVID: I specifically reject the idea that climate change took the hominins out of trees. The assumption that the appearance of savannah brought them out of trees has been recently questioned.
 
This does not invalidate the argument concerning the chain from bacteria to hominins. If you choose to believe that God preprogrammed the first forms of life to pass on instructions through zillions of organisms that in, say, 3 billion years a set of primates were to descend from the trees regardless of the environment, that is up to you.
 
DAVID: And part of my theory is the pattern of behavior of the primates they left behind, who remained in the trees to this day!-You seem to assume that any environmental change is global. As I pointed out on 21 April, "maybe [leaving the trees] WAS necessary under certain local conditions." Maybe the primates in Area A had to leave the trees, while primates in Areas B, C and D were able to stay as they were. The fact that someone has questioned the savannah theory doesn't mean we are now obliged to reject the possibility of a local climate change.-DAVID: And as for punctuated equilibrium, it is simply a fact. -I also accept it. My point was that you were "stuck with" the rapidity of hominin skeletal changes and brain development, but these are explained by p.e. ... innovations have to work rapidly, and this is not proof that God preprogrammed them.-DAVID: If the genome is completely automatic it does not have intelligence in its own right.
dhw: Obviously. We are discussing whether it [the genome] IS completely automatic.
DAVID: Agreed and it is:
See this video just entered into the forum...-I still can't get onto the video, though my daughter did straight away on her computer. She will bring it here over the weekend. In the meantime, the fact that a video agrees with your opinion does not mean that your opinion has been proved correct (see below).-dhw: When you say repeatedly that the cell IS an automaton, what you really mean is that you believe it is an automaton,..... -DAVID: Not true! The science of evolution expressly shows that the genome is an automaton. The atheists depend on this viewpoint. Otherwise they have to identify the source of the intelligent information in the code. The code simply invented itself by chance(!), no source (God) of intelligent information required.-Neither the theist nor the atheist hypothesis need depend on the genome being an automaton. The theist can argue that his God invented a mechanism that could act intelligently and independently (as we humans think we do). The atheist can argue that this same mechanism was assembled through cooperation between materials after non-conscious energy had become aware of itself through changes in the materials it had produced and in which it was embedded.-You often tell us to think "out of the box", and yet when you peep out of this particular box, you seem so horrified that you immediately slam the lid shut. Compare your scream of "Not true!" with your statement on 19 April at 18.05: "If we live long enough...my viewpoint will be verified. Barbara M. is right to ask for that study of cellular self-knowledge. My prediction is that there will be no self-knowledge." It would appear that in the last three days, the science of evolution has proved once and for all that your "viewpoint" is correct and your "prediction" has come true. I predict a Nobel Prize for whoever spent last weekend coming up with the goods on your behalf. And perhaps if we live long enough, we shall see another Nobel Prize awarded for someone's discovery that the cell DOES have knowledge of itself. N.B. I said "perhaps". In this field, nothing is certain, no matter what you theists and atheists agree or disagree on.-There is more food for thought in my response to your enlightening entry under "Automatic cell activity".

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> DAVID: Not true! The science of evolution expressly shows that the genome is an automaton. The atheists depend on this viewpoint. Otherwise they have to identify the source of the intelligent information in the code. The code simply invented itself by chance(!), no source (God) of intelligent information required.
> 
> Neither the theist nor the atheist hypothesis need depend on the genome being an automaton. The theist can argue that his God invented a mechanism that could act intelligently and independently (as we humans think we do). The atheist can argue that this same mechanism was assembled through cooperation between materials after non-conscious energy had become aware of itself through changes in the materials it had produced and in which it was embedded.-You do not answer my point: DNA is a digital code, and the atheists avoid any discussion of the fact that the information contained therein has to have a source. Our experience in life says that all codes require intelligence. Now you want to protect the atheists by siding with the idea that chance created that intricate mechanism in DNA. Don't invent theist arguments, they already have the telling point, the origin for the source of the information cannot be chance. And non-conscious energy flows everyday through your house wires, but I'm sure you have not noticed any changes occurring automatically or purposely.Perhaps non-conscious energy is causing global warming. After all we are surrounded by non-consciouis energy all our lives. You make non-conscious energy seem brilliant.

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DAVID: Not true! The science of evolution expressly shows that the genome is an automaton. The atheists depend on this viewpoint. Otherwise they have to identify the source of the intelligent information in the code. The code simply invented itself by chance(!), no source (God) of intelligent information required.-Dhw: Neither the theist nor the atheist hypothesis need depend on the genome being an automaton. The theist can argue that his God invented a mechanism that could act intelligently and independently (as we humans think we do). The atheist can argue that this same mechanism was assembled through cooperation between materials after non-conscious energy had become aware of itself through changes in the materials it had produced and in which it was embedded.-DAVID: You do not answer my point: DNA is a digital code, and the atheists avoid any discussion of the fact that the information contained therein has to have a source. Our experience in life says that all codes require intelligence. Now you want to protect the atheists by siding with the idea that chance created that intricate mechanism in DNA.-The context here is your claim that the genome is an automaton, and you said explicitly that atheists depended on this viewpoint. My post offers an ALTERNATIVE to atheistic chance, which is the "intelligent cell" engaged in deliberate and purposeful cooperation, along the lines described by the researchers at Rice University, Tel Aviv University, and Harvard Medical School. (The theory that DNA evolved from the simpler RNA could suggest ongoing internal experimentation, as cells gathered more and more information.) This concept, like evolution, can fit in with both theist and atheist scenarios, but before you howl with disbelief, please see my own conclusion below.-DAVID: Don't invent theist arguments, they already have the telling point, the origin for the source of the information cannot be chance.
 -How can "God invented a mechanism that could act intelligently and independently" be construed as attributing the source to chance? Why do you call this argument a theistic "invention" when you keep telling us that God invented DNA?-DAVID: And non-conscious energy flows everyday through your house wires, but I'm sure you have not noticed any changes occurring automatically or purposely.Perhaps non-conscious energy is causing global warming. After all we are surrounded by non-conscious energy all our lives. You make non-conscious energy seem brilliant.-I'm not sure what you're getting at here. We're grappling with two questions: 1) how can we distinguish between non-conscious and conscious? 2) What is the origin of consciousness? As regards 1), you have drawn fixed lines, and have provided articles by chosen scientists to support your opinion, only to find that they do not. As regards 2), I'm afraid none of the hypotheses (it has always been there, it arose by chance, it evolved) have any basis in the reality we perceive. That is why the acceptance of any one of these unlikely explanations can only be based on faith and not on science.

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> dhw: The context here is your claim that the genome is an automaton, and you said explicitly that atheists depended on this viewpoint. My post offers an ALTERNATIVE to atheistic chance, which is the "intelligent cell" engaged in deliberate and purposeful cooperation.......-The reason the cell acts intelligently is that it has many automatic paths of action based on the information in its DNA, which information was provided at the start of life. I am a believer in theistic evolution, as you know. - -> 
> DAVID: You make non-conscious energy seem brilliant.[/i]
> 
> dhw: I'm not sure what you're getting at here. We're grappling with two questions: 1) how can we distinguish between non-conscious and conscious? 2) What is the origin of consciousness?..... [T]he acceptance of any one of these unlikely explanations can only be based on faith and not on science.-1) I am conscious, as you are. We are conscious because we experience it. We can infer some degree of consciousness to animals but they are not aware that they are aware, the standard to infer higher thinking than just reacting. I believe in species conscousness because of Rupert Sheldrake's work as discussed in my first book. So I don't think distinguishing is a problem. I don't think individual cels are conscious, but the brain acts through all its cells as a receiver. This is the best theory to fit what we know, from all I have read.-2) I believe consciousness is an emergent phenomenon in part, but it also is connected to a universal consciousnes. Again the best explanation I can come up with from the presentations by the 'experts'.-And, of course, I have faith in my conclusions. I know that your proposal of intelligent energy engenders no faith on your part, just another 'angels on the head of the pin' rumination. Anything to avoid the propostion that only chance or design can explain our reality. There is no third way.

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DAVID: 1) I am conscious, as you are. We are conscious because we experience it. We can infer some degree of consciousness to animals but they are not aware that they are aware, the standard to infer higher thinking than just reacting.
 
We're back to the difficulty of defining "intelligence" and consciousness. From what we know (which is horribly limited), human awareness of awareness is the highest form. Our assumption that our fellow animals have nothing like our degree of self-awareness is based on communication and observation: we have enough in common with them to attain a degree of understanding. But the less related we are to other organisms, the less able we are to "read their minds". The behaviour of bacteria is astonishingly similar in its apparent consciousness to that of ants. You may, of course, be right that they're all automatons, but I'm not convinced and we can't prove anything either way. We know that all kinds of electrical impulses take place in our own brains, but we don't know whether they are the cause or the result of thought. The same chicken-and-egg uncertainty (very inappropriate metaphor!) applies to other forms of life.-DAVID: 2) I believe consciousness is an emergent phenomenon in part, but it also is connected to a universal consciousness. Again the best explanation I can come up with from the presentations by the 'experts'.-This is where your whole scenario becomes uncomfortably murky. "In part" and "connected to" won't do for me. "Emergent" = the mind is a product of the brain (which may well be so). In that case, you can't have your immortal soul. But in NDEs, the patients retain their personal identity, their ability to think and communicate etc. This is not a "connection" ... it is their own consciousness. I'd be very surprised if your 'experts' agreed on part-emergent, part-soul. Of course I haven't read nearly as much as you on the subject, but I would have expected a much sharper divide, with physicalists going for emergentism, and religious believers for the 'spirit', 'soul', or what I prefer to call 'intelligent energy'.
 
DAVID: And, of course, I have faith in my conclusions. I know that your proposal of intelligent energy engenders no faith on your part, just another 'angels on the head of the pin' rumination. Anything to avoid the proposition that only chance or design can explain our reality. There is no third way.-Yes, it's very important for me that you should keep my non-belief in mind. But you should also keep in mind that this 'third way' is not a means of avoidance; it's part of the quest for what seems to me to be credible. I do find the "intelligent cell" credible (far more so than your evolutionary scenario of the human line being preplanned and preprogrammed, although new organs and Nature's innovative wonders in other species result from automated but unplanned responses to the environment). However, the idea that non-conscious energy "awakens" within matter and then guides materials to form the "intelligent cell" is as far beyond my credulity as chance doing the same job or first-cause energy being eternally, infinitely and inexplicably self-aware.

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dhw: Yes, it's very important for me that you should keep my non-belief in mind. But you should also keep in mind that this 'third way' is not a means of avoidance; it's part of the quest for what seems to me to be credible.-I understand your non-belief and the quest for something credible, since you cannot accept chance or design, when that appears to be all that is.. -> dhw: However, the idea that non-conscious energy "awakens" within matter and then guides materials to form the "intelligent cell" is as far beyond my credulity as chance doing the same job or first-cause energy being eternally, infinitely and inexplicably self-aware.-Thank you. We can stop this debate here, since you find none of the above acceptable, and there is nothing else to consider.

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dhw: However, the idea that non-conscious energy "awakens" within matter and then guides materials to form the "intelligent cell" is as far beyond my credulity as chance doing the same job or first-cause energy being eternally, infinitely and inexplicably self-aware.-DAVID: Thank you. We can stop this debate here, since you find none of the above acceptable, and there is nothing else to consider.-I'm happy to do so, but since the concept of the "intelligent cell" still seems to me to offer a far more credible explanation of the evolutionary process than your own, I need to answer your post under "Energy from AtP", and especially your comment below: "No original thought necessary."-DAVID: When AtP changes to AdP energy is released in phosphate to the cell to power any functions needed. A nanomachine operating automatically. :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI8m6o0gXDY&feature=player_embedded
No original thought necessary.-Our human organs are composed of cellular "nanomachines", but we do not hesitate to acknowledge that humans are "intelligent".
 
My question, as ever, concerns how these organs were first formed ... i.e. INNOVATION. Cells combined in a new, meaningful, functional and INVENTIVE way, but we don't know how. Your own argument has been that they were preprogrammed to react automatically to environmental change, but unless your God kept intervening or they were preprogrammed right from the start to produce functioning organs that had never existed before, I'm arguing that there has to be an inventive intelligence at work within them. (How it got there is open to question.) And so I'm suggesting that cells are microscopic bodies like ours, and may have microscopic minds ... not, of course, with our breadth and depth of self-awareness, but nevertheless capable of thought and invention, in the manner described by the article on bacteria. At a stroke, this solves many of the problems thrown up by Darwinian evolution (out go random mutations, gradualism, the fossil gap). In this post and elsewhere you have focused on automatons within the cell, but we do not judge whether a human is intelligent by pointing out that his liver functions automatically. Similarly, we should not judge whether a cell is intelligent by pointing at the automatic "nanomachines" that keep it alive.

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> dhw: My question, as ever, concerns how these organs were first formed ... i.e. INNOVATION. Cells combined in a new, meaningful, functional and INVENTIVE way, but we don't know how. Your own argument has been that they were preprogrammed to react automatically to environmental change, but unless your God kept intervening or they were preprogrammed right from the start to produce functioning organs that had never existed before, I'm arguing that there has to be an inventive intelligence at work within them. -Here is an 'inventive intelligence' hard at work and producing an innovation by altering the expession of a gene molecule. Who did the thinking here?-"To test their theory, the researchers investigated what would happen to fetal mouse brains if they interfered with Trnp1 expression using synthetic sequences of genetic material that silenced the gene, a technique called RNA interference. The tiny fetal mouse brains developed cortical folds, the authors report today in Cell. The "most exciting" part of the discovery was that "just by varying how much of this gene is expressed, we are able to have folds in the cortex," Borrell says."- http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/master-gene-makes-mouse-brain-lo.html?ref... can happen epigenetically by gene expression modification, no thinking by a cell required. All done at a molecular level.-Please demonstrate a thinking molecule. Shades of Kipling!-Here is an example of embryonic cell control at a molecular level. The molecule acts to control, no evidence of thinking. This scientist believes as I do that it is all under automatic molecular control:-"Movies of early development show that neural cells decide what fate to adopt while rapidly traveling from place to place, making it hard to see how the textbook model can be true. Megason and colleagues propose that instead of the location telling a cell what identity to adopt, the cell's identity is fixed first and then determines the location.
 
The work provides insight into how embryos manage to develop the same complex structures despite a wide range of possible environmental and genetic conditions.The molecular mechanism that governs the sorting of cells is not yet clear. One possibility is that as the cells assume their fates, they turn on different adhesion molecules that make them stick to one another in different ways.
 
"Once they have these differential affinities, they could self-assemble," said Megason.
 
Megason is delving deeper into the molecular biology to determine whether adhesion is directing self-assembly."-
 Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-04-view-embryos-imaging-technique-cells.html#jCp

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dhw: My question, as ever, concerns how these organs were first formed ... i.e. INNOVATION. Cells combined in a new, meaningful, functional and INVENTIVE way, but we don't know how. Your own argument has been that they were preprogrammed to react automatically to environmental change, but unless your God kept intervening or they were preprogrammed right from the start to produce functioning organs that had never existed before, I'm arguing that there has to be an inventive intelligence at work within them.-I'm changing the heading of this thread, because innovation is the aspect of evolution which seems to me to give the clearest indication of "intelligence" within the cell. Let me repeat that once a functioning pattern is established, cells (like ants in a colony) will fit into their roles. This is important in view of the second example David has given below.
 
DAVID: Here is an 'inventive intelligence' hard at work and producing an innovation by altering the expression of a gene molecule. Who did the thinking here?-"To test their theory, the researchers investigated what would happen to fetal mouse brains if they interfered with Trnp1 expression using synthetic sequences of genetic material that silenced the gene, a technique called RNA interference. The tiny fetal mouse brains developed cortical folds, the authors report today in Cell. The "most exciting" part of the discovery was that "just by varying how much of this gene is expressed, we are able to have folds in the cortex," Borrell says."-DAVID: This can happen epigenetically by gene expression modification, no thinking by a cell required. All done at a molecular level.-Of course you may be right, but your scenario is like that of folk who believe that if scientists can produce life, it will prove that life produces itself (i.e. no need for your God). The thinking here was done by intelligent scientists intervening and changing the molecular structure. The question is how and why genes change themselves, without scientists (your God) intervening and without being preprogrammed, to produce something that never existed before. "Epigenetically by gene expression modification" doesn't help me to understand how cells can invent the liver.
 
DAVID: Here is an example of embryonic cell control at a molecular level. The molecule acts to control, no evidence of thinking. This scientist believes as I do that it is all under automatic molecular control:-"Movies of early development show that neural cells decide what fate to adopt while rapidly traveling from place to place, making it hard to see how the textbook model can be true. Megason and colleagues propose that instead of the location telling a cell what identity to adopt, the cell's identity is fixed first and then determines the location."-So the cells decide their identity (it is not decided for them), and they then determine where to go (they are not instructed). 
 
"The work provides insight into how embryos manage to develop the same complex structures despite a wide range of possible environmental and genetic conditions."-In this case, the object is to maintain the existing pattern, not to provide something new, but even here decisions must be taken.
 
"[...] when we tracked the cells back in time, they all got mixed up." [...] Over time, however, the cells sort themselves out into sharp stripes.-The molecular mechanism that governs the sorting of cells is not yet clear. One possibility is that as the cells assume their fates, they turn on different adhesion molecules that make them stick to one another in different ways."-The fact that the mechanism is not (yet) clear is hardly a ringing endorsement of automatism. The cells don't receive precise orders (= not automated), but they do sort themselves out (= not automated), and "assume their fate" (it is not thrust upon them).
 
""Once they have these differential affinities, they could self-assemble," said Megason.-Megason is delving deeper into the molecular biology to determine whether adhesion is directing self-assembly."
 
The expression used was: the cells "turn on different adhesion molecules", which suggests that it's the cells that do the directing. This is a clear example of cells cooperating to maintain an existing form. Conventional thinking, if you like. We might compare it to Tom, Dick and Harry sitting in their cars and performing all the actions necessary to start their cars and take them in the desired direction. No original thought required, but a degree of awareness, with certain decisions to be taken.-However, neither of your examples explains how a set of cells can spontaneously combine to form something new if there are no scientists (gods) intervening (as with the mouse brain), and if there is no established pattern to conform to. In this second example, it's the cells and not the location that "decide", and when it comes to innovation, the environment certainly can't "decide" that cells should produce livers, eyes, lungs, brains. So you still haven't explained what it is that comes up with the inventive decisions. We might compare this to Tom, Dick and Harry wanting to get from A to B. And so they invent the motor car.

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Before answering your comments, please note that a prominent editorial in Nature has raised the issue that evolutionists do not understand molecular evolution:-On the 60th anniversary of the double helix, we should admit that we don't fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level, suggests Philip Ball.-http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v496/n7446/full/496419a.html-
"Philip Ball's opinion piece in this week's Nature, the most popular science magazine in the world, is news not because he stated that we don't fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level, but because he urged his fellow evolutionists to admit it. On this 60th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA double helix, Ball reviews a few of the recent findings that have rebuked the evolution narrative that random mutations created the biological world......For instance, evolutionists have had to resort to the explanation that rather than mutations tweaking the DNA's protein-coding genes to create or improve protein functions, those mutations must have sometimes tweaked regulatory networks that control the expression of said genes. What Ball doesn't mention is that this new epicycle relies on the prior existence of those regulatory networks and the protein-coding genes they control.(my bold)
 
"In other words, we now must believe that evolution first constructed the incredible genes and regulatory networks ....which then enabled evolution to proceed."-http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/04/evolutionist-lets-admit-it-we-dont.html-
> dhw: My question, as ever, concerns how these organs were first formed ... i.e. INNOVATION. Cells combined in a new, meaningful, functional and INVENTIVE way, but we don't know how. Your own argument has been that they were preprogrammed to react automatically to environmental change, but unless your God kept intervening or they were preprogrammed right from the start to produce functioning organs that had never existed before, I'm arguing that there has to be an inventive intelligence at work within them.-Your comment is exactly on point: preprogramming, intervention or a source of intelligence within the cell. Obvious. Since we weren't there when the innovations happened, and cannot relive that history, reconstructing history is very chancy. I can make guesses as to how much preprogramming and intervention occurred, but I admit they are only guesses. What I know quite clearly is that there is intelligence in the cells in the form of an amazing code, its many layers, and the complex instructions within those layers to create automatic absolute control of the production processes of life and the responses to adversity when it appears.-As Hunter notes, my bolding, which came first (chicken/egg) simple DNA or complex DNA, without which (the latter) the complexity of life doesn't innovate or even exist.
> 
> The question is how and why genes change themselves, without scientists (your God) intervening and without being preprogrammed, to produce something that never existed before. "Epigenetically by gene expression modification" doesn't help me to understand how cells can invent the liver.-Exactly!!! No one knows how it works, and Darwin, poor fellow, lacking the knowledge of 150 years of current research, cannot help us. Not his fault. Cells were blobs of 'protoplasm' in his time, not the massively complex factories we now know. We are at the molecular level of nano-machines working away as if they (the molecules) had brains. 
> 
>DAvid: [i Megason and colleagues propose that instead of the location telling a cell what identity to adopt, the cell's identity is fixed first and then determines the location."[/i]
> 
> dhw:So the cells decide their identity (it is not decided for them), and they then determine where to go (they are not instructed). -You misinterpret. They are automatically instructed once their identity is established.
> 
> dhw: The fact that the mechanism is not (yet) clear is hardly a ringing endorsement of automatism.
 
> ""Once they have these differential affinities, they could self-assemble," said Megason.
> 
> Megason is delving deeper into the molecular biology to determine whether adhesion is directing self-assembly."
> 
> The expression used was: the cells "turn on different adhesion molecules", which suggests that it's the cells that do the directing. This is a clear example of cells cooperating to maintain an existing form.-The cells are programmed to cooperate.
 
> dhw: However, neither of your examples explains how a set of cells can spontaneously combine to form something new if there are no scientists (gods) intervening (as with the mouse brain), and if there is no established pattern to conform to. -Exactly. You clearly see the problem. And you don't accept chance. So you would like to invent a self-indulgent cell, to avoid design.

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DAVID: What I know quite clearly is that there is intelligence in the cells in the form of an amazing code, its many layers, and the complex instructions within those layers to create automatic absolute control of the production processes of life and the responses to adversity when it appears.-In that case, I assume you are now prepared to accept the concept of the "intelligent cell"! It's the implications that are the issue between us.
 
DAVID: You clearly see the problem. And you don't accept chance. So you would like to invent a self-indulgent cell, to avoid design.-There are two levels to this discussion, and you are confusing them. The first is how evolution works, and over and over again I have tried to stress that the concept of the "intelligent cell" at a single stroke removes the major problems in Darwin's theory ... random mutations, gradualism, the so-called gaps in the fossil record. Your own concept of how evolution works is hamstrung by your insistence that the human branch of the bush was planned and preprogrammed in advance, whereas all other species are byproducts that were not planned and preprogrammed. This brings you into all kinds of difficulties, since most of the innovations leading from bacteria to humans are shared with other species. Once you accept the idea that the cells themselves contain an intelligent mechanism that enables them not only to adapt to changing environments (= responses to adversity) but also to invent something new when the environment allows for further experimentation, you can dispense with all the inconsistencies of your own scenario. You can also dispense with your atheistic type argument: it looks as if it thinks (is designed) but it doesn't (isn't)!
 
The second level was summed up in my post of 26 April at 14.46: "I'm arguing that there has to be an inventive intelligence at work within them. (How it got there is open to question.)" You now agree, and I have repeatedly argued that this concept does NOT exclude design. It's just as open to your God hypothesis as the theory of evolution itself. And it's at this point that I find myself in difficulty: how did this inventive intelligence within the cell come into being? (And of course we might ask exactly the same question of our own inventive intelligence.) I can't believe it was created by chance, or by a supreme, infinite expanse of eternally self-aware energy, or by non-conscious energy that gained awareness through and within the materials it created (my 'third way'). That is why I'm an agnostic. However, my ignorance of the source of the intelligence makes no difference to my growing conviction that the cell is not an automaton (which would require preprogramming of every single innovation) but has ... or has been given? ... an intelligence of its own. They are two separate issues.

