Why you should think that the First-Cause has to be an Intelligent Cause

[o_mlly]

There are computer programs which can write other computer programs. Some of those program-writing programs use genetic algorithms to write those programs.

The output programs do not have an intelligent programmer, they have an intelligent meta-programmer – the intelligence that wrote the program that wrote the program.

For an example of this process see Lenski (2003) The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features .

Thanks for the link. It appears to be a master link to several others. I’ll try to read them later.

The point of introducing the programmer and his program into the thread was to exemplify that any program which substantially performs is indicative of an intelligent designer vis a vis a woman who has a working reproductive capability is indicative of an intelligent designer.

If I follow the gist of the your post, I would cite that the output programs do have an intelligent programmer for their existence is totally dependent on the first program. The first program did not drop into being but is the product of its programmer.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Here’s some stop press news: Your distant ancestors were as dumb as a box of rocks. They got by by instinct and good fortune. But you (presumably) are not. Now I wonder how in the world that happened. Maybe, and I’m just pulling this out of thin air, maybe the intelligence evolved.

If evolved, intelligence leaped from animal consciousness, over a chasm and landed on another plane of existence. There is a progression in animals as it pertains to instinct and consciousness. As it pertains to instinct, humans have what the animals have but distinct in order. if it is reordered to it’s former function it is a mental disorder for humans. Exposure to life threatening environments cause instincts to refine to the individual animal. In humans we call it PTSD and other disorders. Traumatic experience is stored in memory differently because of the intensity and type of emotion that accompanied it. A function of memory that is like emotion, it is memory that is involuntarily recalled and put human consciousness back into the life threatening event. Good for animals but it destroys human ability to distinguish reality intelligently and be present within it intelligently. Past traumatic events are involuntarily recalled when the environment begins to be similar to the one in the past. This is how instinct is uniquely adapted to particular individual animals.

We have what they have but there is no evidence of what we have in any other animal. There is no reason to believe it evolved because there is no evidence of it’s powers in any other animal for a base to evolve from…The teleology of human intelligence isn’t found in the teleology of animal consciousness but teleology of animal consciousness is found in human intelligence. Hope I used that word right.

And news just in: Homo sapien, of the family Hominidae, of the order Primates, of the class Mammalia, of the phylum Chordata is dicovered to belong to the kingdom of Animalia.

In other words, intelligence did not leap from one place to another. It’s on a continuum from ‘squawk’ through ‘me Ugh’ up to ‘Now is the winter of our discontent…’.

 

[Bradskii]

o_mlly:

Using your analogy of randomized sized grains, can you explain how the natural selection “sieve” filtered out the first “intelligent” grain from a batch of non-intelligent grains?

Is a cat more intelligent than a mouse? Is a dog more intelligent than a cat? Is a chimp more intelligent than a dog? Intelligence is a continuum, not a binary yes/no property. Natural selection will increase (or decrease) intelligence by selecting the level of intelligence which gives the best reproductive success in the given environment.

rossum

And to add…

There are many definitions of intelligence. One of them being goal directed adaptive behaviour. If we accept that as the absolute rock bottom minimum and build on that to however you might define human intelligence, then we have a continuum from the lowest to the highest with examples at points all along the line.

And if we use that ‘goal directed adaptive behaviour’ then we have one of the platforms for natural selection. Which is ‘survive’. Which is applicable to even organisms which do not even have all tbe attributes that we use to define life, such as viruses.

So that continuum runs from a virus through to Einstein. And as Rossum says, the filter is survival itself.

 

[Benadam]

In other words, intelligence did not leap from one place to another. It’s on a continuum from ‘squawk’ through ‘me Ugh’ up to ‘Now is the winter of our discontent…’.

What is the evidence of that? There is a lot of evidence that the human intellect is of an entirely different order than all other animals. It exploded onto the planet about 70,000 years ago.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

In other words, intelligence did not leap from one place to another. It’s on a continuum from ‘squawk’ through ‘me Ugh’ up to ‘Now is the winter of our discontent…’.

What is the evidence of that? There is a lot of evidence that the human intellect is of an entirely different order than all other animals. It exploded onto the planet about 70,000 years ago.

At least you realise that man is an animal as well. And yes, if you want to measure intelligence in some way, then Man’s is greater than an apes by an order of magnitude. And ape’s are greater than earlier primates by a similar order of magnitute. And earlier primates more intelligent than fish.

