JLNobody wrote:Gel. Your last post is very provocative--yes, even an ugly old man like me can be provoked. Your comments about cosmic intelligence, as I like to call it, is something that one either intuits to be "significant" or not. It is not a notion that one can embrace or reject "scientifically"--yet. But if it is so that quantum physics someday discovers that the physical world is ultimately (meaning as far as we can conceptualize) a form of intelligence THAT will be most significant. Imagine our intelligence discovering the Cosmo's intelligence (like the image of the snake swallowing its own tail?). Perhaps the same word, intelligence, should not be used for both realities. I would never argue against cosmic intelligence on the grounds that it is sloppy, producing all kinds of "anomalites" that we find to be "failures of intelligence", or expressions of Cosmic stupidity. It could be that our anomalies are of no consequence in the Cosmic scheme. Now. I do not expect any "scientists" among us to reject, repudiate or depreciate the above speculation on petty technical grounds, as if technical conclusions were metaphycial truths. I expect people of contrasting cognitive temperaments to turn away from it as either meaningless or unprofitable. That's fine. But I insist that while it may be wrong it's decidedly not idiotic. A purely technical rigor may result in what I like to call, metaphorically, rigour mortis, and, of course, a purely speculative rhapsody may be no more than intellectual fluff.
By the way, Stuh's insistence that he is merely being honest and blunt with others confuses such qualities with rudeness. We have plenty of honest and blunt people here--JoefromChicago--comes immediately to mind. But he cannot be characterized as rude. He may challenge another's logic, but he would never deign to dissect their grammar.
JL, thanks for your response and the chance to 'flesh out' the bones of my mental roamings, the equivalent of mental bubble gum. I forget where the quote comes from and also the exact quote so I paraphrase ... 'it is not our intelligence that makes us wise but our mental diversity'. The ability to 'problem solve'.
When I spoke of 'intelligence' in the universe I was addressing not the power to reason rather the 'integrality' of the universe. Let me explain using stu505's partially correct example of the brain controlling respiration. Respiration, that is external respiration (external respiration is the physical movement of air into and out of the lungs .... as opposed to 'internal respiration' ... gas exchange at the cellular level) is regulated by the Ph of the blood .... a normal range is 7.35 to 7.45. In hypoventilation the co2 created as a by-product of internal respiration combines with H2O to create carbonic acid lowering the blood Ph. This alteration is sensed by bodies located in the carotid arteries called 'central chemorecepters' which send a signal to the respiratory center of the brain to increase the respiratory minute volume or the amount of air moving in and out of the lungs reducing the co2 and returning the Ph to more acceptable levels.
There is a ton more involved but for the point I am trying to make this should suffice.
The intelligence I was referring to is that which placed the chemoreceptors in the path of the most recently infused organ in the body, the brain. Denied oxygen longer than eight minutes the brain cells begin to die so intervention in the cessation of respiration in the shortest time possible, is crucial. Random design could have placed the chemoreceptors in say, an artery supplying blood to the big toe .... with predictable results.
This is the intelligence I address that started with a single cell, (with evolution as a given) developed senses like heat and cold, hunger, became aware and invented, in the process, a conscious entity.
And the possibility exist that this was all accomplished ..... by thought.
Your turn
