>Ralph:
>>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?
>
>Bertvan
>An accumulation of marginally intelligent, individual choices, with limited
>goals, can design a culture, an economy or an biosphere, with no natural
>selection involved. Apparently there is no need for anything even
approaching
>human intelligence for a complex system to be built up piece by piece. It
>seems a more likely possibility than chance. (I am not sure what you are
>suggesting about religion. I am an agnostic, not an atheist.)
I find this a very interesting response and I'd like to look at it in
some depth. I hope it won't get tedious. First of all, your first two
sentences, seem to encapsulate your ideas clearly. The description
is evolution (or Darwinism, if you prefer) with "marginal intelligence,
individual choices with limited goals" replacing chance (or natural
selection--you seem to use those two terms interchangeably, even
though they mean different things).
You realize that this puts you outside of Behe and most current ID
thought. Behe clearly says that this scheme *can not* produce
irreducibly complex systems, like the molecular motors that drive
flagellum. Adding minimal intelligence to the menu means nothing.
Behe is adamant: IC systems can not be produced gradually by small
steps. Period. And, of course, evolutionists say it's chance, not
intelligence, so, once again, you find yourself in a lonely position.
But probably you don't mind.
I want to look at your ideas as though they were the reality for a
moment. I'm going to assume that this minimal intelligence you
posit is within the organism. If the intelligence is imposed on
the organism from outside, then all bets are off because anything
is possible. The outside intelligence can be made as large as
necessary to make the system work.
Let us suppose that we have a bacterium that is without flagellum.
Tired of being pushed about by its environment, this bacteria has,
by its intelligence, conceived of a limited goal of developing
locomotion. It is at a slight disadvantage since it has never seen
a molecular motor or a flagellum but, being of minimal intelligence,
this doesn't bother it.
Now it has to make some sort of change in its DNA. It can't just
change some DNA at random and wait to see what happens. Being
intelligent, it wants to head straight for its goal instead of
floundering around like evolution. Waiting around for a
beneficial mutation to come along sounds a lot like evolution
too, and would not seem to be putting its intelligence to the best
possible use.
Now we have a bacterium with sufficient intelligence and know-how
to change its own DNA. Pretty good. We've barely gotten there
ourselves. More than that, though, the bacterium has to *predict*,
accurately, the result of the change it is making. As I pointed
out above, if the bacterium is just going to change DNA at random
and wait to see what happens, why do we need to impute intelligence
to it?
Even if it *did* change its DNA at random and waited to see what
happens, to *intelligently* recognize when a change is beneficial
*and* moves it towards its goal, would seem to require a degree of
consciousness of self that is quite amazing. Not even animals
as complex as cats and dogs seem to possess that degree of awareness.
To anticipate you, can I say for *certain* that Fido doesn't know
he's Fido and not Rex? No, I can't.
Now, what do we have? We have a bacterium that:
1. Can set a goal and formulate plans to add a device to its
structure that it hasn't possessed before;
2. Can create said device from scratch;
3. Can change its own DNA in an intelligent manner;
4. Can predict, with accuracy, the results of its DNA changes;
5. Can recognize when such a change will help it achieve
at least one step towards its goals.
If this is "minimal intelligence", I'm beginning to feel that
my own intelligence is "miniscule". But maybe that's a good
thing, hm? :)
ralph
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