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DAVID: What I know quite clearly is that there is intelligence in the cells in the form of an amazing code, its many layers, and the complex instructions within those layers to create automatic absolute control of the production processes of life and the responses to adversity when it appears.
> 
> dhw:In that case, I assume you are now prepared to accept the concept of the "intelligent cell"! It's the implications that are the issue between us.-Not at all. You are avoiding the implications of my last post. I have stated that no one has any idea of how evolution really works. The evidence appears to demonstrate that once life appeared, and we certainly have no idea how that happened, there was a process of evolution. We have no idea how species appear, but they seem to erupt de novo, not in little bitty advances. -Our difference is in each of us having a different concept of how a cell works at a molecular level. In my view automatically operating molecules under the control of the genome manufacture or perform whatever they are assigned to do. Different parts of DNA are operative in different ways in various cell types. Liver cells use a different expressed portion of DNA than kidney cells, and so forth. -Identifying gene function is partially by deletion in embryos. Knock out a gene and see what does not appear to form. Other methods include statistical analyses of function. I cannot find any information on the direct routes of instruction from gene to functioning cell. We know what they control, but not really how. -What I am showing is that life is some type of emergent process, and that we only have curently only a glimpse at understanding the underlying mechanisms. The complexity to be elucidated seems overwhelming.
> 
> DAVID: You clearly see the problem. And you don't accept chance. So you would like to invent a self-indulgent cell, to avoid design.
> 
> dhw: There are two levels to this discussion, and you are confusing them. The first is how evolution works, ...... Your own concept of how evolution works is hamstrung by your insistence that the human branch of the bush was planned and preprogrammed in advance, whereas all other species are byproducts that were not planned and preprogrammed. ........ You can also dispense with your atheistic type argument: it looks as if it thinks (is designed) but it doesn't (isn't)!-I must keep repeating that I am a theistic evolutionist. God created life, God does seem to dabble, but I don't know how much, so I make guesses based on the process I see in evoutionary development. I see the development of humans as a push that evolution, by itself, did not call for in the challenges presented for adaptation. Mine is not an atheistic styled argument. Design underlies all of evolution. You don't accept design, so you cannot follow the reasoning. If God dabbles, the structure of evolution is not rigid. -> 
> dhw: The second level was summed up in my post of 26 April at 14.46: "I'm arguing that there has to be an inventive intelligence at work within them. (How it got there is open to question.)" You now agree, and I have repeatedly argued that this concept does NOT exclude design.-I don't agree with your way of viewing it. The cell has intelligence in that the cell is under control of the intelligence in the genome. It is a two step arrangement. The genome tells the cell what to do. Gene expression is different in every one of the 300+ cell types. (see above)-> dhw: And it's at this point that I find myself in difficulty: how did this inventive intelligence within the cell come into being? ... However, my ignorance of the source of the intelligence makes no difference to my growing conviction that the cell is not an automaton (which would require preprogramming of every single innovation) but has ... or has been given? ... an intelligence of its own. They are two separate issues.-Not separate as I explain it. The intelligence in the genome runs the cell. I don't know how species or their separate organs formed,but the whole organism adapts. We see it but we don't know how. We don't know how organs adapt, and that is the cellular level you are struggling with. Individual cells do not create new organisms or even new organs. You are trying to put intelligence where it does not exist.

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DAVID: What I know quite clearly is that there is intelligence in the cells in the form of an amazing code, its many layers, and the complex instructions within those layers to create automatic absolute control of the production processes of life and the responses to adversity when it appears.-dhw: In that case, I assume you are now prepared to accept the concept of the "intelligent cell"! It's the implications that are the issue between us.-DAVID: Not at all. You are avoiding the implications of my last post. I have stated that no one has any idea of how evolution really works. The evidence appears to demonstrate that once life appeared, and we certainly have no idea how that happened, there was a process of evolution. We have no idea how species appear, but they seem to erupt de novo, not in little bitty advances.-We have long since agreed that there was a process of evolution, and that punctuated equilibrium should replace gradualism (= "little bitty advances"). No disagreement here.-DAVID: Our difference is in each of us having a different concept of how a cell works at a molecular level. In my view automatically operating molecules under the control of the genome manufacture or perform whatever they are assigned to do. And later you say: "The cell has intelligence in that the cell is under control of the intelligence in the genome. It is a two step arrangement. The genome tells the cell what to do."-Again there is no disagreement. The genome provides the intelligence of the cell, and the molecules do as they are told. You do not say a human is not intelligent because his digestive system works automatically. If you agree that "there is intelligence in the cells", and it lies within the genome, you are agreeing that the cell is intelligent! (But we can revert yet again to the "intelligent genome" if it makes you happy.)-DAVID: What I am showing is that life is some type of emergent process, and that we only have currently only a glimpse at understanding the underlying mechanisms. The complexity to be elucidated seems overwhelming.-No disagreement here either.-DAVID: I must keep repeating that I am a theistic evolutionist. God created life, God does seem to dabble, but I don't know how much, so I make guesses based on the process I see in evoutionary development. I see the development of humans as a push that evolution, by itself, did not call for in the challenges presented for adaptation. Mine is not an atheistic styled argument. Design underlies all of evolution. You don't accept design, so you cannot follow the reasoning. If God dabbles, the structure of evolution is not rigid.-If I put on my theist hat, my objection is not to your idea that God dabbles, which I find perfectly reasonable, but to your proposal that God preplanned and preprogrammed the human line of the bush, whereas the other lines were byproducts that depended on unpredictable environmental changes. If you have dropped that highly inconsistent idea, then dabbling is fine with the theistic me. It's still perfectly compatible with your God endowing his invention with the intelligence to do its own inventing of new organs and organisms. As for humans not being called for in "the challenges presented for adaptation", I keep pointing out that if adaptation was the only necessity, evolution itself need never have happened. Life would have stuck at bacterial level. Innovation is the key, and the problem with your anthropocentric preplanning is that humans also depend on innovations resulting from random environmental change. Yes to dabbling, no to preprogramming!-DAVID: The intelligence in the genome runs the cell. I don't know how species or their separate organs formed, but the whole organism adapts. We see it but we don't know how. We don't know how organs adapt, and that is the cellular level you are struggling with. Individual cells do not create new organisms or even new organs. You are trying to put intelligence where it does not exist.-Of course individual cells don't create new organs or organisms. The latter are communities of cells, which is why I keep harping on about cooperation. Hence my image of Tom, Dick and Harry inventing the motor car. We don't know how it all works, but if the intelligence in the genome runs the cell, and cells combine to create new organs and organisms, how can you say I am putting intelligence where it does not exist?

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> dhw:If I put on my theist hat, my objection is not to your idea that God dabbles, which I find perfectly reasonable, but to your proposal that God preplanned and preprogrammed the human line of the bush, whereas the other lines were byproducts that depended on unpredictable environmental changes. .....Innovation is the key, and the problem with your anthropocentric preplanning is that humans also depend on innovations resulting from random environmental change. Yes to dabbling, no to preprogramming! -In a sense you are correct. Dabbling is poking into the system for mid-flight corrections. Pre-programming is setting a course in advance. I've said I don't know, and literally can't know, but I don't see why a combination of both cannot be present. Bacteria are the most successful organisms, both in bio-mass and longevity. Why did they bother to form multicellular organisms? Either a one-time dabble or preprogramming fits. The same for humans springing out of the primate herd.
> 
> dhw: Of course individual cells don't create new organs or organisms. The latter are communities of cells, which is why I keep harping on about cooperation. We don't know how it all works, but if the intelligence in the genome runs the cell, and cells combine to create new organs and organisms, how can you say I am putting intelligence where it does not exist?-As long as you put the 'intelligence' in the genome for each cell I am fine. And as long as you recognize the organism as a whole run by its whole DNA I'm fine. Now I have got to get you to admit that the genome is an amazing coding system, developed by an intelligence that can think and plan.

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dhw: If I put on my theist hat, my objection is not to your idea that God dabbles, which I find perfectly reasonable, but to your proposal that God preplanned and preprogrammed the human line of the bush, whereas the other lines were byproducts that depended on unpredictable environmental changes. .....Innovation is the key, and the problem with your anthropocentric preplanning is that humans also depend on innovations resulting from random environmental change. Yes to dabbling, no to preprogramming!-DAVID: In a sense you are correct. Dabbling is poking into the system for mid-flight corrections. Pre-programming is setting a course in advance. I've said I don't know, and literally can't know, but I don't see why a combination of both cannot be present. Bacteria are the most successful organisms, both in bio-mass and longevity. Why did they bother to form multicellular organisms? Either a one-time dabble or preprogramming fits. The same for humans springing out of the primate herd.-I made the same point about bacteria, as evidence that innovation and not adaptation is the driving force behind evolution. At that early stage, it makes little difference whether it was a dabbling or a preprogramming, but you can't sneak humans in under the same umbrella unless you wish to argue that your God preprogrammed the eyes, sex, lungs, livers, brains etc. of all the species that preceded humans. "Springing out of the primate herd" could only be a divine dabble, or a stroke of genius by the intelligent cell/genome/DNA mechanism (see below).
 
dhw: Of course individual cells don't create new organs or organisms. The latter are communities of cells, which is why I keep harping on about cooperation. We don't know how it all works, but if the intelligence in the genome runs the cell, and cells combine to create new organs and organisms, how can you say I am putting intelligence where it does not exist?-DAVID: As long as you put the 'intelligence' in the genome for each cell I am fine. And as long as you recognize the organism as a whole run by its whole DNA I'm fine. -Then we are both fine, and I shall hold you to this for evermore!
 
DAVID: Now I have got to get you to admit that the genome is an amazing coding system, developed by an intelligence that can think and plan.-I would have to be a total idiot to deny that the genome is an amazing coding plan. As for an intelligence that can think and plan, I would gladly admit it if you could tell me how such an intelligence ... a zillion times more amazing than that of the genome, with the ability to create whole universes and the tiniest of microorganisms ... could have come into existence without any sort of prior "thinking and planning". First Cause explains nothing. First cause conscious energy is no more believable than first cause non-conscious energy which evolves into consciousness, or first cause non-conscious energy which strikes lucky. That's where we hit your famous wall of uncertainty, and alas it's too high for me to look over, even if I stand tiptoe on my picket fence (a remarkable balancing act)!

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> dhw: I made the same point about bacteria, as evidence that innovation and not adaptation is the driving force behind evolution. ..... but you can't sneak humans in under the same umbrella unless you wish to argue that your God preprogrammed the eyes, sex, lungs, livers, brains etc. of all the species that preceded humans. "Springing out of the primate herd" could only be a divine dabble, or a stroke of genius by the intelligent cell/genome/DNA mechanism (see below).-I have no idea, as previously stated of the proportions of dabble/preprogramming that made evolution advance to US, but my point about humans has nothing to do with the fact that apes had "eyes, sex, lungs, livers",etc. Humans were obviously thrust out of the simian herd. There was no need for upright posture, big brain, etc. Climate may have altered African climate, but no other slightly biped tree swinging ape changed!-My hero Alfred Russel Wallace came to this conclusion first: "Wallace's worldview was far more coherent than is often claimed." Differences with Darwin came to the fore regarding human evolution. Whereas Darwin expected evolution by natural selection to transform an ape-like animal into a human, Wallace rejected this scenario. He argued for "some kind of non-material intervention in the genesis of humans". His religious views allowed him to be open to this hypothesis, although his arguments were drawn from scientific observations of different races of humanity.
"The more I see of uncivilized people, the better I think of human nature on the whole, and the essential differences between so-called civilized and savage man seem to disappear." 
"[Wallace realised that] many humans have abilities that they never have the opportunity to use. Such a situation, Wallace reasoned, cannot evolve through natural selection alone, which promotes only those traits that are useful. Wallace concluded that human evolution required some divine intervention. This argument shows an excellent appreciation of the mechanics of natural selection [. . . ]"(my bold)-Ref: Alfred Russel Wallace: Evolution's red-hot radical
 Andrew Berry
 Nature, 496, 162-164 (11 April 2013) | doi:10.1038/496162a-
> 
> DAVID: As long as you put the 'intelligence' in the genome for each cell I am fine. And as long as you recognize the organism as a whole run by its whole DNA I'm fine. 
> 
> dhw: Then we are both fine, and I shall hold you to this for evermore!-Yes, fine.-> 
> dhw: I would have to be a total idiot to deny that the genome is an amazing coding plan. As for an intelligence that can think and plan, I would gladly admit it if you could tell me how such an intelligence ... a zillion times more amazing than that of the genome, with the ability to create whole universes and the tiniest of microorganisms ... could have come into existence without any sort of prior "thinking and planning". First Cause explains nothing. -If cause and effect exist, there has to be a first cause which is eternal and always there. First Cause is there by necessity. Leibnitz: "Why is there anything?", must be answered. I'm sorry if you don't want to answer, then why think and puzzle at all? You are the guy who opened up this website to raise just such observations and questions, and I am your goad, as in Wallace to Darwin.

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dhw: "Springing out of the primate herd" could only be a divine dabble, or a stroke of genius by the intelligent cell/genome/DNA mechanism...-DAVID: I have no idea, as previously stated of the proportions of dabble/preprogramming that made evolution advance to US, but my point about humans has nothing to do with the fact that apes had "eyes, sex, lungs, livers" etc. Humans were obviously thrust out of the simian herd. There was no need for upright posture, big brain, etc. Climate may have altered African climate, but no other slightly biped tree swinging ape changed!-There was "no need" for eyes etc. either, since bacteria have kept going without them. I reckon unneeded sex is just as amazing as an unneeded big brain and an unneeded upright posture. If the human branch of the evolutionary bush was pre-programmed, then so were eyes etc., which are integral to humans. But according to you, all the preceding "byproducts" developed them through responding to random changes in the environment, so these essential human organs were NOT preprogrammed. Ergo humans were NOT preprogrammed. However, if your scenario begins when some primates came down from the trees and stood upright, that means "poking into the system for mid-flight corrections", i.e. dabbling, not pre-programming. As for "African climate", yet again you talk as if the whole of Africa had one climate. It's a vast continent. There's no reason at all why climate change in one area might not have triggered the innovations, while in other areas apes and the climate remained unaffected.
 
DAVID: My hero Alfred Russel Wallace came to this conclusion first: "[...] Whereas Darwin expected evolution by natural selection to transform an ape-like animal into a human, Wallace rejected this scenario. He argued for "some kind of non-material intervention in the genesis of humans". His religious views allowed him to be open to this hypothesis, although his arguments were drawn from scientific observations of different races of humanity.
"The more I see of uncivilized people, the better I think of human nature on the whole, and the essential differences between so-called civilized and savage man seem to disappear." 
"[Wallace realised that] many humans have abilities that they never have the opportunity to use. Such a situation, Wallace reasoned, cannot evolve through natural selection alone, which promotes only those traits that are useful. Wallace concluded that human evolution required some divine intervention. This argument shows an excellent appreciation of the mechanics of natural selection [. . . ]" (my bold)[/i]-At least your hero's conclusion was "divine intervention", which = dabbling! It sounds to me as though his religious views influenced his hypothesis rather than allowed him to be open to it. First, natural selection does not transform anything ... it only ensures survival. Innovations transform. Darwin also emphasizes the similarities between so-called civilized and so-called savage humans in The Descent of Man, but that's still true if humans descended from "ape-like animals", and if anything it supports the idea of common ancestry, which you have always accepted. Many of our fellow animals also "have abilities that they never have the opportunity to use". So does that mean a dolphin that doesn't detect underwater mines, or a dog that doesn't guide blind people must have been created by divine intervention? Most animals can be trained to do things they've never done before. Such abilities don't evolve "through natural selection" anyway; they evolve through a mixture of nature, nurture and need. Of course the human potential is much vaster, but unused brain capacity only means that full use is not the sole criterion for survival.
 
dhw: As for an intelligence that can think and plan, I would gladly admit it if you could tell me how such an intelligence ... a zillion times more amazing than that of the genome, with the ability to create whole universes and the tiniest of microorganisms ... could have come into existence without any sort of prior "thinking and planning". First Cause explains nothing. -DAVID: If cause and effect exist, there has to be a first cause which is eternal and always there. First Cause is there by necessity. Leibnitz: "Why is there anything?", must be answered. I'm sorry if you don't want to answer, then why think and puzzle at all? You are the guy who opened up this website to raise just such observations and questions, and I am your goad, as in Wallace to Darwin.-I offered you THREE first causes, but you are goading me by omitting all of them! I wrote: "First cause conscious energy is no more believable than first cause non-conscious energy which evolves into consciousness, or first cause non-conscious energy which strikes lucky. That's where we hit your famous wall of uncertainty..." The fact that you've chosen one of these three unlikelihoods is no reason for omitting my answer and then accusing me of not wanting to answer. But I shall sit stoically on my picket fence, for we thoughtful, ever-puzzling, always-ready-to-answer agnostics are used to being slandered by those who are convinced they can stop thinking and puzzling because they already know the answers! Wallace and Darwin? More like Abbott and Costello.

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> DAVID: I have no idea, as previously stated of the proportions of dabble/preprogramming that made evolution advance to US, but my point about humans has nothing to do with the fact that apes had "eyes, sex, lungs, livers" etc. Humans were obviously thrust out of the simian herd. There was no need for upright posture, big brain, etc. Climate may have altered African climate, but no other slightly biped tree swinging ape changed!
> 
> dhw:There was "no need" for eyes etc. either, since bacteria have kept going without them. ... If the human branch of the evolutionary bush was pre-programmed, then so were eyes etc., which are integral to humans.-Didn't say they weren't, but you do not answer my point. Humans leapt foward.-> dhw: But according to you, all the preceding "byproducts" developed them through responding to random changes in the environment, so these essential human organs were NOT preprogrammed.-I've said just the opposite: evolution appears to be a combination of automatic responses to challenges and dabbling. The Cambrian is a major dabble.->dhw; As for "African climate", yet again you talk as if the whole of Africa had one climate. It's a vast continent. There's no reason at all why climate change in one area might not have triggered the innovations, while in other areas apes and the climate remained unaffected.-Please review the human tree: Luci, Ardi, Sediba, etc. placed all over Africa developing in all the disparate climates. The apes stayed apes.
> 
> DAVID: My hero Alfred Russel Wallace came to this conclusion first: -> 
> dhw: At least your hero's conclusion was "divine intervention", which = dabbling! It sounds to me as though his religious views influenced his hypothesis rather than allowed him to be open to it. ...Innovations transform. Darwin also emphasizes the similarities between so-called civilized and so-called savage humans in The Descent of Man, but that's still true if humans descended from "ape-like animals", and if anything it supports the idea of common ancestry, which you have always accepted. -Common primate to human ancestry, yes. Darwin inferred the savages were inferior which led to support for Eugenics.-> dhw:Many of our fellow animals also "have abilities that they never have the opportunity to use". So does that mean a dolphin that doesn't detect underwater mines, or a dog that doesn't guide blind people must have been created by divine intervention? ...Of course the human potential is much vaster, but unused brain capacity only means that full use is not the sole criterion for survival.-The "much vaster" 'difference of man and the difference it makes' Exactly the point, and you made it for me. Where did that enormous "unused brain capacity" come from and why?-> 
> dhw: I offered you THREE first causes, but you are goading me by omitting all of them! I wrote: "First cause conscious energy is no more believable than first cause non-conscious energy which evolves into consciousness, or first cause non-conscious energy which strikes lucky. That's where we hit your famous wall of uncertainty..." The fact that you've chosen one of these three unlikelihoods is no reason for omitting my answer and then accusing me of not wanting to answer. -My problem with your answer is "no more believable" as a modifier in your three suggestions. You invent a variety of first causes and accept none of them! Pick one as your favorite. At least accept that there must be a First Cause, by necessity, in some form, in any chain or cause and effect, or don't you believe that either? Why is there anything? We are here. There must be a cause. Perhaps you would like to return to the 'eternal universe theory' of pre-Einstein days.

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DAVID: I have no idea, as previously stated of the proportions of dabble/preprogramming that made evolution advance to US, but my point about humans has nothing to do with the fact that apes had "eyes, sex, lungs, livers" etc. Humans were obviously thrust out of the simian herd. There was no need for upright posture, big brain, etc.
 
dhw: There was "no need" for eyes etc. either, since bacteria have kept going without them. ... If the human branch of the evolutionary bush was pre-programmed, then so were eyes etc., which are integral to humans.-DAVID: Didn't say they weren't, but you do not answer my point. Humans leapt forward.-My point was to prove that humans were not preprogrammed. Yes, the brain and posture were a leap forward. So were multicellularity, sex, the five senses...I answered your point on April 30 at 12.19: "Springing out of the primate herd" could only be a divine dabble [theist answer], or a stroke of genius by the intelligent cell/genome/DNA mechanism [theist/atheist/agnostic answer]."
 
dhw: But according to you, all the preceding "byproducts" developed them through responding to random changes in the environment, so these essential human organs were NOT preprogrammed.-DAVID: I've said just the opposite: evolution appears to be a combination of automatic responses to challenges and dabbling. The Cambrian is a major dabble.-The opposite would be that they WERE preprogrammed. So let's have a straight answer: do you still believe that your God planned and preprogrammed the human branch of the evolutionary bush from the very start? 
 
dhw; As for "African climate", yet again you talk as if the whole of Africa had one climate. It's a vast continent. There's no reason at all why climate change in one area might not have triggered the innovations, while in other areas apes and the climate remained unaffected.-DAVID: Please review the human tree: Luci, Ardi, Sediba, etc. placed all over Africa developing in all the disparate climates. The apes stayed apes.-Ardi and Lucy were found in Ethiopia, Sediba in South Africa, and they range from about 4.4 to 2 million years old. How does this prove that each of them didn't evolve locally in an environment that became unsuitable for tree-dwelling apes? Or that they hadn't migrated from ex-ape to ape country?-Dhw (discussing Wallace): Darwin also emphasizes the similarities between so-called civilized and so-called savage humans in The Descent of Man, but that's still true if humans descended from "ape-like animals", and if anything it supports the idea of common ancestry, which you have always accepted. -DAVID: Common primate to human ancestry, yes. Darwin inferred the savages were inferior which led to support for Eugenics.-This is a complete non sequitur and a disgraceful distortion of Darwin's views, which I corrected in my post of 10 November 2012 at 13.31 under "Darwin and atheism". On the same day you wrote: "Thank you for this interpretation. I am educated." Not for long, it seems!-Dhw (quoting Wallace): Many of our fellow animals also "have abilities that they never have the opportunity to use". So does that mean a dolphin that doesn't detect underwater mines, or a dog that doesn't guide blind people must have been created by divine intervention? ...Of course the human potential is much vaster, but unused brain capacity only means that full use is not the sole criterion for survival.-DAVID: The "much vaster" 'difference of man and the difference it makes' Exactly the point, and you made it for me. Where did that enormous "unused brain capacity" come from and why?-Maybe your God dabbled, or maybe "it was a stroke of genius by the intelligent cell/genome/DNA mechanism." Round and round we go. My point was to refute Wallace.
 
dhw: I offered you THREE first causes, but you are goading me by omitting all of them! I wrote: "First cause conscious energy is no more believable than first cause non-conscious energy which evolves into consciousness, or first cause non-conscious energy which strikes lucky. That's where we hit your famous wall of uncertainty..." The fact that you've chosen one of these three unlikelihoods is no reason for omitting my answer and then accusing me of not wanting to answer.
 
DAVID: My problem with your answer is "no more believable" as a modifier in your three suggestions. You invent a variety of first causes and accept none of them!
 
You've always maintained that the First Cause is energy, and that your particular first cause energy is conscious. Your invention or mine? -DAVID: Pick one as your favorite. -Why?-DAVID: At least accept that there must be a First Cause, by necessity, in some form, in any chain or cause and effect, or don't you believe that either? Why is there anything? We are here. There must be a cause. Perhaps you would like to return to the 'eternal universe theory' of pre-Einstein days.-I've always accepted that there must be a First Cause, but the three I've listed, including your own, are equally nebulous. As regards an "eternal universe", all three First Causes ... big bang or no big bang ... are eternal including yours, so in that sense BBella's All That Is is eternal, whether you call it God, energy, or the universe.

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> DAVID: I've said just the opposite: evolution appears to be a combination of automatic responses to challenges and dabbling. The Cambrian is a major dabble.
> 
> dhw:The opposite would be that they WERE preprogrammed. So let's have a straight answer: do you still believe that your God planned and preprogrammed the human branch of the evolutionary bush from the very start? -Simply, yes. But thre was C ambrian dabbling along the way.
> 
> DAVID: Please review the human tree: Luci, Ardi, Sediba, etc. placed all over Africa developing in all the disparate climates. The apes stayed apes.
> 
> dhw: Ardi and Lucy were found in Ethiopia, Sediba in South Africa, and they range from about 4.4 to 2 million years old. How does this prove that each of them didn't evolve locally in an environment that became unsuitable for tree-dwelling apes? Or that they hadn't migrated from ex-ape to ape country?-Climate change is slow, over generations. If the early humanoids wanted trees they could have stayed with trees.
> 
> DAVID: Common primate to human ancestry, yes. Darwin inferred the savages were inferior which led to support for Eugenics.
> 
> dhw:This is a complete non sequitur and a disgraceful distortion of Darwin's views, which I corrected in my post of 10 November 2012 at 13.31 under "Darwin and atheism". On the same day you wrote: "Thank you for this interpretation. I am educated." Not for long, it seems!- Sorry, Just as you have not read books I refer to, I've not read Descent of Man, but keep running into references which infer Eugenics used Darwin for justification.-> 
> DAVID: At least accept that there must be a First Cause, by necessity, in some form, in any chain or cause and effect, or don't you believe that either? Why is there anything? We are here. There must be a cause. Perhaps you would like to return to the 'eternal universe theory' of pre-Einstein days.
> 
> dhw: I've always accepted that there must be a First Cause, but the three I've listed, including your own, are equally nebulous. As regards an "eternal universe", all three First Causes ... big bang or no big bang ... are eternal including yours, so in that sense BBella's All That Is is eternal, whether you call it God, energy, or the universe.-So we have a nebulous first cause, and yours must remain an amormphous blob of energy which 'luckily' figures its way to our current reality. There is a current wacky paper which doesn't need natural selection for evolution. That should help you.:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130426115612.htm

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Dhw: So let's have a straight answer: do you still believe that your God planned and preprogrammed the human branch of the evolutionary bush from the very start? -DAVID: Simply, yes. But there was Cambrian dabbling along the way.-If humans were preprogrammed from the very start, then every single innovation from bacteria onwards had to be preprogrammed. Dabbling would not be required unless the programme went wrong (= incompetent programme design). Therefore Cambrian dabbling and any innovation triggered by random environmental changes must have been irrelevant to the human branch of the evolutionary bush. So during the Cambrian Explosion, for instance, your God deliberately created both extinct and surviving organisms on the non-human branches (= dabbling), while the human branch went through its preordained programme, though sharing almost all its organs with the unpreprogrammed species. Is this what you believe?-DAVID: Please review the human tree: Luci, Ardi, Sediba, etc. placed all over Africa developing in all the disparate climates. The apes stayed apes.-dhw: Ardi and Lucy were found in Ethiopia, Sediba in South Africa, and they range from about 4.4 to 2 million years old. How does this prove that each of them didn't evolve locally in an environment that became unsuitable for tree-dwelling apes? Or that they hadn't migrated from ex-ape to ape country?-DAVID: Climate change is slow, over generations. If the early humanoids wanted trees they could have stayed with trees.-Climate change is not the only cause of new environments. Catastrophes and diseases can change a habitat locally and with extreme rapidity.
 
