Subj: Re: chance and selection
TO: ralphkru@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU (Ralph Krumdieck)
Ralph:
>OK. Your version of ID does not involve "pre-designed life". In
>other words, your Intelligent Designer (or just Intelligence) does
>not pre-determine how life will change or what form it will take.
>Is that it?
Bertvan:
Someone recently suggest that perhaps "intelligence" might be the basic
component of life - as energy is the basic component of matter. Reason to
believe the design is not pre-determined? That's a hard one. Life's obvious
ability to adapt to changing conditions? An intuition that intelligence is
never static? The fact that pre-designed wouldn't be very interesting? And
life is definitely interesting!
Ralph:
>OK. Your version of the Intelligence in ID is an intrinsic part of all
>life but does not pre-determine the form or type of life. Yet it is
>"responsible for the design in nature". How does this work? Does your
>"life intelligence" wait for a mutation to occur and then decide, somehow,
>on some criteria, whether or not to allow that mutation to continue? Or
>does the "life intelligence" intervene somehow to help certain mutations
>to occur? If so, why isn't that "pre-determining the form or type of life"?
>If the "life intelligence" doesn't pre-determine how life will develop,
>then it seems like it would have to take pot-luck. If this is going to
>be distinguished from "chance and random mutation", then your "life
>intelligence" is going to have to "guide" the available mutations somehow
>so some are preferentially selected. On what basis does it do this if it
>does not pre-determine how life develops?
Bertvan:
How does it work? I doubt we'll ever know the complete answer, but some of
the details might become apparent. Intelligence is detected from the fact
that it makes choices. If the choices were predetermined, that would no
longer involve either choice or intelligence. If the intelligence contained
within a single cell is sufficient to organize that cell's maturation into a
complex, multi-celled organism, I see no reason to doubt that same
intelligence might occasionally be capable of creating a mutation "needed" by
the organism to adjust to its environment. Mutations intelligently designed
by DNA, for instance, would be a more efficient system than "taking pot
luck". Mutations created and "preferentially selected by life" would be
quite different from Darwin's "natural selection" where death of the
organism, or inability to produce sufficient viable offspring, does the
selecting and the creating. (The latter would be a pretty clumsy,
inefficient design for a system as complex as life, IMHO.)
Bertvan:
>>It may be arrogant of us to limit the existence
>>of consciousness, free will, intelligence, choice, creativity, spontaneity,
>>etc., to our own species.
Ralph
>You could be right.
>Sound waves waggle your eardrum. These undulations are converted into
>electrical impulses by the middle ear. This is a purely mechanical
>process, yet information is communicated. Is the ear intelligent?
>It is a moderatly good device (though there are many that are better)
>for collecting sound waves. Are you arguing that the ear "knows" it
>has to convert the sound waves into electrical impulses? Wouldn't
>this make deaf people inherently more stupid than people who can
>hear? If you puncture your eardrum, have you lost some intelligence?
>You may miss some information, but have you lowered your "body's" IQ?
Bertvan:
Information is communicated only if meaning is included. Otherwise it is
just noise. I would agree that deaf people have "stupid" ears, but that is
only a tiny part of the intelligence of the entire organism. (As is the
intelligence of human consciousness.)
Ralph:
>Yet, you do want to argue for an Intelligence that "is an intrinsic part of
>all life" and "is responsible for the design in nature" so maybe you are not
>completely wedded to being "content to leave life unexplained". Most of
>us are at least mildly curious about it. I look forward to your comments.
Bertvan:
Right! Human curiosity seems to never be content with the unexplained. It's
merely that I prefer to regard life as unexplained, rather than adopt an
explanation such as chance and selection. (If anyone ever proposes an
explanation, it might be Margulis.)
I really enjoyed your questions and hope you have more.
Bertvan
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
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