(January 31, 2015 at 5:35 pm)rasetsu Wrote:
The text in green speaks to an analogy with biological evolution. The text in blue speaks to an analogy with abiogenesis. Which does your conclusion speak to, abiogenesis or evolution, or both? Because if it is drawing upon an analogy to evolution, we already know that evolution doesn't require the intervention of an intellect. If your conclusion is about abiogenesis, then your analogy is flawed in multiple ways. First, we don't know that the parallels between the genesis of Heywood systems resemble those of the genesis of biological evolutionary systems. Second, you don't know what the essential elements of abiogenesis are, so you can't draw an analogy to an unknown; perhaps replication, heritability, change and selection encapsulate the necessary ingredients of that process, perhaps not. You don't know what the genesis of biological life looked like, so it's impossible to say if your analogous Heywood systems are even relevant.
To implement an evolutionary system requires putting together the processes of replication, change, and selection in way that they all operate upon a thing. That thing can be a self replicating molecule as in the case of biological evolution, a phrase as in the case of Chinese Whispers, and an automobile as in the case of automobile evolution. There must be a first of the thing which those processes operate. Let us call that first thing in an evolutionary system a "seed".
Perhaps, the role of the intellect in implementing evolutionary systems is that it creates/designs the "seed". I'm not ready to commit to this idea but lets explore it. Since each evolutionary system at some point utilized a "seed" we can say there is a set of all "seeds". The same argument can be employed. Have we ever observed a "seed" which did not require an intellect to come into existence? If when we observe "seeds" coming into existence and find they always require intellects(while never observing one coming into existence not requiring an intellect) doesn't that suggest that all "seeds" require intellect to come into existence? Why don't we see "seeds" coming into existence without requiring intellects today? If we do can you present an observation of such?
I think your point, that we aren't really talking about evolution but something else, is worthy of consideration. I just don't think it refutes the argument.
