Re: [asa] Intelligence

From my old cyber-hangouts, there were several self-described IDers who did indeed favor the view that the intelligence in ID was not that of an extrinsic agent, but that of life itself. They referred to it Endogenous Adaptive Mutagenesis. See:

http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Endogenous_Adaptive_Mutagenesis

I myself am intrigued by the possibilities, although this form of ID tends to gravitate toward vitalism and Lamarckianism. Nevertheless, many years ago, I turned other IDers on to this page:

http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/cellint0.htm

But I lean more toward incorporating such a perspective under the umbrella of front-loading, as it would fit with one of the expectations of front-loading:

"Evolution would be significantly driven by intrinsic, biotic features. Since the design itself would be biotic, then the more that evolution is likened to a biological process, the more that design can be connected to such evolution. In other words, if evolution was purely a function of random happenstance propagated only because such events happened to elicit greater fitness against the backdrop of haphazard environmental conditions, we would predict that the ability to design the future through the present would be quickly be swamped by noise. But if there is a strong, intrinsic component to evolution, the designs are buffered against such noise."

I would classify cellular intelligence as an intrinsic, biotic feature that facilitates front-loading.

- Mike

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Received on Sat, 3 Jan 2009 12:15:11 -0500