DAVID: Common primate to human ancestry, yes. Darwin inferred the savages were inferior which led to support for Eugenics.-dhw:This is a complete non sequitur and a disgraceful distortion of Darwin's views, which I corrected in my post of 10 November 2012 at 13.31 under "Darwin and atheism". On the same day you wrote: "Thank you for this interpretation. I am educated." Not for long, it seems!-DAVID: Sorry, Just as you have not read books I refer to, I've not read Descent of Man, but keep running into references which infer Eugenics used Darwin for justification.-You don't need to read it. Just revise the two page November entry that "educated" you six months ago, and I'll test you on it again next November! 
 
DAVID: At least accept that there must be a First Cause, by necessity, in some form, in any chain or cause and effect, or don't you believe that either? Why is there anything? We are here. There must be a cause. Perhaps you would like to return to the 'eternal universe theory' of pre-Einstein days.-dhw: I've always accepted that there must be a First Cause, but the three I've listed, including your own, are equally nebulous. As regards an "eternal universe", all three First Causes ... big bang or no big bang ... are eternal including yours, so in that sense BBella's All That Is is eternal, whether you call it God, energy, or the universe.-DAVID: So we have a nebulous first cause, and yours must remain an amorphous blob of energy which 'luckily' figures its way to our current reality.-No, we have three nebulous first causes, one of which is yours and none of which are mine. The atheist one depends on luck, and yours and the panpsychist one do not.-DAVID: There is a current wacky paper which doesn't need natural selection for evolution. That should help you.:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130426115612.htm-It doesn't help me nearly so much as the concept of the "intelligent cell/genome/DNA", which does not innovate solely as a means of survival, but also as a means of experimentation when the environment becomes suitable. Natural selection, as both of us keep saying, only determines which innovations will survive.

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> dhw:If humans were preprogrammed from the very start, then every single innovation from bacteria onwards had to be preprogrammed...... So during the Cambrian Explosion, for instance, your God deliberately created both extinct and surviving organisms on the non-human branches (= dabbling), while the human branch went through its preordained programme, though sharing almost all its organs with the unpreprogrammed species. Is this what you believe?-To clear the air: I believe that evolution is preprogrammed to make humans. I don't know how much of mid-course direction was required, since I do not ascribe to religions' view that God is entirely capable of anything he desires and He knows everything, past and present and future. He may have constraints. I see what look like dabbles. I also know that the genome system He gave early life allows for adaptations, but I am not sure that Darwin style theory of evolution allows for speciation. All sides of the argument should admit, we don't really know how species appear. Any proposal is pure supposition. My conclusion is that evolution occurred, but under divine controls, more or less, again unclear as to how much or how little.
> 
> dhw: Climate change is not the only cause of new environments. Catastrophes and diseases can change a habitat locally and with extreme rapidity.-I know you love catastrophism, but hominins appeared over large areas of the globe, in many different climates, as a 'bush' of precurers, and I recognize your factors as important, but that doesn't get around the fact that savannah proposals don't explain the willingness to climb down into danger. It would be just as important to explain why the apes didn't descend.-> 
> DHW: we have three nebulous first causes, one of which is yours and none of which are mine. The atheist one depends on luck, and yours and the panpsychist one do not.-I thought you had concluded there must be a first cause, but that you were uncomfortable with the three concepts we have been discussing. Do you accept the point that a first cause (of some type) started everything, or are we here from no good reasonable start?

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DAVID: To clear the air: I believe that evolution is preprogrammed to make humans. I don't know how much of mid-course direction was required, since I do not ascribe to religions' view that God is entirely capable of anything he desires and He knows everything, past and present and future. He may have constraints. I see what look like dabbles. I also know that the genome system He gave early life allows for adaptations, but I am not sure that Darwin style theory of evolution allows for speciation. All sides of the argument should admit, we don't really know how species appear. Any proposal is pure supposition. My conclusion is that evolution occurred, but under divine controls, more or less, again unclear as to how much or how little.-Thank you. This is a great help to our understanding of each other. My only objection is to the word "preprogrammed", which suggests that he built into the very first organisms a programme for all the organs that would in due course lead to humans. In other words, he knew exactly what he was doing right from the start. It makes far more sense to me that, if your God exists, either he started the whole thing off as a massive experiment to see where it would lead (no particular purpose in mind), or he did have a purpose in mind, but didn't know how to achieve it. I think your scenario favours the latter, whereas I see the former as more consistent with the higgledy-piggledy bush. (Both scenarios allow for dabbling.) I agree that none of us know how species appear, but I do think the concept of the "intelligent cell/genome/DNA" offers a convincing explanation of innovation, which is the driving force of evolution. Of course it leaves open the question of how such a mechanism could have come into being.-dhw: Climate change is not the only cause of new environments. Catastrophes and diseases can change a habitat locally and with extreme rapidity.-DAVID: I know you love catastrophism, but hominins appeared over large areas of the globe, in many different climates, as a 'bush' of precurers, and I recognize your factors as important, but that doesn't get around the fact that savannah proposals don't explain the willingness to climb down into danger. It would be just as important to explain why the apes didn't descend.-We are talking of isolated fossils over a period of millions of years. The gap between Ardi and Sediba is about two and a half million. Even our own lifespan embraces countless localized disasters. The elm has virtually disappeared over here, and the ash is in great danger, because of disease. Given the fact that we are talking about "large areas of the globe" and hundreds of thousands of lifespans, it seems perfectly feasible that separate hominins may have evolved in separate localities. Isn't this precisely what is meant by "convergent evolution"? You only need a few localized "savannah" disasters over millions of years to explain why there were no trees for apes to live in. What is your alternative? That God decided to dabble with a few chosen apes in a few chosen places over a few million years?-DHW: We have three nebulous first causes, one of which is yours and none of which are mine. The atheist one depends on luck, and yours and the panpsychist one do not.-DAVID: I thought you had concluded there must be a first cause, but that you were uncomfortable with the three concepts we have been discussing.
 
Precisely.-DAVID: Do you accept the point that a first cause (of some type) started everything, or are we here from no good reasonable start?-I have always accepted that a first cause of some type started everything. Nothing can come from nothing. But that doesn't make our three concepts any the more believable. That's why your choice ultimately depends on faith.

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DAVID: My conclusion is that evolution occurred, but under divine controls, more or less, again unclear as to how much or how little.[/i]
> 
> dhw: Thank you. This is a great help to our understanding of each other. My only objection is to the word "preprogrammed", which suggests that he built into the very first organisms a programme for all the organs that would in due course lead to humans. -In a way, yes, but I feel speciation requires dabbling.-> 
> DAVID: the fact that savannah proposals don't explain the willingness to climb down into danger. It would be just as important to explain why the apes didn't descend.[/i]-> dhw:You only need a few localized "savannah" disasters over millions of years to explain why there were no trees for apes to live in. What is your alternative? -There have always been trees and savannahs close by. Just migrate to find them. You have not answered my speculation. Apes stayed up, we climbed down, all in the same geologic periods. Why?-
> 
> dhw: I have always accepted that a first cause of some type started everything. Nothing can come from nothing. But that doesn't make our three concepts any the more believable. That's why your choice ultimately depends on faith.-We agree on first choice, but you will accept nothing to have a belief in. Fair enough. The picket fence forever!

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Formation of new organs is a highly complex genome function aided by natural selection according to this computer simulation, and they are only using a tooth as an example:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130502104556.htm-The intelligent energy is in the already formed and orqanized genome, but how did that arise? Current opinion is that early organisms had genomes

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dhw: This is a great help to our understanding of each other. My only objection is to the word "preprogrammed", which suggests that he built into the very first organisms a programme for all the organs that would in due course lead to humans. -DAVID: In a way, yes, but I feel speciation requires dabbling.-Fine, but dabbling is the opposite of preprogramming.-dhw:You only need a few localized "savannah" disasters over millions of years to explain why there were no trees for apes to live in. What is your alternative?
 
DAVID: There have always been trees and savannahs close by. Just migrate to find them. You have not answered my speculation. Apes stayed up, we climbed down, all in the same geologic periods. Why?-"Always"? I know you're older than me, but I didn't know you were THAT old! How close is "close by"? It would depend on the scale of the disaster! Or possibly on the adventurousness of a particular group of primates, setting out to explore a different environment. Let me quote you: "All sides of the argument should admit, we don't know how species appear. Any proposal is pure supposition." One speculation is that localized environmental changes made it impossible or undesirable for our ancestors to go on living in trees, whereas in other areas during the same geological periods apes were able to continue their tree-living existence. Meanwhile, you have not answered my own question to you: "What is your alternative? That God decided to dabble with a few chosen apes in a few chosen places over a few million years?"
 
dhw: I have always accepted that a first cause of some type started everything. Nothing can come from nothing. But that doesn't make our three concepts any the more believable. That's why your choice ultimately depends on faith.-DAVID: We agree on first choice [sic], but you will accept nothing to have a belief in. Fair enough. The picket fence forever!-(You meant first cause ... we certainly don't agree on first choice!) Forever? Probably. But I'm having fun up here.

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> dhw: Fine, but dabbling is the opposite of preprogramming.-Only if preprogramming is perfect, but as you note below a lot can go on simultaneously. The universe is still forming, as is the Earth, so unless God preprogrammed everything there will be boggles. A volcano erupts and weather changes; continents drift, organisms adapt, but maybe sort of. Remember I assume a God who is not perfect and not omni-everything.
 
> dhw: "we don't know how species appear. Any proposal is pure supposition." One speculation is that localized environmental changes made it impossible or undesirable for our ancestors to go on living in trees, whereas in other areas during the same geological periods apes were able to continue their tree-living existence. Meanwhile, you have not answered my own question to you: "What is your alternative? That God decided to dabble with a few chosen apes in a few chosen places over a few million years?" -All apes lived together in the beginning of apedom. We were apes also. Then we descended and they didn't. Your point must be: :"Only our ancestors had a climate change and were forced to change"? You are evading my point, by a proposition of having all the apes separate into different groups and different climates before we descended. Not very likely. The early hominins lived right beside the apes as they developed and then avoided contact. No other just-so story makes any sense.
 
> dhw: I have always accepted that a first cause of some type started everything. Nothing can come from nothing. But that doesn't make our three concepts any the more believable. That's why your choice ultimately depends on faith.
> 
> DAVID: We agree on first choice [sic], but you will accept nothing to have a belief in. Fair enough. The picket fence forever!
> 
> dhw: (You meant first cause ... we certainly don't agree on first choice!) Forever? Probably. But I'm having fun up here.-My typing is terrible.

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dhw: Fine, but dabbling is the opposite of preprogramming.-DAVID: Only if preprogramming is perfect, but as you note below a lot can go on simultaneously. The universe is still forming, as is the Earth, so unless God preprogrammed everything there will be boggles. A volcano erupts and weather changes; continents drift, organisms adapt, but maybe sort of. Remember I assume a God who is not perfect and not omni-everything.-Then at last we can dispense with the idea that your God preprogrammed humans, since he couldn't preprogramme environmental change and therefore dabbled (i.e. experimented) or had to dabble (i.e. to fulfil his Turellian plan). If we could only understand their language, maybe whales would tell us your God also dabbled to make them. Or maybe whales and flycatching sundews and brontosauruses and even humans are all products of the "intelligent cell/genome/DNA", responding in countless higgledy-piggledy ways to the challenges and opportunities presented by an ever changing environment.-DAVID: All apes lived together in the beginning of apedom. We were apes also. Then we descended and they didn't. Your point must be:"Only our ancestors had a climate change and were forced to change"? You are evading my point, by a proposition of having all the apes separate into different groups and different climates before we descended. Not very likely. The early hominins lived right beside the apes as they developed and then avoided contact. No other just-so story makes any sense.-I don't understand your thinking here. The environmental-change proposition entails a particular group descending because of the change ... not "all the apes" separating before the descent. In other words, a local environmental change could lead to clever bononins descending and becoming hominins, while any remaining chimps, chumps and champs died off, whereas a few hundred miles away the bononins remained in their untouched forest, and so did the chimps, chumps and champs. Or maybe there were apes living in country that was part forest, part savanna, and some adventurous ones descended and liked it better down below. Nobody knows! But let's have a look at your own just-so story: in the year 4.399 million BC, a Universal Intelligence grabbed hold of a group of bononins, somehow reached inside their bodies, tweaked their genome, and lo and behold they descended from their trees, stood upright, and grew big brains, while all the other bononins, chimps, chumps and champs stayed up in the trees lookin' stoopid. Is this what you believe?

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> dhw: Then at last we can dispense with the idea that your God preprogrammed humans, since he couldn't preprogramme environmental change and therefore dabbled (i.e. experimented) or had to dabble (i.e. to fulfil his Turellian plan). -I've always thought that programming and dabbling were part of the process. It is required for all the factors we have discussed. I have no idea why God uses evolution of cosmos and humans. I think it shows He is not as all-powerful as religions ascribe to Him. -> DAVID: All apes lived together in the beginning of apedom. We were apes also. Then we descended and they didn't. Your point must be:"Only our ancestors had a climate change and were forced to change"? -> dhw: I don't understand your thinking here. The environmental-change proposition entails a particular group descending BECAUSE OF the change ... not "all the apes" separating before the descent. ..... Of course it's all speculation, but let's have a look at your own just-so story: in the year 4.399 million BC, a Universal Intelligence grabbed hold of a group of bononins, somehow reached inside their bodies, tweaked their genome, and lo and behold they descended from their trees, stood upright, and grew big brains, while all the other bononins, chimps, chumps and champs stayed up in the trees lookin' stoopid. Is this what you believe?-Actually 22 million years ago, and yes lots of tweaking. There is no reason in Darwin theory to cause an appearance of humans, or for that matter to have complex life appear from bacteria. I see no pressure at all from the records we study. Bacteria are still very successful, and if we'd leave the apes alone, they would be also.

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David: I am not sure that Darwin style theory of evolution allows for speciation. All sides of the argument should admit, we don't really know how species appear. Any proposal is pure supposition. My conclusion is that evolution occurred, but under divine controls, more or less, again unclear as to how much or how little.-Note this study I referenced before on speciation:-" Proteins and Genes, Singletons and Species
Branko KozuliÄ
Gentius Ltd, Petra KasandriÄa 6, 23000 Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
Recent experimental data from proteomics and genomics are interpreted here in ways that
challenge the predominant viewpoint in biology according to which the four evolutionary
processes, including mutation, recombination, natural selection and genetic drift, are
sufficient to explain the origination of species. The predominant viewpoint appears
incompatible with the finding that the sequenced genome of each species contains hundreds,
or even thousands, of unique genes - the genes that are not shared with any other species.
These unique genes and proteins, singletons, define the very character of every species.
Moreover, the distribution of protein families from the sequenced genomes indicates that the
complexity of genomes grows in a manner different from that of self-organizing networks:
the dominance of singletons leads to the conclusion that in living organisms a most unlikely
phenomenon can be the most common one. In order to provide proper rationale for these
conclusions related to the singletons, the paper first treats the frequency of functional proteins
among random sequences, followed by a discussion on the protein structure space, and it ends
by questioning the idea that protein domains represent conserved units of evolution."-http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0025v1.pdf

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dhw: I've always accepted that there must be a First Cause, but the three I've listed, including your own, are equally nebulous. As regards an "eternal universe", all three First Causes ... big bang or no big bang ... are eternal including yours, -Evidence against the Big Bang is poor:-http://www.nature.com/news/higgs-data-could-spell-trouble-for-leading-big-bang-theory-1.12804

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I wasn't sure where to insert this article but figured here was as good as any.
Although this is an older article, what I really like about it is it hits on almost every subject, except first cause, that has been recently discussed here. I've always felt that Sheldrake is manifesting the bridge between the materialist and the mystic on the road toward the theory of everything. I really like how he says in this article (paraphrasing) that he has broadcast his theory out there believing that if his theory is true, it will eventually manifest itself - which is exactly what his theory is about in the first place. I've been looking for a more recent article that captures as much information as this one but more updated information but haven't found one yet, altho I've found plenty in youtube videos. I will continue looking, until then...-
http://dandrasincom.ipage.com/Newscience/Newscience/Sheldrake_2.html

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I've been fascinated by Sheldrake and his ideas since I ran across him in Wim Kayzer's book, A Glorious Accident, which I have mentioned before. Sheldrake expounds at length on the ideas in the article you found. I put a number of his thoughts in my book. Sheldrake believes in species consciousness and I do also. He thinks of memory as occurring in a brain like a radio receiver picking up past signals. He may well be right.

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BBELLA: I wasn't sure where to insert this article but figured here was as good as any. Although this is an older article, what I really like about it is it hits on almost every subject, except first cause, that has been recently discussed here. I've always felt that Sheldrake is manifesting the bridge between the materialist and the mystic on the road toward the theory of everything... -http://dandrasincom.ipage.com/Newscience/Newscience/Sheldrake_2.html-DAVID: I've been fascinated by Sheldrake and his ideas since I ran across him in Wim Kayzer's book, A Glorious Accident, which I have mentioned before. Sheldrake expounds at length on the ideas in the article you found. I put a number of his thoughts in my book. Sheldrake believes in species consciousness and I do also. He thinks of memory as occurring in a brain like a radio receiver picking up past signals. He may well be right.-It is indeed a fascinating article, and it makes me wonder why David is so opposed to panpsychist ideas, which are very similar. (Whitehead was a panexistentialist AND a panentheist!) Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields may not be quite the same as "intelligent energy", but clearly they are the source of information that passes not only between living organisms but also between particles of inanimate matter, as follows:-QUOTE: However, during the past 50 or 60 years a new approach has been under development -- largely among people who've actually worked on living embryos rather than disconnected bits of tissues in laboratories. This is the "holistic" or "organismic" approach put forward in the west by Alfred North Whitehead and others. In this view, nature is seen as composed of hierarchies of autonomous levels of wholeness and organization, or "holons", to use Arthur Koestler's term. For example, cells inside a tissue, inside an organ, inside a whole organism. In the inorganic realm you would have subatomic particles, atoms, molecules and crystals. In the holistic approach, a morphogenetic field governs each of these wholes.-QUOTE: I'd particularly look for these fields in social insects such as termites, who perform incredible cooperative feats of morphogenesis such as building complex mounds, and tunneling from both ends to meet precisely in the middle.-This is a perfect parallel to the manner in which cells may cooperate to form new organs.-Q: What are M-fields "made of"? Are they a new kind of energy? 
A: They relate to energy, but I don't think of them as being energetic in the usual sense. You could just as well ask what gravitational fields are made of. The most common answer would be "curved space". The whole concept of fields in general is a very difficult thing to grasp.-During our discussions we have had the same difficulty! David quite rightly challenged me on what I meant by "intelligence", and although Sheldrake doesn't think of his fields as "intelligent energy", that seems to me no more and no less nebulous than his "morphogenetic fields".-
QUOTE: When we come to the question of the creation of new fields, we're right back on the borderline of science and philosophy where you'll never get clear agreement anyway. The materialists will say all innovation must be due to chance mutations and the nonmaterialists would say there's a creative factor underlying nature and guiding these things. Natural science -- and this includes my own hypothesis -- deals with regularity or repetition in nature, not originality or creativity, so from a scientific point of view this will always remain a wide-open question.-Again he has hit the nail on the head. Innovation is the key issue. The "creative factor" is what David identifies as God, materialists as chance, and my particular panpsychist hypothesis as "intelligent energy".-Q: ... how long has it taken you to develop your theory to its present stage? -A: I started thinking along these lines as an undergraduate at Cambridge. It seemed to me basically implausible that plants and animals were nothing but complicated machines.-Good for him! "Intelligent energy" may be the X factor! BBella is right, Sheldrake covers all aspects of our discussion except first cause, which he understandably steers clear of. However, I'd still like to take the concept one step further back. In my particular panpsychist hypothesis I'm suggesting that first cause non-conscious energy first gained consciousness from WITHIN matter, and this conscious energy remains there, manipulating it until it disintegrates, whereupon the energy is released. Just like the hypothetical souls of dead people, this energy is still present in the manner Sheldrake indicates ... creating a tiger field, a crystal field, a human field. But these are individual intelligences that link up ... they are not a single entity. Extra-sensitive human individuals may link up with other individuals in the human field through so-called psychic phenomena, while living plants and our fellow animals do not have the mental barriers that we have, and can link up instinctively. All speculation, of course, but it has a certain pleasing coherence.

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> dhw:It is indeed a fascinating article, and it makes me wonder why David is so opposed to panpsychist ideas, which are very similar. (Whitehead was a panexistentialist AND a panentheist!) Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields may not be quite the same as "intelligent energy", but clearly they are the source of information that passes not only between living organisms but also between particles of inanimate matter-Because I believe in a universal consciousness, which fits Sheldrakes' species consciousness studies-> 
> dhw: QUOTE: When we come to the question of the creation of new fields, we're right back on the borderline of science and philosophy where you'll never get clear agreement anyway. The materialists will say all innovation must be due to chance mutations and the nonmaterialists would say there's a creative factor underlying nature and guiding these things. Natural science -- and this includes my own hypothesis -- deals with regularity or repetition in nature, not originality or creativity, so from a scientific point of view this will always remain a wide-open question.
> 
> dhw: Again he has hit the nail on the head. Innovation is the key issue. The "creative factor" is what David identifies as God, materialists as chance, and my particular panpsychist hypothesis as "intelligent energy".-
> dhw: Good for him! "Intelligent energy" may be the X factor!-If only you would define intelligent energy and give it some coherent structure. Tell me how intelligent energy creates anything. My universal conscousness implies structure.

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dhw: It is indeed a fascinating article, and it makes me wonder why David is so opposed to panpsychist ideas, which are very similar. (Whitehead was a panexistentialist AND a panentheist!) Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields may not be quite the same as "intelligent energy", but clearly they are the source of information that passes not only between living organisms but also between particles of inanimate matter.-DAVID: Because I believe in a universal consciousness, which fits Sheldrakes' species consciousness studies-Your universal consciousness is a single entity which has been aware of itself for ever and ever and has created the universe and every form of life. Is this what Sheldrake believes? I can't see any contradiction between panpsychism and species consciousness. Please enlighten me.-dhw: Again he has hit the nail on the head. Innovation is the key issue. The "creative factor" is what David identifies as God, materialists as chance, and my particular panpsychist hypothesis as "intelligent energy".-DAVID: If only you would define intelligent energy and give it some coherent structure. Tell me how intelligent energy creates anything. My universal consciousness implies structure.-If we discount materialism for the sake of this particular argument, human intelligent energy is the conscious force that creates ideas, designs, art etc. and enables us to manipulate materials, including our own (e.g. if I want to move, my intelligent energy sends the relevant message to the rest of my body). In exactly the same way, intelligent energy is the force within materials that enables organisms to innovate. Your God is first-cause energy which has been intelligent for ever and ever, so define him and it! The concept I'm proposing also implies structure, but instead of this being imposed from outside by a single inventor, it is created from within: cells / termites / humans use their intelligent energy to cooperate with one another and create new structures.

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> dhw:Your universal consciousness is a single entity which has been aware of itself for ever and ever and has created the universe and every form of life. Is this what Sheldrake believes? I can't see any contradiction between panpsychism and species consciousness. Please enlighten me.-Read Sheldrake please. His morphogenic fields have to do with phenotype guidance in embryo formation. And his species consciousness implied universal consciousness levels as I have previously explained. Panpsychism is somehow having consciousness affecting cells and reaching into cells. But as I have explained to you, over and over, cells are automatons.
> 
> dhw: If we discount materialism for the sake of this particular argument, human intelligent energy is the conscious force that creates ideas, designs, art etc. and enables us to manipulate materials, including our own (e.g. if I want to move, my intelligent energy sends the relevant message to the rest of my body).-I agree-> dhw: In exactly the same way, intelligent energy is the force within materials that enables organisms to innovate. Your God is first-cause energy which has been intelligent for ever and ever, so define him and it! The concept I'm proposing also implies structure, but instead of this being imposed from outside by a single inventor, it is created from within.-Just admit that the 'innovation force' of each cell is in the genome, present from the beginning of life and we might be able to agree.

