The Intelligence Behind Evolution?

On the other hand, perhaps we have lost - or rather - let wither the innate ability to share our thoughts and feelings? I am not talking about mind reading in the sense of knowing verbatim the thoughts of another but of some deep level of communication between minds that ensures empathy and indicates intent.

I've mentioned before the constantly surprising ability of my son's dog to know when I have decided to take him for a walk without any action on my part to indicate my decision. His back end starts wagging furiously and he gets all excited and I'm just sitting there thinking. This is a feat demonstrated by Rupert Sheldrakes experiments with Jaytee, the dog who knew when its owner is coming home. Almost any dog owner will agree with that anecdotally. I've seen it in action many times with dogs and cats. And the classic with cats is how they disappear when a visit to the vet is scheduled. Or animals that are drawn to comfort the dying. I'm reminded of the amazing story about how a herd of elephants marched many miles back to the dying man who had previously cared for them.

I think that these abilities are available to humans but we have suppressed them over time. Perhaps this is a consequence of developing spoken and written language. Perhaps it is the obsession with objectivity over subjectivity. I don't know but I think that there are people who are more sensitive than others even now.

What you've said are things I've thought or heard from other people close to me. So yes, I agree. My previous post was taking an angle, a point of view, rather than describing all of my view.

While I - like neuroscientist Raymond Tallis - don't think material structures can hold memories, this article on how our ability to have memories is due to absorption by a virus did make me think about design arguments...

But scientists never thought they would stumble on evidence that pointed to a viral origin for Arc, as these new findings suggest.

The research team needed to verify this theory, so they tested whether Arc actually acts like a virus. It turns out the Arc capsid encapsulated its own RNA. When they put the Arc capsids into a mouse brain cell culture, the capsids transferred their RNA to the mouse brain cells — just like viral infection does.

“We went into this line of research knowing that Arc was special in many ways, but when we discovered that Arc was able to mediate cell-to-cell transport of RNA, we were floored,” says the study’s lead author, postdoctoral fellow Elissa Pastuzyn, Ph.D., in a statement. “No other non-viral protein that we know of acts in this way.”

The researchers suspect this virus-mammal collaboration happened sometime between 350 and 400 million years ago when a retrotransposon — the ancestor of modern retroviruses — got its DNA into a four-legged creature. They also suspect that this happened more an once. If they’re right, this research complicates the picture of the evolution of life as we know it. Not only did many mutations happen by random chance to make us what we are today, but we actually borrowed biology from other cells and organisms to get here.

I have to admit I'm skeptical that the fundamental characteristic of a person's continuity through time, their memory, and thus the bedrock of all civilization is due to a random fluke.

OTOH, Gordon White did have an interesting panpsermia argument that sought to tie the material aspect with a spiritual one. I had mentioned it previously, but it does get unwieldy as White spins together cosmic serpents, aliens, viruses, etc.

In 13 Things That Don't Make Sense by Michael Brooks, which White draws from, the idea of a virus as common ancestor gets mentioned ->

Mimi -like all viruses- looks like some kind of crystal. It doesn’t look baggy, like a cell or bacterium. It looks like something that has arranged its structure according to neat architectural principles. Its head is an icosohedron, multi-faceted, like a well-cut gemstone. It looks well-ordered, disciplined.

And it is. Unlike other viruses, it has a genome that is a model of restraint. Where most viruses have a headful of “junk” DNA that seems to serve no purpose, most of Mimivirus’s genes perform well-defined tasks. And what tasks. There are genes, for example, that encode for the instruction and apparatus for making proteins. This violates biological dogma straightaway; viruses are supposed to let their hosts make the proteins. Some of the protein-making apparatus in Mimivirus is exactly the same as you’d find in all the things we call “alive.” There are also genes for repairing and untangling DNA, for metabolizing sugars, and for protein folding -an essential step in the construction of life. The Marseille researchers found Mimivirus is the proud owner of a grand total of 1,262 genes. (The typical virus has 100 or so but only uses around 10.) Scientists had never seen somewhere near half of them before, which has the Marseille researchers excited. However it is the ones they had seen before that are causing the most fuss.

