Cell Memories (Identity)
I came across this article a couple of days ago on the Internet, but now I can't find the reference. I'm reproducing it in its entirety, but what interest me particularly are the stories at the end. It turns out there are lots of these incidents happening now. They raise huge questions over the nature of identity, which we are looking at again under "Emergence". - "Transplant Phenomena Suggests Cellular Memory Ever since doctors in Boston successfully transplanted a living human kidney in 1954, and Dr. Christian Bernard replaced a human heart in South Africa in 1967, there has been a boom in the business of organ transplants. While it is not the perfect solution to solving worn out body parts, the business of transplanting hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs, eyes and even fingers has become big business, with over 500,000 successful cases worldwide. And as more and more patients recover from these surgical procedures, a strange thing has been happening. Some report having foreign memories, eerie new personal preferences and even unexplained emerging talents. The Discovery Health Channel recently explored this occurrence in a program titled "Transplanting Memories." In the show various experts explained why they believe cellular memories are transplanted with organs. Dr. Candace Pert, a professor at Georgetown University, said she believes the mind is not just in the brain, but also exists throughout the body. This school of thought could explain such strange transplant experiences. "The mind and body communicate with each other through chemicals known as peptides," she said. "These peptides are found in the brain as well as in the stomach, muscles and all of our major organs. I believe that memory can be accessed anywhere in the peptide/receptor network. For instance, a memory associated with food may be linked to the pancreas or liver, and such associations can be transplanted from one person to another." Indeed, a German neurologist, Leopold Auerbach, discovered over 100 years ago that a complex network of nerve cells, very like those of the human brain, exists in the intestine. Professor Wolfgang Prinz, of the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, Munich, recently wrote about this "second brain" in Geo, a German science magazine. Prinz said the digestive track is made up of a knot of about 100 billion brain nerve cells, more than found in the spinal cord. The article suggested the cells may save information on physical reactions to mental processes and give out signals to influence later decisions. It may also be involved in emotional reactions to events. Prinz joked that the discovery gives a new twist to the old phrase "gut reaction." "People often follow their gut reactions without even knowing why, its only later that they come up with the logical reason for acting the way they did. But we now believe that there is a lot more to gut feelings than was previously believed," Prinz wrote. He said he thinks the stomach network may be the source for unconscious, or possibly even subconscious decisions. The television show, Transplanting Memories, recorded a variety of stories in which cellular memory altered lives. In one amazing story, an eight-year-old girl who received the heart of a murdered 10-year-old, began having nightmares in which she relived the crime. Her dreams helped police solve the murder. In another story, a shy, reserved woman has vivid dreams about the donor, even though she never met this person. She also develops a more assertive personality. A third heart recipient strangely picks up his donor's musical taste. Research with the human cell has taken science on molecular adventures and beyond into the DNA, which is, in effect, the Cabalistic Tree of Life. The discovery is that each individual holds within every cell a memory of ancestral history that reaches back to his or her origins. From all indications, the cells communicate with one another, passing new memories on throughout the body when foreign cells are adhered to the body. This might explain why some humans have vivid memories of past lives, especially when under hypnosis, that were never lived. They are reacting to cellular memory, not reincarnation."
Cell Memories
by David Turell 
, Thursday, October 10, 2013, 15:26 (4061 days ago) @ dhw
I came across this article a couple of days ago on the Internet, but now I can't find the reference. I'm reproducing it in its entirety, but what interest me particularly are the stories at the end. It turns out there are lots of these incidents happening now. They raise huge questions over the nature of identity, which we are looking at again under "Emergence". -The actual link:- http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/id470.html-How the cells communicate using my theory:-"The mind and body communicate with each other through chemicals known as peptides," she said. "These peptides are found in the brain as well as in the stomach, muscles and all of our major organs. I believe that memory can be accessed anywhere in the peptide/receptor network. For instance, a memory associated with food may be linked to the pancreas or liver, and such associations can be transplanted from one person to another."
Cell Memories
Dhw: I came across this article a couple of days ago on the Internet, but now I can't find the reference. I'm reproducing it in its entirety, but what interest me particularly are the stories at the end. It turns out there are lots of these incidents happening now. They raise huge questions over the nature of identity, which we are looking at again under "Emergence". -DAVID: The actual link: http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/id470.html-How the cells communicate using my theory: "The mind and body communicate with each other through chemicals known as peptides," she said. "These peptides are found in the brain as well as in the stomach, muscles and all of our major organs. I believe that memory can be accessed anywhere in the peptide/receptor network. For instance, a memory associated with food may be linked to the pancreas or liver, and such associations can be transplanted from one person to another."-Thank you for finding the link. As usual you are more interested in HOW cells communicate than in WHAT they communicate. The stories in this article*** (see below) tell us that memories, experiences and characteristics are contained within the cells, and when the cells are moved into another person, they can change that person's identity. In other words, our cells ARE us. Your belief in an afterlife requires the survival of identity after the death of the cells. But if these are the actual containers of identity, and can even change a person's character by independently communicating with one another, it becomes difficult if not impossible to conceive how the identity itself can survive their death. Your response under "Emergence" was "Simply at a quantum level, in the other level of our reality." I don't understand what this means. If the stories are to be believed (and why shouldn't they be?), memories and characteristics are stored in the cells. So do they "escape" from the dead cells, in some form of non-material energy? This would mean that the identity which emerges from the cells, even when we are alive, is non-material (= substance dualism). Is this what you believe?	-*** In one amazing story, an eight-year-old girl who received the heart of a murdered 10-year-old, began having nightmares in which she relived the crime. Her dreams helped police solve the murder. In another story, a shy, reserved woman has vivid dreams about the donor, even though she never met this person. She also develops a more assertive personality. A third heart recipient strangely picks up his donor's musical taste.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Friday, October 11, 2013, 15:54 (4060 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Thank you for finding the link. As usual you are more interested in HOW cells communicate than in WHAT they communicate. The stories in this article*** (see below) tell us that memories, experiences and characteristics are contained within the cells, and when the cells are moved into another person, they can change that person's identity. In other words, our cells ARE us. Your belief in an afterlife requires the survival of identity after the death of the cells. But if these are the actual containers of identity, and can even change a person's character by independently communicating with one another, it becomes difficult if not impossible to conceive how the identity itself can survive their death. Your response under "Emergence" was "Simply at a quantum level, in the other level of our reality." I don't understand what this means. -Your complaint about my approach to this problem comes from the fact that I look at what science tells us about the biochemistry of the cell and how they communicate. Then for me Full Stop. This article points out the sugestion that consciousness is somehow carried by transplanted cells to influence the recipient's consciousness. I'm fine with that observation, for it may well be true if van Lommel's theory that the brain is a receiver for consciousness is true. van Lommel's is a reasonable hypothesis for which we have no inkling of proof. I am willing to shift gears when we are at this level of supposition. After all I believe there is universal consciousness and species consciousness. But I can't fathom your insistence that individual cells can sit and plan things together. If they carry (unknown to us) a smidgen of the universal consciousness, then it is that overall entity which is really doing the planning.-You can't have it both ways: independent 'intelligent cells' only show biochemical communication at our level of reality. To do what you want they must be operating at a quantum level carrying the consciousness that the article shows might be present. But if quantum consciousness is what is going on at their level, then they are joined by a universal consciousness which is what I propose. What underlies our perceived reality is the quantum world. To me it is obvious that a "concealed God" is hidden there and creates the reality we have. I'm sure He is smiling at our efforts to understand this. Think of poor Ruth.-> dhw: If the stories are to be believed (and why shouldn't they be?), memories and characteristics are stored in the cells. So do they "escape" from the dead cells, in some form of non-material energy? This would mean that the identity which emerges from the cells, even when we are alive, is non-material (= substance dualism). Is this what you believe? -With universal consciousness pervading everything, yes I can believe.
Cell Memories
by BBella , Friday, October 11, 2013, 20:45 (4060 days ago) @ David Turell
You can't have it both ways: independent 'intelligent cells' only show biochemical communication at our level of reality. To do what you want they must be operating at a quantum level carrying the consciousness that the article shows might be present. But if quantum consciousness is what is going on at their level, then they are joined by a universal consciousness which is what I propose. What underlies our perceived reality is the quantum world. To me it is obvious that a "concealed God" is hidden there and creates the reality we have. I'm sure He is smiling at our efforts to understand this. Think of poor Ruth.->dhw: If the stories are to be believed (and why shouldn't they be?), memories and characteristics are stored in the cells. So do they "escape" from the dead cells, in some form of non-material energy? This would mean that the identity which emerges from the cells, even when we are alive, is non-material (= substance dualism). Is this what you believe?->[David] With universal consciousness pervading everything, yes I can believe.-This is getting near to how I view the intelligent cell. As you say above, David, "with universal consciousness pervading everything", it is understandable that the will of the ALL is carried out within and without all things, albeit the Quantum level. As for cell memory, it also makes sense to me that if certain cells never die because they were transplanted from one person to another that the first persons cells would holographically carry the memories of that person. When the memory of water is taken into account, it only makes sense the cellular liquid within the cell carries memories, since we are 75-95% water.
Cell Memories
by George Jelliss 
, Crewe, Friday, October 11, 2013, 23:36 (4060 days ago) @ David Turell
The first part of the cited article is quite plausible since it sticks to the known facts. However I am extremely doubtful about the anecdotes offered in the last five paragraphs. These could all result from imaginings based on the patients' knowledge of the source of the donated organ.-Presumably DT's "species consciousness" is something like Jung's "collective unconscious" (though the correspondence sounds somewhat paradoxical!): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious and I've always found this concept quite plausible, since it is the result of evolution of living things with nerve systems. It is the common evolutionary part of each person's individuality.-However projecting this back onto some "universal consciousness" makes no sense to me. Consciousness or unconsciousness requires a nervous system in which to function.
--
GPJ
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Saturday, October 12, 2013, 02:02 (4059 days ago) @ George Jelliss
> George: However projecting this back onto some "universal consciousness" makes no sense to me. Consciousness or unconsciousness requires a nervous system in which to function.-That thought doesn't explain the NDE's. Eben Alexander, an academic neurosurgeon, had a severe E. coli meningitis, in coma for seven days with an non-functioning cortex. He believes his experience was real and vericidal. He met the sister he never knew, since he was adopted to another family and she had died and was unknown to him until the episode. Try out his book, Proof of Heaven, 2012.
Cell Memories
George thought the anecdotes might be traced to the recipient's knowledge of the donor. This was apparently not the case, as the following make clear. I'm reproducing these examples because no-one has yet commented on them. If they are to be believed (and why not?) they indicate that cell communities ... here mainly the heart ... not only remember incidents and tastes and facts, but also communicate them to existing cells in the recipient's body, and may even teach the whole cellular community of the organism to behave differently (as in matters of taste). Such incidents suggest that there is a great deal more to the nature and activity of cells than automatically carrying out some divine programme. "In one case, an 18-year-old boy who wrote poetry, played music and composed songs, was killed in an automobile accident. A year after he died his parents came across an audiotape of a song he had written, entitled, "Danny, My Heart is Yours," which was about how he "felt he was destined to die and give his heart to someone." The donor recipient "Danny" of his heart, was an 18-year-old girl, named Danielle. When she met the donor's parents, they played some of his music and she, despite never having heard the song, was able to complete the phrases. A 47-year-old Caucasian male received a heart from a 17-year-old African-American male. The recipient was surprised by his new-found love of classical music. What he discovered later was that the donor, who loved classical music and played the violin, had died in a drive-by shooting, clutching his violin case to his chest. A 29-year-old lesbian and a fast food junkie received a heart from a 19-year-old woman vegetarian who was "man crazy." The recipient reported after her operation that meat made her sick and she was no longer attracted to women. If fact, she became engaged to marry a man. A 47-year-old man received a heart from a 14-year-old girl gymnast who had problems with eating disorders. After the transplant, the recipient and his family reported his tendency to be nauseated after eating, a childlike exuberance and a little girl's giggle.- Aside from those included in the study, there are other transplant recipients whose stories are worth mentioning, such as Claire Sylvia, a woman who received a heart-lung transplant. In her book entitled, A Change of Heart: A Memoir, Ms. Sylvia describes her own journey from being a healthy, active dancer to becoming ill and eventually needing a heart transplant. After the operation, she reported peculiar changes like cravings for beer and chicken nuggets, neither of which she had a taste for prior to the transplant. She later discovered that these were favorites of her donor. She even learned that her donor had chicken nuggets in his jacket pocket when he died in a motorcycle accident.- Another possible incidence of memory transfer occurred when a young man came out of his transplant surgery and said to his mother, "everything is copasetic." His mother said that he had never used that word before, but now used it all the time. It was later discovered that the word had been a signal, used by the donor and his wife, particularly after an argument, so that when they made up they knew everything was okay. The donor's wife reported that they had had an argument just before the donor's fatal accident and had never made up.-Another amazing story, reported by Pearsall, is that of an eight-year-old girl who received the heart of a ten-year-old girl who had been murdered. After the transplant, the recipient had horrifying nightmares of a man murdering her donor. The dreams were so traumatic that psychiatric help was sought. The girl's images were so specific that the psychiatrist and the mother notified the police. According to the psychiatrist, ". . .using the description from the little girl, they found the murderer. He was easily convicted with the evidence the patient provided. The time, weapon, place, clothes he wore, what the little girl he killed had said to him . . . everything the little heart transplant recipient had reported was completely accurate."
Cell Memories
The posts below are under "Buddhism and Karma", but I think they are better suited to the discussion on cells.-Matt: The argument from social biologists is that the ant colony itself is the organism, and that the individual ants equivalent to cells in the human body. In that sense, David kind of undermines himself: If we can agree that the ant colony represents a single organism, but that organism displays intelligence in terms of being able to solve problems... but the individual ants themselves are simple automatons... then he's undermining the argument that chemical transactions in the brain are insufficient to produce intelligence.-DAVID: I don't follow your reasoning. Of course chemical reactions in the brain can produce intelligence, far more than computers ever can if you believe Penrose's comments. The issue is that intelligence is part of consciousness, and we don't know how that emerges from the complex of billions of neurons and trillions of synapses. The ants are automatons but acting together the colony acts as if it has intelligence, when really it is following instintual intelligent information in the genomes of the individuals. We can argue how that information was developed.-Matt's argument, as I understand it, is simply that if ants are automatons, and automatons cannot produce real intelligence (they only act "as if" they had it), then automatons cannot produce real intelligence in humans. According to you, David, all cells are automatons, which means that human brain cells with their connections have no intelligence of their own. But you say that when (like ants) they cooperate through chemical transactions, they produce REAL intelligence/consciousness. If chemical transactions are insufficient to produce real intelligence in ants (because chemical transactions between automatons do not produce real intelligence/consciousness), then chemical transactions between the automaton cells in the human brain cannot produce real intelligence/consciousness either. But according to you, they do! Therefore, either automatons CAN produce real intelligence, or cells (and ants) are not automatons. I find Matt's reasoning totally logical.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 15, 2013, 19:07 (4056 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: If chemical transactions are insufficient to produce real intelligence in ants (because chemical transactions between automatons do not produce real intelligence/consciousness), then chemical transactions between the automaton cells in the human brain cannot produce real intelligence/consciousness either. But according to you, they do! Therefore, either automatons CAN produce real intelligence, or cells (and ants) are not automatons. I find Matt's reasoning totally logical.-Still very illogical. We still must keep separate intelligently supplied information in cells or ants and the development of analytically developed intelligence for planning purposes. That is a major component of consciousness. Brain neurons and their connections develop both analytic intelligence and consciousness, the former a part of consciousness. We just don't understand how it is done. Ants do not have consciousness, but they are conscious. They can spot remembered landmarks to get back to the nest. I've shown articles about how neurons modify signalling and grow connections to add in memory and new intelligence. They are following supplied programs in their DNA to modify their biochemical reactions. They recognize incoming knowledge and proceed to store it.
Cell Memories
dhw: If chemical transactions are insufficient to produce real intelligence in ants (because chemical transactions between automatons do not produce real intelligence/consciousness), then chemical transactions between the automaton cells in the human brain cannot produce real intelligence/consciousness either. But according to you, they do! Therefore, either automatons CAN produce real intelligence, or cells (and ants) are not automatons. I find Matt's reasoning totally logical.-DAVID: Still very illogical. We still must keep separate intelligently supplied information in cells or ants and the development of analytically developed intelligence for planning purposes. That is a major component of consciousness. Brain neurons and their connections develop both analytic intelligence and consciousness, the former a part of consciousness. We just don't understand how it is done. Ants do not have consciousness, but they are conscious. -I'm sorry, but first of all, I don't see how you can be conscious without having consciousness. Secondly, all you have been saying up until now is that ant automaton cells can't make ants intelligent/conscious, because cells and ants are automatons, but human brain automaton cells can make humans intelligent/conscious, only we don't know how. DAVID: They can spot remembered landmarks to get back to the nest. -So can humans. (Not too well, in my case!) You persist in ignoring the examples which show ants' "analytically developed intelligence for planning purposes". Some ants build underground cities to house millions of inhabitants: these nests have precisely regulated ventilation shafts, defence against intruders, chambers for brood rearing, food storage, even farming facilities. Are you telling me that your God preprogrammed the first living organisms to produce ants, and the first ants inherited a programme for automatic nest-building? What about the mantis? Did God also preprogramme the first organisms to produce ants which when attacked by a mantis would have one large individual sacrifice itself by getting into the mantis's jaws to block them while the rest climbed aboard and bit off its head? Was each of these ants preprogrammed to deal with every imaginable type of attack? And ants are just one of the billions of species whose behavioural patterns your God must have preprogrammed into those first few cells. And this, you say, is a belief based on your knowledge of biochemistry.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 16, 2013, 19:18 (4055 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: I'm sorry, but first of all, I don't see how you can be conscious without having consciousness. Secondly, all you have been saying up until now is that ant automaton cells can't make ants intelligent/conscious, because cells and ants are automatons, but human brain automaton cells can make humans intelligent/conscious, only we don't know how.-'Secondly' is exactly my thought. 'Firstly', consciousness is not the same as conscious. Two different levels completely, as I have explained in an earlier post today. All animals with a brain are conscious. Their slight degree of consciousness is nothing like ours. Only we have consciousness at the level of self-aware abstract thought that is proper for planning for the future development of whatever.-> > dhw: So can humans. (Not too well, in my case!) You persist in ignoring the examples which show ants' "analytically developed intelligence for planning purposes". Some ants build underground cities to house millions of inhabitants: these nests have precisely regulated ventilation shafts, defence against intruders, chambers for brood rearing, food storage, even farming facilities. Are you telling me that your God preprogrammed the first living organisms to produce ants, and the first ants inherited a programme for automatic nest-building? What about the mantis? Did God also preprogramme the first organisms to produce ants which when attacked by a mantis would have one large individual sacrifice itself by getting into the mantis's jaws to block them while the rest climbed aboard and bit off its head? Was each of these ants preprogrammed to deal with every imaginable type of attack? And ants are just one of the billions of species whose behavioural patterns your God must have preprogrammed into those first few cells. And this, you say, is a belief based on your knowledge of biochemistry.-I spent a whole chapter on animal instincts. All automatic, if you remember. I don't know how it is biochemically coded. I never tried to answer that question, because there is no answer known to us at this time. We may never know. That does not mean I am wrong in my theories.
