autonomy v. automaticity (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, March 29, 2018, 09:29 (2219 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You are pushing for fine details on how evolution is controlled by God and I do not have definitive evidence to help me make up my mind. The human brain is the primary goal, balance of nature an important secondary goal. I accept God as totally in charge, but how tight is an issue I admit I can't seem to solve. However, that doesn't change my conclusion God is in charge.

dhw: Of course if God exists he is in charge. He does what he wants to do. And maybe what he wants to do is give organisms the freedom to evolve in an ever changing variety of ways (with the option of an occasional dabble). “Totally” but you don’t know how “tight”, so you don’t know how “totally”. Word play. The ever changing balance of nature is not a goal of evolution, it is a result. One particular balance of nature is a goal in the context of humans achieving what they believe to be a healthy balance for themselves and their fellow organisms. (See your PAX under “balance of nature”.) You have offered no purpose for evolution other than the production of the human brain, and I push for fine details because of all the anomalies I listed earlier, and because the claim that your God designed the weaverbird’s nest and every other natural wonder you can think of in order to keep life going for the sake of the human brain makes no sense to me. By contrast, you have accepted that my (theistic) hypothesis makes perfect sense as an explanation for the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution. And yet you refuse to consider it.

DAVID: Answered in the other thread: Wednesday, March 28, 2018, 15:12. "Why do I have to have certainty about all of God's activities? That is your problem. You want exactitude about all aspects of how our reality came into existence so you can accept something." The balance of nature is very finely tuned by the diversity of the bush of life, as shown by the disturbances I've presented when humans interfere. These econiches require a type of design. I can only reach conclusions when I can.

But you do have certainty. You are certain not only that God exists, but that his one and only purpose was to produce the human brain. (Your one and only secondary purpose called “balance of nature” turns out to be the claim that the whole history of changing balances has been geared to the production of the human brain. The fact that humans are currently changing the balance and endangering themselves has nothing to do with your God’s purpose in designing every lifestyle and natural wonder you have listed for us.) You are certain that your God is in full control, except when maybe he is not (see bad bacteria and viruses). And you are certain that God did not design a mechanism to give cells/cell communities the autonomous means to cope with their environment, though he does give them a degree of freedom but not without help and guidelines, which is the opposite of autonomy. Nobody on this planet can provide any degree of exactitude about how our reality came into existence. That is why I am so uncertain. And that is why I point out what I see as the inconsistencies in your certainties, and have the temerity to suggest alternatives, which you reject as if you could be certain they are wrong!