Cambrian Explosion: mutation rate (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, September 19, 2013, 23:23 (4061 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw:I wonder how you would describe the God theory.-It doesn't involve biochemistry.
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> dhw: How can information be used for innovation without the user being possessed of intelligence?-It is given automatic intelligent processes to use. Cells do not think.-> 
> So the concept of conscious cells is not poppycock, but that of intelligent cells is poppycock. Consciousness/intelligence can hardly be disassociated from thought of some kind, but Margulis is careful to avoid anthropomorphizing her bacteria / cells. I do not see how automatic reactors can possibly combine to invent totally new organs. -By the processes described above. Cells do not think or plan. -
> dhw: You agree that there is "conscious intelligence" in the cell and in cell communities, and yet you keep disagreeing! -Because I'm not gettng across my concepts to you, and I think in part it is because you have pre-ceceived ideas about how cells work. Cells are automatic machines run by information in DNA and their responses are automatic. They have some degree of latitude by having alternate routes of epigenetic response when under stress. The overall animal is more than the sum of its parts. there is a minimal degree of consciousness, but not to the point of being self-aware, not aesthetically. This minimal consciousness is what pervades the cells.
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> Perhaps because they are possessed of an independent, intelligent decision-making mechanism, which may or may not have been invented by your God.-And you want it invented by chance? Add the word automatic and you've got it.