...What if, for instance, viruses weren’t always parasites? What if they evolved before life split into eukaryotes, bacteria and archaea, but subsequently lost some of their independence? In that case they would have every right to be called alive -and they might hold clues, as many clues as the other three groups, about our Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). Since LUCA is practically the holy grail of biology, it doesn’t do to ignore the possibility, and the claim is not without foundation. Around half of Mimivirus’s genes are unknown to science; no one has a clue what they encode. Considering how many genomes we have now sequenced, how many genes we have sequenced, that is rather surprising. Unless, that is, Mimivirus really is from another age. So perhaps in a bygone era Mimivirus wasn’t a virus at all, but an independent, free-living organism that later fell on hard times and resorted to piracy. The 450 hitherto-unseen genes are one hint toward this; they may be relics of the distant past. But it is the seven genes it shares with every other living thing that provide the most intriguing clue...

See also this essay -> Does the discovery of the mimivirus call into question attempts to define life?

Since the discovery of the mimivirus, other giant viruses with similar properties have been found such as the Klosneuvirus in Austria (Schulz, 2017). This virus had even more translational machinery coding for aminoacyl tRNA synthetase and a slightly bigger genome of 1.57 Mb (Schulz, 2017). Schulz suggested that the giant virus family had originated from smaller viruses by gradually accumulating host genes and not from an ancient cellular ancestor (Schulz, 2017). Translation-related genes were advantageous as the host could shut down their own translational apparatus as an antiviral response (Schulz, 2017). Another notable giant virus discovery is the Turpanvirus, which was found in Brazil and had all the translational machinery required apart from the ribosome. Members of this family also have a large cylindrical tail meaning they can be up to 2.3 μm long overall (Abrahão, Silva and Santos, 2018).

One of the things White insists on is that viruses can survive in space. I assume he refers to specific viruses, because obviously some viruses perish outside of a host relatively quickly.

So checking Wikipedia's List of microorganisms tested in outer space there seem to be at least 5 viruses capable of space travel.

However, we also now know that bacteria seem capable of surviving in space for years:

Microbiologists have spent decades studying extremophiles, organisms that endure extreme conditions, to tug at the mysterious threads of how life blossomed on Earth. Some extremophiles can live unprotected in space for several days; others can endure for years, but only by carving out a home inside rocks. These findings underpin the theory that life as we know it can transfer between planets within meteorites or comets. Now, new findings published today in Frontiers in Microbiology, based on that experiment on the International Space Station, show that the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans can survive at least three years in space. Akihiko Yamagishi, a microbiologist at Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences who led the study, says the results also suggest that microbial life could travel between planets unprotected by rock.

Of course even if there was a virus or bacteria from space as a common ancestor, if other viruses are required later in development for stuff like memory then it would seem that you'd need panspermia + intelligent design.

Can a virus flung into space be haunted, so that as biological life spun out in the primordial ocean there was some spirit who had come along for the space ride to ensure things went right enough for sentient beings to develop? (There's actually an old movie that has ghosts haunting fragments of a planet, possibly due to a Scientology influence.)

Of course, given we likely cannot retrieve hard evidence of advanced technology too far in the past, aliens might've not only landed but stayed awhile so there might not need to be a spiritual explanation at all...at least not for a particular chain of biological development.

However, what does remain in need of explanation is the mental aspects themselves and why they would correlate to any material structure.

Those creatures we call "aliens", Vallee's "neighbors", seem like a good guess...

Though it just isn't clear if these beings really have/make technology. Sometimes it seems like they do have amazing tech, other times it seems like it's akin to those weird dreams you have of cars/elevators/etc where the "technology" extends into outright bizarre functionality. (The car can drive underwater, the elevator teleports you to some fantastical place, etc.)

