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

[steve-b]

steve-b:

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?).

Yes

I was merely offering a question to ask, to pursue in THAT direction

 

[o_mlly]

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

If the movement is random and reflexive then the behavior exhibits no intelligence, i.e., there is no adaptive movement as the movement that occurs is always and everywhere the only possible movement. To adapt is to change the movement from one kind to another.

We agree that vegetative life is not intelligent life. And if a thing is not intelligent then it is not intelligent at any level, basic or advanced. Intelligence always requires at least the faculty of intellection.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

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

If the movement is random and reflexive then the behavior exhibits no intelligence, i.e., there is no adaptive movement as the movement that occurs is always and everywhere the only possible movement. To adapt is to change the movement from one kind to another.

We agree that vegetative life is not intelligent life. And if a thing is not intelligent then it is not intelligent at any level, basic or advanced. Intelligence always requires at least the faculty of intellection.

You seem to want the first intelligence to be something along the lines of: ‘Hmm. The environment over there is much more conducive to my survival so I think I’ll relocate’.

The start of intelligence doesn’t require any internal debate. That comes later. It evolves. And the movement that an organism exhibits which allows it to survive is NOT the only movement available to it. Organisms that move towards life threatening stimuli do not survive as well as those that do. So guess what happens…

Those that avoided life threatening environments by virtue of a genetic make up that they were lucky enough to have that prompted them to do so, passed on their lucky move-away-from-heat (for example) genes to offspring which did the same.

And a very basic neuron system that detected best-to-avoid scenarios gradually develloped into a central system which gave some more of the requirements of that which you would define as intelligence. And so on and so forth.

You have a problem in that you can’t see intelligence as a continuum from the most basic of abilities to survive (even by organisms that can barely be described as alive) to Dianne from accounts. We have that continuum now. All the way from viruses to the girl in accounts. It’s available to anyone to study. But it’s like our evolution from apes to man. It’s a continuum and there was never a point at which you could say that, yes, it was exactly at this point that we changed from one to the other.

You are back to Tuesday-afternoon-ism.

 

[o_mlly]

You seem to want the first intelligence to be something along the lines of: ‘Hmm. The environment over there is much more conducive to my survival so I think I’ll relocate’.

The start of intelligence doesn’t require any internal debate. That comes later. It evolves. And the movement that an organism exhibits which allows it to survive is NOT the only movement available to it. Organisms that move towards life threatening stimuli do not survive as well as those that do. So guess what happens…

Living organisms that move toward life threatening stimuli do not adapt, they just die. And if those living organisms reproduced before they moved toward the life threatening stimuli, their reproductions can and only will do the same, and they die. They don’t adapt either. Now you guess what happens to those non-intelligent, non-adaptive strains of life. That’s right: extinction.

Your own citation describes the minimum requirements for attributing intelligence, “It [intelligence] can be more generally described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.” Perception, memory and adaption are evidence of intellect.

As to the mimosa leaf and its ability to perceive, remember and adapt; the study cited is not accepted by the author’s peers.

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pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Clearly, the best challenge for these findings is further empirical work. In addition, while we feel that Beigler offers some good suggestions on how to further improve investigations of Mimosa’s habituation, it is a little disappointing to see no experimental data accompanying his arguments—especially given that Gagliano etal.’s study was published some time ago.

_
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321642565_Plants_learn_and_remember_lets_get_used_to_it

Let us stay within the “bleeding” edge of science on a definition of intelligence.

 

[o_mlly]

You have a problem …

There you go again. Keep it up and we’ll have to put the DNR sign up again,

 

[Bradskii]

What? Who is talking about leaves?

In any case, organisms that die obviously haven’t adapted and are certainly not likely to after they are dead. But the ones that HAVE adapted an ability to move away from danger will pass on their genes. That is, goal directed adaption. And that is a precurser to intelligence as you would seem to want to define it.

Intelligence as you want it defined would be literally impossible to emerge fully formed. It would be like modern man coming into existence as soon as creatures left the sea. Umless you are a creationist, that is impossible. Well, it’s impossible anyway. But you need to start with the most basic of building blocks and let evolution take care of the hard lifting.

 

[rossum]

Evolution presumes you have something already that can evolve.

