An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, September 28, 2014, 20:24 (3496 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: The genome is part of the cell.
DAVID: It is the brains of the cell.
dhw: Exactly. It's taken best part of two years for you to accept that cells have the equivalent of a brain.-DAVID: I did not accept the idea of 'brain' the way you have interpreted it. I should have stated it more clearly. The genome runs the cell. The cell does not run the genome [...]. -That is exactly the way I interpret it. The genome runs the cell as the brain runs the body.-DAVID: I used a slang way of referring to the genome as a brain. Computers are the 'brains' of many items, but they are not thinking and planning brains like we have.-It's not slang, it's a simple analogy. I wrote that it was the equivalent of a brain, not that it was a brain like ours. I also wrote: “Of course we are not talking here about human levels of self-awareness”. However, if you are now saying that the “brain” in the genome is a computer that is not capable of autonomous invention, then you are back again with your divine 3.7-billion-year programme to cover every single innovation and wonder in the history of life, and probably including every environmental change as well, since one damned asteroid could have done for the lot - a hypothesis which, very understandably, you say bothers you.-dhw: Cooperation between cells (all hail, Lynn Margulis!) lies at the heart of the hypothesis concerning evolutionary innovations. These can only come about through intelligent communication, cell to cell or genome to genome if you like. -DAVID: Cells have to communicate for life to be life. That communication is intelligently set up by the instructions in the genome. The communication is highly controlled by the genome.-Highly controlled by the genome is fine with me. Instructions IN the genome yet again = your 3.7-billion-year-old computer programme as above. Instructions WORKED OUT AND GIVEN BY the genome makes the genome the author of the instructions. Which of these seems to you more likely? Do please answer.-dhw: You have now agreed that the cell is not an automaton - its body automatically obeys its brain (although some feedback will go the other way, since the brain also needs the material provided by the rest of the body).-DAVID: This seems to be your wish that is so strong, you have grossly misintepreted me. When I discuused the autonomic functions of the body, it is analagous to a modern car. There is a computer onboard which takes care of fuel mixture supply and other functions while the driver is the brain that navigates the trip and stays out of accidents by steering and braking the car. The driver functions without awareness of the computer's role, unless he thinks about it or dwells on it. -Our subject is not the automatic functions of the body or human self-awareness, but the source of the innovations that drive evolution. The only analogy here would be the driver (inventive mechanism within the genome) deciding to take a new route. The car (the rest of the cell/cell community) will go wherever he steers it. The theistic version would be that your God gave the driver the autonomous ability to choose his route and steer the car. But I find the hypothesis itself far clearer than this analogy.-DAVID: Without exception, the genome is in charge of cell function. The genome itself within established species is also mostly very automatic.-Of course it is. That's why species remain the same. But evolution is the history of innovations, and your “MOSTLY very automatic” is crucial to my hypothesis. “Mostly” does not mean always. Innovations would occur when the genome is NOT automatic, i.e. when it is confronted with new conditions which demand or allow new organs, functions, and/or modes of behaviour.-DAVID: The closest you and I have gotten together is the possibility of an inventive mechanism in the genome which might possibly account for speciation. -And that is all I have ever asked of you: to accept the possibility. Only “inventive” does not mean obeying instructions. It means creating new things and performing new actions without being preprogrammed.