Cell Memories (Identity)

by dhw, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 11:41 (3765 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 11:49

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?