Evolution v Creationism: guided evolution? dhw? (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, April 17, 2015, 01:13 (3290 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Of course cells/cell communities are sentient - you cannot respond to the environment if you can't sense it in some way, and for the most part I would say this IS automatic. It's the use that is made of perceptions that brings cognition and decision-making into play.-Cognition is the act by the chemical receptors that recognized the sensed chemical/ chemicals. The articles describe this as a series of molecular reactions. Then the response is another series of chemical reactions. There is nothing else described. Since DNA controls the cell, these molecular reactions are under DNA control.
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> DAVID: As tis article shows multicellular cells can communicate just like bacteria in quorum sensing. Why not? Cells that are 'uni' learned first and when they joined logically they carried the same abilities to the 'multi' state:
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> dhw: Yes, indeed, and these abilities may include autonomous cognition and decision-making.-That is your version which does not fit the articles describing the reactions.
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> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hair-regrowth-discovery-suggests-skin-cells-c... 
> QUOTE: "Bacteria chatter among themselves. A chemical signaling system called quorum sensing allows those single-celled bugs to detect when their numbers have multiplied enough to mount an effective attack or emit glowing light. Yet decades after scientists learned about this brainless bacterial coordination a research team has uncovered new evidence suggesting animal cells may speak the same lingo."
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> Repeated: DAVID: All by chemical reactions, under the control of DNA instructions.
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> dhw: Our own responses and decisions also involve chemical reactions. The question is what controls them, and “DNA instructions” does not answer the question. “Brainless” is fair enough, but we simply do not know if cells/cell communities have the EQUIVALENT of a brain, i.e. a control centre that coordinates the responses and the decision-making.-'Brainless' is all we know. Nothing else has been demonstrated. DNA (implying all the known parts of the genome) is the only known functioning control system. If there is anything else there is no overt evidence of it.-> dhw: ....you know from Nature's Wonders and from your own body that cell communities can cooperate to accomplish astonishing feats even without your great intellect. In fact, we don't actually know the extent to which our human intelligence is autonomous. If we did, there would be no debate about free will.-The best view of free will is to realize we are using living computer and so there are chemical reactions in neurons that we do not control, but I know I have free will.-> dhw: My point is that all forms of life have their own special kind of intelligence, and since we know that cells/cell communities can do their own adapting, we cannot - as you do - exclude the possibility that they can also do their own inventing.-I've never said organisms can't invent. We see epigenetics. There is evidence they do, but invention of complex changes involving, for example, making a leg from a fin is beyond the epigenetic responses we've seen so far. So is arranging for a larynx, a tongue and a palate that can speak. Therefore, looking at epigenetics as a possibility for inventiveness is a matter of what degree of complexity it can produce.