So you could take the most intelligent species on the planet at any given point and say ‘gee, these guys are really special’.

If we’re around in another few million years we might look back on this time and consider us to be relatively unintelligent. It’s all relative…

 

[rossum]

Is a phototrophic algae more intelligent than a grain of sand? All that is needed is a light detector and a “move elsewhere if the light level is wrong” instruction. That is a very basic form of intelligence, and can obviously be produced by evolution.

rossum

 

[YoungCatholicGuy]

Could a dumb deity have created the complexities of the human anatomy/ laws of physics/ laws of the universe/ laws of nature?

No.

God is All Powerful, Omniscient, All Knowing, all Knowledgeable

 

[rossum]

If I follow the gist of the your post, I would cite that the output programs do have an intelligent programmer for their existence is totally dependent on the first program. The first program did not drop into being but is the product of its programmer.

Correct. Which is exactly the Theistic Evolutionist position. God designed the universe to be an environment in which evolution would work. So God did not write the DNA program directly, He wrote the meta-program (evolution) which wrote the DNA program found in living organisms.

rossum

 

[Bradskii]

As regards life not starting all at once, read this:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began

It’s not technical but it will give you the basics. And a definition of life? Gee, couldn’t you just look this stuff up? From wiki:

The current definition is that organisms are open systems that maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, have a life cycle, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce and evolve.

And to repeat, there was never a time when something appeared that had all those attributes. Unless you claim Creationism.

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

He’s a

1. self made billionaire X10.
2. Graduate of Wharton business school with top honors.
3. He beat 16 top Republicans for the party nominee for president,
4. never being in politics before, and at 71 yrs old, won the presidency with overwhelming vote totals of the electoral college.
5. In his first 500 days in office, in spite of the massive obstruction by the Democratic party, he has accomplished more than any president that has held that office.

Not bad! I could go on

Exactly.right for your opinion. However articles on CNN and the NY Times imply he is pretty dumb. IOW, intelligence is not a well defined concept. And people have greatly different opinions on it.

I don’t make up the statistics. So it’s not my opinion.
BTW, Do people still watch the Clinton News Network ?

AND

We have intelligence measuring abilities

Those who claim intelligence isn’t well defined, are already suspicious. It sounds more like people who have taken the test and fared poorly.

but it’s off topic

AINg:

If the claim is that the First Cause is intelligent you need to have a well defined concept of intelligence that everyone can agree on.

incredible design, with amazing laws put in place, don’t just happen on their own, it presupposes an incredible designer beyond imagination to make it happen. I would just say that Anyone who can’t see THAT plan, has the intelligence problem.

 

[steve-b]

As regards life not starting all at once, read this:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began

It’s not technical but it will give you the basics. And a definition of life? Gee, couldn’t you just look this stuff up? From wiki:

The current definition is that organisms are open systems that maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, have a life cycle, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, reproduce and evolve.

And to repeat, there was never a time when something appeared that had all those attributes. Unless you claim Creationism.

“claim” creationism? How does anything you mentioned and that was underlined, just appear from nothing? They are all effects. What caused them? Something, anything, doesn’t just shows up from NOTHING. NOTHING produces NOTHING

 

[o_mlly]

And to add…

There are many definitions of intelligence. One of them being goal directed adaptive behaviour. If we accept that as the absolute rock bottom minimum and build on that to however you might define human intelligence, then we have a continuum from the lowest to the highest with examples at points all along the line.

And if we use that ‘goal directed adaptive behaviour’ then we have one of the platforms for natural selection. Which is ‘survive’. Which is applicable to even organisms which do not even have all tbe attributes that we use to define life, such as viruses.

So that continuum runs from a virus through to Einstein. And as Rossum says, the filter is survival itself.

We do need an agreed definition of the word “intelligent.” But I think this definition – goal directed adaptive behavior – is hardly rock bottom. Implied in the definition are the faculties of perception, cognition, sensation. memory, imagination, selection (free will), and prospection just to name a few. If the identified goal is survival (of self or kind) then some level of self-awareness is also required. Have I misunderstood your definition?

