The biochemistry of cell communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 07, 2016, 13:17 (2788 days ago) @ David Turell

David: Remember all living beings fall under a bell shaped curve of variability. The devils who are creating a new immune population were at the high end of the curve.
Dhw: But how does this preclude even the possibility that the changes are guided by cellular intelligence responding to environmental conditions? 
DAVID: I've agreed with Shapiro, that it makes sense that cells can modify (edit) their DNA to some degree (epigenetics). I do not agree that it is intelligence in any sense of planning or thinking. I think it is an automatic mechanism settled in on-board instructions.-Thank you. This means that your explanation does not in any way preclude the hypothesis of cellular intelligence. You simply disagree it.-dhw: (But I still don't understand the point of partial immunity, since you have said that this would not enable organisms to survive.)
DAVID: See the sentence above about bell-shaped curves and variability. Some organisms will have enough immunity to stagger thru and then mate to create more immune progeny.-So maybe the intelligent cell communities start off by “staggering thru”, but in due course they perfect the survival process. The same could apply to all innovations and natural wonders. The inventors stagger thru, and subsequent generations sail thru, with each generation building on the work of its predecessors. -Dhw: I am pondering the origin of the variants. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but these are the only origins I can visualize: 1) the variants were already present, and it was sheer luck that they happened to produce immunity; 2) the variants were already present, and your God had planted them there with a dabble, or had preprogrammed them in order to produce immunity to this particular cancer; 3) some of the devils were aware of the cancer, and worked out their own variants by altering their genome. Again, I am simply trying to understand how you think it all works.
DAVID: Do you understand bell-shaped curves statistically? For devils it would be from one left end no immunity to the other right end with partial immunity, with the average at the top of the curve very slight suggestion of some immunity.-Thank you. See above for my suggestion regarding partial immunity. Obviously “no immunity” makes my three proposals irrelevant, since them thar devils went down under. But I'm afraid I don't see how bell curves relate to the origin of any degree of immunity: once again, is immunity a matter of luck, divine intervention/ preprogramming, or intelligent DIY? -xxx
 
David: Of course our intelligence is part of our consciousness. I was just sorting out how I think the brain handles both.
dhw: My point was that if you believe in an afterlife, it doesn't make sense for the brainless you to be conscious without your intelligence (plus other attributes such as memory). And yet you insist that cells cannot be intelligent because they do not have brains. Either intelligence/consciousness/memory etc. can exist without the brain or they can't.
DAVID: The soul doesn't require a brain. It returns to the universal consciousness, just as Sheldrake's human species consciousness (hsc) is received by the brain, but the hsc exists as a field of consciousness, no species single brain required. Just an aspect of quantum requirement for consciousness to exist, as God uses quantum mechanics to make the universe.-So do you believe that after your bodily death your brainless soul will retain your intelligence, memories etc. or not?