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dhw: Your universal consciousness is a single entity which has been aware of itself for ever and ever and has created the universe and every form of life. Is this what Sheldrake believes? I can't see any contradiction between panpsychism and species consciousness. Please enlighten me.-DAVID: Read Sheldrake please. His morphogenic fields have to do with phenotype guidance in embryo formation. And his species consciousness implied universal consciousness levels as I have previously explained. Panpsychism is somehow having consciousness affecting cells and reaching into cells. But as I have explained to you, over and over, cells are automatons.-In my panpsychist scenario, innovation is caused by intelligent energy within the genome responding to changes in the environment. How does that differ from "phenotype guidance in embryo formation"? And are you telling us that Sheldrake's species consciousness implies your own particular "universal consciousness" (i.e. God)? N.B. Sheldrake also applies his principle to inorganic matter, though "the whole concept of fields in general is a very difficult thing to grasp". So is "intelligent energy", and so is your "God"! My version of panpsychism certainly has consciousness "affecting cells", but not "reaching into cells": the consciousness is already within cells (or in the genome which is within cells). Whereas on the contrary, your own brand of "intelligent energy", i.e. God, has to reach into cells whenever he starts dabbling!-dhw: [...] intelligent energy is the force within materials that enables organisms to innovate. Your God is first-cause energy which has been intelligent for ever and ever, so define him and it! The concept I'm proposing also implies structure, but instead of this being imposed from outside by a single inventor, it is created from within.-DAVID: Just admit that the 'innovation force' of each cell is in the genome, present from the beginning of life and we might be able to agree.-If internal "intelligent energy" functions by working from within the genome, that's fine with me. You complained that my concept lacked structure, and I have explained that instead of structure being imposed from outside by your one-and-only Creator, it is created by intelligent energy within. A structure is a structure is a structure.

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>dhw: In my panpsychist scenario, innovation is caused by intelligent energy within the genome responding to changes in the environment. How does that differ from "phenotype guidance in embryo formation"?-
If you put your intelligent energy into the genome the we are in agreement.-> dhw: And are you telling us that Sheldrake's species consciousness implies your own particular "universal consciousness" (i.e. God)? N.B. Sheldrake also applies his principle to inorganic matter, though "the whole concept of fields in general is a very difficult thing to grasp".-See my Fred Hoyle entry on carbon and oxygen. Of course God reaches into inorganic to some degree to prepare for life in the evolution of the universe. Later oxygen and carbon combine to make organic.-> dhw: My version of panpsychism certainly has consciousness "affecting cells", but not "reaching into cells": the consciousness is already within cells (or in the genome which is within cells). Whereas on the contrary, your own brand of "intelligent energy", i.e. God, has to reach into cells whenever he starts dabbling!-Only for course corrections.
> 
> dhw: [...] intelligent energy is the force within materials that enables organisms to innovate. Your God is first-cause energy which has been intelligent for ever and ever, so define him and it! The concept I'm proposing also implies structure, but instead of this being imposed from outside by a single inventor, it is created from within.-Yes God is OUTside, but He created the INside to adapt all by itself. We don't need your concept, because it did not self-start. God started everything. Unless you'd like to imply that your concept began itself, somehow?-> 
> dhw: If internal "intelligent energy" functions by working from within the genome, that's fine with me. You complained that my concept lacked structure, and I have explained that instead of structure being imposed from outside by your one-and-only Creator, it is created by intelligent energy within. A structure is a structure is a structure.-Explain how it started all by itelf, from what?

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dhw: My version of panpsychism certainly has consciousness "affecting cells", but not "reaching into cells": the consciousness is already within cells (or in the genome which is within cells). Whereas on the contrary, your own brand of "intelligent energy", i.e. God, has to reach into cells whenever he starts dabbling!
> 
>[david] Only for course corrections.
> > 
> > dhw: [...] intelligent energy is the force within materials that enables organisms to innovate. Your God is first-cause energy which has been intelligent for ever and ever, so define him and it! The concept I'm proposing also implies structure, but instead of this being imposed from outside by a single inventor, it is created from within.
> 
>[david] Yes God is OUTside, but He created the INside to adapt all by itself. We don't need your concept, because it did not self-start. God started everything. Unless you'd like to imply that your concept began itself, somehow?-David, isn't the pantheist way/spinoza is that God is within and without all that is? That creation is created from God's own essence and is God? If so, why would God need to tinker/tweak/dabble from without? God is all things, why not just tinker from within that which needed tweaking?

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> >[david] Yes God is OUTside, but He created the INside to adapt all by itself. We don't need your concept, because it did not self-start. God started everything. Unless you'd like to imply that your concept began itself, somehow?
> 
> bbella: David, isn't the pantheist way/spinoza is that God is within and without all that is? That creation is created from God's own essence and is God? If so, why would God need to tinker/tweak/dabble from without? God is all things, why not just tinker from within that which needed tweaking?-You are right in that God's reach is into everything, and can easily dabble from within when necessary, and is the way I think about it. But at the same time I imagine God as the universal consciousness at a quantum level, (whatever that means exactly), because quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics are so counterintuitive. Then using the aspect of non-locality, it can be obviously thought that God is everywhere all the time. At the same time, as I have pointed out to dhw, God works through evolutionary processes in forming the universe and creating all forms of life. However he allows adaptation triggered by the organisms themselves. That creates variations that may not achieve God's goals, and that is when he must step in or reach in.

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bbella: David, isn't the pantheist way/spinoza is that God is within and without all that is? That creation is created from God's own essence and is God? If so, why would God need to tinker/tweak/dabble from without? God is all things, why not just tinker from within that which needed tweaking?-DAVID: You are right in that God's reach is into everything, and can easily dabble from within when necessary, and is the way I think about it. But at the same time I imagine God as the universal consciousness at a quantum level, (whatever that means exactly), because quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics are so counterintuitive. Then using the aspect of non-locality, it can be obviously thought that God is everywhere all the time. At the same time, as I have pointed out to dhw, God works through evolutionary processes in forming the universe and creating all forms of life. However he allows adaptation triggered by the organisms themselves. That creates variations that may not achieve God's goals, and that is when he must step in or reach in.-"Universal consciousness at a quantum level (whatever that means exactly)", "God is everywhere all the time", and "God works through evolutionary processes" ... none of this explains why your God has to tweak from outside! And if the variations created by the intelligent genome do "not achieve God's goals", but God is inside as well as outside the genome, again why must he dabble from outside? BBella's question is a valid one! Indeed one might ask HOW he dabbles from outside. By telekinesis? By donning a white coat and operating? By magic? The fact is, most of what you have said about your God can be applied to the concept of panpsychist "intelligent energy" ... it too is conscious at a quantum level ("whatever that means exactly"), is all over the place in and outside matter (which it can survive), and works through evolution, forming the universe and life. And it "tweaks" all the time. From the inside. Without any intervention by the divine surgeon/magician.

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dhw: The fact is, most of what you have said about your God can be applied to the concept of panpsychist "intelligent energy" ... it too is conscious at a quantum level ("whatever that means exactly"), is all over the place in and outside matter (which it can survive), and works through evolution, forming the universe and life. And it "tweaks" all the time. From the inside. Without any intervention by the divine surgeon/magician.-My impression is that your panpsychist intelligent energy does not have an organized center. My universal consciousness does. Am I wrong?

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DAVID: My impression is that your panpsychist intelligent energy does not have an organized centre. My universal consciousness does. Am I wrong?-You are right. We must be careful here, because there are so many different forms of panpsychism. The form I'm proposing dispenses with a centre. Every different organism has its own intelligence. The scenario begins with non-conscious energy, and this develops consciousness within the different forms of matter it has unconsciously created (which demands as much faith as your eternally self-aware dabbler). Some of these cooperate to form bigger, more complex units. Our bodies are one vast mass of cooperating units, each one with its own (limited) intelligence, forming a combined entity which has its own overall intelligence. And so you have liver, heart, brain etc. as units within your brontosaurus, your whale, your human, but the manner in which everything has combined creates a different overall entity with its own overall intelligent energy. The differently evolved energies may well constitute Sheldrake's morphic fields, but you know far more about them than I do.-Different forms of intelligent energy may be able to communicate and cooperate. You wrote earlier: "I really don't think amoebas are trying to connect with me, but they do connect with each other." You and the amoeba may be so far apart that you can't even say "hi", but an amoeba might be able to say "hi" not only to its best amoebuddy but also to some nearby plankton. We can say "hi" to a dog, who can return the compliment with a woof. Symbiosis can only work if two different forms of intelligent energy are able to communicate and cooperate. Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.-DAVID: A bush has a main source at its center, and then many many branches. Panpsychism does not appear to.-We have been using the bush image to denote the higgledy-piggledy shape of evolution ... branching out in different directions with its vast array of organisms. In both scenarios, the main source is therefore the first forms of life from which all the branches have sprung. What we don't know is how the first seeds came into being.

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DAVID: My impression is that your panpsychist intelligent energy does not have an organized centre. My universal consciousness does. Am I wrong?
> 
> You are right. We must be careful here, because there are so many different forms of panpsychism. The form I'm proposing dispenses with a centre. Every different organism has its own intelligence. The scenario begins with non-conscious energy, and this develops consciousness within the different forms of matter it has unconsciously created ... Some of these cooperate to form bigger, more complex units. Our bodies are one vast mass of cooperating units, each one with its own (limited) intelligence, forming a combined entity which has its own overall intelligence.... but the manner in which everything has combined creates a different overall entity with its own overall intelligent energy. -Your scenario sounds as if you have organs taking off on their own, only to later cooperate and create an organism. It can't work in the undirected formations you describe. Take a liver for example: the bile ducts and the blood vessels are cell types of their own. The blood vesels are an organ system all their own. I can see how the liver instructs the bile ducts to grow in the right places but blood vessels are their own master. Very wooly thinking on your part.-> 
> dhw: Different forms of intelligent energy may be able to communicate and cooperate.-The operative word is "may'. 'May not' is just as valid if not more so.-> dhw: Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.-Evolution looks a lot more organized to me with a central drive toward more complexity.
 
> 
> DAVID: A bush has a main source at its center, and then many many branches. Panpsychism does not appear to.
> 
> dhw: We have been using the bush image to denote the higgledy-piggledy shape of evolution ... branching out in different directions with its vast array of organisms. In both scenarios, the main source is therefore the first forms of life from which all the branches have sprung. What we don't know is how the first seeds came into being.-We see two different bushes.

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Dhw: The scenario begins with non-conscious energy, and this develops consciousness within the different forms of matter it has unconsciously created ... Some of these cooperate to form bigger, more complex units. Our bodies are one vast mass of cooperating units, each one with its own (limited) intelligence, forming a combined entity which has its own overall intelligence.... but the manner in which everything has combined creates a different overall entity with its own overall intelligent energy.-DAVID: Your scenario sounds as if you have organs taking off on their own, only to later cooperate and create an organism. It can't work in the undirected formations you describe. Take a liver for example: the bile ducts and the blood vessels are cell types of their own. The blood vesels are an organ system all their own. I can see how the liver instructs the bile ducts to grow in the right places but blood vessels are their own master. Very wooly thinking on your part.-I don't know how you got this impression. Since life began with single cell organisms, every development had to be through cells combining in a new way, and every innovation had to take place within an existing organism. Of course each one had to be integrated with whatever was already there! If your God didn't "reach in" and manipulate the cells for every single new organ, then what you and I have agreed to call "the intelligent genome" did it through cooperation. Whether God invented this mechanism or it fashioned itself through a panpsychist inner intelligence, how else could it work? -dhw: Different forms of intelligent energy may be able to communicate and cooperate.-DAVID: The operative word is "may'. 'May not' is just as valid if not more so.-You have given us plenty of examples of species doing just that (through symbiosis), in both plant and animal kingdoms, so the question is not WHETHER they do, but HOW MUCH contact there is between them.
 
dhw: Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.-DAVID: Evolution looks a lot more organized to me with a central drive toward more complexity.-That is because you believe in a God with a purpose. The drive towards complexity is clear, no matter whether the inventive intelligence was created from without (by your God) or evolved from within (panpsychist version). The only difference lies in your belief that evolution itself was designed to create humans.
 
DAVID: A bush has a main source at its center, and then many many branches. Panpsychism does not appear to.-dhw: We have been using the bush image to denote the higgledy-piggledy shape of evolution ... branching out in different directions with its vast array of organisms. In both scenarios, the main source is therefore the first forms of life from which all the branches have sprung. What we don't know is how the first seeds came into being.-DAVID: We see two different bushes.-Both bushes grow from the first forms of life. We see the same history of life, the same array of species extinct and extant. The bush is the same. It's the interpretation of the higgledy-piggledy shape that is different!

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> dhw: I don't know how you got this impression. Since life began with single cell organisms, every development had to be through cells combining in a new way, and every innovation had to take place within an existing organism. Of course each one had to be integrated with whatever was already there! If your God didn't "reach in" and manipulate the cells for every single new organ, then what you and I have agreed to call "the intelligent genome" did it through cooperation. -You don't understand biology; not your fault. Organs are made up with different kinds of cells that must follow a plan just like the plan that built your house. Yes, all the parts have to cooperate, that is obvious, but individual pieces of limber, electric wires, air ducts, plumbing pipes all have their places of traverse and of operation. And by themselves they don't know where or how to set up unless they are used by builders who understand the house plan which is also their goal. No matter how smart the genome is, it has to contain a plan and a goal. Your house needed an architect It appears most likely the original separate organs did also. Talk about the chicken and the egg! Try building a liver from scratch. It must receive nutrients from the GI tract to metabolize, by way of potal veins. It must then remake the nutrients into proper molecules and send them off in different blood vessels (veins other than the portal system. In the meantime, other liver cells are making the early parts of hormones, and other cels are producing bile to break down fats in the intestine so the fats can be absorbed. And at the same time the liver detoxifies molecules it doesn't like to get rid of them in the bile. (Many meds you take are gotten rid of this way.) And you want your cells to shake hands and create a liver, just as livers were created in the Cambrian.-I know your response will be the intelligent genome of each cell follows the master plan and the cells cooperate. Yes, they are forced to by the central plan in the genome. Who was the architect plan in the genome? It just cooperated itself among the cells to that final success of a competent liver? Your proposal is a hodgepodge. The development of the organs of the body need cental planning just as the Soviets did, but they failed, and our great planner gave us glorious bodies to enjoy.-
 
> dhw: Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.
> 
> DAVID: Evolution looks a lot more organized to me with a central drive toward more complexity.-I left this to show how you are so wrong. You are describing chance response to chance changes to threats and environment.
> 
> dhw: That is because you believe in a God with a purpose. The drive towards complexity is clear-The drive to complexity is 'clear' because evolution reeks of teleology.

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dhw: Since life began with single cell organisms, every development had to be through cells combining in a new way, and every innovation had to take place within an existing organism. Of course each one had to be integrated with whatever was already there! If your God didn't "reach in" and manipulate the cells for every single new organ, then what you and I have agreed to call "the intelligent genome" did it through cooperation.
 
DAVID: You don't understand biology; not your fault. Organs are made up with different kinds of cells that must follow a plan just like the plan that built your house. Yes, all the parts have to cooperate, that is obvious, but individual pieces of limber, electric wires, air ducts, plumbing pipes all have their places of traverse and of operation. And by themselves they don't know where or how to set up unless they are used by builders who understand the house plan which is also their goal. No matter how smart the genome is, it has to contain a plan and a goal. Your house needed an architect It appears most likely the original separate organs did also. Talk about the chicken and the egg! [...]-I know your response will be the intelligent genome of each cell follows the master plan and the cells cooperate. Yes, they are forced to by the central plan in the genome. Who was the architect plan in the genome? It just cooperated itself among the cells to that final success of a competent liver? Your proposal is a hodgepodge. The development of the organs of the body need cental planning just as the Soviets did, but they failed, and our great planner gave us glorious bodies to enjoy. (my bold)-My thanks for a great lesson on how the liver works. But in between the house image and the biology lesson, you have confirmed that the PROCESS of innovation is exactly as I described it in the paragraph you have quoted. If I had said that this PROCESS, whereby cells cooperate in the invention of new organs as directed by the genome, was organized by God, you would have accepted everything I wrote. But because I suggest that the intelligent genome itself rather than God may be the architect, you focus on the biology!-As you well know, I do not believe or disbelieve my panpsychist version, and you are quite right to be incredulous. But perhaps you could explain to me HOW ELSE your own version might work. The invention of new organs is linked, we believe, to random changes in the environment. Does this mean, then, that God waits to see what is happening and then reaches into existing organisms to put in a new liver-inventing programme? Or did he preprogramme the very first forms of life to enable their descendants to produce a liver if a few million years later the environment should happen to demand one? The latter would mean that he preprogrammed every single innovation from the word go. The former would mean that he had to intervene to invent every new organ, in which case you might as well subscribe to separate creation rather than evolution. So do please tell us exactly how you think God organized innovation, and while you're at it, please explain how he intervenes. Does his infinite intelligence hone in telekinetically on the chosen few, or does he take them to his great lab in the sky, or merely say "Let there be livers..."? (My question is serious.)-dhw: Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.-DAVID: Evolution looks a lot more organized to me with a central drive toward more complexity.-DAVID: I left this to show how you are so wrong. You are describing chance response to chance changes to threats and environment.-No, I'm describing intelligent response to chance changes.-dhw: That is because you believe in a God with a purpose. The drive towards complexity is clear.-DAVID: The drive to complexity is 'clear' because evolution reeks of teleology.-I meant that it was clear because we can all see that it happened. My panpsychist hypothesis allows for teleology, in so far as every innovation has a purpose. But your teleology, of course, is divine.

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> dhW: As you well know, I do not believe or disbelieve my panpsychist version, and you are quite right to be incredulous. But perhaps you could explain to me HOW ELSE your own version might work. The invention of new organs is linked, we believe, to random changes in the environment. -Those inventions cannot be linked to to random changes!!! That is the key issue between us. I've used the liver because it is a highly complex organ, actually more complex than a free-living amoeba. In the Cambrian alimentary tubes for injestion of food appeared. Nothing before was anything like this: just hollow sacks, or bilateral sacks which absorbed by osmosis very simple nutrients in the sea water. The Cambrian had very complex preditors which chomped up complicated prey, that required differential digestion. Thus a liver had to be arranged to aid in that complex digestion. -I apologize for not being this explicit in my goading you with the liver. I expected you to make a logical jump for which you don't have the background. The liver has to be designed specifically to fill this role. Trial and error would not have sufficed. As the Cambrian animals appeared with all their organs and parts, basically from no credible precursors, each of the organs had to also appear de novo. That is the Cambrian dillemma for Darwinism. It cannot work by itty-bitty advances. No matter how bright your imagined cells are, they could not conjure up a liver by cooperation. They had to have a whole outlined architectural plan in their DNA from the beginning.-
> dhw: Does his infinite intelligence hone in telekinetically on the chosen few, or does he take them to his great lab in the sky, or merely say "Let there be livers..."? (My question is serious.)-More than likely livers are entirely and carefully planned.
> 
> dhw: Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.-I've explained how wrong this statement has to be.
> 
> DAVID: Evolution looks a lot more organized to me with a central drive toward more complexity.
> 
> No, I'm describing intelligent response to chance changes.-I know, and there is no way it can work except with a comprehensive plan and a major jump as in punctuated equilibrium. And who provided the complete intact plan?
> 
> dhw: That is because you believe in a God with a purpose. The drive towards complexity is clear.
> 
> DAVID: The drive to complexity is 'clear' because evolution reeks of teleology.
> 
> dhw: I meant that it was clear because we can all see that it happened. My panpsychist hypothesis allows for teleology, in so far as every innovation has a purpose. But your teleology, of course, is divine.-Teleology is not enough among disparate cells. The plan has to be there in advance.- Dawin quotes on point:-"If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory to descent with slow modification though natural selection."-"Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer."
 
"The case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained."-As usual Darwin was a clear thinker. His fawning acolytes are not.

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dhW: As you well know, I do not believe or disbelieve my panpsychist version, and you are quite right to be incredulous. But perhaps you could explain to me HOW ELSE your own version might work. The invention of new organs is linked, we believe, to random changes in the environment.
 
DAVID: Those inventions cannot be linked to random changes!!! That is the key issue between us. -Innovations are most likely triggered either by necessity (the organism must change in order to survive) or by experimentation (a new environment offers new opportunities). If your God did not preprogramme the changes in the environment, then the changes in the environment were random, and so the invention of new organs is linked to random changes in the environment! (One exclamation mark will do!) The invention itself is NOT random. The key issue between us is HOW innovations are created.
 
DAVID: The Cambrian had very complex preditors which chomped up complicated prey, that required differential digestion. Thus a liver had to be arranged to aid in that complex digestion. I apologize for not being this explicit in my goading you with the liver. I expected you to make a logical jump for which you don't have the background. The liver has to be designed specifically to fill this role. Trial and error would not have sufficed.
 
Nowhere have I even suggested trial and error (although of course error would automatically lead to individuals' non-survival). The example you have given perfectly illustrates how my alternative hypothesis works: the new (Cambrian) environment brought forth a multitude of new organisms, among which were some that chomped up others and needed a liver. The genome responded by creating a new combination of different cells. The "key issue" between us is how the genome came up with the design.-DAVID: It cannot work by itty-bitty advances. No matter how bright your imagined cells are, they could not conjure up a liver by cooperation. They had to have a whole outlined architectural plan in their DNA from the beginning.-1) From the beginning of what? Are you saying that God preprogrammed the liver into the very first forms of life, to pass on through billions of years and generations until the Cambrian? In that case, God must have preprogrammed EVERY innovation into the first forms of life. Is that what you believe? 2) Nowhere have I argued for itty-bitty advances. I accept punctuated equilibrium and organs de novo. So once again, let me ask you: if your God did NOT preprogramme the liver from the beginning of life but had to intervene: "Does his infinite intelligence hone in telekinetically on the chosen few, or does he take them to his great lab in the sky, or merely say "Let there be livers..."? (My question is serious.)-DAVID: More than likely livers are entirely and carefully planned.-That is not an answer. I'm asking how it works physically. And I will offer you a possible answer in accordance with your divine scenario: God has implanted in the genome the ability to invent new organs to cope with or exploit changes in the environment. The genome gives out its instructions to the cells, which cooperate, as instructed, to build the liver. Do you have any objections to this explanation? If you believe that God implanted the actual programme for the liver in the genome (as opposed to the ability to do the designing), WHEN and HOW do you think he did so?-As regards your various Darwin quotes, here's another for your armoury: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." We long, long, long ago agreed that he was wrong. But unlike Darwin himself, we need to separate his "theory" into several theories, and consider each one on its merits and in accordance with the findings of modern science. So please can we finally drop the subject of gradualism. That particular theory is not an issue between us.-dhw: Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.-DAVID: I've explained how wrong this statement has to be.-You have explained that the invention of new organs is not linked to random changes in the environment (disagree), that such organs have to be specifically designed (agree), that they cannot come into being gradually (agree), that the genome is the mechanism with the plan (agree), and that only God could provide the necessary organization (judgement suspended).

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dhw:The invention itself is NOT random. The key issue between us is HOW innovations are created.-Agreed. Livers appeared when predation appeared and the eaten had to be assimilated through digestion. You accept punc inc but don't appear incredulous at the sudden appearance of the hunter and the hunted in the Cambrian. Digestive tracts had to come all made at once. Just have the stomach and intestine is not enough. Livers and pancreas must be added at the same time, and they are all made from very different cells, organized in very different ways. There is specified complexity at this stage of species development. One part does not work without the others.-What I don't know, and you keep asking, does God step in and adjust things or it is all in the plan from the beginning?
> 
> dhw: The genome responded by creating a new combination of different cells. The "key issue" between us is how the genome came up with the design.-To repeat:
> 
> DAVID: It cannot work by itty-bitty advances. No matter how bright your imagined cells are, they could not conjure up a liver by cooperation. They had to have a whole outlined architectural plan in their DNA from the beginning. -or some help along the way.
> 
> dhw: 1) From the beginning of what? Are you saying that God preprogrammed the liver into the very first forms of life, to pass on through billions of years and generations until the Cambrian? In that case, God must have preprogrammed EVERY innovation into the first forms of life. Is that what you believe? 2) Nowhere have I argued for itty-bitty advances. I accept punctuated equilibrium and organs de novo. So once again, let me ask you: if your God did NOT preprogramme the liver from the beginning of life but had to intervene: "Does his infinite intelligence hone in telekinetically on the chosen few, or does he take them to his great lab in the sky, or merely say "Let there be livers..."? (My question is serious.)-I've answered with my admitted ignorance on display above. I don't know how much God preplanned in the genome and how much tweaking He had to do. I just know He was the production manager. Nothing else makes sense.
> 
> dhw: As regards your various Darwin quotes, here's another for your armoury: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." -I know the famous quote.-> dhw: So please can we finally drop the subject of gradualism. That particular theory is not an issue between us.-Agreed. Punc inc it is.
> 
> dhw: Evolution therefore progresses in accordance with how these intelligences respond to environmental conditions, either adapting or innovating through cooperation. Hence the bush, which grows as and when these intelligences come up with their innovations. Neither by chance nor by central organization.-It is God's intelligent genome plus God, and only He knows the proportions.
> 
> You have explained that the invention of new organs is not linked to random changes in the environment (disagree), that such organs have to be specifically designed (agree), that they cannot come into being gradually (agree), that the genome is the mechanism with the plan (agree), and that only God could provide the necessary organization (judgement suspended).-Fair enough, and new organs do arise to need, when the need appears. Since the evolution of the Earth as we now know it followed a well-designed path, both the evolution of complex life and of the Earth may well have been coordinated by God. We could not have life as we know it without the oxygen level provided by plant photosynthesis, as an example of this coordination.