Cell Memories
dhw: I'm sorry, but first of all, I don't see how you can be conscious without having consciousness. Secondly, all you have been saying up until now is that ant automaton cells can't make ants intelligent/conscious, because cells and ants are automatons, but human brain automaton cells can make humans intelligent/conscious, only we don't know how.-DAVID: 'Secondly' is exactly my thought. 'Firstly', consciousness is not the same as conscious. One is a noun and the other is an adjective, and the noun consciousness means the state of being conscious. This is a non-argument. Self-awareness is a heightened state of consciousness
AVID: Two different levels completely, as I have explained in an earlier post today. All animals with a brain are conscious. Their slight degree of consciousness is nothing like ours. Only we have consciousness at the level of self-aware abstract thought that is proper for planning for the future development of whatever.-I have never said that animal or plant or cell consciousness is like ours. I am suggesting ... yet again ... that when billions of "intelligent" organisms (cells) combine their intelligence, they are able to produce astonishing inventions. The ant colony is a vivid example, which may be used as an analogy for what cells can produce. Automatons can't produce anything new. Organisms must therefore have an inventive intelligence of their own, though I don't know how it originated. Your automaton alternative is that they are preprogrammed, which leads me back to a single example among zillions:-dhw: Did God also preprogramme the first organisms to produce ants which when attacked by a mantis would have one large individual sacrifice itself by getting into the mantis's jaws to block them while the rest climbed aboard and bit off its head? Was each of these ants preprogrammed to deal with every imaginable type of attack? And ants are just one of the billions of species whose behavioural patterns your God must have preprogrammed into those first few cells. And this, you say, is a belief based on your knowledge of biochemistry.-DAVID: I spent a whole chapter on animal instincts. All automatic, if you remember. I don't know how it is biochemically coded. I never tried to answer that question, because there is no answer known to us at this time. We may never know. That does not mean I am wrong in my theories.-You say they are all automatic. That does not make them automatic, and that is what this discussion is about! I have never said that you are wrong. I have offered an alternative explanation to yours, but even though there is no answer known to us, and we may never know, you insist that my alternative is wrong. Your only justification is that you know enough about biochemistry to be able to categorically deny that cells have any sort of consciousness/intelligence, any biochemist who disagrees with you is kooky, and the only alternative is divine preprogramming of all organs, organisms, and behavioural strategies ... a theory rejected by 90% of biochemists.-I'm a little surprised that you have not yet commented on the anecdotes I have posted on this thread, indicating that cell communities (particularly the heart) have memories of incidents, tastes, forms of behaviour, and are able to transfer all of these to other cell communities, even teaching them new forms of behaviour as well as historical facts. Why would one set of cells impose its tastes and memories on other sets of cells? After all, cells are automatons with no individual identity, intelligence or consciousness of their own ... so you tell us. Meanwhile, I found this on another website: Shapiro thinks even the smallest cells are sentient beings, which is a far cry from their being automatons:-Shapiro: 40 years experience as a bacterial geneticist have taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the 20th Century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus. Studies of genetic recombination, lysogeny, antibiotic resistance and my own work on transposable elements revealed multiple widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and engineering DNA molecules. Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. Contemporary research in many laboratories on cell-cell signaling, symbiosis and pathogenesis show that bacteria utilize sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of "higher" plants and animals to meet their own needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognize that even the smallest cells are sentient beings. http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/2006.ExeterMeeting.pdf http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/bacteria.html
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Thursday, October 17, 2013, 16:02 (4054 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw; One is a noun and the other is an adjective, and the noun consciousness means the state of being conscious. This is a non-argument. Self-awareness is a heightened state of consciousness.-Not true and I've just checked my dictionary. Conscious is awarenss with some degree of thought; consciousness is awareness and self-awareness. -> > dhw: I have never said that animal or plant or cell consciousness is like ours. I am suggesting ... yet again ... that when billions of "intelligent" organisms (cells) combine their intelligence, they are able to produce astonishing inventions. -Your only proof is that it happened. The only logical explanation is that they were provided with a plan.- > > dhw: I'm a little surprised that you have not yet commented on the anecdotes I have posted on this thread, indicating that cell communities (particularly the heart) have memories of incidents, tastes, forms of behaviour, and are able to transfer all of these to other cell communities, even teaching them new forms of behaviour as well as historical facts.-Because the websites presenting these anecdotal stories are not presenting analyzed science, but stuff that is fun to think about. Transplants have a placebo effect like all treatments. You can't double-blind this stuff. But some of the anecdotal NDE's are vericidal, which makes those person's statements have validity.-> > dhw: Shapiro: 40 years experience as a bacterial geneticist have taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the 20th Century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus. Studies of genetic recombination, lysogeny, antibiotic resistance and my own work on transposable elements revealed multiple widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and engineering DNA molecules. Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. Contemporary research in many laboratories on cell-cell signaling, symbiosis and pathogenesis show that bacteria utilize sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of "higher" plants and animals to meet their own needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognize that even the smallest cells are sentient beings. > http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/2006.ExeterMeeting.pdf > http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/bacteria.html-I am acutely aware of Shapiro's statement above, having read it in the past. I am also aware that Shapiro describes the automatic biochemical reactions that produce baacterial awareness. I have always concluded that he is using the word sentient not with its underlying suggestion of thought, but as its strict dictionary definition: "responsive to or conscious of sense impressions." Sentience is "feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought". I think you are trying to stretch his meaning.
Cell Memories
dhw: I have never said that animal or plant or cell consciousness is like ours. I am suggesting ... yet again ... that when billions of "intelligent" organisms (cells) combine their intelligence, they are able to produce astonishing inventions. -DAVID: Your only proof is that it happened. The only logical explanation is that they were provided with a plan.-Or that just like the brain cells of humans, which you believe to be automatons, they came up with their own plans ... perhaps thanks to the independent intelligence your God gave them.-dhw: I'm a little surprised that you have not yet commented on the anecdotes I have posted on this thread, indicating that cell communities (particularly the heart) have memories of incidents, tastes, forms of behaviour, and are able to transfer all of these to other cell communities, even teaching them new forms of behaviour as well as historical facts.-DAVID: Because the websites presenting these anecdotal stories are not presenting analyzed science, but stuff that is fun to think about. Transplants have a placebo effect like all treatments. You can't double-blind this stuff. But some of the anecdotal NDE's are vericidal, which makes those person's statements have validity.-Why on earth would a transplant patient lie about a change in eating habits, sexual orientation, having someone else's vivid memories? Their statements were confirmed by third parties as veridical, and I would hesitate to brand the authors and patients as a bunch of liars. Your dismissal of these experiences as unscientific anecdotes is exactly the same as that offered by atheists challenging NDEs. Could it be that NDEs suit your theory and these experiences don't? Perish the thought!-dhw: Shapiro: 40 years experience as a bacterial geneticist have taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the 20th Century[...] Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. Contemporary research in many laboratories on cell-cell signaling, symbiosis and pathogenesis show that bacteria utilize sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of "higher" plants and animals to meet their own needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognize that even the smallest cells are sentient beings.-DAVID: I am acutely aware of Shapiro's statement above, having read it in the past. I am also aware that Shapiro describes the automatic biochemical reactions that produce baacterial awareness. -I presume you are referring to the fact that bacteria, just like ourselves, "continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus." The senses work automatically, but it is what Shapiro calls the "cognitive capabilities" that enable cells (and us) to use the information intelligently.-DAVID: I have always concluded that he is using the word sentient not with its underlying suggestion of thought, but as its strict dictionary definition: "responsive to or conscious of sense impressions." -I'm glad that even with your scepticism, you yourself accept consciousness as an element of sentience and hence of cells. DAVID: Sentience is "feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought". I think you are trying to stretch his meaning.-I think you are trying desperately to avoid his meaning, just as you try to make out that Margulis's references to conscious bacteria and Albrecht-Buehler's references to intelligent cells are "metaphors". I wish I had time for more research, but I have googled Shapiro and come up with the following:-"After a discussion of technical advances in our views about genome organization and the mechanisms of genetic change, I will focus on a growing convergence between biology and information science which offers the potential for scientific investigation of possible intelligent cellular action in evolution."-Clearly he regards intelligent cellular action in evolution as a possibility. That's all I ask, but perhaps this is a metaphor too?
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Friday, October 18, 2013, 21:04 (4053 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw:Why on earth would a transplant patient lie about a change in eating habits, sexual orientation, having someone else's vivid memories? Their statements were confirmed by third parties as veridical, and I would hesitate to brand the authors and patients as a bunch of liars.-Your word is liar, not mine. I am very aware of placebo effect and used it in my practice. These are statements of feelings generally. Quote one of true exact memory gained by another. - > > dhw: I presume you are referring to the fact that bacteria, just like ourselves, "continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus." The senses work automatically, but it is what Shapiro calls the "cognitive capabilities" that enable cells (and us) to use the information intelligently. -Yes, cells monitor and respond automatically. Shapiro shows that. > > DAVID: I have always concluded that he is using the word sentient not with its underlying suggestion of thought, but as its strict dictionary definition: "responsive to or conscious of sense impressions." > > dhw;I'm glad that even with your scepticism, you yourself accept consciousness as an element of sentience and hence of cells.-No, my quote is conscious, not consciousness. I still insist on a difference of degree. -> > dhw: "After a discussion of technical advances in our views about genome organization and the mechanisms of genetic change, I will focus on a growing convergence between biology and information science which offers the potential for scientific investigation of possible intelligent cellular action in evolution." > > dhw: Clearly he regards intelligent cellular action in evolution as a possibility. That's all I ask, but perhaps this is a metaphor too?-No metaphor. The cells use intelligent information given to them in the genome for their responses
Cell Memories
dhw: Why on earth would a transplant patient lie about a change in eating habits, sexual orientation, having someone else's vivid memories? Their statements were confirmed by third parties as veridical, and I would hesitate to brand the authors and patients as a bunch of liars.-DAVID: Your word is liar, not mine. I am very aware of placebo effect and used it in my practice. These are statements of feelings generally. Quote one of true exact memory gained by another. -What placebo effect? What general feelings? Have you read these stories? All of them entail strange and sometimes terrible effects on the patient. The little girl's nightmares provided information that enabled the police to arrest the murderer. What placebo effect is this? Which of the anecdotes relate to "feelings generally"? They all describe extremely precise changes "inherited" by the patient from the donor. Please read the anecdotes again.-dhw: I presume you are referring to the fact that bacteria, just like ourselves, "continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus." The senses work automatically, but it is what Shapiro calls the "cognitive capabilities" that enable cells (and us) to use the information intelligently. -DAVID: Yes, cells monitor and respond automatically. Shapiro shows that.-So when Shapiro talks of the "cognitive capabilities" of cells, describes even the tiniest cells as "sentient beings", and talks of "possible intelligent cellular action in evolution" he actually means cells are automatons. I have tried in vain to find out more about his religious beliefs, but so far as I can tell, his book Evolution in the 21st Century makes no mention of God preprogramming every evolutionary innovation into the first living cells. Do you actually know of any biochemist who subscribes to this particular view of evolution?
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Saturday, October 19, 2013, 21:33 (4052 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:They all describe extremely precise changes "inherited" by the patient from the donor. Please read the anecdotes again.-I have reread them. I had forgotten the details. They reek of species consciousness, in which Sheldrake has startling proof, and in which I believe. > > dhw; So when Shapiro talks of the "cognitive capabilities" of cells, describes even the tiniest cells as "sentient beings", and talks of "possible intelligent cellular action in evolution" he actually means cells are automatons. I have tried in vain to find out more about his religious beliefs, but so far as I can tell, his book Evolution in the 21st Century makes no mention of God preprogramming every evolutionary innovation into the first living cells. -No his book does not talk of pre-programming, and I have no idea of the religion of his birth parents. His last name is Jewish, but he may not practice it. But he describes automatic biochemical reactions.
Cell Memories
dhw: They all describe extremely precise changes "inherited" by the patient from the donor. Please read the anecdotes again.-DAVID: I have reread them. I had forgotten the details. They reek of species consciousness, in which Sheldrake has startling proof, and in which I believe.-Not as I see them, although I think there may well be a vital connection between the two phenomena. A little girl dreaming of the man who murdered the donor, a lesbian meat-eater who becomes vegetarian and is no longer attracted to women, a girl who completes songs she has never heard before, a woman whose food tastes change, a man whose music tastes change, a young man who uses a word that was made up by the donor ... these have nothing to do with species consciousness. They are individual characteristics and memories contained within the cells of transplanted organs and transferring themselves to other cell communities in the new body. The implications are staggering, but I will continue this line of thought under your very stimulating "Species consciousness" thread.-dhw; So when Shapiro talks of the "cognitive capabilities" of cells, describes even the tiniest cells as "sentient beings", and talks of "possible intelligent cellular action in evolution" he actually means cells are automatons. I have tried in vain to find out more about his religious beliefs, but so far as I can tell, his book Evolution in the 21st Century makes no mention of God preprogramming every evolutionary innovation into the first living cells. -DAVID: No his book does not talk of pre-programming, and I have no idea of the religion of his birth parents. His last name is Jewish, but he may not practice it. But he describes automatic biochemical reactions.-Of course, all biochemists will describe automatic biochemical reactions, since all living organisms (including ourselves) depend on automatic biochemical reactions. But there may be more to cells than automatic biochemical reactions, which may be why Shapiro describes all cells as sentient beings, and talks of the possibility that intelligent cellular action has a role to play in evolution. I'm not surprised that he doesn't talk of divine preprogramming of every single innovation from eukaryotes to humans. Do you know of any biochemists who do?
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Monday, October 21, 2013, 19:34 (4050 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: They all describe extremely precise changes "inherited" by the patient from the donor. Please read the anecdotes again. > > DAVID: I have reread them. I had forgotten the details. They reek of species consciousness, in which Sheldrake has startling proof, and in which I believe. > > dhw: Not as I see them, although I think there may well be a vital connection between the two phenomena.-These individual stories do not make a theory. Why some folks are very psychic like my wife and some aren't can't be explained. But you are touting a major suggestion based ona afew stories. You need to quote a large study of transplant recipients to make your version stick.- > dhw; Of course, all biochemists will describe automatic biochemical reactions, since all living organisms (including ourselves) depend on automatic biochemical reactions. But there may be more to cells than automatic biochemical reactions, which may be why Shapiro describes all cells as sentient beings, and talks of the possibility that intelligent cellular action has a role to play in evolution. I'm not surprised that he doesn't talk of divine preprogramming of every single innovation from eukaryotes to humans. Do you know of any biochemists who do?-Larry Moran certainly won't refer to the divine. Please remember that sentient means receiving signals and sensations and reacting to them. Thought capacity is in an other category of meaning.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Monday, July 07, 2014, 17:12 (3791 days ago) @ David Turell
> > dhw; Of course, all biochemists will describe automatic biochemical reactions, since all living organisms (including ourselves) depend on automatic biochemical reactions. But there may be more to cells than automatic biochemical reactions, which may be why Shapiro describes all cells as sentient beings, and talks of the possibility that intelligent cellular action has a role to play in evolution. -A new article showing automatic protein chemical reactions in cells, destroy bad proteins or die?-http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/40418/title/Protein-Helps-Cells-Adapt-or-Die/
Cell Memories
dhw; Of course, all biochemists will describe automatic biochemical reactions, since all living organisms (including ourselves) depend on automatic biochemical reactions. But there may be more to cells than automatic biochemical reactions, which may be why Shapiro describes all cells as sentient beings, and talks of the possibility that intelligent cellular action has a role to play in evolution. -DAVID: A new article showing automatic protein chemical reactions in cells, destroy bad proteins or die?-http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/40418/title/Protein-Helps-Cells-...-Why do you insert the word automatic? When neuroscientists trace chemical reactions in the human brain, are these the cause of or the response to intelligent thought? I'm not denying that cellular “intelligence” is difficult to define, and it should certainly not be equated with the self-awareness of human intelligence. Nor do I deny that much of cellular activity is automatic. The cellular community that is “me” depends on a vast range of automatic cellular activities. But that doesn't make “me” an automaton. The same argument applies to cells in general, according to such experts in the field as Shapiro, Margulis and Albrecht-Buehler. I don't know if they're right. I'm a layman. Nor do I know how much original research you've done in the field, but why should I dismiss their findings just because you insert the word “automatic”? The application of “cellular intelligence” to evolution solves many of the problems associated with the theory, so why not at least keep an open mind?
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 08, 2014, 15:23 (3790 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Why do you insert the word automatic? When neuroscientists trace chemical reactions in the human brain, are these the cause of or the response to intelligent thought? I'm not denying that cellular “intelligence” is difficult to define, and it should certainly not be equated with the self-awareness of human intelligence. Nor do I deny that much of cellular activity is automatic. The cellular community that is “me” depends on a vast range of automatic cellular activities. But that doesn't make “me” an automaton. ....The application of “cellular intelligence” to evolution solves many of the problems associated with the theory, so why not at least keep an open mind?-You have jumped toa whole body interpretation of what I presented. All I pointed out is that in the individual cell there are automatic responses to problems. You want to expand this to whole organism intelligence of some sort, not brain directed. You may have your theory to comfort you, but my kidney is automatic as is my liver, and a bacterium reacts through biochemical modifying molecular reactions controlled by information in the DNA. Our difference is that I ascribe that information to intelligent activity in creating that information, and you ascribe it to ? That is where I stumble in trying to follow you. I need cause and effect. You need it for the BB as we have agreed, but not in biology.
