Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Thursday, July 08, 2021, 11:25 (1024 days ago) @ David Turell

First item transferred to “A possible God’s possible purpose and nature”.

Ant raft movements
DAVID: God did not design/program swarms which are automatic results of specific individual action

dhw:[…] The article deals with “swarm intelligence” […] In other words, the ants collectively pool their intelligences to come up with solutions to new problems. You pooh-pooh the idea.Presumably you prefer the theory that your God preprogrammed the solutions 3.8 billion years ago, or popped in to give ants the appropriate lessons or algorithms?

DAVID: Your distorted view if this particular discussion. Individual action creates the swarm, yes or no?

This particular discussion concerns what the authors call “swarm intelligence”. A swarm is the result of lots of individuals combining to form a community. There is no dispute over the definition of a swarm. The question is how the swarm comes up with strategies such as bridge or raft building. Do you stand by the bolded theory above, or do you accept the possibility that combined intelligences might produce results which the individual could not produce on its own?

Bacterial motors 1
DAVID: A partially complete mechanism cannot be used!!! Be logical.

dhw: Neither you nor I can have the slightest idea what was or wasn’t useful. A light sensitive nerve may have been useful to its owner, even if it wasn’t an eye. A wheel is not a motor car. But I’m obviously in no position to make any kind of statement on the subject. I am merely querying the authority of the authors’ claim that the flagellum could not have evolved. Bearing in mind that there are different types of bacteria, here is a different view:
Evolution of flagella - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_flagella.....(deleted by David).

dhw: Different writers, different theories.

DAVID: I know the theory I deleted. It is mental invention of possibilities without a smidgen of proof. All we can know for fact is a complete amazing machine that works and is obviously designed.

No one can “prove” that there is an eternal, sourceless, conscious mind called God, or if there is, there is not a smidgen of proof that it designed the amazing machine in one go, whereas so many other amazing machines developed in stages. If you are going to start playing the “proof” game, then all we can know for a fact is that there is a machine that works.

Root microbiome helps plants
DAVID:I leave out nothing. You object to my God as designing everything. If you accept the existence of design, a designer must exist.

dhw: The existence of a designer is not the issue we are discussing. I object to your theory that, although your God's sole purpose was to design humans and their lunch, he designed every life form, lunch, etc., 99% of which had no connection to humans. You have no idea why he would have chosen such a method to fulfil such a purpose, and so you continue to edit your theory by leaving out the bits which do not fit together, or by changing the subject.

DAVID: I simply accept that God chose to evolve us from bacteria. I don't understand how you can object to that belief.

That is NOT what you simply accept, and it is not what I object to! Once again, you have left out the bits I object to, as bolded above. See “A possible God…” for the non-stop repetition of this particular dodge.

One lubricant beats Teflon
DAVID: Nature is always way ahead of us. Or should I say God?

Why would your God, whose one and only purpose was to design humans and their lunch, specially design the Zophobas morio beetle’s wonderful lubricant? Since when was the Zophobas morio or its lubricant on your lunch menu?

Phase precession
DAVID: Just to show all of us the brain is not a computer as AI folks are learning. Note we find early evidence of these systems in lesser brained animals. In evolution early working designs appear later in more advanced designs in more advanced forms. dhw take note.

That is indeed how evolution works. The human brain is not something brand new but is the result of millions of years of evolutionary development. It is an advance, not an innovation. For some reason, you think EVERY advance (not just the human brain) from bacteria to every life form plus lunch plus strategy plus natural wonder that ever existed required a 3.8-billion-year-old programme or, alternatively, a personal dabble by your God. A simpler theistic explanation would be that your God endowed cells (of which all life forms are made) with the intelligence to do their own designing. I think we’ve had this discussion before.