Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 30, 2021, 20:12 (1032 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Using a response algorithm does not require intelligence. It can still fully automatic.

dhw: Please explain the difference between a 3.8-billion-year-old response algorithm that will automatically provide instructions for every single innovation, econiche, lifestyle, natural wonder and defence strategy throughout the history of life, and a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme that will do the same.

I cannot comment about the bold. Living organism do not follow computer programs as those are lifeless.

Big brain evolution

DAVID: How about consciousness being separate from those cells? People with a thin shell of cortical cells are found just like us with full brains.

dhw: Some people, not all. Even if there is such a thing as the dualist’s soul, the remaining cells will still have to take on functions normally performed by those that are missing: it is the cells that provide the dualist's soul with information and then implement its thoughts.

Your comment implies my dualist theory: just a few remaining cells can contain a whole consciousness. It can be received and squeezed into those remaining!!!

DAVID (re Supernova): This discovery should reassure dhw not every event in the universe is especially designed by God. This event is an obviously natural result of His designs. Supernovas deliver the life-required elements needed for life […]

dhw: I don’t believe that every supernova delivered the elements needed for life. The concept of events that are a natural result of his designs, and are not controlled by him for the sole purpose of designing humans plus lunch, fits in perfectly with the concept of evolution as a free-for-all, in which species emerge “as a natural result of his design” of the intelligent cell. Thank you.

DAVID: I agree outside the Milky Way doesn't affect us in any direct way.
And:
DAVID: (re Neutron star black hole merge): as dhw and I have agreed much of the happenings in the universe are at random, a result of initial design.

dhw: These two entries are an important step forward in our discussions. The concept of a God who designs a system resulting in random events lies at the heart of our discussion on evolution. But in the latter, the system I’m proposing has been designed by your God (theistic version) to allow organisms to do their own designing, and so the “random” element is that he does not control what the organisms design. He leaves his stars randomly to change their structure, and his black holes randomly to “merge with” (actually swallow) neutron stars, and he leaves his cell communities to deliberately change their structure or “merge with” other cell communities in response to what may be randomly changing conditions. And he watches all this with interest. Feasible theory?

The two actions don't match. God may have purposely designed the Milky Way for His purpose to create life and eventually us. So my comments discuss the now of this universe, just as in evolution, I recognize the older time parts of the evolutionary process and how they relate to the now, all part pf God's tight control over what He ended up evolving. In no way can you equate the mechanics of the universe with evolving life. A fine-tuned-for-life universe can have larger parts running on its own once the needs for li fe are satisfied. .