Cell Memories
dhw: Why do you insert the word automatic? When neuroscientists trace chemical reactions in the human brain, are these the cause of or the response to intelligent thought? I'm not denying that cellular “intelligence” is difficult to define, and it should certainly not be equated with the self-awareness of human intelligence. Nor do I deny that much of cellular activity is automatic. The cellular community that is “me” depends on a vast range of automatic cellular activities. But that doesn't make “me” an automaton. ....The application of “cellular intelligence” to evolution solves many of the problems associated with the theory, so why not at least keep an open mind?-DAVID: You have jumped toa whole body interpretation of what I presented. All I pointed out is that in the individual cell there are automatic responses to problems. You want to expand this to whole organism intelligence of some sort, not brain directed. You may have your theory to comfort you, but my kidney is automatic as is my liver, and a bacterium reacts through biochemical modifying molecular reactions controlled by information in the DNA. Our difference is that I ascribe that information to intelligent activity in creating that information, and you ascribe it to ? That is where I stumble in trying to follow you. I need cause and effect. You need it for the BB as we have agreed, but not in biology.-In order to communicate and interact, you have to have more than one cell. It's the interaction between cells that demonstrates their individual intelligence. There are two distinct phases in your argument: 1) how the cell operates, and 2) how the intelligence of the cell originated. I can no more answer the latter than I can tell you how our own intelligence originated. I notice you did not answer my question: “When neuroscientists trace chemical reactions in the human brain, are these the cause of or the response to intelligent thought?” In other words, can we be sure that thought is composed only of chemical processes? The theory of the “intelligent cell” is based on the research done by people such as Margulis, Shapiro and Albrecht-Buehler. It is they who argue that cells are “sentient beings” which act intelligently. Our liver and kidney cell communities act independently of our own intelligence, but that doesn't mean they have no “intelligence” of their own (though not human type self-awareness). I don't know to what extent the advocates of cellular intelligence have investigated human organs, but they have certainly investigated bacteria, and their conclusions are that bacteria are intelligent and sentient. I don't know. I'm a layman. But I'm not prepared as you are to say they're wrong. And if they're right, there is a wonderfully logical chain of cause and effect which can be applied to the progress of evolution. You insist on my telling you how cells got their intelligence and how it actually works. I don't know how we got ours or how ours works. Nor do you. But not knowing where from or how does not mean it isn't there.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Thursday, July 10, 2014, 22:32 (3788 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: In order to communicate and interact, you have to have more than one cell. It's the interaction between cells that demonstrates their individual intelligence. There are two distinct phases in your argument: 1) how the cell operates, and 2) how the intelligence of the cell originated.-I'm sorry, but for me cells act automstically with each other, and I am convinced that an intelligent source provided the information by which they automatically operate as a group of cells in an organ.
Cell Memories
Dhw: In order to communicate and interact, you have to have more than one cell. It's the interaction between cells that demonstrates their individual intelligence. There are two distinct phases in your argument: 1) how the cell operates, and 2) how the intelligence of the cell originated. I can no more answer the latter than I can tell you how our own intelligence originated. I notice you did not answer my question: “When neuroscientists trace chemical reactions in the human brain, are these the cause of or the response to intelligent thought?” In other words, can we be sure that thought is composed only of chemical processes? The theory of the “intelligent cell” is based on the research done by people such as Margulis, Shapiro and Albrecht-Buehler. It is they who argue that cells are “sentient beings” which act intelligently. [...] I'm not prepared as you are to say they're wrong. -DAVID: I'm sorry, but for me cells act automatically with each other, and I am convinced that an intelligent source provided the information by which they automatically operate as a group of cells in an organ.-Knowledge hath no greater restriction Than the mind with strong conviction.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Monday, July 14, 2014, 02:48 (3784 days ago) @ dhw
Dhw: The theory of the “intelligent cell” is based on the research done by people such as Margulis, Shapiro and Albrecht-Buehler. It is they who argue that cells are “sentient beings” which act intelligently. [...] I'm not prepared as you are to say they're wrong. > [/i] > > DAVID: I'm sorry, but for me cells act automatically with each other, and I am convinced that an intelligent source provided the information by which they automatically operate as a group of cells in an organ. > > dhw:Knowledge hath no greater restriction > Than the mind with strong conviction.-In both my books I reserved the right to read and develop my own theories. I know the material they have reviewed, and I can quote for you, but I won't, just take my word for it, Ph.D.s from the ID group of folks, feel just like I do. I thoroughly believe in intelligent design. Frankly, your theory makes no sense to me from my background of study, but as I have my theory you may certainly have yours.
Cell Memories
Dhw: The theory of the “intelligent cell” is based on the research done by people such as Margulis, Shapiro and Albrecht-Buehler. It is they who argue that cells are “sentient beings” which act intelligently. [...] I'm not prepared as you are to say they're wrong. DAVID: I'm sorry, but for me cells act automatically with each other, and I am convinced that an intelligent source provided the information by which they automatically operate as a group of cells in an organ. dhw: Knowledge hath no greater restriction Than the mind with strong conviction.-DAVID: In both my books I reserved the right to read and develop my own theories. I know the material they have reviewed, and I can quote for you, but I won't, just take my word for it, Ph.D.s from the ID group of folks, feel just like I do. I thoroughly believe in intelligent design. Frankly, your theory makes no sense to me from my background of study, but as I have my theory you may certainly have yours. -Of course you have every right to develop your own theories. So does everyone else. The intelligent cell is not “my” theory, but that of the scientists I have referred to. It does not in any way contradict the theory of intelligent design, because it does not identify the source of cellular intelligence, which could be your God. The evolutionary argument I am putting forward (based on Margulis and Shapiro - I don't know Albrecht-Buehler's views) is that cooperation between intelligent cellular communities may account for the innovations that have driven evolution onwards. My theist version would be that God designed cellular intelligence so that cells would combine in a vast variety of ways leading to the higgledy-piggledy richness of the evolutionary bush. I don't know why this should make no sense to you, when you are fully aware of the research carried out by Margulis and others. The difference between us therefore has nothing to do with ID as such. The difference lies in identifying what your God may have designed, and in your belief that from the very start he planned evolution to end up with humans.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 16, 2014, 01:42 (3782 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: The evolutionary argument I am putting forward ...is that cooperation between intelligent cellular communities may account for the innovations that have driven evolution onwards. My theist version would be that God designed cellular intelligence so that cells would combine in a vast variety of ways leading to the higgledy-piggledy richness of the evolutionary bush. I don't know why this should make no sense to you, when you are fully aware of the research carried out by Margulis and others. The difference between us therefore has nothing to do with ID as such. The difference lies in identifying what your God may have designed, and in your belief that from the very start he planned evolution to end up with humans.-Your theory as stated is attempting to have cell intelligence cause a cooperation between them to create advances in complexity. My only comment is that I think the intelligence is in the information coded into the genomes of the cells. We may have a disagreement as to the origin of the information. I strongly doubt it developed by chance and natural selection. That genome information is the 'intelligence' in the cells. I think cells act automatically, but I think the information contains a 'drive to complexity' the code for which is not yet uncovered. I know your thinking originates from pan-psychism theories. I differ, as you note, in that I think the information is a strong guide, and as a result the cells cooperate with each other under strong controls, and never on their own.- Davies and I agree. The arrival of sentient humans who can unravel the workings of the universe is an extremely significant outcome of evolution, one that raises many philosophic questions. 'How' is one issue, but 'why' is a much more important point. Chance? In my view, no way. Work backward from there and it makes a strong case for theism or even a case for deism. I don't see any case for atheism. Only if one insists upon absolute proof (impossible) does agnositicism appear. So some of us develop a faith, and some do not. Personal choice.
Cell Memories
dhw: The evolutionary argument I am putting forward ...is that cooperation between intelligent cellular communities may account for the innovations that have driven evolution onwards. My theist version would be that God designed cellular intelligence so that cells would combine in a vast variety of ways leading to the higgledy-piggledy richness of the evolutionary bush. I don't know why this should make no sense to you, when you are fully aware of the research carried out by Margulis and others. The difference between us therefore has nothing to do with ID as such. The difference lies in identifying what your God may have designed, and in your belief that from the very start he planned evolution to end up with humans.-DAVID: Your theory as stated is attempting to have cell intelligence cause a cooperation between them to create advances in complexity. -Yes.-DAVID: My only comment is that I think the intelligence is in the information coded into the genomes of the cells. We may have a disagreement as to the origin of the information. I strongly doubt it developed by chance and natural selection.-I have left open the question of how the intelligence originated (which leaves plenty of room for your God), but have made it clear ten thousand times that I do not believe in chance. Please stick to the point, which is how evolution works. -DAVID: That genome information is the 'intelligence' in the cells. I think cells act automatically....-And that is the difference between us. I do not say you are wrong, but I demand equal rights for the theory suggested by Margulis, Shapiro, and Albrecht-Buehler that cells/cell communities are not automata but have intelligence and sentience of their own. DAVID: I think the information contains a 'drive to complexity' the code for which is not yet uncovered. I know your thinking originates from pan-psychism theories. -No, it originates from the research of the above-named experts in the field. Certain versions of panpsychism provide a possible explanation of how the universe and life have evolved. One of those versions is that there is some form of “intelligence” or “mental aspect” within all things, but you reject that unless we call the intelligence God, and then you are all in favour. You don't seem to realize that your panentheism is a form of panpsychism. DAVID: I differ, as you note, in that I think the information is a strong guide, and as a result the cells cooperate with each other under strong controls, and never on their own. -I'm not sure to what extent you are juggling with the word “information” here. The information provided by the environment certainly provides a strong guide. The information that constitutes the intelligence of the cell community (e.g. knowing how to perceive, to process perceptions, to work out strategies, to communicate with other cell communities) will also be limited, just as our own intelligence is limited, and in that sense may be called controlled (i.e. by its limitations). This does not in any way preclude the non-automatic, autonomous, perceptive, communicative, decision-making faculty that some of us would define as "intelligence".- DAVID: Davies and I agree. The arrival of sentient humans who can unravel the workings of the universe is an extremely significant outcome of evolution, one that raises many philosophic questions. 'How' is one issue, but 'why' is a much more important point. Chance? In my view, no way. -As above, we agreed yonks ago to stop harping on about chance. You know I don't believe in it.-DAVID: Work backward from there and it makes a strong case for theism or even a case for deism. I don't see any case for atheism. Only if one insists upon absolute proof (impossible) does agnosticism appear. So some of us develop a faith, and some do not. Personal choice.-A reasonably fair summary, except that as an agnostic I personally do not demand the impossible “absolute proof”. I demand only a convincing case either way, and while chance fails to convince me, I find the suggestion of an eternal came-from-nothing super-consciousness capable of creating and manipulating universes and bacteria equally unconvincing. Not being willing to take a blind leap of faith does not mean that “one insists on absolute proof”.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 23, 2014, 16:36 (3775 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You don't seem to realize that your panentheism is a form of panpsychism.-No, I fully understand that point and recognize the relationship. It is just that I am willing to accept that information runs biology rather automatically and you are not. > > DAVID: I differ, as you note, in that I think the information is a strong guide, and as a result the cells cooperate with each other under strong controls, and never on their own. > > dhw: I'm not sure to what extent you are juggling with the word “information” here. The information provided by the environment certainly provides a strong guide. The information that constitutes the intelligence of the cell community (e.g. knowing how to perceive, to process perceptions, to work out strategies, to communicate with other cell communities) will also be limited, just as our own intelligence is limited, and in that sense may be called controlled (i.e. by its limitations). This does not in any way preclude the non-automatic, autonomous, perceptive, communicative, decision-making faculty that some of us would define as "intelligence".-This statement of yours clearly defines our difference in inerpretation. I see information in the genome running the show, guiding adaptive responses. That is the "intelligence" you see. Simple question. Is DNA a code? Doesn't a code impart information when deciphered? Don't you accept this? > dhw: Not being willing to take a blind leap of faith does not mean that “one insists on absolute proof”.-How much proof do you need?
Cell Memories
dhw: You don't seem to realize that your panentheism is a form of panpsychism.-DAVID: No, I fully understand that point and recognize the relationship. It is just that I am willing to accept that information runs biology rather automatically and you are not.-How automatic is “rather” automatically? And if it comes to that, what do you mean by information “running” biology? Some people argue that humans have no free will because they are run entirely by their biology. You disagree, because you argue that humans' mental capacity transcends biology. You even accept that other animals also have varying degrees of mental capacity. So why not accept the possibility that other organisms, from bacteria onwards, also have varying degrees of mental capacity and are not automata? You are not just “willing to accept” automatism - you insist on it and actively oppose the idea of cellular intelligence. It is this dogmatic rejection that I find so surprising. DAVID: I see information in the genome running the show, guiding adaptive responses. That is the "intelligence" you see. Simple question. Is DNA a code? Doesn't a code impart information when deciphered? Don't you accept this?-So are you arguing that every manifestation of intelligence by humans and our fellow animals is the result of “information in the genome running the show”? Of course you aren't (see above). I accept that DNA is a code, but (see the post on "Junk DNA") researchers tell us that “mobile DNA can provide genetic novelties” which are non-random and purposeful. You insist that these novelties come into existence because each environmental change triggers an automatic rejigging of the genome, as if no cellular processing, communication, decision-making were required. If it's automatic, each change must have been preprogrammed, but in our discussion on fruit flies you say it's the ability to adapt and not the “life plan” that has been preprogrammed. That to me is tantamount to saying that your God has given cells and cell communities the intelligence to work out their own life plan. Once again, then, they are not automata. Either the life plan has been preprogrammed or the cell community works it out. You can't have it both ways. dhw: Not being willing to take a blind leap of faith does not mean that “one insists on absolute proof”.-DAVID: How much proof do you need?-Enough to convince me. I am convinced that once there were dinosaurs, that our government's support for nuclear energy will lead to incalculable disaster, and that all forms of life have descended from earlier forms. I have no “absolute proof”, but I am able to believe. Neither the case for Chance nor the case for a God convinces me, which must seem as incomprehensible to Dawkins as to you.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Thursday, July 24, 2014, 19:44 (3774 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: How automatic is “rather” automatically? And if it comes to that, what do you mean by information “running” biology?-Same argument. I've covered this in the previous post. The genome code contains systematic automatic controls which runs the cells. No direct intelligence in the cell, all indirect in the genome.->dhw: You are not just “willing to accept” automatism - you insist on it and actively oppose the idea of cellular intelligence. It is this dogmatic rejection that I find so surprising.-The cellular intelligence I recognize is at a different level that what you propose. the genome contriols the cell under tight feedback loops. > dhw: So are you arguing that every manifestation of intelligence by humans and our fellow animals is the result of “information in the genome running the show”? Of course you aren't ..... That to me is tantamount to saying that your God has given cells and cell communities the intelligence to work out their own life plan. Once again, then, they are not automata. Either the life plan has been preprogrammed or the cell community works it out. You can't have it both ways.-I'm not having it both ways. But it is what you are advocating. You must understand the different levels at which the cellular intelligence operates. The cell senses chemically what is required and refers to the genome to find an answer.- > dhw: Enough to convince me. I am convinced that once there were dinosaurs, that our government's support for nuclear energy will lead to incalculable disaster, and that all forms of life have descended from earlier forms. I have no “absolute proof”, but I am able to believe. Neither the case for Chance nor the case for a God convinces me, which must seem as incomprehensible to Dawkins as to you.-I still interpret this as a requirement for absolute proof. The picket fence!
Cell Memories
dhw: How automatic is “rather” automatically? And if it comes to that, what do you mean by information “running” biology?-DAVID: Same argument. I've covered this in the previous post. -It is not the same. “Rather” automatically is an important modification, because it is precisely the non-automatic element of the decision-making that denotes autonomous intelligence. My point was that some people argue that humans are “run” by their biology and therefore do not have free will. You oppose this view because you believe there is a mental, decision-making capacity that transcends biology. This is an ability which you insist only applies to humans and their fellow animals, but not to other organisms, which you regard as automata (see also under “Junk DNA”).-dhw: So are you arguing that every manifestation of intelligence by humans and our fellow animals is the result of “information in the genome running the show”? Of course you aren't .....in our discussion on fruit flies you say it's the ability to adapt and not the “life plan” that has been preprogrammed. That to me is tantamount to saying that your God has given cells and cell communities the intelligence to work out their own life plan. Once again, then, they are not automata. Either the life plan has been preprogrammed or the cell community works it out. You can't have it both ways.-DAVID: I'm not having it both ways. But it is what you are advocating. You must understand the different levels at which the cellular intelligence operates. The cell senses chemically what is required and refers to the genome to find an answer.-Why do you separate the genome from the cell/cell community? Most of us assume that human intelligence is linked to the brain, but we don't say humans are not intelligent - they only sense chemically what is required and refer to the brain to find an answer. If cellular intelligence lies within the genome, that's fine with me. (Albrecht-Buehler thinks the control centre is the centrosome.) All I ask is acknowledgement that although much cellular behaviour is undoubtedly automatic once an innovation has established itself - as is clear from the work of our own cellular communities - Margulis, Shapiro, Albrecht-Buehler & Co. may be right when they say cells are intelligent, sentient beings. This provides us with a vital clue as to how evolutionary adaptation and innovation may have taken place.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Sunday, July 27, 2014, 16:06 (3771 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Why do you separate the genome from the cell/cell community?-I don't separate it. I know that each cell type has DNA, and in each cell type it is modified for that cell's function. DNA is different all over a complicated body which has many organs, each of which has many automatic and complicated functions. These cellular functions are done automatically and are built to adapt to challenges. Donate a kidney to a friend and your remaining kidney enlarges to handle the load, automatically. The cell communities contain in their DNA the information to accomplish just that adaptation. Donate the left lobe of the liver and the right lobe enlarges in response. All automatically.-> dhw: If cellular intelligence lies within the genome, that's fine with me. (Albrecht-Buehler thinks the control centre is the centrosome.) All I ask is acknowledgement that although much cellular behaviour is undoubtedly automatic once an innovation has established itself - as is clear from the work of our own cellular communities - Margulis, Shapiro, Albrecht-Buehler & Co. may be right when they say cells are intelligent, sentient beings. This provides us with a vital clue as to how evolutionary adaptation and innovation may have taken place.-Fine. Our difference is conceptual. The cells have intelligent information in the genome which drives their responses to changes. We really don't know what drives evolution in a clear concept. Random mutations are mostly deleterious. Epigentics, which implies whole organism responses is more likely, but where I disagree with you is I believe that information in the genome provides response capacity, and the cells automatically use them. This is a layered concept. A bacterium does this all in one cell body.
Cell Memories
dhw: If cellular intelligence lies within the genome, that's fine with me. (Albrecht-Buehler thinks the control centre is the centrosome.) All I ask is acknowledgement that although much cellular behaviour is undoubtedly automatic once an innovation has established itself - as is clear from the work of our own cellular communities - Margulis, Shapiro, Albrecht-Buehler & Co. may be right when they say cells are intelligent, sentient beings. This provides us with a vital clue as to how evolutionary adaptation and innovation may have taken place.-DAVID: Fine. Our difference is conceptual. The cells have intelligent information in the genome which drives their responses to changes. We really don't know what drives evolution in a clear concept. Random mutations are mostly deleterious.-What do you mean by “drives evolution in a clear concept”? The whole point of the “intelligent cell” concept is that it does away with the unlikelihood of random mutations, and suggests instead that cells and cell communities work out ways of adapting to or exploiting environmental changes. DAVID: Epigentics, which implies whole organism responses is more likely...-No problem here. Every “whole organism” is a cell community or a community of cell communities. An organism can only respond effectively if all its cells and cell communities cooperate.-DAVID: ...but where I disagree with you is I believe that information in the genome provides response capacity, and the cells automatically use them. This is a layered concept. A bacterium does this all in one cell body. -You are not just disagreeing with me, but you appear to be categorically rejecting the research of several experts in the field who tell us that cells are not automata but sentient, intelligent beings, from bacteria onwards. However, “information in the genome provides response capacity” is pretty woolly wording. The capacity for response is what I mean by intelligence, in the sense that an effective response will require perception and processing of new information, communication between cells and cell communities, and decisions as to how the information is to be used. All that is essential to a “capacity for response”, or - to put it slightly differently - to “intelligence”. If this is in the genome, so be it. Since you have now agreed (under “Junk DNA”) that adaptations and innovations are not preprogrammed, you are effectively saying that the genome provides the intelligence that makes the cell intelligent. I'll settle for that!