Creationism presumes that you have something already that can create. We have plenty of examples of evolution happening in the material world; we do not have any example of any deity creating a new species from scratch by any non-evolutionary process.

Who not what, caused “something” / “everything that is”, to come into existence?

Nothing can do that. If that thing did exist, then it would have had to cause itself, which is not possible. Your error is to say “everything that is”. At most your proposed entity could have caused “everything except itself”. You have also assumed a “who” without justification. That is two errors.

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.

Show me any “who” that caused itself. All whos are in the same position as all whats. Nothing, either who or what, can cause itself.

rossum

 

[o_mlly]

In any case, organisms that die obviously haven’t adapted and are certainly not likely to after they are dead. But the ones that HAVE adapted an ability to move away from danger will pass on their genes. That is, goal directed adaption. And that is a precurser to intelligence as you would seem to want to define it.

Do you have empirical evidence that living unintelligent organisms have adapted their behaviors? If so, cite the study.

Do you have empirical evidence that living unintelligent organisms have evolved into living intelligent organisms? If so, cite the study.

Intelligence as you want it defined would be literally impossible to emerge fully formed …

I’ve not yet offered a definition of intelligence nor do I think the definition is a matter of taste. But I have accepted your proffered definition from your citation (which I presume you also accept):

Your own citation describes the minimum requirements for attributing intelligence, “It [intelligence] can be more generally described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.” Perception, memory and adaption are evidence of intellect.

So, if as you claim, intelligence evolved, describe and evidence (fossils please) the line of evolution that produced a creature with the organic parts necessary to perceive, remember, and select different behaviors under the same stimuli (aka: sense organs, nervous system and brain, and, of course, free will).

 

[Bradskii]

Do you have empirical evidence that living unintelligent organisms have evolved into living intelligent organisms? If so, cite the study.

Yes. The study is quite far reaching and all encompassing. It’s called ‘evolution’. Take some time out and read The Ancestors Tale by Dawkins. It relates all our common ancestors all the way back to bacteria.

And at each step, you can see an obvious increase in the development of abilities that reach a point where we can describe the sum of those abilities as human intelligence. At no point is there an ‘aha’ moment when anyone can say that at some given point there was no intelligence and that immediately after there was. Just as we can’t say that at any given moment Homo erectus changed to Homo sapien.

Just work backwards from Homo sapien and you see a gradual decrease in intelligence all the way back to a point where we would all agree that it doesn’t exist. So working forwards, you don’t need to be a Rhodes scholar to work out the corollary: that intelligence developed via the evolutionary process. From a simplt collection of neurons to nerve nets and nerve chords to the centralised nervous system you have between your ears.

And we don’t have to assume this. We can see each stage in extant organisms.

So no, I’m not going to explain the whole of the evolutionary process to you. But that is how intelligence developed. There are no other contenders.

But having said that, if you do have another method you’d like to propose, then I really would like to hear about it.

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

Evolution presumes you have something already that can evolve.

Creationism presumes that you have something already that can create. We have plenty of examples of evolution happening in the material world; we do not have any example of any deity creating a new species from scratch by any non-evolutionary process.

steve-b:

There are ZERO examples of evolution being infinitely regressive i.e. had no 1st cause. There had to be a first cause, BUT to keep that from going infinitely in reverse, it presumes the uncaused cause. God. Who creates everything from nothing. Without THAT there is nothing. And nothing = nothing.
Who(intellectual being) not a what, caused “everything that is”, to come into existence?

rossum:

Nothing can do that. If that thing did exist, then it would have had to cause itself, which is not possible. Your error is to say “everything that is”. At most your proposed entity could have caused “everything except itself”. You have also assumed a “who” without justification. That is two errors.

You just backed into your own problem. You can’t explain the beginning of all that is.

steve-b:

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.

rossum:

Show me any “who” that caused itself. All whos are in the same position as all whats. Nothing, either who or what, can cause itself.

rossum

Show me how everything that is, got here, without a creator. In your world you can’t.

 

[o_mlly]

Do you have empirical evidence that living unintelligent organisms have evolved into living intelligent organisms? If so, cite the study.

Yes. The study is quite far reaching and all encompassing. It’s called ‘evolution’. Take some time out and read The Ancestors Tale by Dawkins. It relates all our common ancestors all the way back to bacteria.

