Most People In The West Who Say

After Darwin, God's Role Changes From Being The Designer Of All Creatures Great And Small To Being The Designer Of The Laws Of Nature, From Which Natural Selection Can Unfold, To Being Perhaps Just The Chooser Of The Laws. By The Time God's Role Has Been So Diminished, He Becomes A Bit Like A Constitutional Monarch, Presiding Ceremonially But Not Having Any More Work To Do. That's A Place For God If It Makes People Comfortable To Keep God As The Presider Over The Universe. I Suppose That Is Satisfying For Many.

Let Me Lay My Cards On The Table. If I Were To Give An Award For The Single Best Idea Anyone Ever Had, I'd Give It To Darwin, Ahead Of Even Newton Or Einstein And Everyone Else. In A Single Stroke, The Idea Of Evolution By Natural Selection Unifies The Realm Of Life, Meaning, And Purpose With The Realm Of Space And Time, Cause And Effect, Mechanism And Physical Law. It Is Not Just A Wonderful Idea. It Is A Dangerous Idea.

Homunculi Are Bogeymen Only If They Duplicate Entire The Talents They Are Rung In To Explain. If One Can Get A Team Or Committee Of Relatively Ignorant, Narrow-minded, Blind Homunculi To Produce The Intelligent Behaviour Of The Whole, This Is Progress.

Up Till Now, We Can Suppose, Nervous Systems Solved The 'now What Do I Do?' Problem By A Relatively Simple Balancing Act Between A Strictly Limited Repertoire Of Actions - If Not The Famous Four F's (fight, Flee, Feed, Or Mate), Then A Modest Elaboration Of Them.

Try To Acquire The Weird Practice Of Savoring Your Mistakes, Delighting In Uncovering The Strange Quirks That Led You Astray. Then, When You Have Sucked Out All The Goodness To Be Gained From Having Made Them, You Can Cheerfully Forget Them And Go On To The Next Big Opportunity.