Sadly I haven't gone deep enough to make a good case either way.

From Gordon White's Star.Ships ->

...it is useful to consider a story told to Vallée in the early 1970s by an engineer who encountered anomalous phenomena during an archaeological field trip when he was still a student. This engineer wandered away from the group, came to a clearing behind some trees and encountered a twenty-foot-wide disc with a translucent elevator that transported him aboard. ‘As in a dream or a movie,’ the vehicle instantly transported him to a desolate area and deposited him on a hilltop beside a five-by-twenty-foot computer. (The encounter happened in the early 60s). He spent what he thought was three hours with the computer, reading row after row of ‘recordings’ that transmitted ‘advanced information’ directly into his mind, before the disc returned and flew him back to the same spot. What he thought was three hours turned out to be 18 days. His father, a government official (which may or may not be relevant), had had the military out looking for him. The engineer still had impeccable clothing, the flower in his lapel had not decayed and he did not need a shave. In the following six months, the man required an abnormal amount of sleep, 13 hours a night, after which he needed less and less. At the time of his encounter with Dr Vallée, over a decade later, he said he still only needed a few hours a night, and had not had, or at least recalled, a single dream since the incident. His experiences at university changed as well: he instantly understood and recalled with perfect clarity everything he was taught. He also believed he had psychokinetic powers as well as the ability to astral project at will.

If you swap the giant, 1960s computer with the classic shamanic ‘Otherworld,’ then this is a story as old as time. But even the presence of the computer is quite illustrative. These phenomena appear in the most technologically advanced way possible for each individual culture, which is why over the last 150 years the aerial components have gone from airships in the late 1800s, to flying saucers in the mid twentieth century to triangles or chevrons in a post-stealth-bomber world.

 -Gordon White. Star.Ships 

From Gordon White's Star.Ships ->

...it is useful to consider a story told to Vallée in the early 1970s by an engineer who encountered anomalous phenomena during an archaeological field trip when he was still a student. This engineer wandered away from the group, came to a clearing behind some trees and encountered a twenty-foot-wide disc with a translucent elevator that transported him aboard. ‘As in a dream or a movie,’ the vehicle instantly transported him to a desolate area and deposited him on a hilltop beside a five-by-twenty-foot computer. (The encounter happened in the early 60s). He spent what he thought was three hours with the computer, reading row after row of ‘recordings’ that transmitted ‘advanced information’ directly into his mind, before the disc returned and flew him back to the same spot. What he thought was three hours turned out to be 18 days. His father, a government official (which may or may not be relevant), had had the military out looking for him. The engineer still had impeccable clothing, the flower in his lapel had not decayed and he did not need a shave. In the following six months, the man required an abnormal amount of sleep, 13 hours a night, after which he needed less and less. At the time of his encounter with Dr Vallée, over a decade later, he said he still only needed a few hours a night, and had not had, or at least recalled, a single dream since the incident. His experiences at university changed as well: he instantly understood and recalled with perfect clarity everything he was taught. He also believed he had psychokinetic powers as well as the ability to astral project at will.

If you swap the giant, 1960s computer with the classic shamanic ‘Otherworld,’ then this is a story as old as time. But even the presence of the computer is quite illustrative. These phenomena appear in the most technologically advanced way possible for each individual culture, which is why over the last 150 years the aerial components have gone from airships in the late 1800s, to flying saucers in the mid twentieth century to triangles or chevrons in a post-stealth-bomber world.

 -Gordon White. Star.Ships 

This of course is supposed to show that all UFOs are manifestations of some sort of humanity-generated or humanity-attracted quasi-spiritual entities with paranormal powers. I think Valle and other thinkers along these lines unreasonably ignore the distinct possibility that the UFO phenomenon is complicated enough that in addition to paranormal-powered ultraterrestrial entities, "nuts and bolts" UFO vehicles from other planetary systems in our physical universe comprise a not insignificant portion of the sightings. A number of these latter type of cases are very evidential for such a physical interpretation, especially in their involving vehicle interactions with EMI and other electromagnetic effects.