Empirical evidence? No. A science book about a “tale”? Well, this pseudo-tome is aptly named.

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www.merriam-webster.com

This book is a long narrative that begs the question. Dawkins presumes (but does not evidence) that everything that exists in biology has evolved. Using imagination, he strings together not facts but fantasy.

And at each step, you can see an obvious increase in the development of abilities …
And we don’t have to assume this. We can see each stage in extant organisms.

OK. Back up your claims.

I cannot see these obvious increases so please show me. We agreed first faculty necessary to evidence the beginning of intelligence is perception.

Show me the evolution in an organism that acquired the ability to perceive. To perceive, the being must sense and integrate the external. To do so requires sensory organs, neurological organs and an integrating organ. Tell us the extant organisms that obviously evidence they did not have and now have such organs.

 

[Bradskii]

I haven’t the inclination let alone the time to explain evolution to anyone on this forum. Dawkins book will not do it in any case. It’s not meant to. But what it will do is give you a layman’s understanding of where we came from and the lineage we posess.

If you want the nuts and bolts of how we evolved literally everything we have at this particular moment then there is more information at your fingertips than you will be able to absorb.

If you know of other methods in which we have reached this point, then now is the time to bring them up. Otherwise the floor is yours.

 

[IsaiahSpirit]

http://www.scandalon.co.uk/philosophy/cosmological_aquinas.htm

No one here gives any viable refutation of Thomas Aquinas’s complete argument summarized at the above link.
My own consciousness has a cause, and is contingent in the chain of contingency ultimately a non-contingent Being. Therefore this Being must be intelligent. Must have a purpose. While philosophy can derive certain moral truths; it takes being connected to The Being Who is Not Contingent to find more existential truth that
cannot be merely derived being finite but a consciousness in the likeness and image of The Non-Contingent Being. Without this, persons fall into various degrees of arbitrary power over others. If I do not believe in ultimate Benevolence and Hope;
in Truth in Loving Kindness — then some type of callousness will be part of me.
Like fatalism. In free will, certain lives could have been saved if we listened to God.
And in free will, as Providence happens, our main purpose in our individual lives;
is work toward doing all in my power for the good of another and others in general.
No matter the sacrifice I must make.
Only Judaeo Christianity teaches this to the fullest. There is a certain futility and hopelessness in every other religion that I have ever learned about. Judaeo Christianity teaches desires in an of themselves are not to be annihilated for example; only ordered to the good, welfare, and need of another, and others in general. Judaeo Christianity doesn’t teach some kind of oscillating caste system
creation that goes on forever. That would be futile; and not have purpose, and not have ultimate empathy in solidarity to the suffering to alleviate suffering.
Yes, their are tenets of live thy neighbor as thyself in other religions. But Judaeo Christianity, by Revelation from Above through Jesus CHRIST in the FORM of a Man, One in Divine Being With God; by having Both a Divine Nature and Human
Nature — opened The Way to comprehend God and God’s Desire for Living as best
a person is able in Covenant Relationship with God Who Is Self Sufficient; so
living this Covenant doesn’t add or detract from God, but shows trust, appreciation,
and a willingness to be like God, to truly selflessly love our neighbors.
~
Every created sentient consciousness knows this came from somewhere.
So everyone begins with faith; then hopes for betterment; then exhibits true charity
for others or not. Yes, I realized that Jesus Christ allows that history showed many
not living up to what He gives — and states of lack of knowledge due to this; but
it is only by His Merits that anyone can make it to Eternal Peace and Joy forever.
And only God knows hearts. Only God knows who, for love of ego, makes excuses
to deny the Divine Revelation, to live as they wish, even if they gloss it over with charitable works and self importance; while excusing themselves for other things opposed to God and life.
I pray, of course, that more know Jesus Christ personally through His Church; but I pray all heed His Call for Salvation. Always connected to God.

 

[IsaiahSpirit]

And believe Him, when all revelry will end. I do not want to know what it is like to have only my egotistical desires to feed on; and yet not allowed to fulfill any of them.
It must be extremely very painful. I suppose in God’s Justice they each get periods of lethargy not consciously aware of those desires; (a kind of annihilation of desire);
but repeated blame The All Powerful Benevolent God for their own decision.
~
May many more choose God!

