Cambrian Explosion: afterthought (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 09, 2013, 16:07 (4063 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 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.-The major difference between us is your insistence on abstract thinking, which again confines your definition to humans. (And please see below, when you say "This is silly.") Even your intelligent dog cannot think abstractly as Higgs did. You go on to argue that cells react "according to instructions in their genome", so did your God give them instructions to cope with every possible situation as well as produce every possible innovation? (Bacteria can adapt to virtually whatever you throw at them.) I wonder how they "know" which sets of instructions to obey. Is it not conceivable that he simply gave them the ability "to reason out solutions to changes or challenges" as they arose? It's worth quoting A-B again: "The cell as a whole is capable of immensely complex migration patterns for which their genome cannot contain a detailed program as they are responses to unforeseeable encounters." -DAVID: Consciousness and its intellect are emergent qualities out of the biochemistry.-This is such an important subject that I shall tackle it on a separate thread.-Dhw: 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.-DAVID: 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.-It is silly because you insist on equating "intelligence" with human consciousness, as if human intelligence is the only possible kind. Cells and cell communities solve problems, and have come together to create innovations. None of us know how. Your theory is that they're machines preprogrammed by a god to change themselves all the way from eukaryotes to humans. Darwin's theory was that it happened through random mutations. Plenty of people would call both theories silly. But is it silly for an evolutionist to suggest that there must be a mechanism (which theists can claim was made by their God) within the basic unit of all organisms that deliberately cooperates with other units, progressively combining, adapting and inventing in accordance with whatever conditions arise? Cells may look automatic to you, but as with the rest of the universe, we still have a lot to learn about them. However, you are convinced that cells and cell communities (and ants) are preprogrammed automatons, and I am not. Perhaps we should leave it at that. As always, my thanks for your patient responses, and also for the revealing articles on the intelligence of corvids and various other species.