This of course is supposed to show that all UFOs are manifestations of some sort of humanity-generated or humanity-attracted quasi-spiritual entities with paranormal powers. I think Valle and other thinkers along these lines unreasonably ignore the distinct possibility that the UFO phenomenon is complicated enough that in addition to paranormal-powered ultraterrestrial entities, "nuts and bolts" UFO vehicles from other planetary systems in our physical universe comprise a not insignificant portion of the sightings. A number of these latter type of cases are very evidential for such a physical interpretation, especially in their involving vehicle interactions with EMI and other electromagnetic effects.

I think a spirit could have electromagnetic effects?

But if the Earth can be reached via traversing physical space, then such aliens probably could have designed or at least influenced life on this planet? Not necessarily, but looking at our own history it is difficult to see how an alien could have knowledge of interstellar travel without picking up some knowledge of biology on that way.

It's also possible that to travel such great distances requires going through some kind of "sub-space" or "hyper-space" level, where Mind and Matter are more unified. Say, for example, getting closer to the Implicit Order that Bohm believed underlay our reality. So perhaps the ultra-terrestrials are really extra-terrestrials moving through - and possibly being changed - by that Other Space...

The ET-Design hypothesis would need to find something in our genetic makeup that points to scientific engineering, and while there are potential hints AFAIK nothing yet has been found that would be substantial "smoke" let along the "fire"?

I think a spirit could have electromagnetic effects?

But if the Earth can be reached via traversing physical space, then such aliens probably could have designed or at least influenced life on this planet? Not necessarily, but looking at our own history it is difficult to see how an alien could have knowledge of interstellar travel without picking up some knowledge of biology on that way.

It's also possible that to travel such great distances requires going through some kind of "sub-space" or "hyper-space" level, where Mind and Matter are more unified. Say, for example, getting closer to the Implicit Order that Bohm believed underlay our reality. So perhaps the ultra-terrestrials are really extra-terrestrials moving through - and possibly being changed - by that Other Space...

The ET-Design hypothesis would need to find something in our genetic makeup that points to scientific engineering, and while there are potential hints AFAIK nothing yet has been found that would be substantial "smoke" let along the "fire"?

Certainly it is a possibility that very technologically/scientifically advanced aliens might have originated life on our planet and/or periodically intervened in evolution in order to direct it in their desired direction. The bio-science and technology needed are at least conceivable based on our present level of advancement. The only problem with this hypothesis is that it has a very big explanatory hole - it still doesn't explain the ultimate origin of life and of higher forms including intelligent animals such as the aliens themselves. 

Darwinism fails as a theory of naturalistic evolution, with no plausible alternate naturalistic theory available, so that leaves intervention by some even earlier alien race as a default theory for the origin of the aliens that created and directed the evolution of Earth life. But then so also would be even their origin, and so on ad infinitum. This is an infinite regression. 

I think this would likely indicate that there is probably both a non-Darwinistic and a non-alien intervention proximal cause for the creation and direction of evolution of Earth life. This alternate hypothesis could be the very advanced and powerful but not unlimitedly powerful/knowledgeable spiritual beings hypothesis. Of course this also could possibly lead to an infinite regression of origins, except that the metaphysics of a spiritual realm allows there to be an ultimate uncaused Cause of all lower beings.  

