Bertvan
>>Our understanding of evolution will never progress as long as
>>we view life as a collection of inanimate pieces of matter.
>Chris
>Actually, it *is* progressing, and very rapidly. You might even say it's
>*evolving*.
Bertvan:
I thoroughly agree. Understanding of evolution is evolving, not randomly
(and natural selection plays absolutely no role), but by individual
judgements of individual people. The position I take, and the position you
take both play a part in the outcome. We both claim intelligence is
involved. Some scientists (probably a majority) have tried to impose a
certain interpretation of the evidence (Darwinism). We will see how long
they are successful.
>>Bertvan
>> The evolution of the biosphere, cultures and economies should give us a
>> hint of how organic evolution might have occurred. Those systems are
designed by
>>the "intelligence" of the individual components. They are the cumulative
>>result of individual choices.
>Chris
>These last two sentences contradict each other. In most cases, the second
>is true, the first is not. Very few cultures are designed. The Soviet
>Union, Communist China, Nazi Germany were designed, but most cultures
>mostly just grow as the accumulation of the unintended, unplanned, often
>unknown, consequences of the actions of individuals and small groups.
>Languages seem to arise and develop in the same general way, as do most
>economies.
Bertvan:
This shows our different definition of the word "designed". To you it
requires a designer. To me it merely means the result of rational,
intelligent, choices, as opposed to chance events. Communism was an attempt
by human designers. A system, culture or economy, designed by the individual
choices of its components is more successful. (If there is a designer, I'll
bet he knew that.) The cultural and economic choices people make are seldom
random. They usually have what they consider intelligent reasons.
>Chris:
>And the biosphere, even more obviously than cultures and economies, shows
>all the signs of *unintelligent* evolution.
Bertvan:
I seen nothing unintelligent about the evolution of the biosphere. Acts of
symbiosis are usually performed to the benefit of at least one, and often
both, of the organisms involved.
Bertvan
>>The pieces of the system routinely function
>>according to rules, habit or instinct, with no "intelligence" required.
>>Stability of the system requires it. Yet each piece has the ability to
>>occasionally act spontaneously and creatively. (free will)
>
>>If the cell was created by symbiosis, symbiosis is a collection of
individual
>>acts. All life gives evidence of some ability to make choices. (Some
>>admittedly more limited than others. However, bacteria can be observed
>>pursuing, devouring and escaping from each other.) Evidence is emerging that
>>DNA makes choices.
Chris
>In a metaphorical sense only. Bacteria respond to chemical differentials,
>light, temperature, and physical contact, so a bacterium will "pursue"
>another even if the other isn't even there, as long as the chemical or
>other signals are there. It is essentially mechanically responding to
>stimuli. The "choices" of DNA show no signs of being any more "intelligent"
>than the "choices" of a computer program.
Bertvan:
Even people can be fooled by a paper tiger, but you have no idea how bacteria
"know" to pursue or flee from certain signals. As to DNA being no more
"intelligent" a computer program, I'll agree when you build a computer
actually capable of creating complex organic systems. (With or without
computer programs designed by humans.)
Chris:
>Does a rock tend to continue to move in whatever direction it's already
>moving in because it *chooses* to, does a knife choose to cut?
Bertvan:
These are not live organisms. For an understanding of how multicelled
organisms came into existence, we might study the slime mold. It can be
individual organisms pursuing their own interests or it can combine to pursue
the interest of the whole. Can you declare with certainty no intelligence is
required to know when to do each? If the parts are "forced" into such
cooperative behavior, what forces them? I don't think we know enough about
the process to say anything -- unless we already have a philosophical
prejudice against the existence of intelligence.
>Bertvan
>Science can not, at the moment, deal with free will and creativity. Some
>people would even regard them as supernatural.
Chris
>And some people think that Santa Claus is *real*, too. So what? Is there
>any *evidence* that they are supernatural? Can you even coherently define
>what kind of evidence *could* indicate that they are supernatural? Is this
>the kind of claim that even *can* have evidential support?
Bertvan
I actually don't consider them supernatural. However supernatural is how
materialists often label phenomena they can neither measure, analyze, nor
predict their effects.
Bertvan:
>>Whatever mind is, evidence
>>exists that mind can affect physical matter. (Biofeedback and the placebo
>>effect, for instance.)
Chris
>Mind seems to affect matter in essentially the same way as do the processes
>in a computer, because, mind, like the computer processes, is itself a
>process carried out by matter, like the sounds coming from a speaker or the
>light coming from a computer monitor, etc. There is no more reason to think
>that mind is supernatural than that a candle-flame is supernatural.
Bertvan:
This is the materialist view of mind. A computer can store and sort and
compare information. Some of us suspect mind can do more.
Don't always enjoy your criticisms, but this seemed sincere and lacking in
hyperbole. Thanks.
Bertvan
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
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