Natures wonders: Cellular intelligence derailed? (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 16, 2013, 18:02 (3993 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

dhw: In other words, individual cells have their own intelligence, but when they merge into cell communities, they take on different functions, and these are organized by an independent, overall intelligence within or "emerging" from that community. "Multicellular response is all for one" sums it up nicely. Otherwise the organism couldn't function! Again, the ant colony provides the perfect analogy.-DAVID: Yes, cells 'own intelligence' is their ability to use implanted information wthin the genome to which they have continuous access. And yes, a community of these cooopeating cells, acting according to plan, create the emergence of life in the multicelled folks. Single celled guys amazingly do it all on their own, which in a perverse way makes them seem even more intelligent!-We have no idea how life or intelligence "emerge" from chemicals or from cooperating cells. The word is simply used to indicate that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When you say "their ability", it's no different from saying that "you" have an ability to use information within your own genome, but what is the "you" that decides HOW to use the information? What is the control centre? The brain? If you have an "intelligent", autonomous but not automatic control centre, what makes you so certain that other organisms don't? No matter how often and how authoritatively you slip in words like "plan" and "seem", your divinely preprogrammed version remains a purely subjective interpretation of the evolutionary process and of the way cells/cell communities function.-TONY: If the cells were autonomously intelligent, you would expect to see some form of dissent in the ranks, a dumb cell that couldn't follow directions, or just went its own way. They behaved exactly like I would expect a computer to behave, not like I would expect an intelligent creature to behave.-That's because although you acknowledge that there are different types and levels of intelligence, you seem to think only in terms of humans and computers. Why must intelligence presuppose the possibility of dissent? Even in a human context, the general gives the orders and the soldiers obey, but they must still use their intelligence to deal with contingencies. Maybe that's how all cells and cell communities function: through orders given and obeyed by different levels of intelligence, all of which (like the ant colony) follow the precept "Multicellular response is all for one". Only humans and to a lesser degree some of our fellow animals have the self-awareness that makes them question what is good for the community ... but that doesn't mean that other organisms don't need intelligence to work out what is good, or to implement the strategies.-I hesitate to get drawn into a discussion on the nature of disease, but I'd have thought cancerous cells might represent the sort of "dissent" you're talking about. Would you argue that your God preprogrammed such "dissent"? After all, according to you and David, cells are automatons obeying his instructions.