>
>Ralph:
> >You seem to assume that "rational, intelligent choices" are invariably
> >better than a chance event. Yes, people usually do have "what they
> >consider intelligent reasons" for their actions--including panic stock
> >selling,
> >runs on banks and paying 7-foot basketball players millions of dollars.
>
>Bertvan:
>Hi Ralph, I can't believe you want to argue that chance is a better basis for
>decisions than intelligence. In any case, I am merely suggesting that,
>overall, intelligence would be more likely to produce rational, complex
>organisms than chance.
No. Notice my use of the word "invariably". Now that you are including
the words "more likely", I can agree with you. Intelligence is more likely
to produce rational, complex organisms than chance, but there are
several unspoken assumptions here. The first, of course, is that an
intelligence is available. But even if an intelligence is available, you have
to assume that it has a *goal* to produce a rational, complex organism.
Then you have to assume that it has *sufficient* intelligence to accomplish
its goal. Mr. Norman has already agreed that this would take at least a
human level of intelligence. Does this picture remind you of anything?
I thought you were agnostic?
>Ralph:
> >That symbiotic relationship that benefits only one of the organisms
> >is often described as "parasitic" and it's frequently to the detriment of
> >the other organism. But I'll bet the ID knew that, too.
>
>Bertvan:
>I'm merely suggesting symbiosis is not a chance event. Motivation is
>involved.
"Intelligent" motivation, I presume you mean? I was merely pointing out
that symbiosis is not always the rosy picture you seemed to be painting.
>Ralph:
> >Yet if you go in and scramble some of a gene's DNA, that DNA will go right
> >ahead and follow its scrambled code, regardless of the eventual result to
> >the organism. Is this a sign of intelligence?
>
>Bertvan:
>Are you asking whether scrambled intelligence is still intelligence?
You seemed to be suggesting that it took intelligence for the DNA to follow
its code. I was saying that if you scramble that code, even so badly that
the organism is no longer viable, the DNA still follows the code. If this is
intelligence, it must be *blind* intelligence, without any motivation to
produce
a rational, complex organism, as we were discussing above.
> >>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.
>
>Ralph:
> >Or *for* it. :) Bertvan, if you need "certainty" before you'll accept a
> >explanation, science is going to be frustrating for you.
>
>Bertvan:
>The Darwinists are the ones who claim to know for certain that intelligence/
>mind/motivation/free will/Teleology play no important part in natures
>processes. As a result they have ended up with a theory that most people
>don't find credible, but no one can think of an alternative. Nevertheless,
>for some reason they feel compelled to impose this theory upon society as
>"fact".
You just seem to be demanding different criteria from science than you use
for yourself. You demand that science say with "certainty" that no
intelligence
is required, yet you believe intelligence *is* present, even though no one,
AFAIK,
has proved that with "certainty".
>Ralph:
> >I thought it was part of your definition of "materialist" that they consider
> >all things to be part of the material world? In that case, how could a
> >materialist justify calling anything "supernatural"?
>
>Bertvan:
>You'll have to ask a materialist. In the case of free will, I think they
>insist it is an illusion.
Is an illusion supernatural? Are all those stage magicians dabbling in
the supernatural? I've also never heard anyone calling creativity
supernatural. Or spontaneity.
ralph
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