When we talk about natural selection I infer randomness to a creature’s reflexive behaviors. But when we talk about goal directed behaviors we abandon random reflexes for an agent’s selected behaviors . So, we cannot talk about "“goal directed adaptive behavior as a platform for natural selection” as the two, it appears to me, are mutually exclusive lines of evolution. The former – “random reflex” – never evolving to the latter – “agent selected” – behavior.

 

[Bradskii]

Gee, Steve. You got me there.

 

[o_mlly]

Is a phototrophic algae more intelligent than a grain of sand? All that is needed is a light detector and a “move elsewhere if the light level is wrong” instruction. That is a very basic form of intelligence, and can obviously be produced by evolution.

Silicone, I think, has never demonstrated any living properties including intelligence. To categorize algae as intelligent requires first a definition of intelligence. I think another poster is leading us in that direction.

 

[o_mlly]

Correct. Which is exactly the Theistic Evolutionist position. God designed the universe to be an environment in which evolution would work. So God did not write the DNA program directly, He wrote the meta-program (evolution) which wrote the DNA program found in living organisms.

We agree! I especially like the “God designed the universe” part of the post.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

And to add…

There are many definitions of intelligence. One of them being goal directed adaptive behaviour. If we accept that as the absolute rock bottom minimum and build on that to however you might define human intelligence, then we have a continuum from the lowest to the highest with examples at points all along the line.

And if we use that ‘goal directed adaptive behaviour’ then we have one of the platforms for natural selection. Which is ‘survive’. Which is applicable to even organisms which do not even have all tbe attributes that we use to define life, such as viruses.

So that continuum runs from a virus through to Einstein. And as Rossum says, the filter is survival itself.

We do need an agreed definition of the word “intelligent.” But I think this definition – goal directed adaptive behavior – is hardly rock bottom. Implied in the definition are the faculties of perception, cognition, sensation. memory, imagination, selection (free will), and prospection just to name a few.

Any adaption to enhance survivability is goal directed. A flower turns to follow the sun. Which is an adaption to aid survival. Which is the goal. Trees grow taller to gain more sunlight. Which is an adaption to aid survival. Which is the goal. And they perceive the sun and sense its direction.

Now I am not suggesting that plants are what you would call intelligent. But it need only start at that very basic level and evolution will handle it from there. You don’t need to immediately jump to self awareness and introspection and memory. Those will evolve over time and reach a point where we will recognise an organisms reaction to its environment as being intelligent. Or should I say as being what you described as being intelligent.

But to start the process you only need a very basic automatic self preservation reaction to external stimulii.

 

[steve-b]

Is a phototrophic algae more intelligent than a grain of sand? All that is needed is a light detector and a “move elsewhere if the light level is wrong” instruction. That is a very basic form of intelligence, and can obviously be produced by evolution.

rossum

The ultimate questions to ask is

Evolution presumes you have something already that can evolve. Who not what, caused “something” / “everything that is”, to come into existence?

A “what” can’t cause or do anything until it is itself, produced / caused . And A “what” doesn’t produce / cause itself. So who caused the first cause.

 

[Bradskii]

rossum:

Is a phototrophic algae more intelligent than a grain of sand? All that is needed is a light detector and a “move elsewhere if the light level is wrong” instruction. That is a very basic form of intelligence, and can obviously be produced by evolution.

Silicone, I think, has never demonstrated any living properties including intelligence. To categorize algae as intelligent requires first a definition of intelligence. I think another poster is leading us in that direction.

And if you accept goal directed adaptive behaviour as even a precurser to intelligence that that is exactly what the algae exhibits. And see the citation to Sternburg and Salter here for an example of those that do.

Intelligence - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Bradskii]

rossum:

Is a phototrophic algae more intelligent than a grain of sand? All that is needed is a light detector and a “move elsewhere if the light level is wrong” instruction. That is a very basic form of intelligence, and can obviously be produced by evolution.

rossum

The ultimate questions to ask is

Evolution presumes you have something already that can evolve. Who not what, caused “something” / “everything that is”, to come into existence?

A “what” can’t cause or do anything until it is itself, produced / caused . And A “what” doesn’t produce / cause itself. So who caused the first cause.

That’s a good question, Steve (you do know that the OP assumes God to be the first cause?).

 

[STT]

What would we have if there was no laws of nature? Chaos. What would we have if universe was Chaotic? No intelligent being. That is all.