NoName
Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013
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| Quote (GaryGaulin @ April 26 2014,13:15) | | Quote (N.Wells @ April 26 2014,11:44) | | Quote (GaryGaulin @ April 26 2014,11:35) | | Then what would be a better name for presenting a choice between two options (where only one is of benefit to your argument) when other options (both can be true or other phrases can be used) exist? |
To quote Jim, "a good example of how muddled thinking results in muddled writing."
Ben Johnson, 1641: "....but then how shall he be thought wise whose penning is thin and shallow?"
Regardless, what about NoName's questions?
| Quote | Like what do you mean when you say natural selection is subjective?
What do you mean when you say natural selection cannot be quantified?
How does 'molecular intelligence' differ from, or go above and beyond, the standard laws of chemistry and physics?
How does 'cellular intelligence' differ from, or go above and beyond, the standard laws of chemistry and physics? |
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I'm not going to waste my time answering unscientific questions that expect a scientific theory to "go above and beyond, the standard laws of chemistry and physics".
But if you want then I'll ask you: How does natural and artificial selection differ from, or go above and beyond, the standard laws of chemistry and physics?
To be as fair to you as you are to me I must have a "supernatural" answer, and refuse any explanation "standard laws of chemistry and physics" allow. Good luck! |
You are the one whose "theory" makes claims that require something above and beyond the standard laws of physics and chemistry when you talk about 'molecular intelligence' and 'cellular intelligence'.
The only non-problematic use of those phrases, a use that does not impose the burden of something 'above and beyond the standard laws of physics and chemistry', is the most banal of claims conceivable -- the claim that all intelligence occurs in beings who consist of molecules organized into cells.
But without ever coming right out and discussing the issues inherent in your cherished terminology, you won't even bother to clarify just what it is that you are claiming when you assert 'molecular intelligence' and 'cellular intelligence'.
So either you are banal or insane. Or, quite likely, both.
The questions are not unscientific insofar as it is scientific to query what is meant in an obviously non-scientific screed masquerading as a theory.
It is not news to us that you 'refuse to discuss' these questions -- you've spent 341+ pages doing everything you can think of except answering clear and to the point questions.
As to your ludicrous attempt to swing the question back around on us, once I'm done laughing I'll reply thusly:
Evolution neither makes nor requires any changes to the laws of chemistry or physics. It relies entirely upon them, and on the new behaviors that emerge at higher levels of complexity of organization of atoms and molecules. [Side note -- you are aware, are you not, Gary, that there's more to physical reality than atoms and molecules? There are subatomic particles, fields, and so on. And you are aware, are you not, that the 'wetness' of water is an emergent property of water that emerges out of the interaction of the molecules of water in aggregate within a certain range of temperature and pressure? That a single molecule of water is not wet, and cannot be, but a liter of pure water at 50 degrees Celsius and standard atmospheric pressure located within a contiguous expanse cannot help but be wet?]
A physiochemical basis for inheritance of traits, susceptible to greater and lesser changes from generation to generation, was predicted by Schrodinger in 1944 -- 'What Is Life?'. That work is still a small masterpiece of science. Its prediction was brilliantly confirmed with the discovery of DNA and its role in reproduction, and how it enables reproduction with variation.
Darwin took the obvious fact that different creatures differ one from another, even within their "kind", and the almost as obvious fact that creatures vary in their reproductive success to hypothesize the evolution of species by natural selection of individuals better suited to the current state of the ever-changing natural milieu.
Many, the least of whom is you, have yet to grasp the stunning brilliance of this insight. That it leads to the prediction of a mechanism at the level of standard chemistry to mediate the reproduction of traits with more or less minor variations is perhaps obvious in hindsight.
It was a brilliant move on Schrodinger's part to consider the situation, conceive a mechanism and present it. It was brilliant work by Watson and Crick to investigate and confirm the existence of this mechanism.
None of which requires anything above and beyond standard physics and chemistry, none of which requires any more out of 'molecular intelligence' than the banal observation that all occurrences of intelligence occur in beings constructed of molecules, many many molecules of many many different types, arranged in a hierarchy of systems, interacting in a plethora of ways, out of which emerge intelligence.
And none of which requires so torturing the standard scientific definition of 'learning' so badly out of shape as to allow its use for any change over time.
Don't even pretend that your pitiful extended whine and preening pomposity masquerading as a 'theory' discusses or presents the story of emergence and so serves to explain what emergence is and how it works. It would be a massive lie, even for so routine a liar as yourself.
And we would all spot it instantly.
Your 'theory' has no emergence, it presents 'intelligence' as an undefined factor that exists at all levels of granularity, thus requiring that something more is going on at the level of the individual molecule and also at the level of the individual cell, something more than the standard laws of chemistry and physics.
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