Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 30, 2013, 15:59 (3800 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: We also sense and respond to stimuli by biochemical reactions. Diagrams can only illustrate the physical features of the cell/the ant/the human brain. You can't illustrate intelligence any more than you can illustrate God's programme for fire ant rafting....You say cells are set up to be automatic, whereas Shapiro, Margulis et al say they are intelligent. Why should your interpretation carry more weight than theirs? And you still haven't said why you think they are kidding us for the sake of popularity. -As you can see from the pdf the biochemical processes are very complex molecular reactions. True neurons are a requirement for the emergence of true consciousness. The cells are not conscious, they are automaticaly reactive as shown by the diagrams. Shapiro says cells are sentient, not a word that gives you a conscious result. He describes automatic response mechanisms. My interpretation has as much weight as his. Read Larry Moran on the subject of Shapiro's interpretations of evoltion. Bias is as bias does. I've approached this with an open mind and my current bias is doe to honest conclusions. Popular science literature requires 'humanized' simplification. Dawkins keeps reminding his readers, it only 'looks' designed.
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> DAVID: The form of 'intellligence' they observe is shown in the pdf presented. How evolution did that by chance is very problematic. The systems look like implanted intelligent plans to me.
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> dhw: The pdf explains how cells use chemistry to talk to each other, sense their environment, change their behaviour by exchanging data and coordinating, and make different decisions. It is purely a matter of interpretation whether these actions are controlled by an autonomous intelligence or an implanted programme.-Autonomous intelligence requires a source mechanism. Please supply one. I think out of thin air is appropriate and acceptable-> 
> dhw: You agree with their conclusion that cells were designed. But you seem to be out on your own with the hypothesis summarized above.... As for your attempt to turn the tables on me, I do not profess to have an answer, but I have offered three equally unlikely possibilities: God, chance and panpsychist evolution. The "intelligent cell" hypothesis can be applied to all three, and remember I have suggested it in order to explain the process of evolution.-Admirable effort, but no basis is research. Philosophy equal to the uselessness of the zeno paradox, but defended with the zeal of Dr. Henry..
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> dhw: And do please tell us whether you think God preprogrammed the raft strategy in the very first living cells, or did a dabble to save the ants, Noah-like, from the flood?-Stop flogging. I have admitted I have no way of telling. My point from Natures wonders is the inventiveness of living things. It doesn't tell us how the inventions are created. 
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> DHW: I love the stream of Nature's Wonders that you offer us, and they are an education in themselves. ... I am therefore inclined to believe that the vast variety of life produced by evolution can only have come through an inventive mechanism within the cells themselves (life itself doesn't invent) ... a mechanism permitting a huge range of combinations, very much dictated by the demands or opportunities presented by a randomly changing environment. This would certainly explain Darwin-style evolution, although the process is very different from what he envisaged ... mutations intelligently engineered from within the cells themselves, and not random. The origin of the "intelligent cell" - if the hypothesis is true - remains a mystery (see the three options above), but Darwin's theory also avoids speculation on the origin of life itself.-OK, to avoid speculations, life arrives miraculously, cells are miraculously intelligently self-inventive, and it all started from a miraculous big bang. What is the formula for faith: x-times miracles = faith? Parsimony tells us only one First cause is needed.