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Monday, July 28, 2014, 18:33 (3770 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw:The whole point of the “intelligent cell” concept is that it does away with the unlikelihood of random mutations, and suggests instead that cells and cell communities work out ways of adapting to or exploiting environmental changes.-Agreed, by using mechanisms in the genome to create adaptations, I think, under tight controls. > > DAVID: Epigentics, which implies whole organism responses is more likely... > > No problem here. Every “whole organism” is a cell community or a community of cell communities. An organism can only respond effectively if all its cells and cell communities cooperate.-Agreed.- > dhw: The capacity for response is what I mean by intelligence, in the sense that an effective response will require perception and processing of new information, communication between cells and cell communities, and decisions as to how the information is to be used. All that is essential to a “capacity for response”, or - to put it slightly differently - to “intelligence”. If this is in the genome, so be it. Since you have now agreed (under “Junk DNA”) that adaptations and innovations are not preprogrammed, you are effectively saying that the genome provides the intelligence that makes the cell intelligent. I'll settle for that!-Thank you. Agreed. All that is left is to agree on the source of the intelligent information in the genome.
Cell Memories;automatic activity
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 16:16 (3769 days ago) @ David Turell
A new report of automatic cell activities, called fine-tuning:-http://phys.org/news/2014-07-uncover-secrets-internal-cell-fine-tuning.html
Cell Memories
Dhw: The capacity for response is what I mean by intelligence, in the sense that an effective response will require perception and processing of new information, communication between cells and cell communities, and decisions as to how the information is to be used. All that is essential to a “capacity for response”, or - to put it slightly differently - to “intelligence”. If this is in the genome, so be it. Since you have now agreed (under “Junk DNA”) that adaptations and innovations are not preprogrammed, you are effectively saying that the genome provides the intelligence that makes the cell intelligent. I'll settle for that! DAVID: Thank you. Agreed. All that is left is to agree on the source of the intelligent information in the genome.-Hallelujah! Or are you playing games with me? Let me repeat: you are saying that the genome provides the intelligence that makes the cell intelligent, i.e. the cell is an intelligent being. It is not an automaton. In the context of evolution, now that you have clarified your views on preprogramming, i.e. that adaptations and innovations were not preprogrammed but cells were given the capacity to work out their own salvation (i.e. through their own form of intelligence), I hope you will also agree with Margulis and Shapiro that the key to evolutionary progress has been deliberate cooperation between intelligent, sentient beings. I think this is a huge step forward, as it dispenses with random mutations as a driving force, and instead provides a logical explanation for the prolific inventiveness that has led to the evolutionary bush. As for the source, of course you have every right to believe in a designer, given the immense complexity of the mechanisms that endow the cell with its intelligence and capacity to create almost unlimited life forms.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 29, 2014, 23:23 (3769 days ago) @ dhw
Dhw: .... you are effectively saying that the genome provides the intelligence that makes the cell intelligent. I'll settle for that![/i]- > DAVID: Thank you. Agreed. All that is left is to agree on the source of the intelligent information in the genome. > > dhw: Hallelujah! Or are you playing games with me? Let me repeat: you are saying that the genome provides the intelligence that makes the cell intelligent, i.e. the cell is an intelligent being. It is not an automaton. In the context of evolution, now that you have clarified your views on preprogramming, i.e. that adaptations and innovations were not preprogrammed but cells were given the capacity to work out their own salvation (i.e. through their own form of intelligence), I hope you will also agree with Margulis and Shapiro that the key to evolutionary progress has been deliberate cooperation between intelligent, sentient beings. I think this is a huge step forward, as it dispenses with random mutations as a driving force, and instead provides a logical explanation for the prolific inventiveness that has led to the evolutionary bush. As for the source, of course you have every right to believe in a designer, given the immense complexity of the mechanisms that endow the cell with its intelligence and capacity to create almost unlimited life forms.-I've left your whole comment. There is no hallelujah. You are deliberately skipping over my concept of layered control. The genome contains information (intelligence) which allows the cells to make educated controlled responses to stimuli. The cells are given this intelligence and mechanisms to use it. The cells are organized to respond to each other and in unison. Imagine a record player playing a tune. The record player did not invntthe tune. It plays a record,and is programmed to play the next record when it should. And none of our discussion explains the giant leaps in the fossil record, the punctualted equilibium we see. Your theory fits tiny steps only, and my description of cell activity also does not explain the leaps. We are talking in circles about a tiny aspect of the problem. -What bothers me about your panpsychism approach is it offers no solution, nor does what I have describe to you. Therefore something is missing, and I come back to another yet-to-be-discovered code pushing evolution toward the obvious complexity of humans. We still don't know 'how cells...create almost unlimited life forms'.
Cell Memories
Dhw: .... you are effectively saying that the genome provides the intelligence that makes the cell intelligent. I'll settle for that! DAVID: Thank you. Agreed. All that is left is to agree on the source of the intelligent information in the genome. dhw: Hallelujah! Or are you playing games with me? Let me repeat: you are saying that the genome provides the intelligence that makes the cell intelligent, i.e. the cell is an intelligent being. It is not an automaton. [...]-DAVID: ...There is no hallelujah. You are deliberately skipping over my concept of layered control. The genome contains information (intelligence) which allows the cells to make educated controlled responses to stimuli.-So you ARE playing games with me! The expression “intelligent cell” refers to intelligence as the faculty that enables organisms to perceive, learn, process information, communicate with one another, take decisions etc. DAVID: The cells are given this intelligence and mechanisms to use it. The cells are organized to respond to each other and in unison.-The mechanisms to use information, as listed above (perceive, learn etc.), are what I mean by intelligence. You say they “are given" these mechanisms. By that, you clearly mean God gave them the mechanisms which I call intelligence. That means they have them. That means cells are intelligent. That means they are not automata. No more games, please. DAVID: .... And none of our discussion explains the giant leaps in the fossil record, the punctualted equilibium we see. Your theory fits tiny steps only, and my description of cell activity also does not explain the leaps. We are talking in circles about a tiny aspect of the problem. -As I keep pointing out, the concept of the intelligent cell DOES explain the giant leaps, and punctuated equilibrium, and it eliminates tiny steps, and it is anything but a tiny aspect of the problem. Environmental change would not only demand adaptation but it would also present new opportunities for experimentation. While many organisms fail to meet the challenge (= extinction), others succeed because intelligent cell communities cooperate to come up with different solutions to the new problems. These solutions have to work swiftly if the problem is life-threatening (= adaptation), and even innovations (exploiting new possibilities) would need to work relatively quickly if they were to survive.-DAVID: What bothers me about your panpsychism approach is it offers no solution, nor does what I have describe to you. Therefore something is missing, and I come back to another yet-to-be-discovered code pushing evolution toward the obvious complexity of humans. We still don't know 'how cells...create almost unlimited life forms'-No, we don't know how it works, but the possibility that the cell, as the basis of all life, has an inventive, cooperative, sentient intelligence of its own (perhaps designed by your God) seems to me to offer a far more convincing explanation of the evolutionary bush than random mutations or divine preplanning of every single variation, both of which theories you have rejected. I am still at a loss as to why you are so determined to rubbish the research done by Margulis, Shapiro and others.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Thursday, July 31, 2014, 02:11 (3767 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:So you ARE playing games with me! The expression “intelligent cell” refers to intelligence as the faculty that enables organisms to perceive, learn, process information, communicate with one another, take decisions etc.-No I am not. I use the words intelligence and information differently and you are twisiting my layered approach. Cells use intelligent information under fairly strict controls. > > DAVID: The cells are given this intelligence and mechanisms to use it. The cells are organized to respond to each other and in unison. > > dhw: The mechanisms to use information, as listed above (perceive, learn etc.), are what I mean by intelligence. You say they “are given" these mechanisms. By that, you clearly mean God gave them the mechanisms which I call intelligence. That means they have them. That means cells are intelligent. That means they are not automata. No more games, please.-If they are given a limited variety of responses to stimuli, of course they are automata. They are really quite comparable to robots, which also have limited decision-making capac idties. > > dhw:As I keep pointing out, the concept of the intelligent cell DOES explain the giant leaps, and punctuated equilibrium, and it eliminates tiny steps, and it is anything but a tiny aspect of the problem. Environmental change would not only demand adaptation but it would also present new opportunities for experimentation. -You make cells sound like Thomas Edison. Cells can only make minor changes, even in cooperation as a whole organism. Reznick's guppies could change size in a two year period, when challenged by new predators. that is no a new species, but a minor adaptation. Your proposal does not answer the question of macroevolution, nor dos any mechanism I am aware of as stated below: > > DAVID: What bothers me about your panpsychism approach is it offers no solution, nor does what I have describe to you. Therefore something is missing, and I come back to another yet-to-be-discovered code pushing evolution toward the obvious complexity of humans. We still don't know 'how cells...create almost unlimited life forms' > > dhw: No, we don't know how it works, but the possibility that the cell, as the basis of all life, has an inventive, cooperative, sentient intelligence of its own (perhaps designed by your God) seems to me to offer a far more convincing explanation of the evolutionary bush than random mutations or divine preplanning of every single variation, both of which theories you have rejected. I am still at a loss as to why you are so determined to rubbish the research done by Margulis, Shapiro and others.-Because you are stretching Margulis and Shapiro beyond all recognition. Yes, I reject RM & NS, but I also recognized no-one has an answer. Simon-Morris likes to point to convergence to show how inventive life is, but he doesn't know how it works either. All we know is somehow things evolved from one cell to us. There is a massive bush of unusual and usual life. Fabulous interlocking life styles and symbiosis: the enormous list of natures wonders I've compiled on our site. But no answer for punctuated equilibrium. You proposal cannot create the jumps we see. The cells' ability is too limited in the biochemistry of the genome and the cells themselves. To me you have conjured up a lovely self-explanatory pipedream.
Cell Memories
I'd like to leave the “Junk DNA” thread, as the subject matter overlaps, and our Oxford v ENCODE discussion has come to a dead end. I'll concentrate for now solely on one statement in your last post. Dhw: ...the possibility that the cell, as the basis of all life, has an inventive, cooperative, sentient intelligence of its own (perhaps designed by your God) seems to me to offer a far more convincing explanation of the evolutionary bush than random mutations or divine preplanning of every single variation, both of which theories you have rejected. I am still at a loss as to why you are so determined to rubbish the research done by Margulis, Shapiro and others.-DAVID: Because you are stretching Margulis and Shapiro beyond all recognition. We both need to read Shapiro's book, but please note the constant references below to cognitive abilities and decision-making, which we normally apply to human thought processes, such as learning and problem-solving. The second quote specifically refers to novelty. The third quote lists many of the qualities that quite clearly are NOT associated with robots (to which you have compared cells). Please read all four quotes to get the complete picture.-•	Evolution in Revolution-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3204118/-QUOTE 1: “Shapiro's book starts with characterization of cells relying on sensing and signaling for their cognitive life-or-death decisions in response to environmental stress and for their responses to diverse developmental cues and signals. He is stating clearly that all cells, even prokaryotic ones, rely heavily on sensing and decision-making processes in order to survive and reproduce faithfully in ever changing environment. Shapiro concludes that each cell has to make many signal-dependent life-or-death decisions requiring cognitive abilities. This cognitive view of cells, based on their sensory systems and information processing apparatus, changes our understanding of life and requires radical reformulation of the central dogma of molecular biology.”-QUOTE 2: “Novelty in evolution is inherently linked to the active and cognitive lifestyle of organisms, which continually updates the genome via natural genome editing mechanisms. Random genetic mutations can happen but do not have a decisive role in driving biological evolution.”-QUOTE 3: “This 21st century synthesis will include our recent understanding of life as a phenomenon supported by knowledge embodied in sentient chemical systems, where biocommunication is inherently linked to life as well as to biological evolution. Sentience, subjectivity, cognition, communication, and intelligence appear to be inherently associated with both life and biological evolution.”-QUOTE 4: “Darwinian competition, predation, and struggle for life are being complemented with cooperation, communication, cognition, learning and behaviour, which are also essential ingredients of biological evolution.”-You may disagree with Shapiro, but please don't tell me that I have stretched his ideas beyond recognition by suggesting that cells as sentient, cooperative, intelligent, decision-making beings, and not automata, may have played a vital role in evolution. I will wait for your reaction to these quotes before discussing their huge implications in relation to the rest of your post.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Thursday, July 31, 2014, 22:53 (3767 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: We both need to read Shapiro's book, but please note the constant references below to cognitive abilities and decision-making, which we normally apply to human thought processes, such as learning and problem-solving. The second quote specifically refers to novelty. The third quote lists many of the qualities that quite clearly are NOT associated with robots (to which you have compared cells). Please read all four quotes to get the complete picture.-I have carefuly read the book and annotated it. I am looking at those pages now. > > •	Evolution in Revolution > > http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3204118/ > > QUOTE 1: “Shapiro's book starts with characterization of cells relying on sensing and signaling for their cognitive life-or-death decisions in response to environmental stress and for their responses to diverse developmental cues and signals. He is stating clearly that all cells, even prokaryotic ones, rely heavily on sensing and decision-making processes in order to survive and reproduce faithfully in ever changing environment. Shapiro concludes that each cell has to make many signal-dependent life-or-death decisions requiring cognitive abilities. This cognitive view of cells, based on their sensory systems and information processing apparatus, changes our understanding of life and requires radical reformulation of the central dogma of molecular biology.” > > QUOTE 2: “Novelty in evolution is inherently linked to the active and cognitive lifestyle of organisms, which continually updates the genome via natural genome editing mechanisms. Random genetic mutations can happen but do not have a decisive role in driving biological evolution.” > > QUOTE 3: “This 21st century synthesis will include our recent understanding of life as a phenomenon supported by knowledge embodied in sentient chemical systems, where biocommunication is inherently linked to life as well as to biological evolution. Sentience, subjectivity, cognition, communication, and intelligence appear to be inherently associated with both life and biological evolution.” > > QUOTE 4: “Darwinian competition, predation, and struggle for life are being complemented with cooperation, communication, cognition, learning and behaviour, which are also essential ingredients of biological evolution.” > > You may disagree with Shapiro, but please don't tell me that I have stretched his ideas beyond recognition by suggesting that cells as sentient, cooperative, intelligent, decision-making beings, and not automata, may have played a vital role in evolution. I will wait for your reaction to these quotes before discussing their huge implications in relation to the rest of your post.-Your quotes are correct, and I could give you others that would further reinforce your proposed inerpretation of Shapiro. Read this quote carefully:-pg. 145 at the bottom: "A shift from thinking about gradual selection of localized random changes to sudden genome restructuring by sensory network-influenced cell systems is a major conceptual change. It replace the 'invisible hands' of geologic time and natural selection with cognitive networks and cellular functions for self-modification. This emphasis is systemic rather than atomistic and information-based rathr than stochastic." -I agree with all of this.-First point. He is proselytizing his point of view so his writing is very forceful. Secondly I believe he is correct. But what I can't get you to undertstand is 1) note that it is all "information based"; 2) the sensory systems and self-modification fuctions are serial biochemical reactions under tight feed back controls (a causes b, which causes c, which makes d, which modifies a to stop at a certain point).-This is how cells work. Yes, they are sentient in that they pick up signals from without. They have built-in responses to those signals, a small range of responses. And that is all we can say. It is a giant leap to conclude that this explains or even points a way to explaining punctuated equilibrium. All it does is offer the possibility that somehow epigentics causes speciation. It only results in small changes. But it in no way explains the huge jumps, which is what the fossil record gives us. His work offers hope that we are on the right path, but you are using very stretched assumptions from his work, which only describes tiny steps. And all of his research is in bacteria, where it is easiest to define these possible evolutionary mechanisms. He basically wants us to abandon RM & NS and concentrate on epigenetics, which I have. Your theory is based on his work, but if you asked him, I'll bet he would tell you he has no way of knowing if you are even close to a solution to the question.
