L: " Ron I have been reading your extensive defense of Intelligent Design here:"

I don't know how I was "extensively" defending ID. The most I defended it was against the claim that it was not theoretically possible. Beyond that, I didn't really defend it.

L: "From that narrative I'm inclined to surmise that you do not fully understand the basics of Natural Selection any better than empiricism. "

Well, saying so and proving it are two different things. Where did I say anything wrong about natural selection or empiricism?

L: "You do not seem to appreciate how invention is dependent on discovery and how natural selection for survival is only one aspect, one task in the selection process for intelligence."

The "discovery" which is necessary for invention may be no more than the discovery of internal consistent rules resulting from reaction to external sensory stimuli. There's no reason why it's necessary that what goes on in the brain actually gives some kind of accurate "picture" of the external world, other than, again, presenting a consistent set of action generating rules in reaction to sensory stimuli which optimize survival and reproduction.

L: "Even perhaps of more importance, intelligence is also self defining as well as intelligence being all about discovery (i.e. self discovery)."

Where have I contradicted that?

L: "Discovery on many levels is simply *pattern recognition*, particularly with respect to the world surrounding us (environment) and upon which you depend for survival. In may respects it is the literally antithesis of taking ideas about survival on faith (for granted)."

Well, I see no reason that natural selection should generate pattern recognition in "the world around us" rather than just pattern recognition of the internal rules which result from and react to sensory stimuli. Positing that these internal neurochemically induced events are representative of the world outside of our brains seems theoretically superfluous.

L: "Natural Selection rewards the questioner, the curious species that is also able to survive the learning curve. That is evolutions' measure for a species as it is not really about *individual* behavior as much as collective."

Fine, but there's still nor eason for natural selection to necessarily produce mechanisms within us for "discovering" anything outside of us, at least any more than simple recognition of a consistent set of internal rules for dealing with the end electrochemical result of sensory stimuli.

L: "Apparently you also fail to understand why curiosity is critical to survival and precisely because *discovery* allows one to take advantage of opportunity and minimize risk from *potential* threats. It is quintessential for the hunter and the gatherer."

I don't see whtre I contradicted this. Our difference appears to be that you are positing a representational theory of the mind which I don't see necessitated by natural selection. All that's necessary for survival is that we have a set of consistent internal rules which govern internal neural events and which react in a consistent way vis a vis sensory stimuli. As an analogy, imagine a robot with a mind and a full set of senses. However, when it processes data, what it "sees" is just a field of numbers which are the result of reactions to sensory stimuli. Is it really "seeing" the world akin to how we supposedly see it? Is the truth of what the world is really like a field of numbers since that robot sees it that way? What we would have to realize is that that field of numbers is not really "seeing the outside world", but rather a programmed internal reaction in response to external sensory stimuli. There's no reason why such a robot can't survive in the world as well as we can. Hence, there's no reason why natural selection and other evolutionary processes crerated in us a real ability to know the outside world, at least beyond knowing how our internal "programming" produces certain internal phenomena resulting from a chain reaction of neurochemical events that began with some sensory stimuli.

L: "Evolution is not progressive but *our* intelligence can allow it to become a progressive process and that is a process of *both* discovery and invention. "

I don't see where I said otherwise.

L: "Natural Selection on the other hand is not an Intelligently Designed process."

Perhaps not natural selection, but evolution might be.

L: " This is for example a false dichotomy because it is based on false premises for evolution."

I don't know what you mean. What false dichotomy?

L: "Our neurochemicals don't produce thoughts at all. What they might do is induce *motives* in the form of emotion. You appear are confusing thought and feeling basically"

So where do thoughts come from if not our neurochemicals in our brains?

L: "and the latter has little to do with logic,"

When did I equate feelings and logic?

L: "though as you suggest there might be causal factor in the form of neurochemistry."

I thought you just denied this.

Me: >>>Imagine creating an artificially intelligent machine that processes sensory data for the purposes of its own survival. Would "truth" necessarily be in the "thinking processes" of this machine? <<<<

L: "This is an irrelevant red herring. GIGO If you put garbage into the brain of your artificial intelligence you get garbage out. You also get very low *fitness* in terms of survival as defined by Natural Selection. If the sensory awareness is accurate then fitness is improved."

This may beg the question. If by "accurate" you mean that the "awareness' actually and truthfully (in a common sense notion of truth) represents the outside world, then that is not necessary for survival. Again, all you need are a set of consistent rules in reaction to external stimuli. You don't need representational truth, whatever that would mean.