The Intelligence Behind Evolution?

ID holds that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that these designs could not have originated via neo-Darwinistic processes within the time periods shown by the fossil record.

So it is a time crunch problem? That if given a larger period of time, the designs could happen even within the scope of random mutation?

But who are the designers in your opinion? Aliens? God? Simulation programmers?

The problem we face when trying to imagine these things is that we are conditioned by centuries of reductionism to think that everything is separate and isolated. My thoughts are leading in the opposite direction so that I see, more and more, a collaborative enterprise from the largest scale (the fine tuning of the universe) to the smallest (biological) scale - cellular cooperation and epigenetics, for example.

Just to take that thought a step further, the operation of Psi in this collaborative enterprise is pretty much a given. Mind must communicate with mind, whether that is mind as we understand it in human terms or, more significantly, the kind of rudimentary consciousness in the cell, the inter-cellular intelligence which orchestrates biological processes which keep us alive from moment to moment and onwards and upwards to the overseeing mind which does for the species what the biological-control intelligence does for the individual body. In short, we really have to rethink our ideas of mind, of what constitutes a mind because it seems to me that mind can constitute in an infinite variety of forms.

The problem we face when trying to imagine these things is that we are conditioned by centuries of reductionism to think that everything is separate and isolated.

This Aeon article struck me as being supportive of morphic resonance.

Possible creatures

It seemed Darwin had banished biological essences – yet evolution would fail without nature’s library of Platonic forms

I was thinking about this....though everything I've read/watched of Sheldrake makes it seem he is quite comfortable with the idea of ID, and there is a good argument that Platonic forms are best thought of as mental objects which would then require a Mind.

OTOH Morphic Resonance has always AFAIK been a theory of fields, which are physical entities. Even here, however, Braude's critiques about "similarity in structure" being a judgement by minds leaves open a place for some kind of mental aspect involved in the selection process.

The problem we face when trying to imagine these things is that we are conditioned by centuries of reductionism to think that everything is separate and isolated. My thoughts are leading in the opposite direction so that I see, more and more, a collaborative enterprise from the largest scale (the fine tuning of the universe) to the smallest (biological) scale - cellular cooperation and epigenetics, for example.

One of the associated difficulties in that now old-fashioned line of thought is that it was considered necessary to discard the idea of God. Be that as it may, the whole thing rippled all the way down so that consciousness itself was also discarded. This was supposedly justified on the grounds of seeking objectivity rather than subjectivity. But this simple (supposedly) shift in perspective ended up meaning that there was no place for consciousness, having shifted from subjective to objective, it was henceforth impossible to switch back since the subjective was deemed to no longer exist, in any meaningful sense.

I digress a little. But where my train of thought is leading is that in discarding God and subjectivity, every level of consciousness permeating anything, anywhere was deemed either 'out of scope' or increasingly, 'non-existent'. I get both frustrated and bored in equal measure when I hear the line 'God did it', it seems to have failed to recognise that God is not the only missing ingredient. It is EVERY level of consciousness, great and small, whether of a particle, an individual cell, an individual creature, or any grouping thereof. There are possibilities throughout the system, at every level from the sub-atomic to the intergalactic. It is somehow demeaning to only speak of God, it omits so much, it omits you and I and that beehive over there and anything and everything which could (and probably does) possess some form of consciousness.

So it is a time crunch problem? That if given a larger period of time, the designs could happen even within the scope of random mutation?

But who are the designers in your opinion? Aliens? God? Simulation programmers?

There isn't a clear consensus among ID advocates and researchers whether it's a "time crunch" or a fundamental limitation. Michael Behe's latest research (documented in "Darwin Devolves") indicates that it is a fundamental limitation. Even if that is not the case, probabilistic calculations show the actual time required would be many times the age of the Earth, and impossible for all practical purposes.

Who are the designers? I certainly don't pin that on God. It could be aliens, but that would not solve the basic problem, since that would just be transferring the origin problem over to another biosphere and another evolutionary process with many creative developments especially the major innovations impossible for neo-Darwinism. Maybe simulation programmers, but the same problem with this - it's just "kicking the can down the road" as far as the origin problem is concerned. These notions are certainly possible but just don't solve the basic problem.

I find it very hard to imagine that the "designers" are somehow the distributed innate intelligence of all life, or even just of bacteria and relatively simple organisms, primarily because the engineering design process clearly (at least to me) requires focused conscious intelligence, which is very hard to plausibly imagine as belonging to these distributed "intelligences".

So my best guess at present is some sort of very advanced spiritual beings operating from their realm of existence. This concept of course also has problems, but at least it isn't just transferring the origin problem upstream. 

One obvious difficulty is understanding why such beings wouldn't just create the necessary vehicles of consciousness (i.e. something like human beings) rather than resorting to a long evolutionary process in which they had to frequently intervene. My view on this is that these beings must be very powerful and supremely intelligent, but not unlimited. They are not all-knowing and all-capable.