Cell Memories
I have quoted Shapiro in support of the contention that cells are sentient, intelligent beings, and their intelligence may play a key role in the evolutionary process.-DAVID: Your quotes are correct, and I could give you others that would further reinforce your proposed inerpretation of Shapiro. -Thank you. There are two areas of discussion here: 1) whether the cell is or is not intelligent; 2) how big a role might its intelligence have played in evolution. DAVID: First point. He is proselytizing his point of view so his writing is very forceful. Secondly I believe he is correct. But what I can't get you to undertstand is 1) note that it is all "information based"; 2) the sensory systems and self-modification fuctions are serial biochemical reactions under tight feed back controls (a causes b, which causes c, which makes d, which modifies a to stop at a certain point).-His key word is “cognitive”, repeated over and over again, and by stressing “biochemical reactions” you are glossing over the list of attributes in quote 3: “sentience, subjectivity, cognition, communication, and intelligence” - to which we must add decision-making. All cognitive processes, including our own, are information based and accompanied by biochemical reactions involving cause and effect. The forcefulness of his writing is irrelevant if you believe he is correct. May I therefore take it that you now agree that the cell is sentient, subjective, cognitive, communicative and intelligent? (If not, what exactly do you agree with him about?) DAVID: [...] It is a giant leap to conclude that this explains or even points a way to explaining punctuated equilibrium. All it does is offer the possibility that somehow epigentics causes speciation. It only results in small changes. But it in no way explains the huge jumps, which is what the fossil record gives us. [...] Your theory is based on his work, but if you asked him, I'll bet he would tell you he has no way of knowing if you are even close to a solution to the question.-Not having read the book, I have no idea how far he takes the idea that “novelty in evolution is inherently linked to the active and cognitive lifestyle of organisms”, but that need not stop us from pursuing this idea to its possible logical conclusions. Evolution can only progress through innovation, and since all life is composed of cells and cellular communities, it stands to reason that all successful innovations have to entail cooperation between the cell communities. If we accept that the huge jumps in the fossil record are due to sudden changes and not to gaps in the record, it also stands to reason that this cooperation actually took place. An objection seems to be that the time scale is not large enough to allow for all the complexities involved in the formation of new organs. But we have no criteria by which to judge the time scale needed for intelligent, sentient, cooperative beings to create a functioning organ. Even if we accept the conservative estimate of 10 million years for the major changes in the Cambrian, we are talking of hundreds of thousands of generations of organisms. We don't know the precise conditions, and above all we don't know the nature or scope of the intelligence, but we see the results. And so instead of arguing that neither automata nor random mutations could have produced such complexities, we can now argue - far more convincingly if Margulis, Shapiro, Albrecht-Buehler & Co are correct - that intelligent beings, working in collaboration with one another, could and did do it in the time shown by the fossil record. It might be pertinent to ask why innovation as such appears to have stopped now. The potential for change has to be there still (as we know from continued adaptation), but for the time being, perhaps the cells have no incentive to invent, or have reached their inventive capacity given current conditions. Perhaps it requires dramatic environmental changes to bring forth dramatic new developments. That is why you focus all the time on apparently automatic activities - the innovations have already taken place, and what we see is the outcome and never the process that led to the outcome. To sum up: Shapiro says cells are intelligent, but you do not believe that cells can be intelligent enough to create new organs. The organs are there, and the cells must have cooperated to produce them, or they would not have worked. You do not have an alternative explanation, since you accept that evolution happened and you do not believe in your God preprogramming or intervening to create every single innovation. Once you accept Shapiro's basic thesis, punctuated equilibrium ceases to be an insoluble problem. New organs might conceivably be the result of intelligent design by the cells themselves. And maybe the intelligence of cells themselves is the result of intelligent design by your God.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Saturday, August 02, 2014, 02:30 (3765 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: May I therefore take it that you now agree that the cell is sentient, subjective, cognitive, communicative and intelligent? (If not, what exactly do you agree with him about?)-I agree with all but the last word intelligent. The cell uses intelligent information. which is just what he indicates. Again from page 146: 'information-based rather than stochastic'. > > DAVID: [...] It is a giant leap to conclude that this explains or even points a way to explaining punctuated equilibrium. All it does is offer the possibility that somehow epigentics causes speciation. It only results in small changes. -The above repeated for emphasis. He does not carry his findings into making any suggestion like yours. He simply describes what cells can do, and severely reduces the role of RM & NS in his thinking. -> dhw: Evolution can only progress through innovation, and since all life is composed of cells and cellular communities, it stands to reason that all successful innovations have to entail cooperation between the cell communities. -Agreed that the cells must work together in new organs. Creating a kidney which controls acid/base balance, electrolyte levels, waste removal, fluid volumes controls, blood pressure control, etc. requires a knowledge of what conditions the other cells in the body must have to function. It all has to work together from the beginning. I see no way to sneak up on it. -> dhw:.... And so instead of arguing that neither automata nor random mutations could have produced such complexities, we can now argue - far more convincingly if Margulis, Shapiro, Albrecht-Buehler & Co are correct - that intelligent beings, working in collaboration with one another, could and did do it in the time shown by the fossil record.-Same problem. Cells use intelligent information to make tiny adaptations. Whole beings adapt to circumstances of nature, and small eppienetic changes appear. Not the way to fill the gaps in the fossil record, or develop a kidney. > > dhw: It might be pertinent to ask why innovation as such appears to have stopped now. The potential for change has to be there still (as we know from continued adaptation), but for the time being, perhaps the cells have no incentive to invent, or have reached their inventive capacity given current conditions. Perhaps it requires dramatic environmental changes to bring forth dramatic new developments. That is why you focus all the time on apparently automatic activities - the innovations have already taken place, and what we see is the outcome and never the process that led to the outcome.-Whoa! We have been thinking about this issue of evolution for 180+ years. Not enough time to see the process in action, unless you think punc-equil might show us a pop-up new species any time now. We see results but we still really don't know how the process works. You and I have debated vigorously and I don't see an answer hanging around. > > dhw; To sum up: Shapiro says cells are intelligent, but you do not believe that cells can be intelligent enough to create new organs. The organs are there, and the cells must have cooperated to produce them, or they would not have worked. You do not have an alternative explanation, since you accept that evolution happened. -Yes I do. God did it, I just don't know how. Darwin's proposal is based on no knowledge of genetics, no knowledge of cellular biochemistry (cells were blobs of plasma!), and studies of breeding in tiny steps. No wonder it looks so weak. His fears of the fossil gaps and of the Cambrian Explosion have een born out. The gaps won't go away and the Cambrian is more of an explosion than ever. Those animals appeared with cooperating complete organ systems. Your proposal does not tell me how.
Cell Memories
dhw: May I therefore take it that you now agree that the cell is sentient, subjective, cognitive, communicative and intelligent? (If not, what exactly do you agree with him about?) DAVID: I agree with all but the last word intelligent. The cell uses intelligent information. which is just what he indicates. Again from page 146: 'information-based rather than stochastic'.-“Information-based rather than stochastic” means that the cell's work is based on information and not on randomness, which would be a precondition for purposeful invention! What do you mean by “intelligent information” anyway? What would unintelligent information be? The cell obviously uses information intelligently. DAVID: He does not carry his findings into making any suggestion like yours. He simply describes what cells can do, and severely reduces the role of RM & NS in his thinking. -That need not stop us from considering possible implications of his findings.-dhw: Evolution can only progress through innovation, and since all life is composed of cells and cellular communities, it stands to reason that all successful innovations have to entail cooperation between the cell communities. DAVID: Agreed that the cells must work together in new organs. Creating a kidney which controls acid/base balance, electrolyte levels, waste removal, fluid volumes controls, blood pressure control, etc. requires a knowledge of what conditions the other cells in the body must have to function. It all has to work together from the beginning. I see no way to sneak up on it.-There is no “sneaking up”. The cell communities clearly cooperate, and in order to do so, they use their cognitive faculties to exchange information. Of course they have to work together from the beginning. That is what we mean by cooperation! -dhw: It might be pertinent to ask why innovation as such appears to have stopped now. The potential for change has to be there still (as we know from continued adaptation), but for the time being, perhaps the cells have no incentive to invent, or have reached their inventive capacity given current conditions. Perhaps it requires dramatic environmental changes to bring forth dramatic new developments. That is why you focus all the time on apparently automatic activities - the innovations have already taken place, and what we see is the outcome and never the process that led to the outcome. DAVID: Whoa! We have been thinking about this issue of evolution for 180+ years. Not enough time to see the process in action, unless you think punc-equil might show us a pop-up new species any time now.-I don't see your point. Mine is that we only see the results of the process of innovation, and not the process itself. Therefore we do not know from first-hand observation what innovative potential cells and cell communities have. You seem to agree, but your remark about a pop-up new species is a non sequitur. I have suggested that the reason why we have not seen dramatic new developments (pop-up new species - as in the Cambrian) may be that current conditions do not require them. -dhw; To sum up: Shapiro says cells are intelligent, but you do not believe that cells can be intelligent enough to create new organs. The organs are there, and the cells must have cooperated to produce them, or they would not have worked. You do not have an alternative explanation, since you accept that evolution happened. -DAVID: Yes I do. God did it, I just don't know how. [...] Your proposal does not tell me how.-Of course I don't know how the cellular mechanisms work, but some experts in the field have told us that cells are “sentient, subjective, cognitive, communicative and intelligent.” So are humans, but we don't know HOW our intelligence works. Does that mean humans didn't invent the motor car? Bearing in mind that cells MUST cooperate to produce successful new organs, my proposed solution to the mystery of punctuated equilibrium, including the Cambrian Explosion, is that intelligent cells (origin unknown, but maybe “God did it”) cooperated to invent the organs. If your God did not preprogramme every single innovation and did not intervene to make each one separately, can you find a better explanation?
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Saturday, August 02, 2014, 21:37 (3765 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: “Information-based rather than stochastic” means that the cell's work is based on information and not on randomness, which would be a precondition for purposeful invention! What do you mean by “intelligent information” anyway? What would unintelligent information be? The cell obviously uses information intelligently.-The cell uses the information properly because it is told to do so. -> > dhw:There is no “sneaking up”. The cell communities clearly cooperate, and in order to do so, they use their cognitive faculties to exchange information. Of course they have to work together from the beginning. That is what we mean by cooperation! -My response to you is to ask how do cells cooperate to produce a new species? You have no answer and neither do I. Remember that all the info we currently have is that DNA codes for proteins, and they can be modified. We can isolate genes and relate them to certain processes, but we don't know how that gene guidance of processes really works. We do not know how the phenotype of a human being comes out of the DNA, or the phenotype of any other organism. An analogy: wwe see a pile of lumber, stones, wires and pipes. Time passes and we see a house. Another pile, another different house. What happened. Workers built the houses accordilng to plans. At this point in scientific research we cannot see the plans, only the results. We do not know how organisms are planned! Our cells are workmen, following assigned duties. Your theory wants them to invent the plans de novo and then follow the plans to a new form. What I am sticking with is that there is need for the desgning architect, who has somehow inserted a planning code into the genome we haven't discovered as yet, or the architect appears from time to time to offer new plans. One or the other must be true as I think about it. You give lip service to the complexity of a living human, but without the training I have had you cannot possibly understand how fine-tuned are all the organs in regard to each other and how exquisitely the cooperation is adjusted. Each organ is at a distance from the others, yet satisfies the others needs. Put yourself in the position of a cooperating intelligent cell (your favorite propsition). How does that cell know, sitting in the liver secreting bile, what a kidney cell needs to know or do for a liver cell? These cells are like the folks who built the houses. They must follow a plan, not invent a highly complex plan a little at a time by some unknown method.-> > dhw: [My point]is that we only see the results of the process of innovation, and not the process itself. Therefore we do not know from first-hand observation what innovative potential cells and cell communities have.-We certainly know how cells function and what they are capable of in providing for a living organisms. > > dhw; To sum up: Shapiro says cells are intelligent, but you do not believe that cells can be intelligent enough to create new organs. The organs are there, and the cells must have cooperated to produce them, or they would not have worked. You do not have an alternative explanation, since you accept that evolution happened. -Shapiro presents his new approach to the genome but never carries his ideas to your extreme. I accept his ideas, as a great advance. I do have an alternate explanation. There is a designer/planner. Cells coooperate with the plans they are given.-> > dhw: Of course I don't know how the cellular mechanisms work, but some experts in the field have told us that cells are “sentient, subjective, cognitive, communicative and intelligent.” -So they are, but to a much smaller degree than you are willing to accept.-> dhw: So are humans, but we don't know HOW our intelligence works. Does that mean humans didn't invent the motor car? -Poor retort. We know full well the capabililties of our intelligence even if we do not understand consciousness.-> dhw: Bearing in mind that cells MUST cooperate to produce successful new organs, my proposed solution to the mystery of punctuated equilibrium, including the Cambrian Explosion, is that intelligent cells (origin unknown, but maybe “God did it”) cooperated to invent the organs. If your God did not preprogramme every single innovation and did not intervene to make each one separately, can you find a better explanation?-Again, the cells are workmen following a plan, given by God, all at once or one part at a time.
Cell Memories
As these posts are getting quite long and repetitive, I will try once more to summarize the salient points. Shapiro and others tell us that cells are “sentient, subjective, cognitive, communicative and intelligent”. I have put forward the hypothesis that the intelligent cell is responsible for all the innovations that have enabled evolution to progress (via punctuated equilibrium) from bacteria to ourselves. I don't know how the mechanism originated (maybe your God invented it) or how it works. You refuse to accept that cells are “intelligent”, and insist that they are automata merely obeying God's instructions, though you don't know how this works either (“God did it, I just don't know how”). You believe evolution happened, and have rejected detailed preplanning and separate creation of every innovation. You have quite rightly emphasized the enormous complexity of our organs. We know that this requires communication and cooperation between cells and cell communities, but you argue that they are not intelligent enough to invent or cooperate to the degree required. Bearing in mind the fact that every organ is a community of cells working together and in harmony with other communities of cells, and that every innovation required the same cooperation, here is the choice:-1) Your God made plans for the liver and a billion other innovations to be passed down from the first organisms to their zillions of descendants. 2) Your God fiddled around with a few unlivered organisms till he'd delivered the livers, and ditto for the billions of other innovations. 3) Livers and the billions of other innovations accidentally fashioned themselves through random mutations (rejected by both of us). 4) Cell communities combined their intelligence (which may have been invented by your God) to design the liver and the billions of other innovations, as and when environmental change demanded or allowed them. 5) ??? (you tell me).
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Monday, August 04, 2014, 16:10 (3763 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw:You have quite rightly emphasized the enormous complexity of our organs. We know that this requires communication and cooperation between cells and cell communities, but you argue that they are not intelligent enough to invent or cooperate to the degree required. ..... here is the choice: > > 1) Your God made plans for the liver and a billion other innovations to be passed down from the first organisms to their zillions of descendants. > 2) Your God fiddled around with a few unlivered organisms till he'd delivered the livers, and ditto for the billions of other innovations. > 3) Livers and the billions of other innovations accidentally fashioned themselves through random mutations (rejected by both of us). > 4) Cell communities combined their intelligence (which may have been invented by your God) to design the liver and the billions of other innovations, as and when environmental change demanded or allowed them. > 5) ??? (you tell me).-None of the above, because simply, I don't know. I only know that groups of cells practice teamwork. In sports among humans teams need a coach to coordinate their individual efforts. -Once again, the humam living body, as the current pinnacle of evolution, is an extremely complex coordinated group of individually complex organs, acting in exquisite harmony with each other, controlled by chemical messages, nervous messages, hormonal messages, and tightly controlled under a variety of feedback loops. That required coordination is so critical, a minor deviation by one organ can often be fatal. These organs are so complex we bright human engineeers cannot duplicate them but must use stumbling substitutes. Even confirmed atheists (Dawkins) admit is looks designed. I cannot accept that it happened by chance, nor can you.-Your very strained alternative, by severely extrapolating the theories of Shapiro and others, is that the cells did it by themselves. I'll ask you, did the cell mechanisms, Shapiro calls genetic engineering, appear by chance or did the cells invent those mechanisms themselves? It all still comes down to chance or design. Sorry no third way.
Cell Memories
DAVID: Your very strained alternative, by severely extrapolating the theories of Shapiro and others, is that the cells did it by themselves. I'll ask you, did the cell mechanisms, Shapiro calls genetic engineering, appear by chance or did the cells invent those mechanisms themselves? It all still comes down to chance or design. Sorry no third way.-The alternative I have offered quite explicitly allows for the cell mechanisms to have been designed:-4) Cell communities combined their intelligence (which may have been invented by your God) to design the liver and the billions of other innovations, as and when environmental change demanded or allowed them.-In this discussion I am interested only in finding a possible explanation for the innovations which have driven evolution from bacteria to humans. You quite rightly say you don't know. Nobody knows. We can only advance theories. You keep telling me what I keep telling you: that innovations demand perfect cooperation between the different cell communities, but you categorically reject divine preprogramming, divine fiddling and random mutations as the force behind this cooperation. So what else could bring it about if not the intelligence of the cells themselves? The theist can then argue that only God could have designed such an inventively, cooperatively intelligent mechanism, and the atheist can argue that it came about by chance.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 05, 2014, 22:46 (3762 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw:The alternative I have offered quite explicitly allows for the cell mechanisms to have been designed: > > 4) Cell communities combined their intelligence (which may have been invented by your God) to design the liver and the billions of other innovations, as and when environmental change demanded or allowed them.-I don't see how these two statements fit together. Original cell intelligence or intelligent information that cells use (in your scenario) to cooperate, can only come from design or by chance. All you have said is 'may have been invented by your God', so does that mean you are excluding chance? And are you excluding the issue that it is a logically enormous stretch that cells write their own plans and then follow them. Kidney cells cannot tell liver cells what to do so that the two organs coordinate. > > dhw: In this discussion I am interested only in finding a possible explanation for the innovations which have driven evolution from bacteria to humans. You quite rightly say you don't know. Nobody knows. We can only advance theories.-The only explanation I see, considering the intricacies of the body, is design.-> dhw: You keep telling me what I keep telling you: that innovations demand perfect cooperation between the different cell communities, but you categorically reject divine preprogramming, divine fiddling and random mutations as the force behind this cooperation.-No, I've previously said, in complete lack of knowledge, preprogramming is a possibility as is dabbling by God. I don't believe RM & NS are capable of doing the job. As a guess, pre-programming seem to fit more with the concept of God as a first mover.-> dhw: So what else could bring it [innovations] about if not the intelligence of the cells themselves? -And I ask again, explain how did the cells self-invent such intelligence.- You anwser is:-> dhw:The theist can then argue that only God could have designed such an inventively, cooperatively intelligent mechanism, and the atheist can argue that it came about by chance.-And you reject chance, making the picket fence your only refuge, on what seems to me to be a binary issue.
Cell Memories
Choice 4): Cell communities combined their intelligence (which may have been invented by your God) to design the liver and the billions of other innovations, as and when environmental change demanded or allowed them. DAVID: I don't see how these two statements fit together. Original cell intelligence or intelligent information that cells use (in your scenario) to cooperate, can only come from design or by chance. All you have said is 'may have been invented by your God', so does that mean you are excluding chance?-I have emphasized in the same post that “I am interested only in finding a possible explanation for the innovations which have driven evolution from bacteria to humans.” You keep trying to force the issue back to a first cause, but the hypothesis that intelligent cells cooperated to produce innovations does not cover a first cause, any more than Darwin's theory of evolution did. DAVID: And are you excluding the issue that it is a logically enormous stretch that cells write their own plans and then follow them. Kidney cells cannot tell liver cells what to do so that the two organs coordinate. -I have no more idea than you do how the cells managed to combine to form these new organs. I only know that they did. Margulis, Shapiro and Albrecht-Buehler tell us that cells COMMUNICATE. So yes, they may well tell one another what to do - but not in any language that you or I would understand. All organisms - apparently even plants - use their own forms of communication. They could not survive otherwise. dhw: ...you categorically reject divine preprogramming, divine fiddling and random mutations as the force behind this cooperation. DAVID: No, I've previously said, in complete lack of knowledge, preprogramming is a possibility as is dabbling by God. I don't believe RM & NS are capable of doing the job. As a guess, pre-programming seem to fit more with the concept of God as a first mover.-Sorry, I must have misunderstood your rejection of choices 1) and 2): “None of the above, because simply, I don't know.” However, regarding various hypotheses as a possibility is a good agnostic position. I do wish you'd also consider possible the hypothesis that your God invented an intelligence that could take its own decisions. (Oops, of course you do - but despite Shapiro & Co. you insist that only humans and to a lesser degree some other animals can do that. The rest are automata.)-dhw:The theist can then argue that only God could have designed such an inventively, cooperatively intelligent mechanism, and the atheist can argue that it came about by chance. DAVID: And you reject chance, making the picket fence your only refuge, on what seems to me to be a binary issue.-ME: How did innovations happen? Maybe intelligent cells cooperated to create them. YOU: If so, where did cells get their intelligence from? ME: No idea. **** YOU: God made innovations happen. ME: How did he do it? YOU: No idea.-Of course I'm on the picket fence. Up here I don't have to believe in things that you and I have no idea about.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Thursday, August 07, 2014, 02:16 (3760 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I have emphasized in the same post that “I am interested only in finding a possible explanation for the innovations which have driven evolution from bacteria to humans.” You keep trying to force the issue back to a first cause, but the hypothesis that intelligent cells cooperated to produce innovations does not cover a first cause, any more than Darwin's theory of evolution did.-And I keep telling ou that cells cannot plan such intricacies, unless you can convince me by describing the method the cells use to plan it out. Using the word intelligence over and over agin gets us nowhere except telling me that magically a fuzzy concept of intelligence in cells can produce complex innovation. > > DAVID: And are you excluding the issue that it is a logically enormous stretch that cells write their own plans and then follow them. Kidney cells cannot tell liver cells what to do so that the two organs coordinate. > > dhw: I have no more idea than you do how the cells managed to combine to form these new organs. I only know that they did. Margulis, Shapiro and Albrecht-Buehler tell us that cells COMMUNICATE. So yes, they may well tell one another what to do - but not in any language that you or I would understand. All organisms - apparently even plants - use their own forms of communication. They could not survive otherwise.-Everything you say is true. But I cannot conceive of a group of fairly primative cells becoming very complex cells in a kidney from their own planning. Shapiro describes simple changes. What your theory forgets is the Cambrian Explosion: whole organisms with complex organ systems appear from no precursors. Punctuated equiibrium is not explained by your theory. The whale series of phenotypes is worth your reviewing. Each of the forms is a huge jump in changes from the last form. No itty-bitty here, which your 'cells theory' requires.-> > dhw: However, regarding various hypotheses as a possibility is a good agnostic position. I do wish you'd also consider possible the hypothesis that your God invented an intelligence that could take its own decisions. (Oops, of course you do - but despite Shapiro & Co. you insist that only humans and to a lesser degree some other animals can do that. The rest are automata.)-It's not just decisions, it is planning and pre-planning, remember! Simple decision -making does not create overall plans unless you are an architect. Oops, you want cells to do complex decision-making, I forgot. I agree that cells can make tiny epigenetic modifications, which is what Shapiro shows. Doesn't fill the fossil gaps, does it. You theory has to cover the whole picture, not whistle in the dark past the huge holes in it as your cells can only take tiny steps. -> > ME: How did innovations happen? Maybe intelligent cells cooperated to create them. > YOU: If so, where did cells get their intelligence from? > ME: No idea. > **** > YOU: God made innovations happen. > ME: How did he do it? > YOU: No idea. > > dhw: Of course I'm on the picket fence. Up here I don't have to believe in things that you and I have no idea about.-So we grant cells intelligence from 'nowhere' to create very complex biochemical organs, and then we say, since those organs are present and cooperating, some process in evolution must have done it, but chance doesn't work, so lets stop and not conclude anything. It looks like it must all be a miracle. No, you say, that is not right. It infers the supernatural. That is exactly why I prefer theistic evolution. It fills all the holes and confusion for me, although I don't know how HE did it. And I think He is challenging us to figure it out.