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dhw: The invention itself is NOT random. The key issue between us is HOW innovations are created.-DAVID: Agreed. Livers appeared when predation appeared and the eaten had to be assimilated through digestion. You accept punc inc but don't appear incredulous at the sudden appearance of the hunter and the hunted in the Cambrian.-It clearly happened, and so the question is why. And because we all like to try and solve mysteries, I am offering a hypothetical solution. The most likely trigger is a massive change in the environment. This would have allowed existing organisms equally massive opportunities for innovation. The intelligent cell/genome/DNA within existing organisms therefore came up with a vast array of innovations. This makes sense to me. I think it makes sense to you too, provided I insert the word God (see later).
 
DAVID: Digestive tracts had to come all made at once. Just have the stomach and intestine is not enough. Livers and pancreas must be added at the same time, and they are all made from very different cells, organized in very different ways. There is specified complexity at this stage of species development. One part does not work without the others.-And that is precisely why cells have to cooperate. If the plan is within the genome, it has to direct operations, and the cells respond accordingly.
 
DAVID: What I don't know, and you keep asking, does God step in and adjust things or it is all in the plan from the beginning?-And if he has to step in, I keep asking you HOW he does it.
 
DAVID: I've answered with my admitted ignorance on display above. I don't know how much God preplanned in the genome and how much tweaking He had to do. I just know He was the production manager. Nothing else makes sense.-I offered you a divine scenario: "God has implanted in the genome the ability to invent new organs to cope with or exploit changes in the environment. The genome gives out instructions to all the different cells, which cooperate, as instructed, to build the liver." (Plus, of course, everything it is connected to). In my view, this obviates the need for tweaking, even during the Cambrian. It also obviates the need for millions of innovations to have been preprogrammed in the very first life forms and handed down through billions of years and zillions of generations of different organisms (a scenario which does indeed make me incredulous). What are your objections?
 
However, if he does tweak, I would still like to know how YOU think he does it: telekinesis, operations in his skylab, magic? You are constantly dismissing my panpsychist hypothesis as nebulous, which I freely admit, and pressing me for details which I cannot provide. I demand equal rights for agnostics!

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> dhw: The most likely trigger is a massive change in the environment. This would have allowed existing organisms equally massive opportunities for innovation. The intelligent cell/genome/DNA within existing organisms therefore came up with a vast array of innovations. This makes sense to me. I think it makes sense to you too, provided I insert the word God (see later).-Agreed. The most likely change was the massive rise in oxygen, but oxygen is like a poison unless antioxidents were invented at the same time to modify the effects of oxygen in the living organism. In biology there are always important side issues, life is so complex. Specified complexity produces life.-> 
> DAVID: What I don't know, and you keep asking, does God step in and adjust things or it is all in the plan from the beginning?
> 
> dhw:And if he has to step in, I keep asking you HOW he does it.-I have no idea, just as I have no idea how He arranged the start of life.
> 
> DAVID: I don't know how much God preplanned in the genome and how much tweaking He had to do. I just know He was the production manager. Nothing else makes sense.
> 
> dhw:I offered you a divine scenario: "God has implanted in the genome the ability to invent new organs to cope with or exploit changes in the environment. The genome gives out instructions to all the different cells, which cooperate, as instructed, to build the liver." (Plus, of course, everything it is connected to). In my view, this obviates the need for tweaking, even during the Cambrian. It also obviates the need for millions of innovations to have been preprogrammed in the very first life forms and handed down through billions of years and zillions of generations of different organisms (a scenario which does indeed make me incredulous). What are your objections?-I have no objections, but your divine scenario assumes God is so perfect He can forsee all the complications when there are two evolutionary systems, life's and the Earth's running at the same time. I don't assume as much about God as religions or you do in your imaginations. I think you are more affected by the stories about God, created by religious pretentions of knowledge, than I am. Surprising for an agnostic, and I am the believer! 
> 
> dhw:However, if he does tweak, I would still like to know how YOU think he does it: telekinesis, operations in his skylab, magic? You are constantly dismissing my panpsychist hypothesis as nebulous, which I freely admit, and pressing me for details which I cannot provide. I demand equal rights for agnostics!-I don't know and don't care, and that knowledge of his methology is not important to me, it is so clear that He is Production Manager. Remember his admonition about asking direct questions. "I am who I am". God purposely concealed Himself in or behind Quantum reality, and He is going to stay that way. We are back to the leap of faith, and admittedly not an easy leap. The early religions, especially Christianity relied on lots of miracles to entice belief. Kindergarten games! They sold love and punishment, a nice combination. Jesus did not ask for a church about himself. He sold the Hillelian idea (about 50 years old at the time) that we needed to respect one another. I stop there, after discerning the living proof life and the Earth present of His works. "Who is like You, working wonders".

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dhw: I offered you a divine scenario: "God has implanted in the genome the ability to invent new organs to cope with or exploit changes in the environment. The genome gives out instructions to all the different cells, which cooperate, as instructed, to build the liver." (Plus, of course, everything it is connected to). In my view, this obviates the need for tweaking, even during the Cambrian. It also obviates the need for millions of innovations to have been preprogrammed in the very first life forms and handed down through billions of years and zillions of generations of different organisms (a scenario which does indeed make me incredulous). What are your objections?-DAVID: I have no objections, but your divine scenario assumes God is so perfect He can forsee all the complications when there are two evolutionary systems, life's and the Earth's running at the same time. I don't assume as much about God as religions or you do in your imaginations. I think you are more affected by the stories about God, created by religious pretentions of knowledge, than I am. Surprising for an agnostic, and I am the believer! -You have misunderstood the purpose of the above hypothesis. I'm trying to demonstrate to you that the difference between us does not lie in our view of the process of evolution itself, but in our views on the possible source of the innovative mechanism, and in your anthropocentric teleology. No matter what may be the origin of the intelligent cell/genome/DNA, you have no objections when I suggest that evolution works through the instructions given by this inner intelligence to the cells, which cooperate to form new organs and their connections. I make no assumptions about your God ... I'm focusing only on how evolution works, and in the above scenario, you agree that no matter what random changes there are in the environment, the intelligent genome will adapt in order to survive, or innovate in order to exploit the new conditions. You accept this so long as it fits in with your divine teleology, which is the massive assumption that underlies your own religious interpretation of evolution. Without your teleology, there would be no need for any interference by your God. Evolution would take its course, but you insist that this course has been directed towards the end product of humans, and that is why intervention may have been necessary. However, I have no problem with your argument that the mechanism itself is too complex to have come about by chance or by the gradual evolution of intelligence from within matter. Both hypotheses demand as much faith as your own.-dhw: However, if he does tweak, I would still like to know how YOU think he does it: telekinesis, operations in his skylab, magic? You are constantly dismissing my panpsychist hypothesis as nebulous, which I freely admit, and pressing me for details which I cannot provide. I demand equal rights for agnostics!-DAVID: I don't know and don't care, and that knowledge of his methology is not important to me, it is so clear that He is Production Manager. Remember his admonition about asking direct questions. "I am who I am". God purposely concealed Himself in or behind Quantum reality, and He is going to stay that way. We are back to the leap of faith, and admittedly not an easy leap. -If I believed in chance, or in my panpsychist hypothesis, and if you then asked me how it could possibly work, I could say to you I don't know or care how chance managed to put everything together, but it did. Or I don't know how non-conscious energy acquired consciousness, or how the intelligent genome acquired its intelligence, but it did. "We are back to the leap of faith." However, once we take any of these leaps, my account of how innovations work makes sense whatever the source, and you have no objections to it. Isn't this a breakthrough?

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> dhw: I'm trying to demonstrate to you that the difference between us does not lie in our view of the process of evolution itself, but in our views on the possible source of the innovative mechanism, and in your anthropocentric teleology. No matter what may be the origin of the intelligent cell/genome/DNA, you have no objections when I suggest that evolution works through the instructions given by this inner intelligence to the cells, which cooperate to form new organs and their connections. ......You accept this so long as it fits in with your divine teleology, which is the massive assumption that underlies your own religious interpretation of evolution.-I don't view my interpretation of evolution as religious. That is your interpretation of me! I think my conclusions are scientific. I started as an agnostic. Yes, I accepted religion's God because I can find no other representation of first cause that exists in human thought. but most religions are rather empty.-> dhw:However, I have no problem with your argument that the mechanism itself is too complex to have come about by chance or by the gradual evolution of intelligence from within matter. Both hypotheses demand as much faith as your own.-Here is generally full agreement from me, but how matter invents intelligence is way beyond faith. It is a pipe dream.
> 
> dhw: If I believed in chance, or in my panpsychist hypothesis, and if you then asked me how it could possibly work, I could say to you I don't know or care how chance managed to put everything together, but it did. Or I don't know how non-conscious energy acquired consciousness, or how the intelligent genome acquired its intelligence, but it did. "We are back to the leap of faith." However, once we take any of these leaps, my account of how innovations work makes sense whatever the source, and you have no objections to it. Isn't this a breakthrough?-No breakthrough. I see a process in evolution that requires guidance. I cannot see intelligence inventing itself. There is necessarily a first cause. Therefore I must believe in theistic evolution.-Because species appear de novo, genetics provides adaptation but NOT speciation. The only thing Darwin provided is evidence that some form of evolution occurred. Most of his speculation has turned out to be wrong:-http://books.google.com/books?id=4N1F6SpusrgC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=nelson+platnick+theory+put+to+the+test+grasse&source=bl&ots=M-cEZ51BBY&sig=7oonp2Aq2BgKwMSma70WPmL5nrs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1XWSUcf_OeP_4AOipIHABw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=nelson%20platnick%20theory%20put%20to%20the%20test%20grasse&f=false-Note also the confusion DNA analysis causes when applied to the so-called bush of life:-http://phys.org/news/2013-05-untangling-tree-life.html-If God dabbled, these are the results you get. Evolution is not a 'clean' easily discerned underlying process

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DAVID: Because species appear de novo, genetics provides adaptation but NOT speciation.-The implications of this remark are so enormous that I'd like to tackle it on its own, and will reply to the rest of your post separately.-Until now, you have always agreed that evolution happened, i.e. that all forms of life are descended from earlier forms, going back to the beginning, while natural selection only decides which organs and organisms survive. Evolution cannot happen without innovation. We have both rejected Darwin's theory of random mutations as the cause of innovation, as well as his theory that evolution proceeds little by little (= gradualism). You have also accepted many times the idea that your God may have created a mechanism within the genome that is responsible for innovations, but you have argued that some innovations are preprogrammed, and others are the result of your God dabbling.-If innovations are preprogrammed, the programme must be within the genome. Now, however, you are saying that genetics only provides adaptation (which would normally preserve the status quo) and NOT speciation! In that case, ALL innovations must be the result of God dabbling. In other words, you now appear to be arguing for separate creation of species (Creationism), which is the direct antithesis of evolution!
 
The point of my post is not to attack Creationism, but only to ascertain precisely what you believe, and so if I have misunderstood the above statement, do please clarify it for me.

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dhw: I'm trying to demonstrate to you that the difference between us does not lie in our view of the process of evolution itself, but in our views on the possible source of the innovative mechanism, and in your anthropocentric teleology. No matter what may be the origin of the intelligent cell/genome/DNA, you have no objections when I suggest that evolution works through the instructions given by this inner intelligence to the cells, which cooperate to form new organs and their connections. ......You accept this so long as it fits in with your divine teleology, which is the massive assumption that underlies your own religious interpretation of evolution.-DAVID: I don't view my interpretation of evolution as religious. That is your interpretation of me! I think my conclusions are scientific. I started as an agnostic. Yes, I accepted religion's God because I can find no other representation of first cause that exists in human thought. but most religions are rather empty.-Then I will gladly drop the word religious. You accept the above scenario so long as it fits in with your divine teleology, which is your non-religious belief that your God directed the course of evolution towards the end product of humans. Without your non-religious divine teleology, there would be no need for your God to dabble. Evolution would simply run the course it has run through the process described above.-dhw: However, I have no problem with your argument that the mechanism itself is too complex to have come about by chance or by the gradual evolution of intelligence from within matter. Both hypotheses demand as much faith as your own.-DAVID: Here is generally full agreement from me, but how matter invents intelligence is way beyond faith. It is a pipe dream.-And a misrepresentation of my hypothesis. I'll try to explain it again. We agree that the First Cause is energy. Your personal pipe dream is that energy has SOMEHOW always been conscious of itself and able to plan, create and manipulate matter at will. "How" is of no interest to you. My alternative pipe dream is that energy unconsciously transmuted itself into matter, and since matter is always changing, the energy within it SOMEHOW became aware of change. (After all, what is the use of awareness if there is nothing to be aware of?) From this primitive awareness there developed ever greater awareness, whereby unconscious transmutation of energy into matter gradually became conscious manipulation of matter by the energy within it. So matter did not INVENT intelligence; intelligence evolved in the energy within matter. Now suddenly "how" is so important that you reject the hypothesis. I see both hypotheses as equally difficult to believe, but at least the second dispenses with all the headaches associated with divine teleology and unknown degrees of divine preprogramming and dabbling. Once there is intelligence within matter, it directs its own operations. (This could also be true if your God had invented the intelligent genome.)-dhw: If I believed in chance, or in my panpsychist hypothesis, and if you then asked me how it could possibly work, I could say to you I don't know or care how chance managed to put everything together, but it did. Or I don't know how non-conscious energy acquired consciousness, or how the intelligent genome acquired its intelligence, but it did. "We are back to the leap of faith." However, once we take any of these leaps, my account of how innovations work makes sense whatever the source, and you have no objections to it. Isn't this a breakthrough?-DAVID: No breakthrough. I see a process in evolution that requires guidance. I cannot see intelligence inventing itself. There is necessarily a first cause. Therefore I must believe in theistic evolution.-We have long since agreed that there is a first cause: yours is conscious, whereas my alternative is not. You cannot see intelligence inventing itself, and yet you can see intelligence that was never invented. I can't see either, but my panpsychist version does not invent itself, as I have explained above.-DAVID: Because species appear de novo, genetics provides adaptation but NOT speciation.-I have answered this separately. As regards the "bush of life", how do you know it would not have had the same shape, whether God dabbled, or a panpsychist or God-invented intelligent genome did its own thing?

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> dhw: We agree that the First Cause is energy. Your personal pipe dream is that energy has SOMEHOW always been conscious of itself and able to plan, create and manipulate matter at will. "How" is of no interest to you. My alternative pipe dream is that energy unconsciously transmuted itself into matter, and since matter is always changing, the energy within it SOMEHOW became aware of change.-A fair description of our differences.- 
> dhw:We have long since agreed that there is a first cause: yours is conscious, whereas my alternative is not. You cannot see intelligence inventing itself, and yet you can see intelligence that was never invented. I can't see either, but my panpsychist version does not invent itself, as I have explained above.-Again, a fair description of differences.-> 
> dhw: As regards the "bush of life", how do you know it would not have had the same shape, whether God dabbled, or a panpsychist or God-invented intelligent genome did its own thing? -Because of the prolific ablity to adapt, organisms could head off in any direction. Life as designed is very inventive. See natures wonders in the forum. Therefore, the bush will always be the result.

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DAVID: Because species appear de novo, genetics provides adaptation but NOT speciation.
> 
> dhw:The implications of this remark are so enormous that I'd like to tackle it on its own, and will reply to the rest of your post separately.
> If innovations are preprogrammed, the programme must be within the genome. Now, however, you are saying that genetics only provides adaptation (which would normally preserve the status quo) and NOT speciation! In that case, ALL innovations must be the result of God dabbling. In other words, you now appear to be arguing for separate creation of species (Creationism), which is the direct antithesis of evolution!-I can only look at the record we see. We do not know how speciation occurs. We just know that it is abrupt and very new complete organisms appear. How much control the genome, itself, has in specialtion is simply a very open question. Can the genome by itself produce a species? No proof exists yet if we exclude Darwin's gradualism, and it is excluded in our discussions. I have repeatedly said I don't know the mix between pre-programming and dabbling. I have to assume that pre-programming included a drive to complexity when none is really needed as bacteria have proven. We cannot know how God dabbles, directly or indirectly, but evolution doesn't seem to be all preprogramming or the genome would show us some evidence of that, and it doesn't in the research so far. I can go no further. I have a strong belief that theistic evolution occurred. I cannot believe in a chance process. it is beyond all odds.

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DAVID: Because species appear de novo, genetics provides adaptation but NOT speciation.-dhw: If innovations are preprogrammed, the programme must be within the genome. Now, however, you are saying that genetics only provides adaptation (which would normally preserve the status quo) and NOT speciation! In that case, ALL innovations must be the result of God dabbling. In other words, you now appear to be arguing for separate creation of species (Creationism), which is the direct antithesis of evolution!-DAVID: I can only look at the record we see. We do not know how speciation occurs. We just know that it is abrupt and very new complete organisms appear. How much control the genome, itself, has in specialtion is simply a very open question.
 
If it is a very open question, there is no way that you can state so emphatically that genetics does not provide speciation. Clunk!-DAVID: Can the genome by itself produce a species? No proof exists yet if we exclude Darwin's gradualism, and it is excluded in our discussions. I have repeatedly said I don't know the mix between pre-programming and dabbling. I have to assume that pre-programming included a drive to complexity when none is really needed as bacteria have proven. We cannot know how God dabbles, directly or indirectly, but evolution doesn't seem to be all preprogramming or the genome would show us some evidence of that, and it doesn't in the research so far. I can go no further. I have a strong belief that theistic evolution occurred. I cannot believe in a chance process. it is beyond all odds.-None of this justifies your initial claim above. We cannot know, and science cannot tell us, if there is a God at all, let alone whether/how he dabbles, whether/how much he has preprogrammed, whether innovations are random or created by an intelligent genome. All such theories are speculation, and so none of us can go any further. However, not believing in chance is not a reason for believing in God, any more than not believing in God is a reason for believing in chance. There is a comfy cushion awaiting you right next to me on my fence.-*****-dhw: As regards the "bush of life", how do you know it would not have had the same shape, whether God dabbled, or a panpsychist or God-invented intelligent genome did its own thing?
 
DAVID: Because of the prolific ablity to adapt, organisms could head off in any direction. Life as designed is very inventive. See natures wonders in the forum. Therefore, the bush will always be the result.-It is not the prolific ability to adapt that advances evolution ... it is the prolific ability to INNOVATE. This inventiveness would still apply whichever of the above scenarios you believed in. The bushiness of the bush therefore proves nothing, though I'd say the fact that it heads off in so many different directions suggests the absence of any single purpose, apart perhaps from bushiness.

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> DAVID: I can only look at the record we see. We do not know how speciation occurs. We just know that it is abrupt and very new complete organisms appear. How much control the genome, itself, has in specialtion is simply a very open question.
> 
> dhw: If it is a very open question, there is no way that you can state so emphatically that genetics does not provide speciation. -There is nothing we see currently in the mechanics of the genome that can create the the huge jumps beween individuals in a series of organisms that seem to lead up to a new species. We find modifiers of gene expression, and we see mutations that do not have large effects when and if they have any effect. I can presume you are right under these circumstances, and I should allow for the possibility of genome produced speciation, but there is no apparent mechanism found at present and from what we know, little likelihood of finding one.-
> dhw: It is not the prolific ability to adapt that advances evolution ... it is the prolific ability to INNOVATE. This inventiveness would still apply whichever of the above scenarios you believed in. -There is no question that innovation occurs. It is built into life. But how are those innovations created? All I see is adaptability. The innovations we observe are mind staggering, but how were they achieved? We do not know. Your guess is not by chance. My guess is not by chance. What is left?

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I have objected to David's categorical statement: "Because species appear de novo, genetics provides adaptation but NOT speciation."
 
DAVID: There is nothing we see currently in the mechanics of the genome that can create the huge jumps between individuals in a series of organisms that seem to lead up to a new species. We find modifiers of gene expression, and we see mutations that do not have large effects when and if they have any effect. I can presume you are right under these circumstances, and I should allow for the possibility of genome produced speciation, but there is no apparent mechanism found at present and from what we know, little likelihood of finding one.-Nevertheless, you have agreed over and over again that the genome has to be at the centre of the inventive process: e.g. 6 May:
 
dhw:In my panpsychist scenario, innovation is caused by intelligent energy within the genome responding to changes in the environment. -DAVID: If you put your intelligent energy into the genome then we are in agreement.
 
I do, and we were, and we should still be. Of course we have not found the mechanism, but your only divine alternative is Creationism, which you have always rejected in the past.
 
dhw: It is not the prolific ability to adapt that advances evolution ... it is the prolific ability to INNOVATE. This inventiveness would still apply whichever of the above scenarios you believed in. -DAVID: There is no question that innovation occurs. It is built into life. But how are those innovations created? All I see is adaptability. The innovations we observe are mind staggering, but how were they achieved? We do not know. Your guess is not by chance. My guess is not by chance. What is left?-Creationism, my panpsychist hypothesis (with or without God), or agnosticism. I recommend the latter.-******-Tony, many thanks for your passionate and stimulating post. I am off to play cricket now (which we all know is the real purpose of life), and will try to reply tomorrow.

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dhw: I have objected to David's categorical statement: "Because species appear de novo, genetics provides adaptation but NOT speciation."
> 
> Nevertheless, you have agreed over and over again that the genome has to be at the centre of the inventive process: e.g. 6 May:
> 
> dhw:In my panpsychist scenario, innovation is caused by intelligent energy within the genome responding to changes in the environment. 
> 
> DAVID: If you put your intelligent energy into the genome then we are in agreement.
> 
> dhw: I do, and we were, and we should still be. Of course we have not found the mechanism, but your only divine alternative is Creationism, which you have always rejected in the past.-See my current note to Tony. What creates species and runs them at the core is DNA. But we don't undertand the jumps from any early species to a current one. I have repeated over and over I am a theistic evolutionist. God is involved in speciation, but He doesn't tell me how He does it with the DNA that has to be manipulated.-> David Your guess is not by chance. My guess is not by chance. What is left?[/i]
> 
> dhw: Creationism, my panpsychist hypothesis (with or without God), or agnosticism. I recommend the latter.-Agnosticism is non-answer. It is the position of wishing to know, studying the information and then saying it is all too incredulous, so I can't make up my mind. Tony's discussion is right on point: designer universe, origin of life, perfect living forms (again natures wonders). You want thinking energy in your theory, but it arrives nebulously and some how it organizes its thoughts and planning, a mental bootstrapping by some unknown method all of which had to be in place before the big bang. This is the major weakness of your theory. The rules that run the universe require a very sharp intellect, even before we get to origin of life and evolution.

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DAVID: If you put your intelligent energy into the genome then we are in agreement.-dhw: I do, and we were, and we should still be. Of course we have not found the mechanism, but your only divine alternative is Creationism, which you have always rejected in the past.-DAVID: See my current note to Tony. What creates species and runs them at the core is DNA. But we don't undertand the jumps from any early species to a current one. I have repeated over and over I am a theistic evolutionist. God is involved in speciation, but He doesn't tell me how He does it with the DNA that has to be manipulated.-I am happy with your agreement that what creates species and runs them at the core is DNA (= the intelligent genome). You can argue that it is programmed or manipulated by God in ways you do not understand, and I can argue that PERHAPS (this is a hypothesis, not a belief) it runs itself in ways I do not understand. However, with your own theistic hypothesis, I would say that God setting up a mechanism which autonomously produces innovations = evolution, but God intervening and manipulating the mechanism = creationism. Perhaps, then, you are a creationist evolutionist.
 
DAVID: Your guess is not by chance. My guess is not by chance. What is left?-dhw: Creationism, my panpsychist hypothesis (with or without God), or agnosticism. I recommend the latter.-DAVID: Agnosticism is non-answer. It is the position of wishing to know, studying the information and then saying it is all too incredulous, so I can't make up my mind.
 
This is an accurate summing-up of my position. I am indeed incredulous, and see both theism and atheism as blind faith in an unknown power (God/chance) whose workings we do not understand. Why do both camps feel the NEED to believe in something so unproven? What pressure forces you to abandon reason and take your leap of faith?-DAVID: Tony's discussion is right on point: designer universe, origin of life, perfect living forms (again natures wonders). You want thinking energy in your theory, but it arrives nebulously and some how it organizes its thoughts and planning, a mental bootstrapping by some unknown method all of which had to be in place before the big bang. This is the major weakness of your theory.-God is "thinking energy", its intelligence arrives nebulously, somehow it organizes its thoughts and planning, a mental bootstrapping by some unknown method all of which had to be in place before the big bang. That is the major weakness of your God theory. (Actually my panpsychist intelligence did NOT have to be in place before the big bang, which is a major strength of my hypothesis.)

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dhw; However, with your own theistic hypothesis, I would say that God setting up a mechanism which autonomously produces innovations = evolution, but God intervening and manipulating the mechanism = creationism. Perhaps, then, you are a creationist evolutionist.-As I have stated right along, I am a theistic evolutionist, and the fundamentalist Christians don't like us. They are much more creationist than I am. They want more direct handling, less dabbling.
> 
> DAVID: Agnosticism is non-answer. It is the position of wishing to know, studying the information and then saying it is all too incredulous, so I can't make up my mind.
> 
> dhw:This is an accurate summing-up of my position. I am indeed incredulous, and see both theism and atheism as blind faith in an unknown power (God/chance) whose workings we do not understand. Why do both camps feel the NEED to believe in something so unproven? What pressure forces you to abandon reason and take your leap of faith?-I understand your position. I just like to tie up a neat conclusion for me. Personal preference. I feel good about it. That feeling is part of the desired result. 
> 
> dhw: God is "thinking energy", its intelligence arrives nebulously, somehow it organizes its thoughts and planning, a mental bootstrapping by some unknown method all of which had to be in place before the big bang. That is the major weakness of your God theory. (Actually my panpsychist intelligence did NOT have to be in place before the big bang, which is a major strength of my hypothesis.)- No weakness. Your theory is weaker, avoiding first cause. What caused the big bang which resulted in a designer universe fit for life? You are simply popping in a weird mechanism after life starts, so your theory begins late in the game. I want a theory from the beginning. Give me a beginning in your theory.-Note how the big bang makes atheists uncomfortable. Should do the same for picket fence agnostics:- http://tbsblog.thebestschools.org/2013/05/08/some-five-star-members-of-the-i-hate-the-b...