On UFOs and ETs: research in the last several decades has shown that the many complicated organelles and other molecular machines in the cell very much indicate ingenious engineering design - just look up ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, the nucleus of DNA-composed chromosomes ingeniously folded up in a very confined space, the spliceosome, the cytoskeleton, the flagellum in prokaryotic bacteria, it goes on with many more. Most of these molecular machines are irreducibly complex and they are "designed" to very intricately all work together like a vast microminiaturized factory, to boot. I think the existence of these intricate molecular machines very loudly points to "scientific engineering" of a high degree of sophistication and creativity. At this early stage of hypothesis-making, there are two main design hypotheses - aliens, and advanced but still limited spiritual beings inhabiting a spiritual realm interacting with our physical realm.

Certainly it is a possibility that very technologically/scientifically advanced aliens might have originated life on our planet and/or periodically intervened in evolution in order to direct it in their desired direction. The bio-science and technology needed are at least conceivable based on our present level of advancement. The only problem with this hypothesis is that it has a very big explanatory hole - it still doesn't explain the ultimate origin of life and of higher forms including intelligent animals such as the aliens themselves...

...On UFOs and ETs: research in the last several decades has shown that the many complicated organelles and other molecular machines in the cell very much indicate ingenious engineering design - just look up ribosomes, Golgi apparatus, the nucleus of DNA-composed chromosomes ingeniously folded up in a very confined space, the spliceosome, the cytoskeleton, the flagellum in prokaryotic bacteria, it goes on with many more. Most of these molecular machines are irreducibly complex and they are "designed" to very intricately all work together like a vast microminiaturized factory, to boot. I think the existence of these intricate molecular machines very loudly points to "scientific engineering" of a high degree of sophistication and creativity. At this early stage of hypothesis-making, there are two main design hypotheses - aliens, and advanced but still limited spiritual beings inhabiting a spiritual realm interacting with our physical realm.

I'd suspect the aspects of Consciousness are where something on the "Spirit Side" has to come over. Given the recent evidence that our own capacity for Memory on the structural side is due to absorption of a virus it does seem there has to be a kind of mental entity at the very least "matching" physical structure to aspects of Mind.

Nobel winning physicist Josephson has posited something like this ->

The idea that nature at some deeper level has biological aspects is not fundamentally absurd, and has been previously explored by authors such asSmolin[7] and Pattee[8]. The above analysis has explored some aspects of the‘biological logic’ applicable to such a scenario, in particular the mechanics of development, which could lead to what might be termed ‘extended mind’. Faculties such as mathematical intuition, difficult to account for in conventional ways, might be manifestations of the extended mind, which might also be related to experiences of meaning in art.

We know Bohm had similar ideas, as per his student Basil Hiley ->

GM: Because you shouldn’t think of it in terms of a mechanistic motion of particles?

BH: Yes, it’s nothing like that. It’s not mechanism. It organicism. It’s organic. Nature is more organic than we think it is. And then you can understand why life arose, because if nature is organic, it has the possibility of life in it.

Even the guy who Physicalists were turning to in hopes of having a "naturalist" reason for why life arose, Jeremy England, is a devout Jew who says things like ->

That question has in fact always fascinated. I think about the otot [signs] given to Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses], which can be read in many ways. One of the things that they definitely all are about is the boundary between life and nonlife. You start with this living tree or plant, the sneh, which is encased in a fire that does not consume it, which is this kind of contradiction. It should be on the brink of falling apart and turning into smoke, but it lives. And then turning a stick into a snake is turning something that is not alive into something that is alive. Moshe’s tzara’at [skin diseasef] is a disruption in the very boundary of a living thing, an instability in that boundary, and it is a kind of thing that references the boundary between life and death. And the last, which is most clear of all, is that you take the water and dirt of the Nile and you get dam, blood, the sine qua non of life, and it comes simply from the combination of things you don’t think of as being alive.
 
I should probably mention that I actually just struck a deal with Basic Books to write a book about my research for a trade audience that will interweave a close reading of Moshe’s encounter with the burning bush with a careful rumination on the boundary between life and nonlife.

So the Cosmic Fine Tuners could have put some teleological drive and potential for life into the universe.

