Cambrian Explosion: afterthought (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, October 08, 2013, 16:46 (4043 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: The Mayweather sidestep. Please, once and for all, give us your definition of intelligence (not the MI5 form, but the doggy form).-No sidestep. The meaning of the word intelligence is so obvious, I didn't think I had to do this. Intelligence is the ability to learn information, to recognize new situations, to reason out solutions to changes or challenges, to think abstractly as Higgs did when he thought of his particle. (this is a form of planning ahead). To understand complex information.-What can cells do. They are automatically instructed by complex information to perform molecular tasks. They receive information, to which they must respond, by molecular signals as a series of molecular reactions. They then respond by the production of molecules according to instructions in their genome. There is no thought here. Intelligence in my dog or me or you nestles in a consciousness which is an emergent property from the brain, which has plasticity and grows new neurons and connections as it learns. Cells don't reason, they are instructed to react. Cells can't plan like Higgs did. He integrated a large number of prior observations to make his proposal of a particle. Cells don't integrate, they react.-This is all so obvious I didn't think I had to spell it out. This is why I strongly believe in theistic evolution. -> dhw; You have not explained how the above statement, or Margulis's, can be called metaphorical.-I know that. I view her statement as a metaphor in a perverse way. It is the way I wish to interpret her thought. You don't know either exactly what she meant by it, since it is a tiny statement taken out of the totality of her work. And she believed in Gaia Earth, which reveals a tone of wackiness in her ruminations.-> dhw: Yes, materialists are bound to believe that life is "just a complex of chemical reactions", but that does not explain how chemicals have produced innovations and self-awareness. -Of course it doesn't. Consciousness and its intellect are emergent qualities out of the biochemistry.-> dhw: Even Venter still has to choose between random mutations, your God, and cooperation between intelligent cells. Margulis was an agnostic and A-B does not base his findings on any philosophical position, so we have at least two experts in the field who are not out to proselytize........since when did you put your trust in the scientific majority?-I am my own thought pattern. I reach my own conclusions and pick and choose between reasonable ideas, presented by others, that fit together for me, making my own Higgs particle as it relates to the process of evolution.-
> DAVID: Yes, we are talking about how cells communicate [...]Molecular signals are simply that, one molecule activating another which is the only way cells communicate.
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> dhw: There is no argument about this. It is also how our human cells communicate. But WHAT they communicate is a message created by the intelligence of the cellular community that forms the human brain. If I decide to perform an action, the message passes through the relevant molecules in my body in the manner you have described. But "I decide" is the non-automatic part of the process (unless humans are automatons too). What part of the cell or the cell community decides which message is to be passed on? According to some scientists, it is the intelligent 'cell brain', or centrosome, or Constructive Planner. According to you, it is God.-This is silly. You are attempting to give cells consciousness. It takes billions or neurons and trillions of connections for consciousness to emerge in teh brain. And of course, I have no idea how that happens. Tell me how do your cells do it? They look automatic to me.
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> DAVID: Evolution did not advance by your theory. I admit we don't know how, but I believe your approach is an impossible way from my knowledge of biochemistry.
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> dhw:From your knowledge of biochemistry, how could the earliest cells have been preprogrammed to produce the billions of innovations leading to humans? You have told us repeatedly that we are far from solving all the mysteries of the cell. Since you admit to not knowing how evolution advanced, why not keep an open mind?-I opened my mind to the answer that there must be a Higher Intelligence, religions call God. I see no other way out of the mystery.