Cell Memories
DAVID: And I keep telling ou that cells cannot plan such intricacies, unless you can convince me by describing the method the cells use to plan it out. Using the word intelligence over and over agin gets us nowhere except telling me that magically a fuzzy concept of intelligence in cells can produce complex innovation-You can't describe the method your God uses to plan it out. Using the word God over and over again gets us nowhere except telling us that magically a fuzzy concept of a universal intelligence can produce complex innovation.-DAVID: What your theory forgets is the Cambrian Explosion: whole organisms with complex organ systems appear from no precursors. [...] No itty-bitty here, which your 'cells theory' requires.-You raised the same objection in your post of 31 July at 22.53, and I answered it on 1 August at 17.45. Further to what I wrote there, the great advantage of this hypothesis is precisely the fact that deliberate invention by communities of intelligent beings would NOT be itty-bitty, except that it might well require experimentation (with many organisms dying). I am using the same argument as you: the explosion can be explained by intelligent design - in this case, though, the intelligence is that of the cells. -dhw: However, regarding various hypotheses as a possibility is a good agnostic position. I do wish you'd also consider possible the hypothesis that your God invented an intelligence that could take its own decisions. (Oops, of course you do - but despite Shapiro & Co. you insist that only humans and to a lesser degree some other animals can do that. The rest are automata.) DAVID: It's not just decisions, it is planning and pre-planning, remember! Simple decision -making does not create overall plans unless you are an architect. Oops, you want cells to do complex decision-making, I forgot.-I took a short cut. For cells to be inventive they would need to be “sentient, subjective, cognitive, communicative and intelligent”, all of which qualities our researchers say they have. I have added decision-making to Shapiro's list. DAVID: [...] That is exactly why I prefer theistic evolution. It fills all the holes and confusion for me, although I don't know how HE did it. And I think He is challenging us to figure it out.-You cannot fill “all the holes” by saying “God did it” though you still don't know how! Once you accept the theory of common descent, “how” is the biggest of the evolutionary holes!
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Friday, August 08, 2014, 02:49 (3759 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Further to what I wrote there, the great advantage of this hypothesis is precisely the fact that deliberate invention by communities of intelligent beings would NOT be itty-bitty, except that it might well require experimentation (with many organisms dying). I am using the same argument as you: the explosion can be explained by intelligent design - in this case, though, the intelligence is that of the cells. -Bluntly, cell intelligence is too limited to create the intricate plans required for complicated organs. You theory does not explain the huge gap of the Cambrian Explosion. My theory assumes God stepped in at this point in evolution.- > dhw: For cells to be inventive they would need to be “sentient, subjective, cognitive, communicative and intelligent”, all of which qualities our researchers say they have. I have added decision-making to Shapiro's list. -They are exactly as you say but only to a tiny degree of what is needed for complex planning. One cannot make a kidney by hunt and peck. The Cambrian had full-blown kidney function. It implies a full-blown plan. If you are impressed by spiders spinning webs with pH gradients then imagine a number of different gradients in a kidney, all controlled by feedback signals from other organs in the body. > > DAVID: [...] That is exactly why I prefer theistic evolution. It fills all the holes and confusion for me, although I don't know how HE did it. And I think He is challenging us to figure it out. > > dhw: You cannot fill “all the holes” by saying “God did it” though you still don't know how! Once you accept the theory of common descent, “how” is the biggest of the evolutionary holes!-But yes I can. It certainly appears we evolved. The fossils are in the right order in the layers of the Earth. Is God trying to fool us in this arrangement? No, I fully believe God guided evolution. He knows how, but He has not explained it. As stated before, I think that is one of the challenges He gave us when He supplied giant brains. Try and figure it out. I covered all this in my first book on the subject. Let's admit we both don't know how it works, only that we can see the results of an evolutionary process. Since we know the age of the universe the story in Genesis doesn't work. We must treat it as an allegory, so we are left with life evolving over 3.6 billion years.-And there is so much we do not know. Why and how multcellularity developed when bactera are so successful. Why and how sex developed, because sex requires limited life times, and bactera live forever in sister cells. Some of this suggests a drive built into evolution to create complexity. We have to work backward from what we know about the evolutionary process, and from my viewpoint your theory has no way of fitting the history we have found. Certainly not the Cambrian gap. Life is too complex to be a result of chance tentative, in-the-dark attempts by a bunch of cells with some intelligence.
Cell Memories
DAVID: Bluntly, cell intelligence is too limited to create the intricate plans required for complicated organs. You theory does not explain the huge gap of the Cambrian Explosion. My theory assumes God stepped in at this point in evolution. [...] One cannot make a kidney by hunt and peck. The Cambrian had full-blown kidney function. It implies a full-blown plan.-God “stepped in” (as opposed to organisms inheriting kidney plans he'd placed in the first living cells billions of years back) presumably means he grabbed hold of various existing organisms and fiddled around with their cell communities (organs) so that he could turn some of them into kidneys. This process would have to apply to all the complicated organs that make spiders, dinosaurs and chimpanzees so very different from bacteria. And since you insist that humans are different in kind and not degree from all other creatures, it's pretty clear that you see us as another instance of your God “stepping in”. (Later you write: “I think that is one of the challenges He gave us when He supplied giant brains.” Perhaps you imagine him manufacturing kidneys and brains in his lab up in the sky and then descending to earth and supplying them to a few kidneyless dinersoreasses, and a few mini-brained chimps.) In short, you believe in microevolution but not in macroevolution. This is not what you call theistic evolution but Creationism (though without the biblical implications of the term). And yet you say: "It certainly appears we evolved", and your version "fills all the holes and confusion for me..." DAVID: We have to work backward from what we know about the evolutionary process, and from my viewpoint your theory has no way of fitting the history we have found. Certainly not the Cambrian gap. -I agree that we have to work backwards, and although I understand (and partly share) your scepticism concerning the inventive powers of cellular communities, I do not understand why you say it doesn't fit the history. You have as much right to question whether cells could have done it as I have to question the existence and the hypothetical methods of your “universal intelligence”, but both theories offer precisely the same explanation of the Cambrian - namely, intelligent design.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Saturday, August 09, 2014, 02:14 (3758 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: God “stepped in” (as opposed to organisms inheriting kidney plans he'd placed in the first living cells billions of years back) presumably means he grabbed hold of various existing organisms and fiddled around with their cell communities (organs) so that he could turn some of them into kidneys.-I do not prefer dabbling by God as the method He used.-> dhw: In short, you believe in microevolution but not in macroevolution.-I believe we see micoevolution all the time. Macroevolution is totally unexplained by any scientific theory. Darwin's approach is simply: the final products of evolution are here, therefore they were produced by evolution, let's say by natural selection. Circular reasoning. The whole thing is a tautology. -> > dhw: I agree that we have to work backwards, and although I understand (and partly share) your scepticism concerning the inventive powers of cellular communities, I do not understand why you say it doesn't fit the history.-I don't think the intelligent cells have the intellectual power to create macroevolution all by themselves, which opinion is based upon my reaction to the work described by Shapiro.
Cell Memories
dhw: God “stepped in” (as opposed to organisms inheriting kidney plans he'd placed in the first living cells billions of years back) presumably means he grabbed hold of various existing organisms and fiddled around with their cell communities (organs) so that he could turn some of them into kidneys.-DAVID (9 August) I do not prefer dabbling by God as the method He used. DAVID: (7 August) You theory does not explain the huge gap of the Cambrian Explosion. My theory assumes God stepped in at this point in evolution.-Confusion reigns. Your assumption is that God stepped in to organize the Cambrian (= he dabbled), but you prefer the theory that he preprogrammed all the new organs and species in the first living cells. dhw: In short, you believe in microevolution but not in macroevolution.-DAVID: I believe we see micoevolution all the time. Macroevolution is totally unexplained by any scientific theory. Darwin's approach is simply: the final products of evolution are here, therefore they were produced by evolution, let's say by natural selection. Circular reasoning. The whole thing is a tautology.-We have both long since rejected Darwin's random mutations as the mechanism, and agreed that natural selection only selects from what already exists. The subject of this discussion is my hypothesis of the intelligent cell, and your hypotheses of God preprogramming everything from the very start (which you might call theistic evolution) or God dabbling (which = Creationism minus the bible). In the past we have both accepted that evolution happened, i.e. all forms of life are descended from earlier forms. If you are not a Creationist, you are stuck with God preprogramming every single innovation right from the beginning. Is that really what you believe? -dhw: I agree that we have to work backwards, and although I understand (and partly share) your scepticism concerning the inventive powers of cellular communities, I do not understand why you say it doesn't fit the history. DAVID: I don't think the intelligent cells have the intellectual power to create macroevolution all by themselves, which opinion is based upon my reaction to the work described by Shapiro.-I have already accepted that area of your scepticism in the sentence you have quoted. But you claimed my hypothesis of the intelligent cell didn't fit the history, and I pointed out that it offered exactly the same explanation of the history (punctuated equilibrium, the Cambrian, the comparatively sudden appearance of new organs and species) as your own theory - namely, intelligent design. You may not believe cells are capable of it, but if they were, that would give us the same outcome as your preprogramming or your dabbling hypotheses.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Monday, August 11, 2014, 00:56 (3757 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Confusion reigns. Your assumption is that God stepped in to organize the Cambrian (= he dabbled), but you prefer the theory that he preprogrammed all the new organs and species in the first living cells.-I'm not confused. I admitted I don't know. I prefer to favor preplanning, but dabbling is a possibility I cannot rule out.- > dhw: We have both long since rejected Darwin's random mutations as the mechanism, and agreed that natural selection only selects from what already exists. The subject of this discussion is my hypothesis of the intelligent cell, and your hypotheses of God preprogramming everything from the very start (which you might call theistic evolution) or God dabbling ..... If you are not a Creationist, you are stuck with God preprogramming every single innovation right from the beginning. Is that really what you believe? -That is what I prefer to believe, but I have no proof of either method, and perhaps both approaches were used. > > I have already accepted that area of your scepticism in the sentence you have quoted. But you claimed my hypothesis of the intelligent cell didn't fit the history, and I pointed out that it offered exactly the same explanation of the history.....You may not believe cells are capable of it, but if they were, that would give us the same outcome as your preprogramming or your dabbling hypotheses.-That is exactly where we disagree. If the cells were brilliant enough the same result is probable. However, present evidence does not take slightly sentient cells with simple reactions to the level required to plan the complexity and coordination of advanced organisms. Your theory requires extreme faith in those cells, and you eschew faith.
Cell Memories
DAVID: (7 August) Your theory does not explain the huge gap of the Cambrian Explosion. My theory assumes God stepped in at this point in evolution. DAVID: (9 August) I do not prefer dabbling by God as the method He used. dhw: Confusion reigns. Your assumption is that God stepped in to organize the Cambrian (= he dabbled), but you prefer the theory that he preprogrammed all the new organs and species in the first living cells.-DAVID: I'm not confused. I admitted I don't know. I prefer to favor preplanning, but dabbling is a possibility I cannot rule out.-Perhaps this is another example of Americans murdering our beautiful English language. “Assume” in British English = to take for granted that something is true. If you assumed that God dabbled in the Cambrian, you could not favour a different explanation. -dhw: I have already accepted that area of your scepticism in the sentence you have quoted. But you claimed my hypothesis of the intelligent cell didn't fit the history, and I pointed out that it offered exactly the same explanation of the history (punctuated equilibrium, the Cambrian, the comparatively sudden appearance of new organs and species) as your own theory - namely, intelligent design. You may not believe cells are capable of it, but if they were, that would give us the same outcome as your preprogramming or your dabbling hypotheses.-DAVID: That is exactly where we disagree. If the cells were brilliant enough the same result is probable.-Then you agree! -DAVID: However, present evidence does not take slightly sentient cells with simple reactions to the level required to plan the complexity and coordination of advanced organisms. Your theory requires extreme faith in those cells, and you eschew faith.-Once again you scurry back to the point already dealt with. I wrote earlier that I understand and partly share your scepticism, and I have repeated several times that I offer this hypothesis as an alternative, not as a belief. My objection was to your claim that it didn't fit the history, not to the fact that it didn't conform to our current knowledge of the cell's capabilities.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 12, 2014, 18:28 (3755 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Perhaps this is another example of Americans murdering our beautiful English language. “Assume” in British English = to take for granted that something is true. If you assumed that God dabbled in the Cambrian, you could not favour a different explanation. -We may have inherited the language from you guys, but we have improved it in any ways. I fully known the meaning of 'assume', but it is certainly not as strong as 'I know for a fact' > > DAVID: That is exactly where we disagree. If the cells were brilliant enough the same result is probable. > > dhw;Then you agree!-Note the proviso: 'if the cells were brilliant enough'. They are not according to current research.- > > DAVID: However, present evidence does not take slightly sentient cells with simple reactions to the level required to plan the complexity and coordination of advanced organisms. Your theory requires extreme faith in those cells, and you eschew faith. > > dhw:I have repeated several times that I offer this hypothesis as an alternative, not as a belief. My objection was to your claim that it didn't fit the history, not to the fact that it didn't conform to our current knowledge of the cell's capabilities.-The history of life's designs, as shown in the Natures wonders thread, requires cells much more brilliant than currently shown. It is much more a stretch to accept Dawkins' comment that nature looks designed but isn't than to say, a designer's hand is much more apparent. Your choice assigns design capacity to primarily automatically functional cells. Show me brilliant cells and I will accept your hypothesis.
Cell Memories
dhw: Perhaps this is another example of Americans murdering our beautiful English language. “Assume” in British English = to take for granted that something is true. If you assumed that God dabbled in the Cambrian, you could not favour a different explanation. DAVID: We may have inherited the language from you guys, but we have improved it in any ways. I fully known the meaning of 'assume', but it is certainly not as strong as 'I know for a fact'-Nobody said it was. Taking something for granted is not the same as knowing it for a fact! You wrote, concerning the Cambrian: “I assume God stepped in.” You then wrote: “I do not prefer dabbling as the method He used.” Your two statements are contradictory. We bulldog British never let go. Give in.-DAVID: That is exactly where we disagree. If the cells were brilliant enough the same result is probable. Dhw: Then you agree! DAVID: Note the proviso: 'if the cells were brilliant enough'. They are not according to current research.-Note the context. You wrote that “your theory has no way of fitting the history we have found. Certainly not the Cambrian gap.” I wrote: “You may not believe cells are capable of it [= intelligent design], but if they were, that would give us the same outcome as your preprogramming or your dabbling hypothesis” (i.e. innovations, the Cambrian etc.). All three hypotheses fit the history of evolution. The fact that you don't believe my hypothesis is irrelevant.-Give in, give in. You cannot win. Equivocation Is a sin.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Thursday, August 14, 2014, 01:52 (3753 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Nobody said it was. Taking something for granted is not the same as knowing it for a fact! You wrote, concerning the Cambrian: “I assume God stepped in.” You then wrote: “I do not prefer dabbling as the method He used.” Your two statements are contradictory. We bulldog British never let go. Give in.-No they are not: Assumption is not fact. The Cambrian looks like dabbling, but I repeat, I prefer a full pre-programming. My preference proves nothing, so I am stuck with theistic evolution with no knowledge of the method employed. > > dhw: All three hypotheses fit the history of evolution. The fact that you don't believe my hypothesis is irrelevant.-If your cells are smart enough all three hypothesis fit. Your cells can't hunt and peck their way to the future designs. They are too dumb. Your wishing them some reall intelligence is only wishing.
