autonomy v. automaticity (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, January 29, 2018, 15:31 (2277 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We are talking past each other. You have brought up the weaver nest as part of the concept of IM. I don't view it that way. An IM, if it exists, has to do with advancing evolution by having the organism change form or function under guidelines for direction nad size of change or limits of change. The creation of a complex nest full of intricate knots require a dabble or direct aid. I thought I'd been clear before but this current statement should be clear.

dhw: You have always maintained that evolutionary innovations (changing form or function), lifestyles (the monarch butterfly), and natural wonders (weaverbird’s nest) were preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago, or directly dabbled. When challenged, you have brought in the terms “semiautonomous” and “guidelines”, and I keep asking how these nebulous concepts work in practice. You never answer. In my hypothesis, the “IM” that governs all these developments is intelligence: the monarch and the weaverbird work out their own lifestyle/nest-building technique, and changes of form and function are determined by the (perhaps God-given) intelligence of the cell communities of which every organism is composed. I have taken one example in order to find out how your “semiautonomous” and “guidelines” work. Now you appear to be withdrawing those terms for natural wonders and lifestyles – these are all 100% dabbled. So let’s go back to evolutionary advances as being semiautonomous or guided. Please tell me what you think the autonomous half of the pre-whale’s IM contributed to its evolution, and what you think were the guidelines your God gave it.

As you well know an IM is a theoretical construct to approach the idea that an organism might have some ability at self-design of a newer form or function. As such it does not have the specifics you now demand. I stand by my pre-programming or dabble concept as primary to evolution as run by God, and organismal IM as a possibility, not probability. Your: "you never answer" observation is correct. I can't be specific any more than can all of us explain speciation. Nor can you specifically explain how cell committees design a new form or function.