In the year 2126 young Josh lived in a tall tower on the planet Mars. His mother Lucy hoped that the education of Josh would be a breeze, and that he could learn all he needed to learn by the "brain downloads" that scientists had long promised. But the hype about "brain downloads" had never materialized into a product anyone could use. So Josh did his studies in a pretty old-fashioned way, assisted by AI tutors which showed up in the form of talking life-like human-sized holograms.
One day his mother Lucy gave young Josh a hard assignment relating to biology.
"So I've seen how much you've learned about biology," said Lucy.
"Yes, Mom, I know so much," said Josh. "I can name many types of animals that live on that distant planet Earth I have never seen."
"But now I want you to go deeper," said Lucy. "This will be an assignment much harder than things like learning the names of animals."
"Uh, oh," said Josh, fearing some hard work was ahead.
"What I would like you to do is research the topic: how did you and people like you ever get here? How did the human race ever arise? And how did your body ever arise? And how did your mind arise?"
"No problem, I'll just ask one of my holographic AI tutors," said Josh.
"For this assignment, I don't want you to use a holographic AI tutor," said Lucy. "I want you to read a book to get the answers."
Josh groaned, realizing the assignment was a hard one. Using the very extensive electronic facilities of his Mars colony, he selected a book on biology, and began reading, trying to get the answers to the questions his mother had asked.
The next day Lucy asked about how we doing.
"I'm all done," said Josh. "I got the answers to those tough questions."
"So tell me, Josh: what answers did you find?" said his mother.
"The first question was how did the human race arise," said Josh. "The book told me the answer. It said every species arose because of random mutations in DNA that were saved and accumulated, because they were beneficial."
"Random mutations?" said Lucy. "You think humans and bears and lions and whales arose from random mutations?"
"That's what the book said," said Josh. "It said they arose because of accumulations of random mutations such as copying errors."
"But that makes no sense," said Lucy. "The problem is that the bodies of creatures like us are enormously organized. A human body is as organized and fine-tuned as the spacecraft that first brought humans to Mars from Earth. In a human body there are organ systems that are built from organs, which are built from tissues, which are built from 200 types of enormously organized cells, which are built from many types of very complex organelles, which are built from superbly organized protein complexes, which are built from more than 20,000 types of proteins, which are each a special arrangement of hundreds or thousand of amino acids, fine-tuned to achieve some functional result. You can't accumulate your way to that kind of organization."
"But accumulation explains some things, doesn't it?" asked Josh.
"Sure," said Lucy. "It explains the drifts of red dust we see piled up outside of our windows. But it doesn't explain things that are fantastically organized like rocket ships and human bodies. Now let's look just at you. What explanation did you find about how your body arose?"
"The book says I started out as a tiny little speck in your body," said Josh.
"Well, at least the book got that right," said Lucy. "That is how you started out. That little speck is called a zygote, and it's all that you were just after I got pregnant. But how did that tiny little speck turn into a big smart boy like you?"
"The book explained it," said Josh. "It said that inside each of my cells is something called DNA, and that DNA is a blueprint for building a body. It seems that my cells read the blueprint, and so they knew how to build my body."
Lucy started laughing. "What a ridiculous tale!" she exclaimed. "DNA has no blueprint for building bodies. DNA has only low-level chemical information like which amino acids make up cells. DNA and its genes do not even know how to make a cell. And cells don't have the smarts to read and understand blueprints on how to build a body, even if such blueprints existed."
"But I thought it made sense," said Josh. "the idea of me getting built from a blueprint in my cells."
"Why would that make sense?" asked Lucy. "Do blueprints build things? Of course not. If you dump some construction materials at a spot and also dump a blueprint, that won't cause a new building to get built."
"I guess you're right," said Josh.
"Things only get built from blueprints if there are construction workers smart enough to read blueprints, and follow their instructions," explained Lucy. "The human body is so complex and so highly organized that a blueprint for making a body would be fantastically complicated. Were there any construction workers inside my body smart enough to read a blueprint for building a body, so that your body could be built from a tiny speck-sized zygote, and so that all of the 200 types of cells would know how to find the right place in the body to go to?"
"I guess not," said Josh.
"You're not just a body, but also a mind," said Lucy. "What did your book tell you about how your mind arose?"
"It said my mind arose just from the electricity and chemicals passing around in my brain, and that my brain is like a computer that produces my mind." said Josh.
"How ridiculous an explanation!" said Lucy. "There's basically nothing in the brain that can explain the mind. And brains are not computers. Computers have an operating system and application programs. Brains have no such things."
"The book said my memories are stored in my brain," said Josh.
"That was nonsense," said Lucy. "Brains do not have any component that can explain learning. Brains do not have any component that can explain instantly recalling a memory, as soon as you hear some name spoken you haven't heard in years. I remember things very well from decades ago, but the proteins in brains are very short-lived, having an average lifetime of only a few weeks or less. And no one has ever found the tiniest bit of learned information by microscopically examining brain tissue."
"So how could the book have been so wrong?" asked Josh.
"When was it written?" asked his mother Lucy.
"In the year 2026," answered Josh.
"Oh THAT explains it," said Lucy, laughing. "Lots of people had foolish ideas way back then, a century ago. Around 2026 many people thought and did the stupidest things. They were so foolish they filled the Earth with nuclear missiles that could have caused the whole planet to be ruined. People have much better ideas now. So I have another tough assignment for you."
"Oh, no," said Josh, groaning.
"The assignment is: get some answers to my questions from books that were written in recent years, books written in the 22nd century," said Lucy. "And if you think that none of them gave you answers that held up to your scrutiny, then tell me you didn't find any answers that made sense."
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