Isn’t this like the argument about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? The point is at the other end just like mankind can’t answer all of your theological questions until you/we come face to face w/ the Author of Life.
I think I know where you want to go w/ this argument as I’ve seen this argued on FR debates before. Man appointed sin and death - not God. So the consequences of mankinds sin are death, disease and also natural disasters.
The primary point missing - you/we have no authority to question why God does what God does - neither to assign blame nor judgement. So often we simply forget our place before a Holy and Awesome God - self will is subordinate to His Will.
Now for the time being He has suspended His Will to allow your self will
- free will to choose whether or not to worship Him (as was mankinds primary created purpose). Everything else is not worthy to compare - in the same way this world is not worthy to compare w/ Heaven.
I'm not arguing sin and death--I'm not even really arguing theology. I'm trying to stick to genetic algorithms and computer models.
I'll lay out where I was going: it seemed to me that AndrewC was pursuing the argument that GAs don't tell us anything about evolution because there is intelligence involved in their application--someone decides what a solution is and when it's been reached.
It seemed to me that that would invalidate any attempt to computer-model natural systems, like storms--at some point, the programmer has to decide what a "storm" is and how he'll know when he's got one. Now, I don't think most people consider storms as "intelligently designed" in the sense that God needs to step in and start stirring the air to get a hurricane going--rather, once the laws governing the atmosphere are in place, hurricanes pretty much happen on their own. (This is also the way "theistic evolutionists" see evolution--a natural process following God's laws that doesn't require his direct intervention to play out.)
Not wanting to make assumptions about AndrewC's beliefs, I asked if he thought that any natural process happens on its own that way. Apparently he does not. If that's the case, then I don't see how he could accept any computer model of a natural process, because how could a computer program model the intervention of God? It seems like a very small God who could be captured and predicted in a computer program.