Cell response to electric field (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 18:37 (4246 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: And so, when you have rejected chance and God's preprogramming or separate creation of every single innovation in the history of life, you will I'm sure acknowledge that there is no alternative to a mechanism that does its own inventing, and that any living thing that can experiment, take its own decisions, and invent something totally new must have some form of "intelligence", as opposed to being an automaton. If you then claim that such a complex, inventive, "intelligent" mechanism must be the product of design and not chance, I for one won't kick up a fuss, though we shall continue to have fun disputing the source of the design.-DAVID: I have skipped all the rest of your piece, because I think it is beside the point and you have unknowingly, in my opinion, misinterpreted what the scientists are saying. Your definition of intelligence and mine are totally different. From the next entry today by dhw [Under "supernatural"]:-dhw: If intelligence is energy within matter, and is not the product but the cause of cells interacting, it could survive the death of the cells whose actions it triggers.
 
David: I don't know that 'intelligence is energy within matter' is a good description by itself.-It's not even a description "by itself", let alone a definition. In its original context of the supernatural, this refers to the substance not the qualities of intelligence, and it offers a hypothetical explanation of hypothetical psychic phenomena, e.g. spirits may be explained as intelligent energy surviving the death of the cells that contained it. On the current thread, as macro examples of intelligence that is independent of matter, I've applied three of your own beliefs (God, the afterlife and free will) to the micro of the cell, using evolutionary innovation as my prime argument against your insistence that the cell is an automaton. How can this be "beside the point"? Stop running away, cowboy, and draw!
 
The hypothesis of the intelligent genome/cell removes two weak links in Darwin's theory: gradualism and random mutations. In the sections you've skipped, I've used your example of the flycatching sundew plus your comment: "God did not have to fiddle. The genome did it all by itself, it was so smart given the information God implanted into DNA in the beginning." There could hardly be a clearer endorsement that there's a mechanism (perhaps invented by your God) within the genome that independently and intelligently does its own innovating. How can this be "beside the point"?-But with my customary patience, devotion and stubbornness, fortified by my affection and respect for my science mentor, who has provided most of the material he now wishes to ignore, I will answer the rest of your post.
 
DAVID: When we look the development of consciousness, those who think out of the box look at quantum mechanics and put consciousness and mind at a quantum level, although that is just a general description and no one seems to know just how that concept works.-Since no one understands the "quantum" concept, let alone knows how it works, might it not be compatible with panpsychism?
 
DAVID: To redefine terms, intelligence is not consciousness. The level of intelligence is the proper use of thought and learned knowledge. It is an aspect of consciousness. If cellular matter is not conscious, but acts as if it is, then it is not intelligent, but it is using information automatically from coding it has been given by intelligence existing before the formation of the cell.-IF cellular matter is not conscious, and intelligence includes consciousness, then of course it's not intelligent. Your "IF" is precisely what we're discussing! I'll accept your definition, though, so long as we don't anthropomorphize cells. The invention of a new organ requires 1) learned knowledge and consciousness of the environment; 2) learned knowledge and consciousness of what is and is not possible within that environment, and of what the organism will and will not be capable of; 3) thought that will use this information to create a new organ that will function. That, in my hypothesis. is how the genome produces the innovations that enable evolution to happen. And that, by your definition, constitutes intelligence. Your alternative explanations are chance, and God's preprogramming or individual creation of every single innovation in the history of life. You've rejected these alternatives, so please tell us why the "smart" genome which "did it all by itself" is not smart and did not do it all by itself.-DAVID: This is my key concept. It is concept presented by the Intelligent Design folks. Cells are not intelligent. They are filled with information they are programmed to use. This is all automatic. Just how this is accomplished is still not fully understood, and that is the research the mainstream scientists are referring to when they refer to the cells acting intelligently.-So when McClintock writes "a goal for the future would be to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself", and when Talbott dismisses the idea of the cell as an "automatism", apparently they are really saying the cell is an automaton with no knowledge of itself. Come on, David, you can do better than that.