Cambrian Explosion: afterthought (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, October 07, 2013, 22:39 (4043 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Unless your dog analyses concepts, formulates new theories, and does what we do with our brains, he is not intelligent according to your definition. Please explain what I have misinterpreted.-DAVID: I was trying to define human intelligence in the material you cherry-picked. The dog has a small amount of intelligence. Even does a little deduction when I try to trick him.-In which case I presume you now accept the definition of intelligence as "the ability to gather, process and exchange information, communicate and cooperate with other organisms, take decisions, solve problems." All of these abilities are present in cells and your dog, and therefore cells and your dog are intelligent. QED.-dhw: Please don't make out that professors who do not share your belief in divinely preprogrammed automation are only using metaphors. [...] Quevli, who coined the term "cell intelligence" wrote: "the cell is a conscious intelligent being, and, by reason thereof, plans and builds all plants and animals in the same manner that man constructs houses, railroads and other structures." This is not a metaphor.-DAVID: All I can do is disagree with you, Margulis, A-B, and Quevli. I still view these as metaphorical statements. Venter agrees with me. See the last post.-He agrees with you that cells are automatons, not that Margulis and Co are speaking metaphorically. Where is the metaphor in the statement: "the cell is a conscious intelligent being"? As an atheist, Venter thinks life consists ONLY of chemicals, which might not make him your ideal buddy. What we now have are some scientists agreeing that cells are automatons, and some not agreeing.
 
dhw: Our current knowledge of cellular biochemistry has no explanation for evolutionary innovation, and of course it cannot provide any evidence of a "tooth fairy" preprogramming the first cells with lungs, legs and livers.-DAVID: Some of us can make intelligent guesses, but in general you are correct. No one knows how species and new organs appear.-So you can stop protesting that my proposal doesn't fit our current knowledge of cellular biochemistry. No proposal does, including your own, and one guess is as intelligent (or not) as any other.
 
dhw: I have suggested that the Cambrian Explosion may have come about because a dramatic change in the environment allowed existing cell communities to produce innovations that would not have been possible under earlier conditions.-DAVID: Who showed the cells how to plan those complex specified organs so suddenly in rather shorrt geologic time terms?-Not for the first time, you have left out the fact that my hypothesis ONLY seeks to explain how evolution works, and leaves open the question of how the cells became intelligent in the first place. The hypothesis can be theistic (God designed the "cell brain" that did the designing) or atheistic (it evolved of its own accord). Again you are confusing it with the atheistic form of panpsychism.-dhw: We both propose a form of Intelligent Design, but my hypothesis only explains the "punctuated equilibrium" of evolution. Yours goes beyond evolution to a possible designer of the (cellular) designer.-DAVID: The problem is you want your intelligent cells to communicate at an intellectual level that does not exist. Cells communicate throught biochecical reactions as bbella's lecture shows. A appears, affects B, which initiates C, which starts up D, which reacts with the originator of A to complete the feedback loop. Intelligent planning for the loop, nothing invented by the cells.-We are not talking here of how cells communicate ... we are talking of what composes the messages that are to be communicated. A appears, and the human brain proceeds to decipher the meaning of A, to take decisions, to pass its decisions to B, C, D, all of which make their contribution before implementing the instructions issued by the human brain for dealing with A, thereby completing the feedback loop. You simply assume that your God preprogrammed the "cell brain" to do the same thing. Some scientists agree with you, and some don't.