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dhw; However, with your own theistic hypothesis, I would say that God setting up a mechanism which autonomously produces innovations = evolution, but God intervening and manipulating the mechanism = creationism. Perhaps, then, you are a creationist evolutionist.-DAVID: As I have stated right along, I am a theistic evolutionist, and the fundamentalist Christians don't like us. They are much more creationist than I am. They want more direct handling, less dabbling.-I can't see any difference between direct handling and dabbling. Either God intervenes or he doesn't. If you believe innovations/species are "created" de novo by your God's intervention, instead of your God's mechanism inventing them de novo, you are a creationist. In Darwin's day, "Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created" ... whereas common descent "accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator"( Recapitulation and Conclusion). THAT is theistic evolution, as endorsed by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, whom Darwin quotes in later editions. A creationist evolutionist seems to me like a contradiction in terms.-dhw (echoing David's attack on my panpsychist hypothesis): God is "thinking energy", its intelligence arrives nebulously, somehow it organizes its thoughts and planning, a mental bootstrapping by some unknown method all of which had to be in place before the big bang. That is the major weakness of your God theory. (Actually my panpsychist intelligence did NOT have to be in place before the big bang, which is a major strength of my hypothesis.)-DAVID: No weakness. Your theory is weaker, avoiding first cause. What caused the big bang which resulted in a designer universe fit for life? You are simply popping in a weird mechanism after life starts, so your theory begins late in the game. I want a theory from the beginning. Give me a beginning in your theory.-I note your avoidance of the exact parallels between your nebulous God theory and my nebulous panpsychist theory! Meanwhile, round and round we go...I have told you many times that my first cause is the same as yours: eternal energy, which cannot have a beginning. But instead of that energy SOMEHOW being aware of itself and saying: "I'm gonna go bang", it just goes bang (same beginning to our universe as yours - if we accept the big bang theory.) The "weird mechanism after life starts" is what we have agreed to call "the intelligent genome", and it is no weirder for being the product of evolved awareness than it is for being the product of eternal awareness. (See below under the ape heading for more details.)-DAVID: Note how the big bang makes atheists uncomfortable. Should do the same for picket fence agnostics:-http://tbsblog.thebestschools.org/2013/05/08/some-five-star-members-of-the-i-hate-the-b...-I retain an open mind on all things connected with the big bang, including whether it really was a big bang, but it doesn't make the slightest difference to my panpsychist hypothesis, as explained above, and if I were an atheist, placing my faith in chance, I doubt if it would make the slightest difference to that faith either.-****** -Under: "Another we are apes story":-dhw; In my panpsychist hypothesis, this is how intelligence may have evolved from the beginning ... through energy initially experiencing change from within matter until it gains enough awareness and experience to change matter itself. Weird, of course, but is there any explanation of consciousness that isn't weird?-DAVID: Yours is beyond weird. Energy controls matter, not the other way around.-Nowhere have I said that matter controls energy! Energy controlling matter is the whole point of the hypothesis! Non-conscious first cause energy transforms itself into non-conscious matter. Matter by its very nature changes. Energy within matter SOMEHOW becomes aware of change. Through this awareness it learns to control matter.-Let me repeat that I too find the idea weird ... but no more weird than first cause energy SOMEHOW being eternally aware of itself, or globules of matter by sheer chance assembling themselves in such a way that SOMEHOW they become aware of themselves. All three hypotheses depend on an unknown and unknowable SOMEHOW, and anyone who favours one hypothesis is in no position to dismiss the others because of their weirdness, irrationality, nebulousness and incredibility!

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> dhw: I can't see any difference between direct handling and dabbling. Either God intervenes or he doesn't. If you believe innovations/species are "created" de novo by your God's intervention, instead of your God's mechanism inventing them de novo, you are a creationist. ...... A creationist evolutionist seems to me like a contradiction in terms.-No contradiction at all. My view is, as expressed before, is that the genome has the capacity, provided by God, for major adaptation. I sense that God has to intervene for major jumps foward in speciation. Sure that is a form of creationism, obviously; but my variation on the creation theme is that God lets adapability go as far as it can before His tweaking if necessary. God works through an evolutionary process. He did the same thing with the Universe and the Earth. They both went through evolutionary processes.-See my recent post about a new theory: Monday, May 20, 2013, 14:46
> 
> dhw: I note your avoidance of the exact parallels between your nebulous God theory and my nebulous panpsychist theory! Meanwhile, round and round we go...I have told you many times that my first cause is the same as yours: eternal energy, which cannot have a beginning. But instead of that energy SOMEHOW being aware of itself and saying: "I'm gonna go bang", it just goes bang.-Vast difference between us. My first cause is organized thinking quantum energy, full of well-thought-out plans. Yours has to crank out changes by some mysterious method to get to the pint that a coherent result/ results can be obtained. I have a clearly defined starting point, with everything making sense after accepting that starting point. Yes I know there has to be the famous leap at first, but everyting is so logical after that. Your approach stays higgily/piggily from beginning to end.-
> 
> dhw: Let me repeat that I too find the idea weird ... but no more weird than first cause energy SOMEHOW being eternally aware of itself...-We live in an organized universe, on an organized Earth with organized living biology, and you want it all to start disorganized at first cause. What rules does your glob of energy follow at its very beginning, or hasn't it made up any as yet? You can only have it one of two ways, organized or disorganized, or please describe a middle ground.

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Dhw: A creationist evolutionist seems to me like a contradiction in terms.-DAVID: I sense that God has to intervene for major jumps forward in speciation. Sure that is a form of creationism, obviously; but my variation on the creation theme is that God lets adapability go as far as it can before His tweaking if necessary. God works through an evolutionary process. He did the same thing with the Universe and the Earth. They both went through evolutionary processes.-If God intervenes for "major jumps forward in speciation", that is not just a "form of creationism" ... it IS creationism. As for the Universe and the Earth, I'm sure agnostics and atheists would agree that they evolved. I suspect that a creationist evolutionist would have a different concept of evolution, though.
 
DAVID: I have a clearly defined starting point, with everything making sense after accepting that starting point. Yes I know there has to be the famous leap at first, but everyting is so logical after that. Your approach stays higgily/piggily from beginning to end. [...] We live in an organized universe, on an organized Earth with organized living biology, and you want it all to start disorganized at first cause. What rules does your glob of energy follow at its very beginning, or hasn't it made up any as yet? You can only have it one of two ways, organized or disorganized, or please describe a middle ground.-The middle ground is evolution, which you yourself believe in so long as it's directed by your God. And it combines organization and disorganization. Non-divine evolution creates the same order as yours, out of disorder but without any anthropocentric teleology. I didn't realize that you thought of your God as a glob of energy with a beginning. I thought we'd agreed that the starting point was eternal and infinite energy, which for all we know has been spawning universes for ever and ever, yours with rules, mine without. That, at least, would be my starting point. The only universe we know is our own, and it's filled with masses of matter which appear and disappear in just the same way as species here on Earth. How much of this appearing and disappearing matter is essential to life on Earth I have no idea, especially since about 90% of it is apparently unknown to us. Yes, we have fine tuning for life, and in my "middle ground" hypothesis, it has evolved through non-conscious energy acquiring awareness from within changing matter, and learning to cooperate with other forms of matter whose internal energy has acquired consciousness. Cooperating intelligences are the driving forces of this evolution, and they create functioning order, but with no overriding purpose other than life itself. You have imposed a purpose on evolution, the production of humans, but you have no explanation for HOW your God intervenes, and you cannot link the endless comings and goings of species to your teleology. You see only organization, whereas I see order AND disorder in the universe and life on Earth. Or perhaps you know exactly why white dwarfs, red giants, black holes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, floods are all essential for the production of humans, as was the extinction of the dinosaurs and the dodos. If I believed in your God, I would say that unpredictable disorder was in fact part of the great entertainment. If I believed in chance, I would say that during an eternity of infinite material combinations, one would inevitably arise that would lead to order and life, but with no overriding purpose (hence the higgledy-piggledy bush). If I believed in the panpsychist hypothesis (whether theistic or atheistic), I would say that the universe, life and evolution have followed the patterns devised by individual intelligences cooperating to produce order out of disorder, again with no overriding purpose (other than entertaining your God in the theistic version). All three hypotheses demand an initial leap of faith, and then the world as we know it, or rather as we INTERPRET it (order for you, order and disorder for me), follows on quite logically from that particular starting point.

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Dhw: A creationist evolutionist seems to me like a contradiction in terms.
> 
> DAVID: I sense that God has to intervene for major jumps forward in speciation. Sure that is a form of creationism, obviously; but my variation on the creation theme is that God lets adapability go as far as it can before His tweaking if necessary. God works through an evolutionary process. He did the same thing with the Universe and the Earth. They both went through evolutionary processes.
> 
> dhw: If God intervenes for "major jumps forward in speciation", that is not just a "form of creationism" ... it IS creationism.-Of course. Lets define creationism/ creationists. 1) First there are the fundamentalists who believe Genesis and the Earth is young and perhaps only as old as 4004 BC, per The Bishop of Usher. They envision the universe, the Earth, and the start of life created in seven days. They even have a acronym YEC. 2)There are old earth creationists, who accept the idea that the universe and the Earth are much older, But they still feel that God created the universe, the Earth, and started life, but in more than seven days. 3) Finally there are theistic evolutionists like me, and yes we are a form of creationist, only we are the third way. We feel God uses evolution as a favored process. How much is pre-planned and how much is dabbling is not clear, but it fits the scientific findings better than the first two types of creationist. It is the approach that Nagel is looking for; he knows about it and won't accept it.

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This is the wildest story of innovations I've ever seen. Jelly fish evolved into internal parasites and don't look at all like their ancestors:- Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-12-evidence-tool-parrots.html#jCp-http://blogs.scientificamer... upon a time, a jellyfish became a parasite, and its descendants became unrecognizable.-"Several are worms. Most are microscopic shapeless sacs. They produce spores, a behavior almost of unheard of among animals, and pass the majority of their lives freeloading inside animals.-"Taken together, they look and act an awful lot like protists - microbes that swarm in ponds, in soil, and sometimes in bloodstreams (think malaria). They were mistaken for such for over 100 years. But I'd wager 99% of protists do not have ancestors that were large, free-living animals. These do.-"And they are legion: some 2,000 species exist today. Now, thanks to a new study, we can state with more confidence than ever that they are all related to one another, and, in spite of their radically altered appearance, are indeed cnidarians -- the giant and ancient group of organisms that includes coral, jellyfish, sea pens, hydras, and sea anemones".-Comment: It is a long article, and it makes the point that the process of living evolution is very inventive. I don't know why.

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DAVID: This is the wildest story of innovations I've ever seen. Jelly fish evolved into internal parasites and don't look at all like their ancestors:-http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/when-jellyfish-became-parasites-stran...-David's comment: It is a long article, and it makes the point that the process of living evolution is very inventive. I don't know why.-Once again, you are confronted with the mystery of why your God should have preprogrammed or personally organized such a transformation when all he wanted to do was produce humans. But there is a comment near the end of the article that might offer two clues:
All this is not to say that our own way is better and myxozons's worse because they are degenerate. Rather, the differences - and the genetic changes that go along with them - reflect what is best for each way of life and are fascinating to see.-This suggests that organisms do what is best for them, not only in terms of survival but also in terms of improvement. You cannot tell us why God would have preprogrammed the jellyfish to change into parasites, or given them private tuition; the alternatives, as we have said so often, are sheer luck (random mutations), which neither of us can swallow, or that organisms are possessed of an autonomous inventive intelligence which enables them to seek what is best for them and to alter their structure accordingly. And yes, all these wonders are fascinating to see. So if there is a God who designed life and the mechanism for evolution, maybe he also finds all these unpredictable and unprogrammed results fascinating to see. Life as an ongoing spectacle...What a relief from eternal nothingness!
 
And blessings upon you, dear David, for there is more to come. Under Lenski's E.coli:
DAVID: The very long term E. coli experiment does not change the culture medium environment but the bacteria themselves improve 'fitness'.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/44787/title/Constant-Evolution/-QUOTE: The LTEE is quite an abstract concept because, in the real world, environments are changing all the time, said evolutionary biologist Louise Johnson of the University of Reading, U.K. However, results like these mean it's worth keeping going, she said. If it had been the case that [adaptation] was grinding to a halt, then you could say, OK, in 15 years time it's not going to be worth doing anymore.' But this [paper] seems to suggest that however long you keep going, you're going to have new surprises and new ways of exploiting the exact same environment.-And so it is not only changes in the environment that trigger the drive for improvement. Organisms may even improve within the same environment. The bacteria are still bacteria, so we can't talk of innovation here, but the key words for me are improve and exploit. It's the same process as with the jellyfish and all other innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders: the drive for improvement and the exploitation of conditions. And it starts at the level of single cells. -Once again, my thanks not only for these articles but also for the intellectual integrity with which you have posted them, since you knew I would use them to support my own hypothesis.

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> dhw: And so it is not only changes in the environment that trigger the drive for improvement. Organisms may even improve within the same environment. The bacteria are still bacteria, so we can't talk of innovation here, but the key words for me are improve and exploit. It's the same process as with the jellyfish and all other innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders: the drive for improvement and the exploitation of conditions. And it starts at the level of single cells. 
> 
> Once again, my thanks not only for these articles but also for the intellectual integrity with which you have posted them, since you knew I would use them to support my own hypothesis.-Thank you. There is obviously a drive for improvement and complexity. It is built-in. I've thought so all along during my research. I view it as another form of God-given information supplied at the origin of life.

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dhw: Once again, my thanks not only for these articles but also for the intellectual integrity with which you have posted them, since you knew I would use them to support my own hypothesis.-David: Thank you. There is obviously a drive for improvement and complexity. It is built-in. I've thought so all along during my research. I view it as another form of God-given information supplied at the origin of life.-We share the concept of a built-in drive for improvement and complexity, but what you call God-given information supplied at the origin of life is what I have suggested is AUTONOMOUS INTELLIGENCE, whereas you have suggested that it is divine preprogramming or personal intervention. Despite your attempts to blur the borders (I've agreed to an inventive mechanism within limits of guidelines), you confirmed only last Monday:Of course he either dabbled or pre-planned. My dilemma has the usual two horns! I just wish you would add a third.-Under Animal Minds:
dhw: You constantly emphasize that we are different in kind, but what you cannot contemplate is that other organisms may have one form of intelligence that is actually superior to our own. -DAVID: And what is that superior intelligence you are postulating?
 
The intelligence to reinvent themselves internally (innovations) and to invent externally (weird lifestyles and certain natural wonders) so that they can adapt to or exploit environmental conditions. We humans can invent externally, but we cannot design a machine that can autonomously replicate itself, repair itself, adapt to all sorts of environments, and change itself into new forms as and when conditions allow, which is the province of cells/cell communities. You know all this, because you quite rightly emphasize that such intelligence could hardly be the product of chance, but you refuse to contemplate the possibility that your God might have created it! For you, every single act of cellular intelligence must have been preprogrammed (or personally guided) by your God, as in this response:
 
DAVID: Simple God programmed in the kind of information/instructions that handle it.-A simple 3.8-billion-year-old programme inserted into the first cells to organize the history of evolution from bacteria to humans? Is that really simpler than a single invention that can diversify?

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We share the concept of a built-in drive for improvement and complexity, but what you call God-given information supplied at the origin of life is what I have suggested is AUTONOMOUS INTELLIGENCE, whereas you have suggested that it is divine preprogramming or personal intervention.-
You have never explained how 'autonomous intelligence' develops, if my memory is correct. As life began from inorganic matter, you want intelligence to arise also?
> 
> DAVID: And what is that superior intelligence you are postulating?
> 
> dhw: The intelligence to reinvent themselves internally (innovations) and to invent externally (weird lifestyles and certain natural wonders) so that they can adapt to or exploit environmental conditions. ...You know all this, because you quite rightly emphasize that such intelligence could hardly be the product of chance, but you refuse to contemplate the possibility that your God might have created it! For you, every single act of cellular intelligence must have been preprogrammed (or personally guided) by your God, as in this response:
> 
> DAVID: Simple God programmed in the kind of information/instructions that handle it.
> 
> dhw: A simple 3.8-billion-year-old programme inserted into the first cells to organize the history of evolution from bacteria to humans? Is that really simpler than a single invention that can diversify?-I guess you cannot accept God because you are incredulous at what I believe He can do. Is that your hang-up?

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dhw: We share the concept of a built-in drive for improvement and complexity, but what you call God-given information supplied at the origin of life is what I have suggested is AUTONOMOUS INTELLIGENCE, whereas you have suggested that it is divine preprogramming or personal intervention.
DAVID: You have never explained how 'autonomous intelligence' develops, if my memory is correct. As life began from inorganic matter, you want intelligence to arise also?-Nobody knows how any form of intelligence developed, but I am an agnostic, and have repeated a thousand times that your God may have invented the mechanism. The dispute is over how evolution works, and my hypothesis is an alternative to your divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme to explain every innovation from the year dot. -Dhw: ...you refuse to contemplate the possibility that your God might have created it! For you, every single act of cellular intelligence must have been preprogrammed (or personally guided) by your God, as in this response:-DAVID: Simple God programmed in the kind of information/instructions that handle it.
dhw: A simple 3.8-billion-year-old programme inserted into the first cells to organize the history of evolution from bacteria to humans? Is that really simpler than a single invention that can diversify?
DAVID: I guess you cannot accept God because you are incredulous at what I believe He can do. Is that your hang-up?-I am incredulous at the fact that you do not believe your God could invent an autonomous intelligence allowing organisms to make their own evolutionary decisions, rather than him planning every one, though his aim was just to produce humans. Perhaps you cannot even contemplate this hypothesis because it would undermine your personal reading of your God's mind and purpose. Is that your hang-up?

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> dhw: Nobody knows how any form of intelligence developed, but I am an agnostic, and have repeated a thousand times that your God may have invented the mechanism. The dispute is over how evolution works, and my hypothesis is an alternative to your divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme to explain every innovation from the year dot.-Our difference is I assume intelligence is eternal and always existed in/as God. You can't/won't do that. Intelligence CANNOT appear from inorganic matter as life starts, and initial life needs intelligent instructions/information.-> DAVID: I guess you cannot accept God because you are incredulous at what I believe He can do. Is that your hang-up?
> 
> dhw:I am incredulous at the fact that you do not believe your God could invent an autonomous intelligence allowing organisms to make their own evolutionary decisions, rather than him planning every one, though his aim was just to produce humans. Perhaps you cannot even contemplate this hypothesis because it would undermine your personal reading of your God's mind and purpose. -I've agreed He can give them the ability to make 'evolutionary decisions', only I add some guideline limits in order to be sure humans arrive. You don't like that limitation. Under your system it should advance helter-skelter and it is possible humans might never arrive. I think the advances of evolution are directed toward us as the definite endpoint.

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dhw: I am an agnostic, and have repeated a thousand times that your God may have invented the mechanism. The dispute is over how evolution works, and my hypothesis is an alternative to your divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme to explain every innovation from the year dot.
DAVID: Our difference is I assume intelligence is eternal and always existed in/as God. You can't/won't do that. Intelligence CANNOT appear from inorganic matter as life starts, and initial life needs intelligent instructions/information.-As usual, you return to the origin of life and intelligence, ignoring the very words you quote: ...your God may have invented the mechanism. The dispute is over how evolution works... -Dhw: Perhaps you cannot even contemplate this hypothesis because it would undermine your personal reading of your God's mind and purpose. 
DAVID: I've agreed He can give them the ability to make 'evolutionary decisions', only I add some guideline limits in order to be sure humans arrive. You don't like that limitation. Under your system it should advance helter-skelter and it is possible humans might never arrive. I think the advances of evolution are directed toward us as the definite endpoint.-Decision-making entails intelligence (See Shapiro under The biochemistry of cell adhesion...). We have agreed on your guideline limits: natural and environmental restrictions, and patterns (which are explained by common descent), but not that these are imposed to make sure humans arrive (however, see below regarding my hypothesis 3). My system does not say evolution should advance helter-skelter (or higgledy-piggledy); it is based on the observation that evolution HAS advanced that way, as you finally admit under Red Deer Cave people:-The Cambrian was a shotgun mechanism going off in all directions and produced the helter-skelter bush of animal life.-I could hardly have expressed it better myself. You have consistently claimed all the innovations, lifestyles and wonders were preprogrammed or directly invented by your God for the sake of humans. The helter-skelter bush of animal life can hardly be called guided, and therefore entails sheer chance (which we both reject) or autonomous, inventive intelligence.
 
DAVID (same post): This raises a consideration you will accept: perhaps God had an endpoint in humans, but had to develop it through evolutionary experimentation since he is a 'process type' of God, not as totally all-powerful as religions like to represent.  -Thank you for offering me my own hypothesis 3), which I offered to you in my post of 11 December under A new synthesis: God says: I wanner make humans, but I dunno how to do it. (Special status but the mechanism runs free, and God has a dabble here and there, like when humans turn out to be dinosaurs.) Your response to this on 12 December was: I assume, if God is guiding evolution, He knows everything. It's good to see that you are now prepared to reconsider your assumptions.

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DAVID: Our difference is I assume intelligence is eternal and always existed in/as God. You can't/won't do that. Intelligence CANNOT appear from inorganic matter as life starts, and initial life needs intelligent instructions/information.
> 
> dhw: As usual, you return to the origin of life and intelligence, ignoring the very words you quote: ...your God may have invented the mechanism. The dispute is over how evolution works...-But I can't ignore the origin of life setting the stage for the evolution of life.
> 
> Dhw: Perhaps you cannot even contemplate this hypothesis because it would undermine your personal reading of your God's mind and purpose. 
> DAVID: I've agreed He can give them the ability to make 'evolutionary decisions', only I add some guideline limits in order to be sure humans arrive. You don't like that limitation. Under your system it should advance helter-skelter and it is possible humans might never arrive. I think the advances of evolution are directed toward us as the definite endpoint.
> 
> dhw: 3). My system does not say evolution should advance helter-skelter (or higgledy-piggledy); it is based on the observation that evolution HAS advanced that way, as you finally admit under Red Deer Cave people:
> 
> David: The Cambrian was a shotgun mechanism going off in all directions and produced the helter-skelter bush of animal life.
> 
> dhw: I could hardly have expressed it better myself. You have consistently claimed all the innovations, lifestyles and wonders were preprogrammed or directly invented by your God for the sake of humans. The helter-skelter bush of animal life can hardly be called guided, and therefore entails sheer chance (which we both reject) or autonomous, inventive intelligence.-Our view still differs. The Cambrian started 37 phyla. This provides for balance of nature, about which you seem to deny the importance of a food source for everyone.-> 
> DAVID (same post): This raises a consideration you will accept: perhaps God had an endpoint in humans, but had to develop it through evolutionary experimentation since he is a 'process type' of God, not as totally all-powerful as religions like to represent.  
> 
> dhw: Thank you for offering me my own hypothesis 3), which I offered to you in my post of 11 December under A new synthesis: God says: I wanner make humans, but I dunno how to do it. (Special status but the mechanism runs free, and God has a dabble here and there, like when humans turn out to be dinosaurs.) Your response to this on 12 December was: I assume, if God is guiding evolution, He knows everything. It's good to see that you are now prepared to reconsider your assumptions.-Yes, I can reconsider, with all the hominins turning up. I always reconsider as new findings appear.

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dhw: As usual, you return to the origin of life and intelligence, ignoring the very words you quote: ...your God may have invented the mechanism. The dispute is over how evolution works...
DAVID: But I can't ignore the origin of life setting the stage for the evolution of life.-God may have invented the mechanism: This can hardly be called ignoring the origin of life. The difference between us is your anthropocentric interpretation of evolution versus my free-for-all, driven by an autonomously inventive mechanism, possibly designed by your God and - Hypothesis 3 - allowing for dabbling. -David: The Cambrian was a shotgun mechanism going off in all directions and produced the helter-skelter bush of animal life.
dhw: The helter-skelter bush of animal life can hardly be called guided, and therefore entails sheer chance (which we both reject) or autonomous, inventive intelligence.
DAVID: Our view still differs. The Cambrian started 37 phyla. This provides for balance of nature, about which you seem to deny the importance of a food source for everyone.-Who is everyone? The balance of Nature has constantly changed, and no doubt one of the causes/results (it's a vicious circle) of that shifting balance is that there is NOT enough food for everyone. How does that mean that the helter-skelter bush, including the 99% of extinct species, was designed to produce or feed humans?-DAVID (same post): This raises a consideration you will accept: perhaps God had an endpoint in humans, but had to develop it through evolutionary experimentation since he is a 'process type' of God, not as totally all-powerful as religions like to represent.  
dhw: Thank you for offering me my own hypothesis 3), which I offered to you in my post of 11 December under A new synthesis: God says: I wanner make humans, but I dunno how to do it. (Special status but the mechanism runs free, and God has a dabble here and there, like when humans turn out to be dinosaurs.) Your response to this on 12 December was: I assume, if God is guiding evolution, He knows everything. It's good to see that you are now prepared to reconsider your assumptions.
DAVID: Yes, I can reconsider, with all the hominins turning up. I always reconsider as new findings appear.-I am delighted that so many new findings appeared between 12 December and 19 December to enable you to make this adjustment to your assumptions.

