Natures wonders: making spider silk (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, August 21, 2014, 13:07 (3745 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: My point is that the inventive mechanism that creates new organs and “Nature's Wonders” would be no more subject to “rules” (other than the constraints of Nature) than the inventive mechanism that creates motor cars and computers. Hence the enormous variety of innovations and wonders.-DAVID: My point should be clear enough. The cells are not capable of such natures wonders unless there is an inventive mechanism they can use. By themselves they don't have the capacity. They are too automatic, they follow rules. A natural threat brings out the need to stir up the inventive mechanism in the genome which I believe is yet to be discovered.-I simply don't understand why you insist on separating the genome from the cell. This is like saying that human beings are automata not capable of inventing anything unless they have a brain. The whole point is that, if this hypothesis is correct, cells/cell communities are able to invent because they do have the equivalent of a brain (somewhere in the genome, if you like), which we are calling an inventive mechanism.
 
dhw: So too would you be haunted by the extraordinary concept of the first few cells being programmed with every single wonder and innovation throughout the history of evolution.
DAVID: That does bother me. The idea of an inventive mechanism being present makes sense.-I am relieved that you have now, at least for the time being, abandoned the hypotheses of preprogramming and dabbling in favour of what I have called the “intelligent cell”, although you still seem to dislike the term because you insist on separating the “brain” (inventive mechanism) from the “body” (the rest of the cell/cell community). As with us humans, the one wouldn't be much use without the other.