Cell Memories
I'm taking this discussion back to Cell Memories, to keep the two discussions separate.-DAVID: I agree about NDE's and these transplant memories may have some validity if you consider species consciousness as a factor.-dhw: I don't understand your insistence that individual memories are dependent on species consciousness. Validation of transplant memories, as with NDEs, can only come about through confirmation of the information by independent third parties. This appears to have happened in certain cases of NDEs and heart transplants. -DAVID: I can accept completely the fact of veridical NDE's. Hundreds have been reported. [...]-(Thank you for the latest fascinating example.)-DAVID: On the other hand these transplant memory stories are suggestive and require more documentation to reach the level we are at in NDE research.-Agreed. NDEs go way back into history, whereas transplants are a comparatively new phenomenon and these stories are only just beginning to come out. No doubt more research will be done on them. We must also keep in mind that the vast majority of patients in both types of case appear to have had no such experience (which should make us wary of generalizations). DAVID: Both are highly suggestive of species consciousness, especially with the so-called NDE experts considering the brain as a radio receiver for consciousness. Parnia is very clear that consciousness can survive several hours of no brain function in isolated cases. Eben Alexander, the academic neurosurgeon's length of time was one week.-Like you, I'm fascinated by the implications of NDEs and the apparent independence of consciousness from the cells from which we think it may emerge. You have a problem here, since you seem convinced by "emergence" (which makes the cells the source of consciousness) and yet believe consciousness can survive the cells that create it. Transplant memories, however, suggest that the consciousness of the dead person remains within the cells (and not just those of the brain). If both sets of examples are true (we can only speculate), the answer may perhaps lie in some form of personalized energy that is produced by the cells but can remain both inside and outside them. Species consciousness might be a generalized form of that energy (so perhaps the brain/heart/whatever could be both producer and receiver), or it might be cellular memories handed down through all the generations of species' cells (which makes the brain/heart/whatever a container and a producer). Whatever it may be, though I hate to mention this, we are getting perilously close to some kind of panpsychism.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Friday, October 25, 2013, 01:54 (4046 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: On the other hand these transplant memory stories are suggestive and require more documentation to reach the level we are at in NDE research. > > dhw: Agreed. NDEs go way back into history, whereas transplants are a comparatively new phenomenon and these stories are only just beginning to come out. No doubt more research will be done on them. We must also keep in mind that the vast majority of patients in both types of case appear to have had no such experience (which should make us wary of generalizations).-No. NDE's occur in about 20% according to Parnia. That is a sizeable number. And he has an active group trying to do OOB research by hiding symbols up on shelves above everyone in the ER or ICU, to find out if the patients are really OOB and spot them! > > > dhw: Like you, I'm fascinated by the implications of NDEs and the apparent independence of consciousness from the cells from which we think it may emerge. You have a problem here, since you seem convinced by "emergence" (which makes the cells the source of consciousness) and yet believe consciousness can survive the cells that create it. -I didn't say it the way you are interpreting it. The brain has consciousness aa an emergent property, whikch may be tghat it acts as a radio receiver for species consciousness while generating its own consciousness. And there is no question that consciousness survives brain cell silence and total inactivity, often for several hours or days, only to return with full resuscitation, and the memories recalled from during that coma-time are not hallucinations but very organized events. I'm glad you liked the mind-reading story. The patients report communication is by telepathy. > > dhw: Transplant memories, however, suggest that the consciousness of the dead person remains within the cells (and not just those of the brain). If both sets of examples are true (we can only speculate), the answer may perhaps lie in some form of personalized energy that is produced by the cells but can remain both inside and outside them. Species consciousness might be a generalized form of that energy (so perhaps the brain/heart/whatever could be both producer and receiver), or it might be cellular memories handed down through all the generations of species' cells (which makes the brain/heart/whatever a container and a producer). Whatever it may be, though I hate to mention this, we are getting perilously close to some kind of panpsychism.-Yes we are, and it only another form of my favorite theory, that God is the universal consciousness of out reality.
Cell Memories
DAVID: We must also keep in mind that the vast majority of patients in both types of case appear to have had no such experience (which should make us wary of generalizations).-DAVID: No. NDE's occur in about 20% according to Parnia. That is a sizeable number. -Why do you say no? 20% is a substantial number, and 80% is the vast majority. We still have to be wary of generalizations. dhw: Like you, I'm fascinated by the implications of NDEs and the apparent independence of consciousness from the cells from which we think it may emerge. You have a problem here, since you seem convinced by "emergence" (which makes the cells the source of consciousness) and yet believe consciousness can survive the cells that create it. -DAVID: I didn't say it the way you are interpreting it. The brain has consciousness aa an emergent property, whikch may be tghat it acts as a radio receiver for species consciousness while generating its own consciousness. -The essential feature of NDEs is that it gives us a pointer to an afterlife (in which you say you believe), and that means individual identity and consciousness survive the death of the cells. Species consciousness does not give us our individual identity, and so you are still stuck with the problem of our personal consciousness being produced by and yet surviving the cells. But the panpsychist-type energy theory may solve it.-DAVID: And there is no question that consciousness survives brain cell silence and total inactivity, often for several hours or days, only to return with full resuscitation, and the memories recalled from during that coma-time are not hallucinations but very organized events. But for some reason, this only happens to 20% of resuscitated patients. I am not casting doubt on the experiences (ditto those reported by some transplant patients), but am merely keeping in mind that there is another mystery here: why do the vast majority of people NOT have them?-Dhw: If both sets of examples are true (we can only speculate), the answer may perhaps lie in some form of personalized energy that is produced by the cells but can remain both inside and outside them. Species consciousness might be a generalized form of that energy (so perhaps the brain/heart/whatever could be both producer and receiver), or it might be cellular memories handed down through all the generations of species' cells (which makes the brain/heart/whatever a container and a producer). Whatever it may be, though I hate to mention this, we are getting perilously close to some kind of panpsychism.-DAVID: Yes we are, and it only another form of my favorite theory, that God is the universal consciousness of out reality.-I'm not sure what that fine-sounding expression means. Our reality is our own and other people's individual consciousness. NDEs all entail the survival of that individual identity. If it survives the death of the cells, it must be some kind of individualized energy which meets up with other individualized energies (you say the dead communicate by telepathy). Maybe all species generate their own individualized energies. And maybe the universe is filled with individualized energies. And maybe there is no such thing as one universal consciousness, but only an infinite number of individualized energies. Not your favourite theory, but doesn't it fit in nicely with NDEs?
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Saturday, October 26, 2013, 01:45 (4045 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Why do you say no? 20% is a substantial number, and 80% is the vast majority. We still have to be wary of generalizations.-20% is a large enough number to develop a study. How many of these transplant/memory folks are there? What is the percentage of transplant patients who develop odd memories? If these are isolated stories, good luck in developing a theory from a study. Those are the key questions. Very isolated incidents are just that, fun to think about, but going nowhere.-> > dhw: The essential feature of NDEs is that it gives us a pointer to an afterlife (in which you say you believe), and that means individual identity and consciousness survive the death of the cells. Species consciousness does not give us our individual identity, and so you are still stuck with the problem of our personal consciousness being produced by and yet surviving the cells. But the panpsychist-type energy theory may solve it.-Depends upon whose energy it is. Panpsychist theory refers to a universal psychic energy in the original theories. It is a take off on my universal consciousness God theory. > > dhw: But for some reason, this only happens to 20% of resuscitated patients. I am not casting doubt on the experiences (ditto those reported by some transplant patients), but am merely keeping in mind that there is another mystery here: why do the vast majority of people NOT have them?-How many people are psychic? I've asked that before. You are asking the wrong question. It is why do the 20% have them.-> > dhw: Our reality is our own and other people's individual consciousness. NDEs all entail the survival of that individual identity. If it survives the death of the cells, it must be some kind of individualized energy which meets up with other individualized energies (you say the dead communicate by telepathy). Maybe all species generate their own individualized energies. And maybe the universe is filled with individualized energies. And maybe there is no such thing as one universal consciousness, but only an infinite number of individualized energies. Not your favourite theory, but doesn't it fit in nicely with NDEs?-No, but all of this implies the energies are happening at Ruth's quantum level. What we are discussing in one portion of our reality. We have both a physical and a conscious reality. We are trying to find the source of consciousness and can it survive death. It appears to do so.
Cell Memories
dhw: The essential feature of NDEs is that it gives us a pointer to an afterlife (in which you say you believe), and that means individual identity and consciousness survive the death of the cells. Species consciousness does not give us our individual identity, and so you are still stuck with the problem of our personal consciousness being produced by and yet surviving the cells. But the panpsychist-type energy theory may solve it.-DAVID: Depends upon whose energy it is. Panpsychist theory refers to a universal psychic energy in the original theories. It is a take off on my universal consciousness God theory.-Quite right. Your theory has a great deal in common with Frank's process theology, which is indeed a form of panpsychism. But I have tried to take it in a different direction, and what all NDEs have in common is the survival of the individual identity. That doesn't depend on whose energy it is. It's true that some patients have a religious experience, just as some people do in earthly life, but these are far too subjective to be verified. The only possible verification is the acquisition of information which can be confirmed back on Earth by independent third parties, as has been the case with some NDEs and transplant memories. That leaves us with no more than the continued existence of individual identities. Species consciousness, if it exists, is precisely that ... a consciousness shared by particular species. So what evidence is there in any of these experiences for a single universal consciousness?
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Saturday, October 26, 2013, 18:43 (4045 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw:Quite right. Your theory has a great deal in common with Frank's process theology, which is indeed a form of panpsychism. But I have tried to take it in a different direction, and what all NDEs have in common is the survival of the individual identity. That doesn't depend on whose energy it is. It's true that some patients have a religious experience, just as some people do in earthly life, but these are far too subjective to be verified. The only possible verification is the acquisition of information which can be confirmed back on Earth by independent third parties, as has been the case with some NDEs and transplant memories. That leaves us with no more than the continued existence of individual identities. Species consciousness, if it exists, is precisely that ... a consciousness shared by particular species. So what evidence is there in any of these experiences for a single universal consciousness?-Sheldrake's seminal works. His experiments with humans showed it exists.
Cell Memories
DAVID: Panpsychist theory refers to a universal psychic energy in the original theories. It is a take off on my universal consciousness God theory.-Dhw: It's true that some patients have a religious experience, just as some people do in earthly life, but these are far too subjective to be verified. The only possible verification is the acquisition of information which can be confirmed back on Earth by independent third parties, as has been the case with some NDEs and transplant memories. That leaves us with no more than the continued existence of individual identities. Species consciousness, if it exists, is precisely that ... a consciousness shared by particular species. So what evidence is there in any of these experiences for a single universal consciousness?-DAVID: Sheldrake's seminal works. His experiments with humans showed it exists.-I presume you are referring to species consciousness, but I am asking what evidence there is from NDEs, transplant memories and species consciousness (which by definition can't be universal) that there is a single UNIVERSAL consciousness.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Sunday, October 27, 2013, 18:57 (4044 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Sheldrake's seminal works. His experiments with humans showed it exists. > > dhw:I presume you are referring to species consciousness, but I am asking what evidence there is from NDEs, transplant memories and species consciousness (which by definition can't be universal) that there is a single UNIVERSAL consciousness.-That conclusion of mine comes from 30 years of study that concludes God is a universal consciousness. What you have listed is a small part of the consideration of the various facts and clues.
Cell Memories
Dhw:[...] I am asking what evidence there is from NDEs, transplant memories and species consciousness (which by definition can't be universal) that there is a single UNIVERSAL consciousness.-DAVID: That conclusion of mine comes from 30 years of study that concludes God is a universal consciousness. What you have listed is a small part of the consideration of the various facts and clues.-Agreed. And in turn you appear to agree that NDEs, transplant memories and species consciousness provide no evidence of a universal consciousness. Still pursuing the panpsychist line, let me ask you why you think the power that has created the universe and us is a single mind. Monotheistic religions insist that it is, by anthropomorphizing this power, but you have turned your back on these religions, so I wonder why you always talk of your God in such terms. You even try to read its singular intentions (its aim was to produce humans). If NDEs, transplant memories, and other psychic experiences relating to communication with the dead are to be trusted, we know only of individual consciousnesses, just as we do on Earth. Lots of people believe in multiple "gods". It seems that your 30 years of study have led you to the conclusion that life is the product of design, which I can understand. But why one "designer", one "god", one "consciousness"?
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 29, 2013, 05:14 (4042 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw; Agreed. And in turn you appear to agree that NDEs, transplant memories and species consciousness provide no evidence of a universal consciousness. Still pursuing the panpsychist line, let me ask you why you think the power that has created the universe and us is a single mind. Monotheistic religions insist that it is, by anthropomorphizing this power, but you have turned your back on these religions, so I wonder why you always talk of your God in such terms. You even try to read its singular intentions (its aim was to produce humans).-No problem. I've not left my childhood teachings that there is a single Godhead. And it is not anthropomorphized. Only a mind can create a cohesive plan either as a universe or as a body type. Our minds sikmply mimictaht universal mind. > > dhw:If NDEs, transplant memories, and other psychic experiences relating to communication with the dead are to be trusted, we know only of individual consciousnesses, just as we do on Earth. Lots of people believe in multiple "gods". It seems that your 30 years of study have led you to the conclusion that life is the product of design, which I can understand. But why one "designer", one "god", one "consciousness"?-You like your committee of cells that can't think. I don't think a committee can all concentrate on one plan. Look how governments work, all helter skelter. A single purposed mind does the best creating.
Cell Memories
dhw:If NDEs, transplant memories, and other psychic experiences relating to communication with the dead are to be trusted, we know only of individual consciousnesses, just as we do on Earth. Lots of people believe in multiple "gods". It seems that your 30 years of study have led you to the conclusion that life is the product of design, which I can understand. But why one "designer", one "god", one "consciousness"?-DAVID: You like your committee of cells that can't think. I don't think a committee can all concentrate on one plan. Look how governments work, all helter skelter. A single purposed mind does the best creating.-We have a very different view of evolution. You seem convinced that there is one plan, with humans at the end of it. I see billions of species coming and going higgledy-piggledy (the equivalent perhaps of your helter skelter), and wonderful though it is, this colossal variety and endless process of appearance and disappearance suggests precisely the opposite of your single-minded planner: all kinds of creative forces at work, some more successful than others. No matter whether I wear my theist hat (see under "Species consciousness"), my atheist hat, my either-way-panpsychist hat, I still can't see the higgledy-piggledy bush as "one plan".
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 29, 2013, 21:53 (4042 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: We have a very different view of evolution. You seem convinced that there is one plan, with humans at the end of it. I see billions of species coming and going higgledy-piggledy (the equivalent perhaps of your helter skelter), and wonderful though it is, this colossal variety and endless process of appearance and disappearance suggests precisely the opposite of your single-minded planner: all kinds of creative forces at work, some more successful than others. No matter whether I wear my theist hat (see under "Species consciousness"), my atheist hat, my either-way-panpsychist hat, I still can't see the higgledy-piggledy bush as "one plan".-Why not. Life requires fuel to survive. Plants grow and animals eat them. Animals eat animals. Red in tooth and claw, per Tennyson. There is a marvelous system of natural balances, which we humans constantly try to disrupt. But it is that diverse balance which keeps everything going. Perhaps required for life to continue and therefore part of the original plan for life by the Great Planner.
Cell Memories; need to eat
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 30, 2013, 17:53 (4041 days ago) @ David Turell
> David:Why not. Life requires fuel to survive. Plants grow and animals eat them. Animals eat animals. Red in tooth and claw, per Tennyson. There is a marvelous system of natural balances, which we humans constantly try to disrupt. But it is that diverse balance which keeps everything going. Perhaps required for life to continue and therefore part of the original plan for life by the Great Planner.-More to my point:-http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/food-matters/2013/10/30/the-4-billion-year-old-story-of-obesity/?WT_mc_id=SA_DD_20131030
Cell Memories
dhw: We have a very different view of evolution. You seem convinced that there is one plan, with humans at the end of it. I see billions of species coming and going higgledy-piggledy (the equivalent perhaps of your helter skelter), and wonderful though it is, this colossal variety and endless process of appearance and disappearance suggests precisely the opposite of your single-minded planner: all kinds of creative forces at work, some more successful than others. No matter whether I wear my theist hat (see under "Species consciousness"), my atheist hat, my either-way-panpsychist hat, I still can't see the higgledy-piggledy bush as "one plan".-DAVID: Why not. Life requires fuel to survive. Plants grow and animals eat them. Animals eat animals. Red in tooth and claw, per Tennyson. There is a marvelous system of natural balances, which we humans constantly try to disrupt. But it is that diverse balance which keeps everything going. Perhaps required for life to continue and therefore part of the original plan for life by the Great Planner.-You are right, and in my theist hat I was focusing too closely on your anthropomorphic scenario. The great plan would be the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings themselves, which I do find reasonable: your God entertaining himself or experimenting. What my theistic reason cannot cope with is the idea that trilobites and dinosaurs and all the other extinct creatures with their zillions of innovations were preprogrammed into the first living organisms as part of the great plan to hatch humans. (See under "Species consciousness")
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Thursday, October 31, 2013, 17:13 (4040 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: You are right, and in my theist hat I was focusing too closely on your anthropomorphic scenario. The great plan would be the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings themselves, which I do find reasonable: your God entertaining himself or experimenting. What my theistic reason cannot cope with is the idea that trilobites and dinosaurs and all the other extinct creatures with their zillions of innovations were preprogrammed into the first living organisms as part of the great plan to hatch humans. -I don't know what was planned as intermediate species on the way to humans. How do you know in your theistic mode that dinosaurs were planned? I don't. I don't know why you insist on that speculation. These were life's experiments on the way to us. I've already indicated organisms had a small series of choices based on stimuli type and strength. So there resulted experimental forms along the way. I see nothing wrong with that senario. Certainly fits with life's diversity we see now and in the past.
Cell Memories
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, December 15, 2013, 00:27 (3995 days ago) @ David Turell
You like your committee of cells that can't think. I don't think a committee can all concentrate on one plan. Look how governments work, all helter skelter. A single purposed mind does the best creating.-Caught ya there. It IS true that "design by committee" doesn't usually work, but that's not the only form of crowd participation. Take open-source software like Linux. An incredibly complex piece of sophisticated software, built and maintained by a group of dedicated volunteers. A strong quality argument is made for open-source because while a corporation might only be able to have 1 or 2 experts on some esoteric concept, the world itself has many. -This argument also applies to the article quality on Wikipedia. Great, brilliant minds can absolutely work together for a single common cause. -Government is inefficient because there is no single common goal, ESPECIALLY in republics where everyone has their own set of wants and needs, sometimes two different groups have mutually exclusive wants and needs. What do yo do then?
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Sunday, December 15, 2013, 00:52 (3995 days ago) @ xeno6696
> Matt: This argument also applies to the article quality on Wikipedia. Great, brilliant minds can absolutely work together for a single common cause -And in view of your next comment, you haven't noted that Wikipedia is also filled with biased entries and is not to be trusted. > > Matt: Government is inefficient because there is no single common goal, ESPECIALLY in republics where everyone has their own set of wants and needs, sometimes two different groups have mutually exclusive wants and needs. What do yo do then?-The old way was compromise, not the severe polarization of today. Each party had a spectrum from liberal to conservative. Both parties are too entrenched in an inside the Beltway mentality. Just what the founding fathers feared. Boy ,do we need term limits.
Cell Memories
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, December 15, 2013, 05:26 (3995 days ago) @ David Turell
> > Matt: This argument also applies to the article quality on Wikipedia. Great, brilliant minds can absolutely work together for a single common cause > > And in view of your next comment, you haven't noted that Wikipedia is also filled with biased entries and is not to be trusted. -Any entry on wikipedia that is flagged as bias has a HUGE discussion matrix, accessible to the general public, so that the public can be aware of any controversy. -This is the way of the future. Don't forget, my field is leading the charge against the traditional peer-review culture of the day. -> > > > Matt: Government is inefficient because there is no single common goal, ESPECIALLY in republics where everyone has their own set of wants and needs, sometimes two different groups have mutually exclusive wants and needs. What do yo do then? > > The old way was compromise, not the severe polarization of today. Each party had a spectrum from liberal to conservative. Both parties are too entrenched in an inside the Beltway mentality. Just what the founding fathers feared. Boy ,do we need term limits.-My only response:-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPSIKEAaEtk
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Sunday, December 15, 2013, 15:29 (3995 days ago) @ xeno6696
David: Boy ,do we need term limits. > > My only response: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPSIKEAaEtk-Great response. Cynical and true. At least we could break up the old moldy Washington in crowd.
