Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Monday, April 19, 2021, 10:33 (1104 days ago) @ David Turell

Cambrian
dhw: I’m afraid terms like “humanized” and “second-hand” do not offer one iota of logic to contradict my theory or to explain why you think your God could not have invented such a mechanism.

DAVID: Your humanized God can do anything He wants in your imagination.

dhw: Of course – and so can yours. That still doesn’t explain why you think your God, who apparently specially designed us and our autonomous intelligence, could not also have endowed other organisms with their own form of autonomous intelligence.

DAVID: The research into living biochemical processes shows highly designed events. Tight controls are found in them.

I have never disputed the logic of your design argument or the need for tight controls to enable organisms to live and function.

DAVID: These are not natural developments from Darwin style random mutations.

We agreed years ago to reject that part of Darwin’s theory.

DAVID: Our brains are not the same as genome controls. We have free will. Your comparison is not a real comparison.

You are a firm believer in free will, and so I have used that as an example of your God’s willingness to give up control. If he was willing to give up control over one aspect of life (for whatever reasons), it is possible that he was willing to give up controls over other aspects (for whatever reasons).

DAVID: My God put in all the programmed cell controls over processes.

No need to repeat your theory. Just explain why in your view it is impossible for God to have invented a mechanism that would give organisms the intelligence to design their own innovations, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc.

DAVID (under “dimmer switch”): We see genes exert controls. We don't know how they do it. The results are logical and appear designed. How did the cells get so intelligent by themselves. Not naturally. God had to design them that way, by giving them the proper required information.

dhw: I like your question, and thank you for at last acknowledging that cells are intelligent (though no doubt you will withdraw that in your next post).

DAVID: Please read carefully. The bold clearly tells us God coded intelligent actions into cells.

Prophecy fulfilled. “How did the cells get so intelligent by themselves” and “God had to design them that way” clearly tells us that God designed their intelligence.

dhw: I don’t know why you have to drag “information” into the discussion.

DAVID: Because cells and resulting emergent life run/runs on God-given information to guide them.

What sort of information are you talking about? If it’s to guide them, is this your “instructional” information? Why don’t you just say God gave cells instructions on what to do in every single situation that might arise for the rest of life’s history, and they are all automatons? The exact opposite of “so intelligent”!

Photosynthesis
DAVID: Photosynthesis is so complex we are still picking apart steps we don't understand. As in origin of life it seems obvious design is required since there is no time for a Darwin style evolution caused by a series of random mutations.

I do wish you wouldn’t keep sniping at Darwin, whose random mutations theory was applied to speciation – i.e. Chapter Two of life. I have no problem with your design argument, but what has time got to do with it? We are talking about millions of millions of years! How can anyone know how long it ought to take for such a process to evolve?