Cell response to electric field (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, April 14, 2013, 14:04 (4242 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Your 'intelligent cell' is run by some sort of amorphous energy, and just what is that and where is it located in what organelle 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 (contd.): 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.-I find all your objections very reasonable, and of course I neither believe nor disbelieve in my panpsychist hypothesis. What is surprising, however, is that you do believe in a "quantum soul". Can you define it, and say where it is located in your skull? You don't understand what I mean by "intelligent energy", and yet you do believe in first-cause energy which you call "Universal Intelligence". Can you define this universal "intelligent energy"? You believe that your own version of "intelligent energy" is within and without the universe, but it's not within any of the materials it created: it merely programmed them and left them to react. So where exactly is it? Sitting on a strand of spaghetti in the wild blue yonder? Just as Dawkins hopes that science will support his materialism, you hope quantum research will support your theism, but Dawkins is "all wet". You called your own theory about quantum behaviour "nebulous" (April 10 at 19.54), but your nebulousness is no barrier to belief, whereas my nebulousness engenders disbelief. Do you detect a pattern here? 
 
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)-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.-DAVID: No, organisms were given the ability 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 different directions as pushed by environmental changes. I'm not at all convinced God dabbled as much as you indicate.-I'm indicating nothing, but am trying to understand your own scenario. "Prior timing" and "pre-set programming" seem to suggest that God timed the programming of every single innovation. Your explanation now is that innovations depend totally on the interaction between automated cells and an unpredictable environment. So what exactly was timed and preprogrammed? This can only mean that the invention of eyes, sex, livers, brains etc. was a matter of chance unless God preprogrammed the necessary changes in the environment as well. Or perhaps he typed into the first little blobs of life: "To whom it may concern. If it raineth, thou shalt invent fins. If it snoweth, thou shalt invent fur. If it be hot and dry, thou shalt invent a hump and a built-in air conditioner. Pass this on."-DAVID: 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. [The panpsychist hypothesis is not believable] 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.-A very fair comment. But of course, despite your preferences, it applies to all your own ideas about the origin of life, the mechanisms for evolution, consciousness, the 'soul', 'God'. For anyone who is sceptical of pure materialism, the only way out is a "ghost" of some kind, and it will be as nebulous as my hypothesis and yours.