Cell response to electric field (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, April 13, 2013, 15:12 (4243 days ago) @ dhw

"DAVID: But this does not travel down to the level of cells in other organs. They are automatically run by the information coded in their DNAs, by a prior event in which an intelligence created that code with that information."
 
> dhw: By "other organs" I presume you mean other than the brain, as the seat of our own "intelligence". I'm not saying that my liver and kidneys have a brain! But once there was no such thing as a brain or a liver or a kidney. And so according to my hypothesis, when the first brain, liver, kidney were invented, the "intelligence" that created them was within the originating and cooperating cells. Once the innovation is established, the cells may indeed behave like automatons, at least until they are confronted with new problems. I have continued this discussion on the "Cell response" thread, so let's confine this thread to any further thoughts on the supernatural."-I brought the above over to continue the badgering: I agree that the cells are intelligent, but not in the way you keep insisting upon. Their inteligence is that information which is coded in their DNA. They are secondarily intelligent. Your 'intelligent cell' is run by some sort of amorphous energy, and just what is that and where is it located in what oprganelle in the cell? I try to work with what we know about cellular function. You have jumped off into the wild blue yonder. I think it is another flying spaghetti monster.-> 
> DAVID: I have agreed that animals have some degree of consciousness, and it is well established that plants have reactions, but they are automatic. Plants do not have nervous systems, the basis for a degree of consciousness. I frankly have no understanding of your concept of 'intelligence'.
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> dhw: Your conscious 'soul' will not carry your nervous system or your brain into the afterlife which you believe in, so in your scenario "intelligence" and consciousness do not require a nervous system. What you call "miraculous stuff" is, in my hypothesis, the "intelligent" energy which controls matter. You agree that other animals have it, and since they have nervous systems, "intelligent energy" controls their animal behaviour much like our own..... We're dealing with "miraculous stuff" we do not understand, so how can we put it into clear words?-Since you cannot seem to define 'intelligent energy' any better than I can explain quantum mechanics, the closest thing to a bedrock idea is the quantum level of reality, which we have studied. It is at this level that the entire universe is interconnected, and it is at this level that scientists who study NDE's assume the experiences occur, as their best guess. When you recognize that every cell is a beehive of quantum activity, you might move your nebulous theory into the quantum realm. My quantum soul follows its interconnectedness to return to the Universal Intelligence.
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> DAVID: I have explained to you that the information in living matter is put into the genome by prior timing from intelligence which I presume to be God. We are looking at a step-wise process. Again this is the basis of the Intelligent Design theory, with which I agree. [...] Cells do not think or plan. They can only react according to their pre-set programming. (My bold)
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> dhw: If I've understood this correctly, you're now saying that, in direct contradiction to your claim that the flycatching sundew was a "byproduct", every innovation that ever took place in plants and animals was preprogrammed and even timed by God.-No, organisms were given the abilty to adapt and to invent in DNA. That is why life is a huge bush of invention. Evolution doesn't have free will but can go off in many diffeent directions as pushed by environmental changes. I'm not at all convinced God dabbled as much as you indicate. 
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> dhw: Let me keep on my theist hat for the sake of this discussion, and offer you a different scenario. In the beginning God created the first forms of life, and he built into them a mechanism that would enable them not only to reproduce but also to adapt to changing environments and to invent new forms. He would have found it immensely boring if he'd known what was coming, and so this mechanism was in the form of "intelligent energy" like his own, which could exercise control over the materials in which he had embedded it (just as 'free thoughts' in humans are said to develop new neurons and connections in their brain). -Your theistic theory is fine up to the point that the nebulous 'intelligent energy' appears. I suggest you fund a study to find this ghost of yours. -> Why is this scenario less believable than your own? -Because it is not based on anything we know about the function of cells. I prefer to start theorizing from what we know about life.