In my Neuroscience class this quarter, we have gone in depth on the neural development of the brain (in an embryo). And subhan’Allah, the complexity is astounding. So many factors have to come together to perfect the growth of our brain, that it is remarkable. Billions and billions of neurons are growing in different directions simultaneously. They are making connections in critical areas of our brain, the parts that allow us to see, smell, and think. The complexity is remarkable and the process by which it happens is even more remarkable, as these neurons are guided by different proteins and growth factors, acting as “road signs” on the way.
Imagine yourself in a car, driving from California to New York. It’s a long drive, and unless you know where you’re going, or have someone directing you, you’re bound to get lost. But now imagine that you have a specific hotel to get to New York, you need to be extremely precise to find that hotel. Now a neuron is like your car, trying to get to that hotel. It has to hit the location exactly or else there will be problems in your brain. Now imagine at every road you have a sign post that is guiding YOU to your hotel. That signpost is specific for your car only. Now imagine there are billions of cars in the country trying to get to their hotels in different places. And you all need to get there with these sign posts, no GPS allowed.
That is the remarkable complexity of how our brain develops! Subhan’Allah! To make it more complex, these neural factors (the signposts telling the car where to go) are not simple on/off switches. Rather they are a complex pathway of inhibiting factors. It is so complex, that my Neuroscience professor has the audacity to imply that the reason why God doesn’t exist is because our brain is so complex. Does that make any sense to you? He claims that “any modern engineer” would engineer something simple, that it doesn’t have to be so complex, but mother nature is dealing with evolution so that’s why our brain is so complex. His statement is ridiculous! The complexity of our brain is so complex that a modern engineer would NEVER be able to think of such circuitry from scratch. This alone is proof of God. God made us both externally AND internally complex to show us his signs. God knows that one day we would be able to look into these intricate circuits and discover the miracles of our creation.
Subhan’Allah.
Sounds like your lecturer was giving a reductionists view on theology 😛
In artificial intelligence when you create neural networks, after they’ve been running for a while, if you open them up they just look like loads of different weightings.. same type of unreadable seemingly disordered complexity – not to the magnitude of a brain but brains have had 200,000 years, AI’s only had ~80 years. Complexity is not proof of God.
How do you propose to compare an AI network to biological cells? As you agree, the complexity between the two is not even comparable. An AI network is just that, a network that is to mimic self-intelligence (orignating from a created code). I am not arguing that time is not a factor, I am arguing that if you think about it on the cellular level, there are way too many complex pathways for things to work out the way they do by chance.
Every neuron has cellular machinery. From microtubules to kinases to ion channels. Everything has to function in sync. As a Graduate student I do research on ion channel regulation in the cerebellum. The shear complexity of understanding just a simple pathway of two kinases boggles our minds. Understanding how they all come together in harmony is the reality of creation.
Can evolution cause every protein in our body to harmoniously work the way they do? I am not talking about disease, yes there are problems with every person on some level. But I am talking about the general fact that we live as long as we do, and we function as we do without major problems.
From the biophysics of generating an Action Potential to the chemistry behind neurotransmitter release, to the engineering behind our networks, it’s mind boggling.
I don’t believe in the argument “Give millions of years to anything and you can get what you want”. If you look at drosophila experiments that are used to model genetic mutations over large periods of time, the reality is that advantageous mutations are extremely rare and that the vast majority of mutations that do occur are lethal or harmful to the organism. That is on top of mutations being very rare in general. The other bigger problem is when you talk about systems that are irreducibly complex. There is a lot published on that topic alone and I’m not going to go do the research for it right now, but irreducible complexity of basic systems that organisms need to function is one of the pitfalls of “give everything enough time and you will have anything”.