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> dhw: God may have invented the mechanism: This can hardly be called ignoring the origin of life. The difference between us is your anthropocentric interpretation of evolution versus my free-for-all, driven by an autonomously inventive mechanism, possibly designed by your God and - Hypothesis 3 - allowing for dabbling.-I'll stick to anthropocentrism, thank you. My return to origin of life is to insist upon the presence of information, implanted from the beginning that presents the basis and blueprint for life and evolution. Of course it allows for dabbling, if that had to exist. -> DAVID: Our view still differs. The Cambrian started 37 phyla. This provides for balance of nature, about which you seem to deny the importance of a food source for everyone.
> 
> dhw: Who is everyone? The balance of Nature has constantly changed, and no doubt one of the causes/results (it's a vicious circle) of that shifting balance is that there is NOT enough food for everyone. How does that mean that the helter-skelter bush, including the 99% of extinct species, was designed to produce or feed humans?-You didn't think about 37 phyla. Why so many? Could humans have arrived if here were less? Actually there were many more that started and died away as you point out. As for balance of nature, sure it has changed through the centuries, but today humans are doing more to destroy it. In the past the changes drove innovation, but as I look at the bush of hominins, I still don't see a change in the balances of nature that required humans to appear. The balance supports us now, but we are in danger of losing it unless we accept the Bible's instruction that we have dominion over it. I'm simply reasoning backward from these considerations. Actually all you do is poke holes, but I like that because it refines my thinking.
> 
> dhw:I am delighted that so many new findings appeared between 12 December and 19 December to enable you to make this adjustment to your assumptions.-I adjust all the time, and you help. It is as if you are the natural selection for my conjectures.

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DAVID: I'll stick to anthropocentrism, thank you. My return to origin of life is to insist upon the presence of information, implanted from the beginning that presents the basis and blueprint for life and evolution. Of course it allows for dabbling, if that had to exist.-If the basis and blueprint for evolution was an autonomous intelligence, it could explain the higgledy-piggledy (or helter-skelter) history of life and evolution, whereas your implanted blueprint for every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder (other than those that were dabbled) clashes irreconcilably with your anthropocentrism.
 
DAVID: Our view still differs. The Cambrian started 37 phyla. This provides for balance of nature, about which you seem to deny the importance of a food source for everyone.
dhw: Who is everyone? The balance of Nature has constantly changed, and no doubt one of the causes/results (it's a vicious circle) of that shifting balance is that there is NOT enough food for everyone. How does that mean that the helter-skelter bush, including the 99% of extinct species, was designed to produce or feed humans?
DAVID: You didn't think about 37 phyla. Why so many? Could humans have arrived if here were less? Actually there were many more that started and died away as you point out. -Still wearing my theist hat, I ask the same question. Why so many, and what was the point of all those that died out? You have now acknowledged the possibility that your God had to experiment in order to get to humans. Two explanations: 1) the explosion of phyla was not in aid of humans at all: they worked out their own evolution. Humans were an afterthought. 2) He wanted to create humans, didn't have a clue how to do it, and blundered through all those species which he then had to discard.-DAVID: As for balance of nature, sure it has changed through the centuries, but today humans are doing more to destroy it. In the past the changes drove innovation, but as I look at the bush of hominins, I still don't see a change in the balances of nature that required humans to appear. The balance supports us now, but we are in danger of losing it unless we accept the Bible's instruction that we have dominion over it. I'm simply reasoning backward from these considerations. Actually all you do is poke holes, but I like that because it refines my thinking. [...] I adjust all the time, and you help. It is as if you are the natural selection for my conjectures.-A mixed bag of reflections here. 1) The human threat to the balance of Nature is irrelevant to our current discussion, but well worth discussing. 2) Humans were not required to appear: already covered umpteen times. Nothing beyond bacteria was required to appear. Or do you really believe the weaverbird's nest, the parasitic jellyfish etc. were designed to produce and/or feed humans? 
3) Yes, I poke holes. That is a problem because it is a negative approach, and I am wrong one way or another. But which way? These discussions are invaluable to me, though. The vast range of your own knowledge, coupled with that of BBella, Tony, Matt, George and many others down through the years, has immeasurably deepened my own awareness of the mysteries of life and the universe, even if I am as far as ever from solving them! Romansh has hit the nail on the head in his post under Golden Ratio: I like the analogy of our knowledge being a little bit like cosmic inflation. While our "knowledge" increases in leaps and bounds; our ignorance, the boundary between what we know and don't know also increases. The perfect summing up.

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> dhw:Still wearing my theist hat, I ask the same question. Why so many, and what was the point of all those that died out? You have now acknowledged the possibility that your God had to experiment in order to get to humans. Two explanations: 1) the explosion of phyla was not in aid of humans at all: they worked out their own evolution. Humans were an afterthought. 2) He wanted to create humans, didn't have a clue how to do it, and blundered through all those species which he then had to discard.-You can conjure up all the possible God thoughts you wish. Humans are here as the pinnacle of evolution
> 
> dhw: These discussions are invaluable to me, though. The vast range of your own knowledge, coupled with that of BBella, Tony, Matt, George and many others down through the years, has immeasurably deepened my own awareness of the mysteries of life and the universe, even if I am as far as ever from solving them! -Solving with absolute proof is impossible.-> dhw: Romansh has hit the nail on the head in his post under Golden Ratio: I like the analogy of our knowledge being a little bit like cosmic inflation. While our "knowledge" increases in leaps and bounds; our ignorance, the boundary between what we know and don't know also increases. The perfect summing up.-Yes!

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dhw: Still wearing my theist hat, I ask the same question. Why so many, and what was the point of all those that died out? You have now acknowledged the possibility that your God had to experiment in order to get to humans. Two explanations: 1) the explosion of phyla was not in aid of humans at all: they worked out their own evolution. Humans were an afterthought. 2) He wanted to create humans, didn't have a clue how to do it, and blundered through all those species which he then had to discard.
DAVID: You can conjure up all the possible God thoughts you wish. Humans are here as the pinnacle of evolution.-My focus in this discussion is on how evolution works. I repeated your own question (why so many phyla?) and also asked what was the point of all those that died out. I have offered two possible answers allowing for your theistic, anthropocentric version of evolution. Can you see any flaw in these two explanations for what you have agreed is the helter-skelter bush of animal evolution? -dhw: These discussions are invaluable to me, though. The vast range of your own knowledge, coupled with that of BBella, Tony, Matt, George and many others down through the years, has immeasurably deepened my own awareness of the mysteries of life and the universe, even if I am as far as ever from solving them! 
DAVID: Solving with absolute proof is impossible.-Yes, indeed. And one needs faith to fill in the huge gaps in both arguments, since neither science nor reason can do so. I should add, however, that science and reason may not be the best guides to truth, whatever that may be.

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DAVID: You can conjure up all the possible God thoughts you wish. Humans are here as the pinnacle of evolution.
> 
> dhw: My focus in this discussion is on how evolution works. I repeated your own question (why so many phyla?) and also asked what was the point of all those that died out. I have offered two possible answers allowing for your theistic, anthropocentric version of evolution. Can you see any flaw in these two explanations for what you have agreed is the helter-skelter bush of animal evolution?-Actually, no. But you used a mechanism of imagining God's thoughts to make your point, which is why I answered the way I did.
 
> dhw: Yes, indeed. And one needs faith to fill in the huge gaps in both arguments, since neither science nor reason can do so. I should add, however, that science and reason may not be the best guides to truth, whatever that may be.-What other approach can we use? I don't trust religions' opinions.

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dhw: My focus in this discussion is on how evolution works. I repeated your own question (why so many phyla?) and also asked what was the point of all those that died out. I have offered two possible answers allowing for your theistic, anthropocentric version of evolution. Can you see any flaw in these two explanations for what you have agreed is the helter-skelter bush of animal evolution?
DAVID: Actually, no. But you used a mechanism of imagining God's thoughts to make your point, which is why I answered the way I did.-I am offering a different imagining of God's thoughts from yours in interpreting how evolution works. The two theistic, anthropocentric alternatives were: 1) the explosion of phyla was not in aid of humans at all: they worked out their own evolution. Humans were an afterthought. 2) He wanted to create humans, didn't have a clue how to do it, and blundered through all those species which he then had to discard. 1) obliges us to accept the autonomous intelligence of organisms, while still allowing for dabbling; 2) allows for your pre-preprogramming, but shows God to be extremely incompetent. You agree that both offer a rational explanation of the higgledy-piggledy bush of animal evolution, as opposed to your following statement under The biochemistry of cell adhesion...:-I have previously said I have no idea how/why God did this in the way He did. I firmly think He directed and managed the process and progress of evolution.-But you can find no flaw in the two theistic hypotheses I have offered. So maybe now we do have an idea how/why God did this in the way He did it. -dhw: And one needs faith to fill in the huge gaps in both arguments, since neither science nor reason can do so. I should add, however, that science and reason may not be the best guides to truth, whatever that may be.
DAVID: What other approach can we use? I don't trust religions' opinions.-There are experiences that take us beyond the current reach of science and reason: psychic, emotional, aesthetic, mystic...These have not led me personally to God, but they are strong enough to have led others in that direction, and I do not have faith that eventually they will be explained by atheistic materialism.

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dhw:You agree that both offer a rational explanation of the higgledy-piggledy bush of animal evolution, as opposed to your following statement under The biochemistry of cell adhesion...:
> 
> David: I have previously said I have no idea how/why God did this in the way He did. I firmly think He directed and managed the process and progress of evolution.
> 
> dhw: But you can find no flaw in the two theistic hypotheses I have offered. So maybe now we do have an idea how/why God did this in the way He did it.-You may propose, but you go much further than I do. I can honestly agree your theistic theories are possible, but I think not probable. I chose not to look for the reasons you come up with. We have no idea how God did what he did.-> DAVID: What other approach can we use? I don't trust religions' opinions.
> 
> dhw: There are experiences that take us beyond the current reach of science and reason: psychic, emotional, aesthetic, mystic...These have not led me personally to God, but they are strong enough to have led others in that direction, and I do not have faith that eventually they will be explained by atheistic materialism.-Amen!

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dhw: You agree that both offer a rational explanation of the higgledy-piggledy bush of animal evolution, as opposed to your following statement under The biochemistry of cell adhesion...:
DAVID: I have previously said I have no idea how/why God did this in the way He did. I firmly think He directed and managed the process and progress of evolution.

dhw: But you can find no flaw in the two theistic hypotheses I have offered. So maybe now we do have an idea how/why God did this in the way He did it.-DAVID: You may propose, but you go much further than I do. I can honestly agree your theistic theories are possible, but I think not probable. I chose not to look for the reasons you come up with. We have no idea how God did what he did.-We can only come up with hypotheses on all these subjects, and then test them against what we think we know. If you choose not to think about possible explanations for the gaps in your hypotheses, then of course you are free to do so. Many people choose not to think about any of the subjects we discuss on this forum, or about any viewpoint that is different from their own. Ah, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters)....

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> DAVID: I can only look at the record we see. We do not know how speciation occurs. We just know that it is abrupt and very new complete organisms appear. How much control the genome, itself, has in specialtion is simply a very open question.
> 
>DHW: If it is a very open question, there is no way that you can state so emphatically that genetics does not provide speciation. Clunk!
> -Err We know that speciation occurs? How? We have never observed it? Like God it requires faith to believe in what you have not seen. What you see in the record is that different species existed. That is vastly different that observing one species developing from another. I am not saying that it didn't happen, only that one does not equate with the other.-
>DHW: We cannot know, and science cannot tell us, if there is a God at all, let alone whether/how he dabbles, whether/how much he has preprogrammed, whether innovations are random or created by an intelligent genome. All such theories are speculation, and so none of us can go any further. However, not believing in chance is not a reason for believing in God, any more than not believing in God is a reason for believing in chance. There is a comfy cushion awaiting you right next to me on my fence.-Unfortunately, your fence is an illusion. If you do not believe in a God, you believe in chance, even if it was only the chance that energy became matter that became intelligent with everything after being the product of design, you are still counting on chance.-I would even be willing to go so far as to say that even IF you believe in God, you still believe in chance, because otherwise you get into the sticky questions about the origin of God that are no different in kind than the origin of DHW's panpsychism. However, from my own rocking chair(which is much more comfortable to me than that darned imaginary fence), I find that using Occam's Razor and applying it to pansychism (energy > matter > multiple intelligence > harmonious design) brings me back to God(energy>singular intelligence>design) as it would have a much higher probability of actually occurring. That is not WHY I believe, but it definitely makes my rocker more comfortable. -
>DHW: It is not the prolific ability to adapt that advances evolution ... it is the prolific ability to INNOVATE. This inventiveness would still apply whichever of the above scenarios you believed in. The bushiness of the bush therefore proves nothing, though I'd say the fact that it heads off in so many different directions suggests the absence of any single purpose, apart perhaps from bushiness.-That is like judging a puzzle by pouring the box out on the table and saying, "Look, it's a pile of pieces that make no sense." A closer examination shows that in fact the pile of pieces only exists because you haven't taken the time to sort them out and put them in the proper order, because if you had, you would not see a pile, you would see a mosaic of tightly interlocking pieces that form a cohesive image. -You see a bushy bush because you have been trained to see a bushy bush. You have been trained by Darwin's Monkey Men to see exactly what they have told you that you should see. You see a bush because they have told you that it all grew up in a hodge-podge willy nilly fashion, with no rhyme or reason to it. You don't look for purpose because you have been told all your life that there is no purpose. You've been told that creatures evolved from other creatures, and without observing, or seeing records of it being observed, you believe it. Why? Because you have been told you should! It has been preached by the scientific clergy as if it were gospel with every bit as much(if not more) faith and vigor than any religious priest has ever shown from the pulpit, and with equal amounts of guilt, bigotry, and intolerance. (Not from you, from the scientific community)-The worst part, the absolute worst part, to me is that you can ignore your own observations because of the words of others. Even when their words are contradictory! You live in a finely tuned universe, on a finely tuned planet, in a finely tuned ecosystem, and have a finely tuned body. You see creatures of every type that are functionally PERFECT. You see entire biospheres that work in a symbiotic fashion, each piece playing its part in the cycle, and you still call it a Higgly-piggly BUSH!!-The bush ONLY exists because WE created it. It is a broken model that has about as much merit as a classification system as does a puzzle dumped in a pile on your kitchen table.

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.

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Tony: Err We know that speciation occurs? How? We have never observed it? Like God it requires faith to believe in what you have not seen. What you see in the record is that different species existed. That is vastly different that observing one species developing from another. I am not saying that it didn't happen, only that one does not equate with the other.-Using the famous trail from land animal to whale, or perhaps infamous, we see a progression of fossil forms. They are individual species with enormous changes in each step. According to the fossils speciation occurred. Did it happen naturally, by chance. I don't buy it. We just don't have an knowledge of an adequate mechanism, so I have to conclude that it is guided by God.- 
> Tony: You see a bushy bush because you have been trained to see a bushy bush.-I use the term 'bush' because Darwin's tree of life does not exist. Instead one sees life spreading around in a bush-like fashion from the beginning of one-celled forms. It is a better description, and is becoming more and more confusing as trying to establish homology in DNA to follow evolution seems to be more and more difficult, again adding credence to my thought that God steps in and manipulates.

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Tony: Err We know that speciation occurs? How? We have never observed it? Like God it requires faith to believe in what you have not seen. What you see in the record is that different species existed. That is vastly different that observing one species developing from another. I am not saying that it didn't happen, only that one does not equate with the other.
> 
>David: Using the famous trail from land animal to whale, or perhaps infamous, we see a progression of fossil forms. They are individual species with enormous changes in each step. According to the fossils speciation occurred. Did it happen naturally, by chance. I don't buy it. We just don't have an knowledge of an adequate mechanism, so I have to conclude that it is guided by God.-One species changing over time but remaining the same species is adaptation, which I agree with whole-heartedly. Saying that one species changed into a new, novel species that had not existed before is a logical assumption that has never been observed. Most cases start from the assumption that evolution happened, and then try to fit the data into that model. They assume that similar species must have diverged because they are similar in form. Little to no genetic data exists in ancient fossils, so it is no more than speculation based on appearance which rests in its entirety on the assumption that speciation did in fact occur. One assumption piled on top of another, all firmly rooted in guess work and an unwillingness to say "we do not have enough evidence and we do not know".-> 
> 
> > Tony: You see a bushy bush because you have been trained to see a bushy bush.
> 
>David: I use the term 'bush' because Darwin's tree of life does not exist. Instead one sees life spreading around in a bush-like fashion from the beginning of one-celled forms. It is a better description, and is becoming more and more confusing as trying to establish homology in DNA to follow evolution seems to be more and more difficult, again adding credence to my thought that God steps in and manipulates.-My point is that the tree and bush are both models. They do not exist anywhere except in the minds of men. We all know that models do not necessarily reflect reality, nor do they incorporate all the data, nor are they necessarily built from the proper perspective for them to make coherent sense when compared to reality. -The tree of life was built strictly off of appearance and physical attributes. The bush of life is the tree getting the crap beat out of it by genetic research. Perhaps, the solution is to build a better model, instead of to continue using an obviously broken one simply because 'that is the way it has always been done'. When you put together a puzzle, if the final result does not match the picture on the box, it is because you screwed up and put the pieces in the wrong place. The bush does not match the picture of life we see on earth. Maybe it is time to take the puzzle apart and try again.

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.

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> Tony: One species changing over time but remaining the same species is adaptation, which I agree with whole-heartedly. Saying that one species changed into a new, novel species that had not existed before is a logical assumption that has never been observed....... Little to no genetic data exists in ancient fossils, so it is no more than speculation based on appearance which rests in its entirety on the assumption that speciation did in fact occur. -As I note below looking for homology in DNA is going on at a greater and greater pace. Genetic material is available in more recent fossils, is recoverable, and since a series of species is present, homology can be followed,established, or destroyed. And homology is having a tough time. Morphologic trees are not supported, as you suggest.-> > 
> >David: I use the term 'bush' because Darwin's tree of life does not exist. Instead one sees life spreading around in a bush-like fashion from the beginning of one-celled forms. It is a better description, and is becoming more and more confusing as trying to establish homology in DNA to follow evolution seems to be more and more difficult, again adding credence to my thought that God steps in and manipulates.
> 
> Tony: The tree of life was built strictly off of appearance and physical attributes. The bush of life is the tree getting the crap beat out of it by genetic research. Perhaps, the solution is to build a better model, ...... Maybe it is time to take the puzzle apart and try again.-We are in a basic kind of agreement. Do you propose God as fully hands-on or partially? When you look at this discussion of the Cambrain Explosion fully hands-on seems appropriate:-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h38Xi-Jz9yk&feature=player_embedded

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Dhw: ...not believing in chance is not a reason for believing in God, any more than not believing in God is a reason for believing in chance. There is a comfy cushion awaiting you right next to me on my fence.-TONY: Unfortunately, your fence is an illusion. If you do not believe in a God, you believe in chance, even if it was only the chance that energy became matter that became intelligent with everything after being the product of design, you are still counting on chance. I would even be willing to go so far as to say that even IF you believe in God, you still believe in chance, because otherwise you get into the sticky questions about the origin of God that are no different in kind than the origin of DHW's panpsychism.-Even if blind chance, my panpsychist hypothesis, and your God hypothesis can all be reduced to chance, I'm afraid you still can't tell me I believe in any of them. This is a fundamental misconception of my brand of agnosticism, which finds all the hypotheses equally impossible to believe.-TONY: However, from my own rocking chair(which is much more comfortable to me than that darned imaginary fence), I find that using Occam's Razor and applying it to pansychism (energy > matter > multiple intelligence > harmonious design) brings me back to God(energy>singular intelligence>design) as it would have a much higher probability of actually occurring.
 
In your God formula you have left out matter (which should perhaps come after singular intelligence). I do not begrudge you your comfortable rocking chair, but have absolutely no idea how you can calculate that your God hypothesis has "a much higher degree of probability". By what criteria? If I use Ockham, I can twist the razor any way I like. Blind chance seems to me the most economical, as it requires only one inexplicable miracle with no further ramifications, but of course economy is not a valid criterion for probability, let alone truth.-DHW: The bushiness of the bush therefore proves nothing, though I'd say the fact that it heads off in so many different directions suggests the absence of any single purpose, apart perhaps from bushiness.-TONY: That is like judging a puzzle by pouring the box out on the table and saying, "Look, it's a pile of pieces that make no sense." A closer examination shows that in fact the pile of pieces only exists because you haven't taken the time to sort them out and put them in the proper order. [...] You see a bush because they have told you that it all grew up in a hodge-podge willy nilly fashion, with no rhyme or reason to it. You don't look for purpose because you have been told all your life that there is no purpose.-I was brought up to believe in God and purpose, then became an atheist, read Darwin's Origin and was "converted" to agnosticism! You're right that we depend too much on so-called experts, but I do not accept any pronouncement that takes materialism for granted, and as regards evolution, I do not accept Darwin's gradualism or reliance on random mutations. However, despite your scepticism (beautifully expressed, and I wish there was room to repeat it all here), I do find common descent far more convincing than the idea of an unknown superintelligence separately creating dinosaurs and dodos (which die out), flycatchers, ants, elephants, sparrows etc., by whatever method (telekinesis, individual surgery, magic?). I retain an open mind as to how life and the mechanisms for reproduction, adaptation and innovation could have come into being. My panpsychist hypothesis leaves room for God. So I think it's a little unfair to tell me that my scepticism is based on what others have told me. It applies just as much to the blind chance hypothesis as to the other two.-TONY: The worst part, the absolute worst part, to me is that you can ignore your own observations because of the words of others. [...] You live in a finely tuned universe, on a finely tuned planet, in a finely tuned ecosystem, and have a finely tuned body. You see creatures of every type that are functionally PERFECT. You see entire biospheres that work in a symbiotic fashion, each piece playing its part in the cycle, and you still call it a Higgly-piggly BUSH!!-The higgledy-piggledy bush image applies to the vast variety of living forms. If I believed in your God, this would indicate to me that his intention might have been to create a mechanism that would come up with a vast variety of living forms! The greater the variety, the more fascinating the entertainment, which might be his overall purpose. The atheistic version (there is also a theistic version) of my panpsychist hypothesis would also account for the fine tuning of everything that is fine tuned ... universe, planet, ecosystem, body. This has nothing to do with believing the bushy theories of others, and let me stress yet again that I am describing hypotheses and not beliefs, other than my belief (neither theistic nor atheistic) that all forms of life are descended from earlier forms, going back to the very first.

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dhw: However, if he does tweak, I would still like to know how YOU think he does it: telekinesis, operations in his skylab, magic? You are constantly dismissing my panpsychist hypothesis as nebulous, which I freely admit, and pressing me for details which I cannot provide. I demand equal rights for agnostics!
> 
> DAVID: I don't know and don't care, and that knowledge of his methology is not important to me, it is so clear that He is Production Manager. Remember his admonition about asking direct questions. "I am who I am". God purposely concealed Himself in or behind Quantum reality, and He is going to stay that way. We are back to the leap of faith, and admittedly not an easy leap. 
> 
>DHW: If I believed in chance, or in my panpsychist hypothesis, and if you then asked me how it could possibly work, I could say to you I don't know or care how chance managed to put everything together, but it did. Or I don't know how non-conscious energy acquired consciousness, or how the intelligent genome acquired its intelligence, but it did. "We are back to the leap of faith." However, once we take any of these leaps, my account of how innovations work makes sense whatever the source, and you have no objections to it. Isn't this a breakthrough?-
Ecclesiastes 3:11-He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.-:P

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.

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> 
> Tony:Ecclesiastes 3:11
> 
> He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.
> 
> :P-God and His method behind His works are concealed. His choice.

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DAVID: There is no reason in Darwin theory to cause an appearance of humans, or for that matter to have complex life appear from bacteria. I see no pressure at all from the records we study. Bacteria are still very successful, and if we'd leave the apes alone, they would be also.-We agreed long ago that evolution itself was not NECESSARY, so there is no point in using lack of necessity as an argument for the uniqueness of humans, as you have been doing. Ditto the descent from trees, since so many organisms have developed new forms to cope with or to take advantage of new environments.
 