Cell Memories
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, December 15, 2013, 00:11 (3996 days ago) @ dhw
Transplant memories, however, suggest that the consciousness of the dead person remains within the cells (and not just those of the brain). If both sets of examples are true (we can only speculate), the answer may perhaps lie in some form of personalized energy that is produced by the cells but can remain both inside and outside them. Species consciousness might be a generalized form of that energy (so perhaps the brain/heart/whatever could be both producer and receiver), or it might be cellular memories handed down through all the generations of species' cells (which makes the brain/heart/whatever a container and a producer). Whatever it may be, though I hate to mention this, we are getting perilously close to some kind of panpsychism.-My 2c: All cells in the body came from the same stem cell. Even though they have differentiated tasks, I don't think its outside the realm of possibility to posit that at some level all cells might have some ability to share in memory/consciousness. -I could certainly see the benefit of having a tight signaling relationship between the amygdala and the heart, and that a signal to/from the heart could result in information sharing.
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Cell Memories: injured skin stays prepared
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 10, 2018, 14:36 (2508 days ago) @ xeno6696
Injured skin keeps DNA prepared for further injury:
https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/51153/title/Skin--Remembers--Wou...
"Inflammatory Memory
Our body is routinely assaulted by ultraviolet radiation, irritants, and pathogens. Shruti Naik, an immunologist at Rockefeller University, wondered: “Do these stressors have any kind of lasting impact on cells?” Immune cells are known to “remember” infections and inflammatory events so that they can respond faster to future insults, but what about the epithelial stem cells that maintain the skin and promote wound healing?
"Multiple Assaults
Naik and her colleagues induced inflammation in mice by exposing the animals’ skin to chemicals, fungal infection, or mechanical wounding. Then they measured the time it took for the skin to heal after injuring it in the same place a second time. On average, regardless of the type of injury, skin that had been previously inflamed healed about 2.5 times faster than the skin of mice that were wounded for the first time.
"Swift Repair
To uncover the genetic basis for an “inflammatory memory,” the researchers searched for genetic loci in the epithelial stem cells that were maintained in a chromosomally accessible state after the first injury. Multiple regions of chromatin were left “open” for up to 180 days after an assault, allowing rapid transcription of key stress response genes following a second injury.
"Beneath the Skin
Epithelial stem cells are the first nonimmune cells found to have a memory, and the findings point to “a primitive basic response to jazz up the cells quickly and make them heal the wound,” says George Cotsarelis, a dermatologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine who was not involved in the study. “It changes the way people think about the skin now.'”
Comment: That DNA (chromatin) automatically remained open indicates a logical cellular automaticity for survival, developed in the course of evolution.
Cell Memories
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, December 14, 2013, 23:55 (3996 days ago) @ David Turell
> > dhw: If chemical transactions are insufficient to produce real intelligence in ants (because chemical transactions between automatons do not produce real intelligence/consciousness), then chemical transactions between the automaton cells in the human brain cannot produce real intelligence/consciousness either. But according to you, they do! Therefore, either automatons CAN produce real intelligence, or cells (and ants) are not automatons. I find Matt's reasoning totally logical. > > Still very illogical. We still must keep separate intelligently supplied information in cells or ants and the development of analytically developed intelligence for planning purposes. That is a major component of consciousness. Brain neurons and their connections develop both analytic intelligence and consciousness, the former a part of consciousness. We just don't understand how it is done. Ants do not have consciousness, but they are conscious. They can spot remembered landmarks to get back to the nest. I've shown articles about how neurons modify signalling and grow connections to add in memory and new intelligence. They are following supplied programs in their DNA to modify their biochemical reactions. They recognize incoming knowledge and proceed to store it.-Why? It strikes me as quite obvious that the information loop between the outside environment and the neuron is part of an irreducible whole. Either the cells are automatons or they're not. Encoding chemical information that that wolf is going to eat me triggers a cascade of autonomic responses that however you want to slice it, results in the image of the wolf being stored in our neurons. The same neurons are responsible for my making a plan of building a wooden shelter and a fire, getting access to the materials, and ultimately executing the plan.-You're not making your case any stronger here. All of these processes that neurons perform, have finite inputs and outputs, mediated by the existence of multiple kinds of chemicals, but still limited all the same. What you're really saying here, is that a cell is a program that acts intelligently. But like I said before, I can write an unconscious program that acts intelligently. I don't think you're any further out of the mire here.
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Cell Memories
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, December 15, 2013, 02:40 (3995 days ago) @ xeno6696
Matt: Why? It strikes me as quite obvious that the information loop between the outside environment and the neuron is part of an irreducible whole. Either the cells are automatons or they're not. Encoding chemical information that that wolf is going to eat me triggers a cascade of autonomic responses that however you want to slice it, results in the image of the wolf being stored in our neurons. The same neurons are responsible for my making a plan of building a wooden shelter and a fire, getting access to the materials, and ultimately executing the plan. > > You're not making your case any stronger here. All of these processes that neurons perform, have finite inputs and outputs, mediated by the existence of multiple kinds of chemicals, but still limited all the same. What you're really saying here, is that a cell is a program that acts intelligently. But like I said before, I can write an unconscious program that acts intelligently. I don't think you're any further out of the mire here. --Except that in your case, you are able to choose. You are able to overcome your pre-defined instinctual fight-or-flight responses and come up with a novel solution. You see the hungry wolf. Your primal brain kicks in and you instantaneously go into fight or flight mode. Then your conscious brain kicks in, and you choose to do neither, opting instead to throw the wolf a chicken leg from your Sunday picnic basket, or to bang sticks together hoping to frighten it away, or stand their calmly, doing nothing.
--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
Cell Memories
http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/id470.html-dhw (to David): As usual you are more interested in HOW cells communicate than in WHAT they communicate. The stories in this article [...]tell us that memories, experiences and characteristics are contained within the cells, and when the cells are moved into another person, they can change that person's identity. In other words, our cells ARE us. Your belief in an afterlife requires the survival of identity after the death of the cells. But if these are the actual containers of identity, and can even change a person's character by independently communicating with one another, it becomes difficult if not impossible to conceive how the identity itself can survive their death... -I raised this issue because it has powerful repercussions on our concepts of identity. However, in your reply, David, you returned to the intelligent cell. I'm quite happy to continue that discussion, and will touch on it again here in response to BBella, but it's a separate issue, since identity is linked to your concept of an afterlife, and the intelligent cell is a hypothesis offered mainly to explain the course of evolution. I'm therefore restructuring your response to keep the two issues apart, and I will put the intelligent cell on a separate thread. DAVID: This article points out the sugestion that consciousness is somehow carried by transplanted cells to influence the recipient's consciousness. I'm fine with that observation, for it may well be true if van Lommel's theory that the brain is a receiver for consciousness is true. van Lommel's is a reasonable hypothesis for which we have no inkling of proof. I am willing to shift gears when we are at this level of supposition. After all I believe there is universal consciousness and species consciousness.-But you also believe that consciousness is a product of biochemical processes, and that is why I'm struggling to reconcile your different beliefs. If the brain is the receiver (which you regard as a reasonable hypothesis) and not the producer of consciousness, how can consciousness be the product of biochemical processes? If the brain is the producer, as you believe at the moment, how can consciousness survive the death of the brain? dhw: If the stories are to be believed (and why shouldn't they be?), memories and characteristics are stored in the cells. So do they "escape" from the dead cells, in some form of non-material energy? This would mean that the identity which emerges from the cells, even when we are alive, is non-material (= substance dualism). Is this what you believe? DAVID: With universal consciousness pervading everything, yes I can believe.-Let me get this straight: God pervades everything, which means he pervades our cells, and so although according to you our consciousness (which with all its manifestations constitutes most of our identity) is produced by biochemistry, what is produced is an entity that can live independently of our biochemistry because...because...biochemistry has produced...what? A new piece of the universal consciousness which was already inside the producer? Do you not find this confusing?-BBELLA: This is getting near to how I view the intelligent cell. As you say above, David, "with universal consciousness pervading everything", it is understandable that the will of the ALL is carried out within and without all things, albeit the Quantum level. As for cell memory, it also makes sense to me that if certain cells never die because they were transplanted from one person to another that the first persons cells would holographically carry the memories of that person...-You and David like the idea of a "universal consciousness pervading everything", but David objects vehemently to the concept of panpsychism, which also promotes the idea of some form of consciousness pervading everything. What is anathema to David ... but perhaps not to you ... is the suggestion that this consciousness is not one supreme being who has planned and designed the universe and everything in it. The "intelligent" cell concept can be linked atheistically (it can also be theistic, though) with the idea of there being different forms and levels of intelligence, which can evolve into new forms as they combine and cooperate. Life, like the universe itself, would therefore be the product of an evolutionary process guided from within materials by intelligences of ever increasing complexity. Intelligence itself would be a form of energy (not the same as energy being intelligence), and the holograph would be the individualized intelligent energy of the person concerned. This might even be capable of surviving the death of the body's materials. In short, "universal consciousness" would not be one being, but the separate energies of all things and all beings. Pretty way out, perhaps, but no more so than chance creating the universe and life, or than a readymade superintelligence that came from nowhere.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Saturday, October 12, 2013, 15:54 (4059 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: But you also believe that consciousness is a product of biochemical processes, and that is why I'm struggling to reconcile your different beliefs. If the brain is the receiver (which you regard as a reasonable hypothesis) and not the producer of consciousness, how can consciousness be the product of biochemical processes? If the brain is the producer, as you believe at the moment, how can consciousness survive the death of the brain?-The biochemical processes are in the individual neurons that produce ionized signals that transfer signals back and forth. The entire network of over 100 billion neurons with trillions of connections result in the emergence of consciousness either as a hologram or through quantum connections at that level. This is why I view the receiver concept as viable-> > dhw: Let me get this straight: God pervades everything, which means he pervades our cells, and so although according to you our consciousness (which with all its manifestations constitutes most of our identity) is produced by biochemistry, what is produced is an entity that can live independently of our biochemistry because...because...biochemistry has produced...what? A new piece of the universal consciousness which was already inside the producer? Do you not find this confusing?-We are part of God's consciousness. I'm not confused. I have a consistent theory for me. Since you refuse to accept any belief system you are sitting on the outside of understanding wondering how to get in. If you won't accept anything in a step beyond what we fully understand, of course you remain in puzzlement. How the biochemistry acts to allow consciousness is explained above, not that we understand how it emerges. > > BBELLA: This is getting near to how I view the intelligent cell. As you say above, David, "with universal consciousness pervading everything", it is understandable that the will of the ALL is carried out within and without all things, albeit the Quantum level. As for cell memory, it also makes sense to me that if certain cells never die because they were transplanted from one person to another that the first persons cells would holographically carry the memories of that person... > > dhw: You and David like the idea of a "universal consciousness pervading everything", but David objects vehemently to the concept of panpsychism, which also promotes the idea of some form of consciousness pervading everything. What is anathema to David ... but perhaps not to you ... is the suggestion that this consciousness is not one supreme being who has planned and designed the universe and everything in it. The "intelligent" cell concept can be linked atheistically (it can also be theistic, though) with the idea of there being different forms and levels of intelligence, which can evolve into new forms as they combine and cooperate. Life, like the universe itself, would therefore be the product of an evolutionary process guided from within materials by intelligences of ever increasing complexity. Intelligence itself would be a form of energy (not the same as energy being intelligence), and the holograph would be the individualized intelligent energy of the person concerned. This might even be capable of surviving the death of the body's materials. In short, "universal consciousness" would not be one being, but the separate energies of all things and all beings.Pretty way out, perhaps, but no more so than chance creating the universe and life, or than a readymade superintelligence that came from nowhere.-I left all of the above here. The one agreement I have is it 'is way out'. You want a bottom up solution to the discussion of how evolution happens and I prefer a top down. Only a top down can provide intelligent plans for evolution to follow. Bottom up is a bastardized version of Darwin's musings and brings in cells dancing around trying this and that, trial and error, which is pure Darwin. I know you were raised on "Origin" but you really must believe you have abandoned it, because your stated position has. Chance flew out the window a while ago.
Cell Memories
dhw: If the brain is the receiver (which you regard as a reasonable hypothesis) and not the producer of consciousness, how can consciousness be the product of biochemical processes? If the brain is the producer, as you believe at the moment, how can consciousness survive the death of the brain?-DAVID: The biochemical processes are in the individual neurons that produce ionized signals that transfer signals back and forth. The entire network of over 100 billion neurons with trillions of connections result in the emergence of consciousness either as a hologram or through quantum connections at that level. This is why I view the receiver concept as viable.-You have described what you believe to be the biochemical mechanism from which consciousness EMERGES. That makes it a producer not a receiver. My two questions remain unanswered.-dhw: Let me get this straight: God pervades everything, which means he pervades our cells, and so although according to you our consciousness (which with all its manifestations constitutes most of our identity) is produced by biochemistry, what is produced is an entity that can live independently of our biochemistry because...because...biochemistry has produced...what? A new piece of the universal consciousness which was already inside the producer? Do you not find this confusing?-DAVID: We are part of God's consciousness. I'm not confused. I have a consistent theory for me. Since you refuse to accept any belief system you are sitting on the outside of understanding wondering how to get in. If you won't accept anything in a step beyond what we fully understand, of course you remain in puzzlement. How the biochemistry acts to allow consciousness is explained above, not that we understand how it emerges.-"Allow" consciousness is a strange expression. I'm not sure what it implies. As for your theory, it is consistent so long as you do not have to explain its inconsistencies. I accept that there must be a first cause, though we can't possibly know what it is. I accept that we cannot understand the emergence of life and consciousness. And I accept that if there is an afterlife, we do not know how the identity can survive the death of the body. That is why I remain open-minded on these subjects. I think you too should accept that you are "in puzzlement". I have great respect for your faith and for your hypotheses, but I am also prepared to consider alternative hypotheses. By attacking those hypotheses on the grounds that they do not answer the questions that leave us all "in puzzlement", you can only find yourself throwing stones in a glass house. -dhw: What is anathema to David [...] is the suggestion that this consciousness is not one supreme being who has planned and designed the universe and everything in it. The "intelligent" cell concept can be linked atheistically (it can also be theistic, though) with the idea of there being different forms and levels of intelligence, which can evolve into new forms as they combine and cooperate. Life, like the universe itself, would therefore be the product of an evolutionary process guided from within materials by intelligences of ever increasing complexity. [...] In short, "universal consciousness" would not be one being, but the separate energies of all things and all beings. Pretty way out, perhaps, but no more so than chance creating the universe and life, or than a readymade superintelligence that came from nowhere.-DAVID: ...The one agreement I have is it 'is way out'. You want a bottom up solution to the discussion of how evolution happens and I prefer a top down. Only a top down can provide intelligent plans for evolution to follow. I offer it as an alternative to your version. You want a top down solution because you believe in a god. That doesn't mean that a top down solution is any more or any less likely to be accurate than a bottom up solution. You believe that evolution follows intelligent plans, but some people believe it follows its own course without any overall plans. That is why we are having this discussion. DAVID: Bottom up is a bastardized version of Darwin's musings and brings in cells dancing around trying this and that, trial and error, which is pure Darwin. I know you were raised on "Origin" but you really must believe you have abandoned it, because your stated position has. Chance flew out the window a while ago.-No, in this hypothetical version the cells are not dancing around trying this and that, trial and error. That is indeed pure Darwin (= random mutations). Instead of randomness, and instead of your divine preprogramming of every innovation right from the start, this hypothesis suggests cells may have an intelligence of their own, and through cooperation between billions of such intelligences over billions of years, there have emerged increasingly complex organisms culminating (so far) in ourselves. This intelligence may even have been engineered by your God. Like Darwin's own theory, the hypothesis deals only with evolution and not with the origin of life and intelligence.
Cell Memories
by David Turell , Sunday, October 13, 2013, 21:51 (4058 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: You have described what you believe to be the biochemical mechanism from which consciousness EMERGES. That makes it a producer not a receiver. My two questions remain unanswered.-The hypothesis which I think might be reasonable is that the brain is a complex radio receiver and it uses a workable consciousness that is received via the universal consciousness, and individually modifies what is received into the 'self' consciousness we perceive within ourselves. Since I have no idea how conscousness develops or emerges, it is an intereesting theory, voiced by many authors in the field of consciousness study. > > dhw: Let me get this straight: God pervades everything, which means he pervades our cells, and so although according to you our consciousness (which with all its manifestations constitutes most of our identity) is produced by biochemistry, what is produced is an entity that can live independently of our biochemistry because...because...biochemistry has produced...what? A new piece of the universal consciousness which was already inside the producer? Do you not find this confusing?-Not confusing, as described above by you and by me. No more confusing than your independent cells which are master architects of complex organs, like kidneys. > > DAVID: How the biochemistry acts to allow consciousness is explained above, not that we understand how it emerges.[/i] > > dhw: "Allow" consciousness is a strange expression. I'm not sure what it implies. -I've explained the radio receiver concept.- > dhw:As for your theory, it is consistent so long as you do not have to explain its inconsistencies. I accept that there must be a first cause, though we can't possibly know what it is. I accept that we cannot understand the emergence of life and consciousness. And I accept that if there is an afterlife, we do not know how the identity can survive the death of the body. That is why I remain open-minded on these subjects. I think you too should accept that you are "in puzzlement". I have great respect for your faith and for your hypotheses, but I am also prepared to consider alternative hypotheses. -I would not attack if the 'intelligent cells' were not such an amorphous concept with no grounding in what we know about the genome and biochemical automatic signalling. Again, you are seeking a middle ground between chance or design when yhour middle ground is not grounded in the science we know. > > I offer it as an alternative to your version. You want a top down solution because you believe in a god. That doesn't mean that a top down solution is any more or any less likely to be accurate than a bottom up solution. You believe that evolution follows intelligent plans, but some people believe it follows its own course without any overall plans. That is why we are having this discussion.-I understand our differences. > > dhw: in this hypothetical version the cells are not dancing around trying this and that, trial and error. That is indeed pure Darwin (= random mutations). Instead of randomness, and instead of your divine preprogramming of every innovation right from the start, this hypothesis suggests cells may have an intelligence of their own, and through cooperation between billions of such intelligences over billions of years, there have emerged increasingly complex organisms culminating (so far) in ourselves. This intelligence may even have been engineered by your God. Like Darwin's own theory, the hypothesis deals only with evolution and not with the origin of life and intelligence.-And I will answer, cells need an overall plan to follow to make a kidney or a liver. You have not explained the actual mechanism of their planning and manufacturing sessions. Just conjuring up bright cells doesn't tell us anything. You just jump to the completed products we see from a non-existent type of cell.