Cambrian Explosion: afterthought (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, September 28, 2013, 13:51 (4053 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: The attributes that I consider essential to my own concept of "intelligence" include: perception of the environment, the ability to process, exchange, accumulate and use information, to communicate with other organisms, and to take decisions. I do not include self-awareness as essential to intelligence. I don't recall you ever offering a definition... -DAVID: I agree with you about a general definition of intelligence. However at the cellular level it must be split into two parts. First is the intelligence as defined by M1 or CIA: incoming information in the form of data to be acted upon. Second is the response which involves planning and decision making. At the cellular level I am of a firm belief that this is automatically decided by information pre-existing in the genome. The individual cell or one-celled animal cannot think of responses or plan them.-In all forms of intelligence, including our own, one has to differentiate between incoming information and response. As for the individual cell, Guenter Albrecht-Buehler clearly disagrees with you, and the article about bacillus subtilis directly contradicts you, since it talks of prediction and anticipation. In any case, I've suggested that innovation started with the merging of cells. Every organ is a community of cooperating cells, and since cooperation entails all the attributes of intelligence that I have listed above, and you agree with my definition, I don't see how you can "firmly believe" that cells are not intelligent.
 
dhw: 90% of physical scientists and approx. 50% of medical doctors disagree with you. How does this indicate that I am clutching at straws? (Please note yet again that I offer the hypothesis as a feasible alternative, not as a firm belief.)-DAVID: 2) Medical doctors are biologists at heart. They have studied biochemistry and understand cell and organ responsiveness. My feeling is that they will think like I do and reject your hypothesis as not feasible, based on a cell's ability to respond.-Your feeling that, although 50% of doctors disagree with you, the other 50% will agree with you doesn't explain why I am the one clutching at straws.-Dhw: 3) The intelligent cell hypothesis does not focus on the "senses" of the cell but on the "brain" of the cell, or the "Construction Planner", which coordinates all the work of the "senses".-DAVID: The brain of the cell is in the genome with sets up automatic responses, contains the informaation to react, but as I have indicated there is probably a gradation of response, based on the strength of the stress or signal.-Our brain also sets up automatic responses, and I'm sure there are gradations of response in us too. That does not mean that humans or cells are automata. Once again we come back to definitions, as above.-DAVID: "Conclusion. Six decades ago, Watson and Crick put forward a model of DNA double helix structure to elucidate how genetic information is faithfully copied and propagated during cell division (Watson and Crick, 1953). [...] It is conceivable that in the near future the human genome will be completely annotated, with the catalog of transcription units and their transcriptional regulatory sequences fully mapped."-Watson and Crick knew a thing or two about cells, and they were both atheists. How do you think they would have responded to your claim that divine preprogramming "is the only conceivable way"? -dhw: Or they might find that these mechanisms include an independent intelligence without preprogramming.-DAVID: Not likely in my opinion. Unless you want to implant God into every cell. I think His plans are there. Or is your proposed intelligence something else and can you tell me of its origin?-I'm much happier with "not likely in my opinion" than I was with "poppycock". I doubt whether the atheistic/agnostic 90% of physical scientists and the atheistic/agnostic 50% of doctors would argue that intelligence means God and his plans. Can I tell you the origin? No. No-one can. If we could, there would be no need for any of our hypotheses and we would not be having this discussion.