Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Thursday, April 25, 2019, 12:57 (1822 days ago) @ David Turell

I’m combining this thread with “bacterial intelligence", as they are now covering the same material.

DAVID: I have clearly stated God may be unlimited or limited. History allows both possibilities…

dhw: One day you clearly state that he is in full control, and the next you say he may have limits.

DAVID: […] It is possible that God is limited in how He can create. […] It simply may be that life is so complex, advances must be evolved, but that still puts God completely in charge.

I have no problem with God being completely in charge - if he wants to be. But limitations (non-omnipotence) are one way to remove the anomaly of having an omnipotent God choosing not to design the only thing he wanted to design. (See below for evolution and design.)

dhw: On this thread the subject is cellular intelligence and its relevance to your God’s use of evolution to achieve his purpose(s). In my proposal there is “total” purpose and nothing tentative, the purpose being to create a process that will provide the ever changing spectacle of life which constitutes its history (but always allowing for dabbles).

DAVID: An 'ever changing spectacle' is humanizing God in the extreme. A purposeful God does not need spectacle. In my view, He fully knows what He wants as a goal, and accomplishes it.

I agree that your purposeful God would fully know and accomplish his goal, which you say was to produce humans. If you can speculate on that, why shouldn’t we speculate on possible purposes for producing the bush and humans? A while ago you volunteered enjoyment, wanting us to admire his work, and wanting a relationship with us. How do you know that a one-and-only God didn’t get fed up with his isolation? How do you know that he doesn’t produce things for enjoyment, or that he doesn’t have a range of feelings like ours: love, hate, boredom, fascination, pleasure, disgust, loneliness? Do you really believe a creator could create such things without knowing them himself? Of course we can only humanize, but that doesn’t mean that our humanizations are wrong.

dhw: I am suggesting that your vehement opposition to the concept of cellular intelligence – despite your setting the odds at 50/50 – is that it represents a major threat to your strong belief that your always-in-control God’s one and only purpose was to produce H. sapiens, linked to your proposal (but not belief) that for no apparent reason – you have “no idea” why he chose this method – he specially designed every life form in life’s history for the purpose of getting them to eat or not eat one another until he specially designed the only thing he wanted to design. (David's bold)

DAVID: […] I fully believe God chose to evolve humans. His choice of method is His choice, and clearly is supported by the historical record. We evolved. […] As for the bolded comment, it is totally off the mark as it implies God diddled aimless around until He finally plugged in the goal, humans.

The only evolutionary methods you propose are divine preprogramming and dabbling, which both entail special design. You apply this not only to the human brain but also to whale flippers, cuttlefish camouflage, monarch lifestyle and the construction of the weaverbird’s nest. And you have no idea why your God specially designed (preprogrammed/dabbled) all this when, according to you, he only wanted to specially design (preprogramme/dabble) us. It is YOU who have him diddling around!

DAVID: As for cellular intelligence, I agree they appear to act intelligently. Appearance leads you to hope cells are intelligent, which is a way of reducing God's powers of total control.

dhw: Not a reduction of powers of control! If God exists, cellular intelligence would denote his CHOICE not to control the history, but to allow it to run its own course, just as you believe he gave humans free will so that they could create their own history.

DAVID: […] In the final step, humans are allowed to control their actions (history), but not their evolution, which your bolded twisted logic implies.

Yet again you are missing the point of the analogy. If he was willing to give up control over human actions, why should he not have been willing to give up control over the direction of evolution? In both cases your “this is what will happen…” gives way to my “let’s see what will happen if…”
[…]
DAVID: My reference is to the concept of convergence, the fact that the same thing develops over and over in evolution in many, many very different species, unrelated by the pattern of branching in the common descent from an original organism.

dhw: So your theory presumably would be that your God preprogrammed or dabbled all these different species to provide the same solutions when confronted by the same problems. My counter proposal would be that given the same problems, it is not surprising that different intelligences should come up with the same solutions.

DAVID: Only if such intelligence existed in cells. Remember I view cells as acting intelligently from God's instructions.

Yes, these are the alternatives: cellular intelligence versus a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme or direct divine dabbling for every convergent solution, as these are the only forms of “instructions” you can come up with.