Species consciousness and instinct. (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, October 24, 2013, 20:31 (4048 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: To repeat my thoughts abot God and evolution, and straighten out your interpretation of them: God created life and evolution to end up with human beings. Why He chose this approach has no answer. [dhw: And in my view this approach is pure speculation, but let that pass.] He gave life extreme inventiveness in epigenetics. This is why we see so many strange and wonderful approaches to a multitude of different life styles. Thus He didn't design everything. He gave living organisms the ability to respond with unique answers. [...] God gave them the ability to sense information and some degree of epigenetic decision making, as part of the master plan genetic system.-You love to bring in "epigenetic", as if somehow that erases the implications of "decision-making". If God did not design and preprogramme all the organs that have led from eukaroytes to humans, but gave cell communities (organisms) "the ability to respond with answers of their own" (unique), then each cell community must do its own designing. And that requires what I and certain scientists would call intelligence/consciousness/sentience ... not anthropomorphized, any more than we can say an elephant thinks like an ant, but in ways that enable them to come up with their own answers. An automaton can only obey instructions which have been given to it by its designer. It has no ability or decision-making capacity of its own.-DAVID: And further: [There are]" cognitive networks and cellular functions for self-modification [epigenetics]."-dhw: "Cognitive" entails acquiring and utilizing knowledge through understanding, learning, and even reasoning (even if not in the human way). -DAVID: My thought is that the cells use intelligent information, which removes the implication that cells themselves are intelligent. An analogy is we go to the library or Google to find intelligent information to use.-An excellent analogy, except that information has no intelligence of its own. Intelligent beings like you (and sometimes me) go to the library to find information, and we then (hopefully!) use it intelligently. Your focus is always on the information, whereas mine is on the USE of the information. I acquire the information that there is a flood on the way. The information is not intelligent. I decide to erect a wall round my house, to build an ark, to emigrate, to die bravely...THAT is where intelligence comes into play. Antonia Ant and her buddies have fought many battles. They see the mantis (sensory perception providing information), and then they plan their strategy (intelligence using information both present and past). They are aware of the climate, predators, the need for food and shelter (information through sensory perception), and they build their underground city (intelligence). They and we USE information intelligently.-DAVID: Cells have no brains and their intelligent information is implanted, passed down through cell division, and gained in their past. Life is a continuous process. We are still part of the first cell! Think of it. That is how far back our genetic inheritance goes.-Life is indeed a continuous process, and so information gathering also has to be a continuous process. It is not confined to information gained in the past, or handed down by previous generations, and that is why cell communities (organisms) adapt and innovate. I marvel like you at our genetic inheritance, and I marvel at the astonishing ingenuity of cell communities that have constantly been able (your word ... ability) to pool their resources and come up with new ways of exploiting or coping with new environments. Cells do not have brains like ours, but brains are composed of cells. It is the combination of billions of these cells that somehow has given rise to human intelligence. Maybe, like the ant colony, the billions of micro-intelligences in all organisms enable different types of macro-intelligence to emerge and hence to adapt and innovate in their own unique way. Maybe God gave them the ability, but the point of my argument is that they HAVE the ability ... their decisions have not been preprogrammed. Automatons can only take preprogrammed decisions.