But then there's the question of life on our planet. If we accept that the process of evolution required interventions at varied points of history, this opens us up to some questions:

- Do spirits have biological know how? And do they need it to alter biological structures?

- Does it make sense for aliens to seed the Earth? Or to travel here to intervene in the evolutionary chain?

I'd suspect the aspects of Consciousness are where something on the "Spirit Side" has to come over. Given the recent evidence that our own capacity for Memory on the structural side is due to absorption of a virus it does seem there has to be a kind of mental entity at the very least "matching" physical structure to aspects of Mind.

Nobel winning physicist Josephson has posited something like this ->


We know Bohm had similar ideas, as per his student Basil Hiley ->


Even the guy who Physicalists were turning to in hopes of having a "naturalist" reason for why life arose, Jeremy England, is a devout Jew who says things like ->


So the Cosmic Fine Tuners could have put some teleological drive and potential for life into the universe.

But then there's the question of life on our planet. If we accept that the process of evolution required interventions at varied points of history, this opens us up to some questions:

- Do spirits have biological know how? And do they need it to alter biological structures?

- Does it make sense for aliens to seed the Earth? Or to travel here to intervene in the evolutionary chain?

We only can know a few things on this: either the spirits must have had what it takes, or the aliens, or the world simulation programmers, or whatever other intelligences (the nature of which we may not even be able to imagine) that are responsible. We can't possibly know for sure who or what, but we know they had to have the necessary knowledge and physical powers. This enterprise obviously must make sense to whatever intelligence(s) are the evolutionary agents. I don't see how this ignorance on our part is anything but an inevitable and permanent factor. Really - it's not likely that we're going to be able to learn much about the extremely powerful spiritual entities if they are the agents, or the aliens, or who or whatever else, unless they decide to illumine us with this knowledge. In other words, the avoidance of much in the way of speculation on this by most proponents of ID has a good reason.

We only can know a few things on this: either the spirits must have had what it takes, or the aliens, or the world simulation programmers, or whatever other intelligences (the nature of which we may not even be able to imagine) that are responsible. We can't possibly know for sure who or what, but we know they had to have the necessary knowledge and physical powers. This enterprise obviously must make sense to whatever intelligence(s) are the evolutionary agents. I don't see how this ignorance on our part is anything but an inevitable and permanent factor. Really - it's not likely that we're going to be able to learn much about the extremely powerful spiritual entities if they are the agents, or the aliens, or who or whatever else, unless they decide to illumine us with this knowledge. In other words, the avoidance of much in the way of speculation on this by most proponents of ID has a good reason.

We can make some decent guesses when we fold ID back into the rest of parapsychology especially paranthropology and ufology. At the very least the arguments are inline with the varied ones supporting a particular interpretation of historical events, or even the favoring of a particular explanation for the weirdness at the QM level.

Paracelsus proposed that spirits in nature have a knowledge that is "immediate" because of their elemental nature. They don't have to use science which has to manipulate observed patterns, rather than shifting the patterns themselves. We know spirits can help heal a person, so we know they can alter biology. And as per this recent documentary we can at least suspect humans can alter aspects of DNA, plus there's known work on using Psi and spirits to alter plant growth behavior.

So we have good reason to think spirits seem quite capable of altering life forms. Do they have scientific/mathematical knowledge? If we believe Ramanujan that his mathematical achievements were given to him by his family goddess, then that's one example. Here's another ->

"Returning to the Dogon, the notion that they ‘tricked’ their French anthropologists with their knowledge of the invisible-to-the-naked-eye Sirius B, or that the anthropologists made it up, is nonsense. The tribe also managed to describe its elliptical orbit, the fact that it was significantly smaller than Sirius A, but that it weighed much, much, more and also the presence of a third star, Sirius C, which was confirmed by astronomers in 1995. According to Laird Scranton, their Nommo iconography also shows a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of the operation of chromosomes inside a cell. It is indeed unlikely that physical extraterrestrials would land in West Africa, pointlessly explain some information about the mass of their home star system, impart some information about biology the Dogon couldn’t possibly use and then fly back home.

