Shedding Light On How Cells Communicate (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 06, 2012, 18:46 (4377 days ago) @ BBella

BBella: For the last few months I've been reading and contemplating the conversations here; how cells communicate - where the intelligence comes from - how that intelligence moves between cells - how cells recreate themselves into a new image, etc,. Personally, I have believed since having an odd dream years ago when I was "frozen in time" and later, in doing research, that light/photons, is the path to take to research and understand the intelligence within and without all things. I've been hoping the conversation at some point would be steered that way, altho haven't been able to formulate for myself any good way to inject or begin a conversation around this idea.-Not for the first time, BBella, you've taken our discussions into (for me) new territory. The beginning of the discussion on cell communication (see Living cells communicate) was David's reference to a new study which indicated that communication between cells was done by chemicals. I must say I find light much more pleasing, philosophically and aesthetically! David's reply to you, though, brings the two together: "It is no surprise that the ongoing chemical processes of living give off a byproduct of light."-He has asked you what meaning you give to this, though you say you're not sure yourself how to formulate a conversation around the idea. What we're all doing on this forum is trying to formulate conversations around ideas which ultimately defy formulation! My attempt to push the concept of the intelligent cell is deliberately confined to answering concrete questions thrown up by Darwin's theory. You are taking it one vital step further to the intelligence that seems to bind the whole cosmos together. The common link seems to be energy, which the theist deems to be conscious of itself, and that is really the question from which our forum started out. So although this is probably not the conversation you wanted to initiate, I'd like to try and link the cell argument to your "intelligence within and without all things."-I'm thinking now of the body (a community of billions of cells) as a macrocosm. The individual cells (microcosms) are all interconnected and function intelligently, but are they conscious of themselves in the way we are? (On another level, we see animals behaving with extraordinary intelligence, but are they conscious of themselves in the way we are?) In the macrocosm of the universe, energy behaves intelligently, but is it conscious of itself in the way we are, or are we humans unique in being conscious of our own intelligence? If we believe that the individual intelligent cells that make up the body ... and have invented every innovation in the history of evolution ... are not conscious of themselves, the atheist analogy might be that the universe and life have arisen out of the actions of intelligent but non-self-conscious energy (= what George calls the laws of Nature). In other words, David's beloved First Cause would then be intelligent but non-self-conscious energy, which gives us design without a designer! -This argument clearly hinges on distinctions between intelligence and consciousness, and on different levels of consciousness, and I would not like to be pinned down when it comes to definitions or demarcations! Perhaps in the long run it really doesn't matter anyway. Your ALL THAT IS is still an ALL IS ONE, whether universal intelligence is conscious of itself or not. It will only matter if our own self-consciousness doesn't actually depend on those intelligent cells ... but that's another topic.