 

[o_mlly]

I haven’t the inclination let alone the time to explain evolution to anyone on this forum.

We didn’t ask for an “explanation of evolution.” We only asked that you identify, as you claim exist, the obvious extant organisms that prove intelligence beings evolved from unintelligent beings.

Goodness, if the examples are obvious and extant, how hard could it be to simply point them out? If you do not have the information (or inclination?) to backup your claims, just say so.

But what it will do is give you a layman’s understanding of where we came from and the lineage we posess.

We’re looking for a philosophical, not layman’s, understanding. (This is the Philosophy forum.) As philosophers, we accept as premises scientific evidence when all, or at least most, experts in the field are in agreement.

If you want the nuts and bolts of how we evolved literally everything we have at this particular moment then there is more information at your fingertips than you will be able to absorb.

We didn’t ask for “literally everything.” Remember, the last time you replied that it was too much work we said, OK let’s keep it simple: Just identify those obvious and extant examples that prove intelligent beings evolved from unintelligent beings. That’s all.

 

[steve-b]

I haven’t the inclination let alone the time to explain evolution to anyone on this forum. Dawkins book will not do it in any case. It’s not meant to. But what it will do is give you a layman’s understanding of where we came from and the lineage we posess.

If you want the nuts and bolts of how we evolved literally everything we have at this particular moment then there is more information at your fingertips than you will be able to absorb.

If you know of other methods in which we have reached this point, then now is the time to bring them up. Otherwise the floor is yours.

The question is, who started everything that is.

I say it that way because a "what" isn’t an intelligent cause of anything. It’s an effect but not a cause.

 

[rossum]

Show me how everything that is, got here, without a creator. In your world you can’t.

I can. For the material universe, try the multiverse as one of the options cosmologists are looking at. The multiverse is outside time, obviously since time is part of the space-time manifold which derived from the multiverse at the Big Bang. Since it is outside time, it is atemporal and needs no cause.

Oh yes, the multiverse is not intelligent.

rossum

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

Show me how everything that is, got here, without a creator. In your world you can’t.

I can. For the material universe, try the multiverse as one of the options cosmologists are looking at. The multiverse is outside time, obviously since time is part of the space-time manifold which derived from the multiverse at theBig Bang. Since it is outside time, it is atemporal and needs no cause.

Oh yes, the multiverse is not intelligent.

rossum

EVERYTHING needs a cause.

All you posted is effect. Who caused it.?

 

[rossum]

EVERYTHING needs a cause.

If you are correct, then God needs a cause as well. However, you are incorrect because only things with a beginning need a cause, as in the Kalaam Argument.

Since the multiverse does not have a beginning then it does not need, nor can it have, a cause.

Time is a part of the four dimensional space-time manifold that originated at the Big Bang. Hence the multiverse was present ‘before’ (for some meaning of ‘before’) the Big Bang.

rossum

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

EVERYTHING needs a cause.

If you are correct, then God needs a cause as well.

God doesn’t need anything.

rossum:

However, you are incorrect because only things with a beginning need a cause, as in the Kalaam Argument.

God has no beginning. He’s always been there. Kalaam ? No.

rossum:

Since the multiverse does not have a beginning then it does not need, nor can it have, a cause.

The only cause and beginning it has, is in your imagination.

rossum:

Time is a part of the four dimensional space-time manifold that originated at the Big Bang. Hence the multiverse was present ‘before’ (for some meaning of ‘before’) the Big Bang.

That is sciences poor attempt at trying to give an answer they don’t have a scientific answer for. The big bang isn’t science. Science can’t prove that.

Anymore than they can prove the universe is 13.7 billion years old +/- 2%. Anymore than they can prove we’ve had 4 ice ages before any living thing was on this planet. Which means we’ve had 4 global warmings without anyone being here.

Think about NASA’s number. +2% = .274 billion years over the 13.7 billion years. So let’s just ask, what was there 14 billion years ago? NOTHING. NOTHING to go BANG! If science wants to argue singularity was there, and it was singularity that went bang, then measuring any particle of that bang, like the earth, it should be impossible to measure the earths age because it’s part of singularity, and singularity according to science was always there…

Now if one wants to argue that singularity wasn’t always there, then they have no answer as to what caused singularity, and this phenominal design of the universe and life coming from NOTHING