Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, November 17, 2013, 14:22 (3813 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I don't regret introducing Margulis. Her contributions are monumental in regard to mitochondria. The rest is simply not the way I intrepret things.-This is an important statement. The concept of the intelligent cell is not poppycock or kooky, but is simply a matter of how one interprets the scientific facts.-dhw: I agree completely that intelligence evolves with experience and with the continued influx of information. ...... It's not the origin of information (i.e. everything in the world around us) that is at issue here, but the origin of the intelligence which uses the information. 
DAVID: You are still avoiding the chicken/egg issue. Information has to be present for intelligence to learn and use. where did the informaton in DNA come from?-We seem to be talking about two different kinds of information. I am talking about the information from the outside world which is processed by the intelligence of the organism. If by "information in DNA" you mean all the factors that allow for reproduction and heredity and for maintenance of cells and cell communities, your question is tantamount to asking what is the origin of life. Do you really expect me to answer that? (See also my post under "Intelligence..." in which you ask the same question.)-DAVID: I savour the picture of cogitating ants.
dhw: Of course you do, because you enjoy ridiculing the idea of ants having intelligence by anthropomorphizing them and then accusing me of anthropomorphizing them.
DAVID: Ridicule is not anthropomorphosis.-You use terms like "committee" and "cogitating", which are anthropomorphic. No-one imagines ants sitting round a boardroom table, or imitating Rodin's 'Thinker'.-dhw: How do you experiment and find solutions to countless problems if you are merely an automaton obeying instructions? That would mean that your God preprogrammed the first cells to pass on not only plans for the complex habitats, organization of food supply, education of the young, military strategies etc., but also the errors our ants made along the way! Doesn't this strike you as a little bit far-fetched? 
DAVID: Not the errors. Error-prone ants died. Those who survived used the right responses. Just as tautological as survival of the fittest.-You have missed the point. If ants are automatons, they can only obey instructions. If they make errors it can only be because they were given the wrong instructions or they had the freedom to make their own decisions. Automatons do not make their own decisions. Therefore the errors must also have been preprogrammed, which even you will surely admit is a bit daft.
 
DAVID: Equating animal activity in human terms is to be avoided.
dhw: Why, when the activities are the same as human activities? What terms would you suggest we use for the above list?
DAVID: These are parallel events. Same terms is fine.-Thank you. In that case, I am not anthropomorphizing ants.