A psychic contact scenario is a better match for the presence of redundant complexity in the Dogon stories of Sirius. Any magician worth her salt has experienced the phenomenon of receiving more information than required from the spirit world. It is interesting, yes. But ultimately pointless."


Gordon White. Star.Ships (Kindle Locations 5750-5759). Bibliothèque Rouge.

Of course the way White presents it also is dis[s]astisfying...Did the spirits really overshare incredible scientific information? 

Nevertheless we can see that spirits have the means and knowledge to add a flagellum to a micro-organism. Not a definite answer, but then like the sandwich in my kitchen if you find ham and cheese in the fridge and a loaf next to the toaster you at least have a reasonable idea as to the who the Sandwich Maker is.

One of the other interesting bits about the Cambrian Explosion and Irreducible Complexity is if we accept [these required] a helping hand it appears these are interventions if not corrections in the evolutionary path. Yet we also know the Fine Tuners, if we accept Them, had some plan for this universe that included the eventual arising of something akin to organic life. After all the spirits seem to exist fine without fleshy physical bodies.

Curiouser and curiouser...

We can make some decent guesses when we fold ID back into the rest of parapsychology especially paranthropology and ufology...

Somewhat in contrast, but somewhat in support, of the above post I finally found Prescott's post on Intelligent Causation as a kind of probabilistic search ->

Paper Trades

Now, I know that natural selection involves more than chance; but in mainstream science the genetic mutations on which natural selection operates are attributed entirely to chance. Any suggestion that these mutations are guided or directed toward a goal, or brought into being by an intentional agency, would be rejected out of hand as superstition and teleology. Still, that's what I'm suggesting: that in periods of acute distress, when a population must change radically or perish, an intelligent agent behind the scenes selects from among all possible mutations (and other adaptations) that could, in principle, occur - all mutations with a nonzero probability, even if that probability is vanishingly small - and then selects whatever pathway allows for the most promising set of mutations in the shortest available time. 

Some storyline like this may perhaps help to visualize how intelligent causation, using the underlying information matrix, could select outcomes that allow for the origin and macroevolution of life, without the need for miracles (only for extremely improbable events), violations of natural law, or overt (as opposed to covert, behind-the-scenes) divine intervention.

Incidentally, something similar could be imagined for the intelligent causation of the universe itself - if we suppose that every possible scenario proceeding from the Big Bang could be spun out in virtual terms, with the scenario best suited to produce a stable, complex, habitable universe being selected and manifested.

Regarding this probabilistic generation of viable universes, see ->

Physicists Study How Universes Might Bubble Up and Collide

Charlie Wood

...In the early 1980s, as physicists investigated how space might have started — and stopped — inflating, an unsettling picture emerged. The researchers realized that while space may have stopped inflating here (in our bubble universe) and there (in other bubbles), quantum effects should continue to inflate most of space, an idea known as eternal inflation.

The difference between bubble universes and their surroundings comes down to the energy of space itself. When space is as empty as possible and can’t possibly lose more energy, it exists in what physicists call a “true” vacuum state. Think of a ball lying on the floor — it can’t fall any further. But systems can also have “false” vacuum states. Imagine a ball in a bowl on a table. The ball can roll around a bit while more or less staying put. But a large enough jolt will land it on the floor — in the true vacuum.

In the cosmological context, space can get similarly stuck in a false vacuum state. A speck of false vacuum will occasionally relax into true vacuum (likely through a random quantum event), and this true vacuum will balloon outward as a swelling bubble, feasting on the false vacuum’s excess energy, in a process called false vacuum decay. It’s this process that may have started our cosmos with a bang. “A vacuum bubble could have been the first event in the history of our universe,” said Hiranya Peiris, a cosmologist at University College London.