Darwin attempted to find out not why but how evolution happened, and you and I have always agreed that all forms of life descended from earlier forms. I've suggested, and you have also agreed, that the most likely cause of innovation is an intelligent mechanism within the genome which is able both to adapt and to invent in response to environmental conditions. We both disagree with Darwin that changes were due to random mutations, and that they were always gradual. A totally separate question, however, is how this mechanism came into being, which brings us to the other part of our correspondence on this thread:
 
dhw: [...] intelligent energy is the force within materials that enables organisms to innovate. Your God is first-cause energy which has been intelligent for ever and ever, so define him and it! The concept I'm proposing also implies structure, but instead of this being imposed from outside by a single inventor, it is created from within.-DAVID: Yes God is OUTside, but He created the INside to adapt all by itself. We don't need your concept, because it did not self-start. God started everything. Unless you'd like to imply that your concept began itself, somehow?-We need my concept of the "intelligent cell/genome/DNA" to explain how evolution proceeds. As for the "start", if we dispense with chance as an option, we have two scenarios to compare: 1) First-cause energy is your single entity that has been eternally intelligent (faith required); first-cause non-conscious energy formed and was within many entities (matter), in some of which the energy developed intelligence (faith required). 2) Your single intelligent entity manipulated matter from outside to create the universe and life; the many intelligent entities cooperated from within to create the universe and life. 3) Your single entity sometimes allowed the "intelligent genome" to do its own thing, but also went on manipulating matter to create some species, especially humans (dabbling from outside); the many entities went on cooperating from within to create all species, including humans. 4) Your single universal intelligence is hidden but has its own purposes; there is no single universal intelligence, but only individual intelligences which continue to cooperate.-Each of these has a basic premise that requires faith (which is why I remain agnostic). The rest follows on quite logically. The first raises all kinds of questions about the nature and purpose of your single entity; the second is confined to the realities we know of (the universe and life). What would Ockham say?

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> dhw:We agreed long ago that evolution itself was not NECESSARY, so there is no point in using lack of necessity as an argument for the uniqueness of humans, -Not true. As long as organisms are evolving necessity for change is one of the parameters. It is not an issue of evolution as a necessary process, evolution appears to be a necessary assumption as having occurred. But if evolution is to be an ongoing process, organisms must respond to necessity. -
> dhw: A totally separate question, however, is how this mechanism came into being, which brings us to the other part of our correspondence on this thread:
> 
> dhw: [...] intelligent energy is the force within materials that enables organisms to innovate. Your God is first-cause energy which has been intelligent for ever and ever, so define him and it! The concept I'm proposing also implies structure, but instead of this being imposed from outside by a single inventor, it is created from within.
> 
> DAVID: Yes God is OUTside, but He created the INside to adapt all by itself. We don't need your concept, because it did not self-start. God started everything. Unless you'd like to imply that your concept began itself, somehow?
> 
> dhw: We need my concept of the "intelligent cell/genome/DNA" to explain how evolution proceeds. As for the "start", if we dispense with chance as an option, we have two scenarios to compare: 1) First-cause energy is your single entity that has been eternally intelligent (faith required);-Exactly correct. -> dhw: first-cause non-conscious energy formed and was within many entities (matter), in some of which the energy developed intelligence (faith required).-Not my faith! A very confusing scenario to me.-> dhw: 2) Your single intelligent entity manipulated matter from outside to create the universe and life; -Fine-> dhw: the many intelligent entities cooperated from within to create the universe and life.-How many Gods are there in your pantheon. -3) Your single entity sometimes allowed the "intelligent genome" to do its own thing, but also went on manipulating matter to create some species, especially humans (dabbling from outside)-Yes-> dhw: the many entities went on cooperating from within to create all species, including humans.-I think all you would get is a hodge podge. Evolution fits as a bush because of all the similarities of forms, both analagous and homologous.-> dhw: 4) Your single universal intelligence is hidden but has its own purposes-Right on!-> dhw: there is no single universal intelligence, but only individual intelligences which continue to cooperate.-Jumping off in every direction. Your proposal has no sense of coordination or similarity in organisms.
> 
> dhw: Each of these has a basic premise that requires faith (which is why I remain agnostic). The rest follows on quite logically.-It is your logic, not mine-> dhw: The first raises all kinds of questions about the nature and purpose of your single entity;-Yes it does, but we are here with the gift of life, and that is the purpose.-> dhw: the second is confined to the realities we know of (the universe and life). What would Ockham say?-That your proposial has no basis in what we are learning. As life, studied in organic chemistry, is shown to have increasing complexity that requires a strong consideration for design and planning. Occam would say that life is one phenomenon that requies complexity, not simplicity. He would conclude, as a priest, that a designer is necessary.

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> > dhw: there is no single universal intelligence, but only individual intelligences which continue to cooperate.
> 
> david: Jumping off in every direction. Your proposal has no sense of coordination or similarity in organisms.-But, if we accept the quantum connection and/or Sheldrake's morphic field, don't we then have the connection which creates similarity in organisms?
 
> > dhw: the second is confined to the realities we know of (the universe and life). What would Ockham say?
> 
>david: That your proposial has no basis in what we are learning. As life, studied in organic chemistry, is shown to have increasing complexity that requires a strong consideration for design and planning. Occam would say that life is one phenomenon that requies complexity, not simplicity. He would conclude, as a priest, that a designer is necessary.-For me, the real question isn't whether there is one single creator "entity" or many, within or without. All creation could be (and most likely is) connected at a single quantum level regardless of either. Let's say, for discussion sake, that this single quantum level is at a vibratory state within all that is. From this level all that is has been and is created. The real question then becomes, for me: Is this single vibratory level self aware in the sense of a human self awareness, or is it self aware on a deeper level in the sense that every movement affects all that is on that vibratory level and so everything is aware of everything else on that level, so could be called self-aware in that sense?

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> bbella: But, if we accept the quantum connection and/or Sheldrake's morphic field, don't we then have the connection which creates similarity in organisms?-dhw is suggesting organisms which run their own evolutionary affairs. To me the various animals and plants are interconnected in their phenotypes (body plans). We all look alike, have five fingers, etc. I think it is a quantum interconnection, but while individual sister particles are connected and know what each other is doing, if there is central planning and design, as I envision, the connection may be more unidirectional from a central planning mind.
> 
> bbella: For me, the real question isn't whether there is one single creator "entity" or many, within or without. All creation could be (and most likely is) connected at a single quantum level regardless of either. The real question then becomes, for me: Is this single vibratory level self aware in the sense of a human self awareness, or is it self aware on a deeper level in the sense that every movement affects all that is on that vibratory level.-We are discussing something that is very nebulous. All we can know is the 'mind', ours, that we experience and recognized in others. Your quantum vibratory level must act mind-like with its self-awareness. That makes it like my concept of universal conscousness. We are not very far apart. Our consciousness is a form of emergent energy and it must be at a quantum level. And finally, since everything in the universe is really energy, at the quantum level it is all connected. But I really don't think amoebas are trying to connect with me, but they do connect with each other and create a simple multicellular stalk-like form.

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> bbella:For me, the real question isn't whether there is one single creator "entity" or many, within or without. All creation could be (and most likely is) connected at a single quantum level regardless of either. -Quantum phenomena in biology. Quantum consciousness per Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff. Perhaps a soul:-http://vimeo.com/29895068

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> > bbella:For me, the real question isn't whether there is one single creator "entity" or many, within or without. All creation could be (and most likely is) connected at a single quantum level regardless of either. 
> 
> Quantum phenomena in biology. Quantum consciousness per Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff. Perhaps a soul:
> 
> http://vimeo.com/29895068-Thanks, David, for this video. I will be checking out his Orch-OR theory and also the other video links provided. -Is this in answer to the question I asked about how you see "main source"?

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> bbella: Thanks, David, for this video. I will be checking out his Orch-OR theory and also the other video links provided. 
> 
> Is this in answer to the question I asked about how you see "main source"?-In a way, yes. I believe God as the source of ATI is at a quantum level. Quanta are immortal and always probabilistic. In this way God remains hidden and in charge.-As Kenneth Miller explains:-"Quantum reality is strange, troublesome, and downright illogical, but its unexpected discovery solves one of the key philosophical problems faced by any religious person: How can a world governed by precise physical law escape a strictly deterministic future?...
 
"The indeterminate nature of quantum behavior means that the details of the future are not strictly determined by present reality....few theologians appreciate the degree to which physics has rescued religion from the dangers of Newtonian predictability. I suspect that they do not know (at least not yet) who their true friends are!"-"This [quantum uncertainty] is something biologists, almost universally, have not yet come to grips with. And its consequences are enormous. It certainly means that we should wonder more than we currently do about the saying that life is made of "mere" matter....
 
"This means that absolute materialism, a view that control and predictability and ultimate explanation are possible, breaks down in a way that is biologically significant. It means that after we have obtained understanding of so much of the world around us, the ultimate mastery of even the tiniest bit of matter in the universe will always elude us....
 
"[Thus] The core assumptions supporting the "scientific" disbelief [atheism] of the absolute materialist are wrong, even by the terms of science itself...
 
"What matters is the straightforward, factual, strictly scientific recognition that matter in the universe behaves in such a way that we can never achieve complete knowledge of any fragment of it, and that life itself is structured in a way that allows biological history to pivot directly on these tiny uncertainties. That ought to allow even the most critical scientist to admit that the breaks in causality at the atomic level make it fundamentally impossible to exclude the idea that what we have really caught a glimpse of might indeed reflect the mind of God.
 
"In the final analysis, absolute materialsm does not triumph because it cannot fully explain the nature of reality."- 
Ken Miller, "Physics has Rescued Religion" (Finding Darwin's God)

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DAVID: There is no reason in Darwin theory to cause an appearance of humans, or for that matter to have complex life appear from bacteria.-dhw: We agreed long ago that evolution was not NECESSARY, so there is no point in using lack of necessity as an argument for the uniqueness of humans.-DAVID: Not true. As long as organisms are evolving necessity for change is one of the parameters. It is not an issue of evolution as a necessary process, evolution appears to be a necessary assumption as having occurred. But if evolution is to be an ongoing process, organisms must respond to necessity.-You have been arguing that humans were not necessary and that proves they are unique. But since bacteria have survived, no other form of life was "necessary", and so humans are not unique. If evolution advances partly through responses to necessity, and partly through experimental innovation, that also applies to humans, and so again they are not unique. You may have other unique strings to your bow, but lack of necessity is not one of them.-Discounting chance, I have outlined each phase of your theist scenario and my panpsychist scenario. Not surprisingly you approve of the former and dismiss the latter, as follows:-dhw: first-cause non-conscious energy formed and was within many entities (matter), in some of which the energy developed intelligence (faith required).
DAVID: Not my faith! A very confusing scenario to me.-No more and no less confusing than an eternally intelligent but hidden entity which is conscious at a quantum level ... though nobody knows what that means ... can create universes and bacteria from without and within, aims to create humans, ends up with dinosaurs and a billion other species instead, and so has to dabble (how?) from without but not from within (see your post to BBella).-dhw: the many intelligent entities cooperated from within to create the universe and life.-DAVID: How many Gods are there in your pantheon?-None. Each intelligent entity cooperates with other intelligent entitities without any kind of divine intervention. -dhw: the many entities went on cooperating from within to create all species, including humans.-I think all you would get is a hodge podge. Evolution fits as a bush because of all the similarities of forms, both analagous and homologous.-A bush IS a hodge podge! But each innovation takes place within existing organisms, and each organism is descended from common ancestors, so naturally there are similarities of forms!-dhw: there is no single universal intelligence, but only individual intelligences which continue to cooperate.-DAVID: Jumping off in every direction. Your proposal has no sense of coordination or similarity in organisms.-Bushes grow in every different direction. See above for the rest.-dhw: Each of these has a basic premise that requires faith (which is why I remain agnostic). The rest follows on quite logically.-DAVID: It is your logic, not mine.-Both scenarios lead logically to the bush of evolution.-dhw: The first raises all kinds of questions about the nature and purpose of your single entity;-DAVID: Yes it does, but we are here with the gift of life, and that is the purpose.-You can take that as your purpose whether God exists or not.-dhw: the second is confined to the realities we know of (the universe and life). What would Ockham say?-DAVID: That your proposal has no basis in what we are learning. As life, studied in organic chemistry, is shown to have increasing complexity that requires a strong consideration for design and planning. Occam would say that life is one phenomenon that requires complexity, not simplicity. He would conclude, as a priest, that a designer is necessary.-The panpsychist scenario I am offering also shows increasing complexity and design, but instead of being imposed by a single outside entity, the design is created by inside intelligences that cooperate with one another. Life, as studied in organic chemistry and as exemplified over and over again by your marvellous posts under "Nature's Wonders" never ceases to illustrate the manner in which intelligences both communicate and cooperate (e.g. you basil and your pepper), and innovate (e.g. your comb jelly).

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> dhw:A bush IS a hodge podge! But each innovation takes place within existing organisms, and each organism is descended from common ancestors, so naturally there are similarities of forms!-No. A bush has a main source at its center, and then many many branches. Panpsychism does not appear to.
> 
> dhw: The panpsychist scenario I am offering also shows increasing complexity and design, but instead of being imposed by a single outside entity, the design is created by inside intelligences that cooperate with one another.-Cooperation here and there in my 'natures wonders' and also hunting each other as in carnivores and fly traps. I think true evolution requires a central core to mind the advances. My bush is not helter skelter.

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> > dhw:A bush IS a hodge podge! But each innovation takes place within existing organisms, and each organism is descended from common ancestors, so naturally there are similarities of forms!
> 
> david: No. A bush has a main source at its center, and then many many branches. Panpsychism does not appear to.-David, if you could give a visual (just for discussions sake) to this "main source", how would it appear in your minds eye? Do you picture it like a gardener looking over his garden? Or more like a great bush that grows everything that is and everything that is, is the bush, even tho it may appear as a rabbit, rose, water or air? Or something else? Of course we can't know for sure, but it would help if we could take it out of the air and at least try and put into a picture.

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Making large jumps rather then a bunch of little steps:-"Their research suggests that the "house of cards" modelwhich holds that mutations with large effects effectively reshuffle the genomic deckexplains evolutionary processes better than the theory that species undergo the accumulation of many mutations with small effects.-"'We found this model applied across vast evolutionary timein yeast, worms and flies," said Jeffrey Townsend,-"Once the crucial role of genes was discovered, most evolutionary biologists conjectured that random mutations in genes were preserved in populations when they helped an organism survive or reproduce. Since mutations that have large effects are almost always fatal to the organism, one classical model holds that most must have small effects and that many would have to accumulate in order to create new traits and forms.-"Another theory hypothesizes the opposite: that mutations do not cause small changes in fitness, but trigger a cascade of changesthe evolutionary "house of cards." A third theory is even simpler: that mutations have no effect on fitness whatsoever. Recent discoveries of how small bits of genetic material regulate expression of large networks of genes bolstered interest in the "house of cards" model, but only now has the theory been successfully demonstrated to be applicable to diverse organisms on a genomic scale."-
 Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-05-evolution-house-cards.html#jCp

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Cells have 60 proteins which help them feel and move automatically:-http://phys.org/news/2015-11-cluster-proteins-cells.html-"Cells react differently to materials that are hard or soft, rigid or elastic. For example, stem cells on a hard surface develop into bone cells, while the same cells on a very soft surface make nerve cells.-"Similarly, cells, including tumour cells, tend to move more rapidly on hard surfaces compared to soft surfaces. The ways in which cells sense this difference in their environment remains a mystery.-"The research revolves around integrins -- a family of proteins that were discovered in the 1980s and are essential for cell growth and function.-"Integrins, which are a building block of complex life, are found at the outer edge of cells and encourage proteins to assemble around them when they interact with the outside environment.-"The team carried out complex experiments to understand the workings of the integrin protein clusters using mass spectrometry, and assembled a list of all the proteins in the system.-"One member of the team, Dr Adam Byron, assembled similar data from across the world and distilled it into a list of 60 proteins that cluster around integrins.-"Another member of the research team, Ed Horton, said: "After assimilating all the complex data which was available, we were surprised that only 60 proteins were the essential mediators of the information exchange between integrins and the outside world.-"'So there is now a consensus view: integrins work closely with at least 60 proteins to coordinate many functions including cancer cell migration."-"And fellow researcher Dr Jon Humphries said: "Understanding how cells sense their environment is an important step in understanding how, for example, cancer cells move or how stem cells take on different jobs." -Comment: Just as I've pointed out. Cells respond to specific proteins and the intrinsic function of that protein molecule. Specific and automatic. And once again, only 60 proteins do this. Pattern planning makes evolution easier.

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BBELLA:[...]At some point scientist will get it together and begin to send and receive information between themselves. Science will then at last see God, in the sense, that they will finally recognize that All That Is, is a universe of senders and receivers of messages/information within a vibrational field. We (ATI) are all the orchestral music, sending and receiving sound/movement, thought, information throughout the universe in a continual vibrational hum. When science finally gets their heads together, they will be able to use this information to change the world and cure many diseases, clean up our world, and probably bring peace...who knows. Once mankind comprehends then uses this knowledge to effect what is, anything is possible.[/i]
> 
> I have my doubts about the Utopian future, but otherwise this fits in well with the somewhat indeterminate form of panpsychism I'm tinkering with. The one point I'm very uncertain about in your insightful combination of science and metaphysics is your use of the word "God". As I tried to point out under "Evolution of Intelligence" on 2 April at 20.27, it means totally different things to different people. You've equated it with All That Is, but atheists will probably switch off immediately, and theists of all sorts will claim you as one of their own. Do you believe, for instance, that the ATI is a single entity which is aware of itself,-Altho I believe the ATI is a malleable fabric from which everything exists and has it's being, and as the scriptures say, nothing that exists came into being apart from it - I have no idea if this fabric from which all exists is a self aware God. I am open to it, but I have my doubts. It is more likely, to me, that beings evolved from ATtI that may have created us (through experimenting with that DNA already existed)and may, still, to this day, intervene in some ways with us earth beings, and may also be what what we think of as angels. So I believe there possibly may be gods and angels, but I believe they may have evolved from the all that is, just like most everything else.->deliberately created the universe and life from scratch, -I believe life and everything else evolved from ATI. But possibly we and many or some animals and/or plant species, etc, on earth may have been tinkered with by older than us beings that helped our planet along and may continue to do so.->had a particular purpose for doing so,-I do not think the ATI has a purpose within itself (as one being), but purpose has been created when beings that have evolved created purpose for the beings themselves. And that purpose is continuing to evolve as consciously self aware beings continue to evolve. ->is watching us humans, -There may be beings watching humans that humans think of as god.->and is possibly even listening to our prayers? -I do believe in the power of prayer because of the malleable fabric of ATI. I believe every action "creates" a reaction within the vibratory movement of the ATI. Our thoughts, visions, dreams, every word, etc, affects What IS. ->I don't recall you ever writing about such a being, and although I know you had a religious upbringing, I always had the impression that you preferred to leave such questions open.-I probably elaborated on more than what you asked about. But my mind is very open to whatever IS. I don't want to close my mind to any possibility. Even the possibility that the ATI is a self-aware God. Or that there may be aliens that acted as gods long ago.

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I asked BBella if she believed the All That Is constitutes a single, self-aware entity that deliberately created the universe and life from scratch, had a particular purpose for doing so, and was watching us humans, and perhaps even listening to our prayers.-BBELLA: [...] I have no idea if this fabric from which all exists is a self aware God. I am open to it, but I have my doubts. It is more likely, to me, that beings evolved from ATI that may have created us (through experimenting with that DNA already existed) and may, still, to this day, intervene in some ways with us earth beings [...]-Philosophically this doesn't offer us a definitive solution to our problem of origins, since it just gives us an additional level of existence to account for. If aliens created us, who or what created the aliens? We then go back to David's God who created the alien gods who created us, or chance which created the alien gods which created us, or mindless energy which evolved into the alien gods which created us. Ockham might turn in his grave. However, that doesn't mean they don't exist or never existed, but of course we'd need evidence to justify including them in the grand history. You have studied the evidence, and I haven't, but the next comment suggests that you are not convinced by what you have learned.-BBELLA: But my mind is very open to whatever IS. I don't want to close my mind to any possibility. Even the possibility that the ATI is a self-aware God. Or that there may be aliens that acted as gods long ago.-That confirms the impression I always had. Thank you.

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I asked BBella if she believed the All That Is constitutes a single, self-aware entity that deliberately created the universe and life from scratch, had a particular purpose for doing so, and was watching us humans, and perhaps even listening to our prayers.
> 
> BBELLA: [...] I have no idea if this fabric from which all exists is a self aware God. I am open to it, but I have my doubts. It is more likely, to me, that beings evolved from ATI that may have created us (through experimenting with that DNA already existed) and may, still, to this day, intervene in some ways with us earth beings [...]
> 
> Philosophically this doesn't offer us a definitive solution to our problem of origins, since it just gives us an additional level of existence to account for. -No, it doesn't answer the question of origins of ATI but it could offer explanations for the ipso facto appearance of humans and some animal and even plant species as well as sudden appearances of intelligent humans/beings into tribes that allowed them to more quickly evolve, and even, in some ways, the idea of pre-planning, etc. ->If aliens created us, who or what created the aliens? We then go back to David's God who created the alien gods who created us, or chance which created the alien gods which created us, or mindless energy which evolved into the alien gods which created us. Ockham might turn in his grave. -There is no question we are here. So, however we came about, automatically, in my mind, allows for the possibility of other beings coming before us, and beings before them, and so on. Beings who, within our collective consciousness, we might still think of as Gods. But, one thing's for certain and for which there is no doubt: our origin and their origin (if there be gods or a God) sprang from the same "place," the ATI. Our question is this: Is the ATI a self-aware being itself that created ATI, or did a self aware being evolve from the ATI? Which came first? Maybe it's the chicken and the egg quandary, which answer may be obviously plain as the nose on our face (or not). The ATI/chicken gave birth to an egg/the ATI. Neither, in this scenario, had to be self aware to create. ->However, that doesn't mean they don't exist or never existed, but of course we'd need evidence to justify including them in the grand history. You have studied the evidence, and I haven't, but the next comment suggests that you are not convinced by what you have learned.
> 
> BBELLA: But my mind is very open to whatever IS. I don't want to close my mind to any possibility. Even the possibility that the ATI is a self-aware God. Or that there may be aliens that acted as gods long ago.
> 
> That confirms the impression I always had. Thank you.-You are welcome, and yes, my jury is still out.

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Regeneration is influenced by our magnetic field:

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/weak-magnetic-fields-manipulate-regeneration...

"Exposure to weak magnetic fields can, depending on their strength, either slow or boost flatworm regeneration, according to a report in Science Advances today (January 30). The study provides evidence for a possible mechanism, showing that magnetic fields affect the production of reactive oxygen species, which in turn alter cell behavior.

***

"A major hypothesis for the biological effect of weak magnetic fields (those between Earth’s average and 1 mT) is that they might induce a process called radical pair recombination. In essence, it is thought that a magnetic field might alter the spin direction of electrons in the outer shells of atoms, disturbing the molecular pairing of such atoms and favoring free radical formation. In the case of certain molecules containing oxygen, for example, this disturbance would increase the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS).

"With this possible mechanism in mind, Beane and colleagues examined magnetic field effects on a biological system known to require ROS—regeneration in the planarian flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea.

***

"They found that magnetic fields between 100 and 400 µT inhibited the growth of blastemas compared to those developed by worm fragments exposed to Earth-equivalent fields (45 µT), and that a 500 µT magnetic field increased blastema growth. The differences in growth seen at 200 µT (the strength at which peak inhibition was observed) and 500 µT were associated with differences in ROS levels, which were lower than normal in the 200 µT–exposed animals and higher than normal in the 500 µT–exposed animals.

"Why these unexpected and different effects on ROS levels are seen at different field strengths is not clear. One possibility, explains Ben Greenebaum, an emeritus physicist at the University of Wisconsin who was not part of the research team, is that while a certain amount of magnetic energy can flip the spin direction of electrons, other energy levels can “flip it back,” meaning nonlinear outcomes may be observed.

"The reduced blastema growth seen in 200 µT–exposed worms was also associated with reduced stem cell proliferation and lower levels of a ROS-induced stress protein. Moreover, artificially boosting ROS levels in 200 µT–exposed animals rescued blastema growth, providing evidence that ROS are indeed mediators of magnetic field effects, albeit not exactly as predicted by the radical pair recombination hypothesis.

Comment: another physical influence on cellular processes

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Bbella's presentaton of an article on cells and electric fields is now supported by new research, and the authors even bring in the concept of light comunication between cells, something I rememer Bbella also presenting:-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689572/-"This Addendum summarizes the current state of knowledge in developmental bioelectricity, proposes three possible interpretations of the bioelectric code that functionally maps physiological states to anatomical outcomes, and highlights the biggest open questions in this field. We also suggest a speculative hypothesis at the intersection of cognitive science and developmental biology: that bioelectrical signaling among non-excitable cells coupled by gap junctions simulates neural network-like dynamics, and underlies the information processing functions required by complex pattern formation in vivo. Understanding and learning to control the information stored in physiological networks will have transformative implications for developmental biology, regenerative medicine and synthetic bioengineering."-"One of the most exciting future lines of research concerns the development of chemical strategies for conferring light sensitivity to native ion channels,42,43 allowing optical control of ion flux with heretofore unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution. As these pathways become better understood, bioelectric elements will be encapsulated as modules that can be plugged into existing bioengineering frameworks, adding greatly to the power of the current set of building blocks in synthetic biology."

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Bbella's presentaton of an article on cells and electric fields is now supported by new research, and the authors even bring in the concept of light comunication between cells, something I rememer Bbella also presenting:
> 
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3689572/
> -The irony is that some of the science I support which has been accused of being psuedo-science has been saying the same thing for years. The further irony is that so-called 'voodoo' and 'witch doctor medicine' that focused on the bodies energy fields and fluctuations is also being vindicated by this. I wish I was the better person, but in this case, I just feel like grinning and saying 'told you so' :P

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.

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