In particular they must have the limitation that, like humans, to design a very complex system they have to go through an evolving design process depending on creative insights coming along occasionally in the process of designing a long succession of improving designs. Every major step is based in part on the previous successful design version, utilizing all the previous work in the development. An obvious human example would be the design evolution of flying vehicles, starting with the Wright Brothers, going to biplanes and small piston engines, then large monoplanes with large piston engines, then jet turbine engines, hydraulic control, computer automation, GPS, it goes on. At no point were humans mentally capable of foreseeing the future results of all this research, prototype building, flying experience, etc. etc. 

These putative very advanced spiritual beings responsible for evolution having these limitations clearly implies they are not whatever intelligences or Intelligence designed the Universe itself. They must be of a lower, but still extremely powerful, order. This implies that there is a hierarchy, as is believed in several spiritual traditions.

But where my train of thought is leading is that in discarding God and subjectivity, every level of consciousness permeating anything, anywhere was deemed either 'out of scope' or increasingly, 'non-existent'. I get both frustrated and bored in equal measure when I hear the line 'God did it', it seems to have failed to recognise that God is not the only missing ingredient. It is EVERY level of consciousness, great and small, whether of a particle, an individual cell, an individual creature, or any grouping thereof. There are possibilities throughout the system, at every level from the sub-atomic to the intergalactic. It is somehow demeaning to only speak of God, it omits so much, it omits you and I and that beehive over there and anything and everything which could (and probably does) possess some form of consciousness.

Descriptions of the influence of God are not expressed in scientific data terms.  Intelligence can be addressed based on outcomes in logical space.  I strongly agree that mind and understanding includes every level of consciousness and more.  There is plenty of "good stuff" that is observable and expressing natural patterns of interest.  Natural patterns that present documentation mapping the actions of minds in change in natural environments.

That said, eliminating the "casual closure" of physics and becoming open to other levels of generative causes, doesn't exclude notions of spirituality and religion.  All of the wonderful sciences of information and physics, (I get excited about) do not address spiritual evolution.  It's not science vs god, it's science vs bad scientific analysis.

Spiritualty/God remains an open option, based on the presence of a seemingly universal sense of good and evil at a level different from natural science. 

I see everything to gain in pursuing the information science behind Psi -- and nothing to lose.  Finding natural science answers, doesn't eclipse concepts, at other levels of analysis, which are ethical or Divine .

  Finding natural science answers, doesn't eclipse concepts, at other levels of analysis, which are ethical or Divine .

Just so long as “natural science” doesn’t automatically preclude what is now considered “supernatural”. Right now it does, according to most scientists. Or are you also saying that the Divine, being supernatural, should be subject to “other levels of analysis” meaning, perhaps, non-scientific?

Just so long as “natural science” doesn’t automatically preclude what is now considered “supernatural”. Right now it does, according to most scientists. Or are you also saying that the Divine, being supernatural, should be subject to “other levels of analysis” meaning, perhaps, non-scientific?

Materials science, physics, and communication equations are purposely set to remove mind to get a certain useful category of data, in terms of methods and tools.  So, methodically, science mostly can't "see" evidence for good intent and moral imperatives.  The process map (ironically) masks purpose and intent in nature -- on purpose.  However, within the successful method has grown a terrible attitude toward things of mind.

While the heuristics of the many science methods seek an objective view, there is no reason to "project" any rule or reason to exclude things in the category of mind and spirit.   

There are disciplines of science that do address meaning, like linguistics, ecology, sociology, etc... These can speak to religion and the practices of spirituality.  As can psychology.  That some percent of "scientists" say something is not really of much concern, as they are just people with opinions.  Let the facts speak -- that in all times and all peoples Psi has been observed.

 That some percent of "scientists" say something is not really of much concern, as they are just people with opinions.  Let the facts speak -- that in all times and all peoples Psi has been observed.

With respect, the body of opinion represented by the majority of scientists has to be of concern. They determine on behalf of the rest of us what the facts are. But there is a danger of restricting the truth to only what can be shown to be true by accepted scientific methods. When qualified and capable scientists turn to researching phenomena outside of what has been determined to be “natural”, this research is not accepted as presenting facts but is mostly dismissed as flawed and poorly designed because, well obviously, something that is impossible cannot be considered in the first place.

 
I'm curious. Nobody seems to have commented on my question of how (in a little detail) can some sort of "bottom up" distributed intelligence generated by all life, in particular primitive organisms like bacteria, produce the actual real-world example I presented of high levels of design that did actually happen suddenly somehow in the early Cambrian. The question is, how exactly would apparently vague ideas about a "bottom up" intelligence in primitive life specifically apply to the apparently intelligent process of some sort that must have originated the very complex and interlaced Arthropod body plan as I described it? What are some arguments against my conclusion that the intelligence involved must have been sentient focused conscious intelligence of some kind? Nobody seems to agree, but there haven't been any rejoinders.