autonomy v. automaticity (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, March 02, 2018, 12:21 (2244 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The assumption that bacteria don’t know what they’re doing because imperious nature imperiously instructs them to maintain their equilibrium is imperious.
DAVID: The requirement for homeostasis is essential, not imperious for life to continue living.

You have missed the point. What is imperious is the assumption that they don’t know what they’re doing and are merely following instructions.

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DAVID (re "fat cells"): I know they only appear intelligent and we are. See today's entry on homeostasis and automaticity in bacteria.

You don’t “know” it. You believe it.

DAVID (re "beetle camouflage"): The beetles didn't find the mutations to do it. And a hunt and peck attempt would not have meant survival.
dhw: Another imperious assumption. It is perfectly possible for a species to survive and then to find new methods to improve its chances of survival. Different types of ants have worked out different strategies to cope with different situations. Why shouldn’t beetles do the same? Why do you think your God had to provide the first living cells 3.8 billion years ago with a programme to create beetles and then to enable a particular type of beetle to camouflage itself in a particular way?

DAVID: Changing the way you look to others is camouflage. Ants don't change their looks. Lots of insects are built to do it. Think of eye spots on butterflies. Why not a God-given program as one of the patterns of evolution that He uses in managing evolution

These are all strategies for survival, and you continue to educate us with more and more of these natural wonders, for which many thanks. But according to you, 3.8 billion years ago your God specially preprogrammed each and every one to be passed on by the first living cells so that they could keep life going until he could at last produce the only thing he really wanted to produce, which was the brain of Homo sapiens. You seem to have God saying to himself:” I need this beetle camouflage trick because otherwise life might die out before I can give the sap his brain.” I find this increasingly absurd. Why can’t your God have endowed all these creatures with the autonomous means of devising their own strategies?