What makes life vital (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 10, 2015, 19:30 (3545 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: ...science can explain the machinery by which thought is transmuted into action, but it cannot explain thought. That is why your attempts to automatize cells by describing their machinery seem to me to “miss the mark”.
DAVID: I know that science can tell us how thoughts are made by cells, and I know that certain motor areas of the brain control muscular action. In my version of free will my conscious mind tells my brain to move my arm and it does. My brain automatically responds to my wishes. What is your point? I'm right on the mark.-If any scientist could tell us how thoughts are “made” by cells, he would deserve a dozen Nobel Prizes. You have distinguished between your conscious mind, your brain, and the rest of your body. Many leading scientists claim that cells/cell communities think for themselves, i.e. their equivalent of a “conscious mind” tells the rest of the cell/cell community what to do. The rest of the cell/cell community automatically responds to its wishes. Scientists can trace the responses to, but not the source of the instructions. That is the mark I think you are missing.-dhw: If other organisms behave as if they are intelligent, and many researchers tell us they are, why insist they are not? Why not keep an open mind? 
DAVID: Because the odds are 50/50 I am right, and I've reached this conclusion and will stick to it. Bacteria act intelligently because they follow intelligent instructions.-So do we. And according to you “we” issue those instructions. But according to you bacteria do not. God had to preprogramme every single instruction from the very beginning of life, or he had to intervene to solve new problems. In any case, I cannot think of a better reason for open-mindedness than odds of 50/50.-DAVID: I quote from Shapiro:
"The contemporary view of cell information processing...makes the point that DNA cannot do anything or direct anything by itself; it must interact with other cell molecules. So all genomic action is subject to the inputs and information-processing networks we know operate in living cells."-Of course it must interact with other cell molecules, just as our brain interacts with the rest of our body or - if your dualistic approach is correct - our conscious mind interacts with our brain and the rest of our body. These “inputs and information-processing networks” apply just as much as to us as they do to bacteria.-DAVID: These networks are all molecular interactions. Nowhere in his book does he have a subject called cell thinking. Instead:
"The best we can do right now is to recognize that cells use many kinds of molecular interactions to process information and execute appropriate decisions." 
I haven't met a thinking protein molecule yet. [...] His thoughts and mine are NOT in opposition.-We also use many kinds of molecular interactions to process information and execute appropriate decisions, but we must distinguish between automatic molecular interactions and the intelligence that guides them. Shapiro's statements are not confined to the book you have read (and the concept of cellular intelligence is not confined to Shapiro). I have already quoted the following: “...Not only are we no longer at the physical center of the universe; our status as the only sentient beings on the planet is dissolving as we learn more about how smart even the smallest living cells can be.”-Bacteria are small but not stupid: Cognition, natural ... - CiteSeer-http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.371.1320&rep=rep1&type=pdf-And in the discussion referred to under “Bacterial Intelligence”, he concluded his account of how cells take appropriate action with the remark: “And if that isn't self awareness I don't know what is.”-dhw: You don't care about the illogicality of the argument that life and thought can only be created by a mind, but the mind that created them did not have to be created. You try to balance your theism by closing your eyes to the fact that belief in chance and belief in God BOTH run counter to reason. That is why we use the word “faith”.
DAVID: You are using faith in my case in the wrong way. I see no other logical explanation for the universe and life than a planning mind. That is my logical conclusion. I have 'faith' in my reasoning that I am right. Then secondarily I accept faith in God. Just as I try not to interpret God's personality, I keep Him at a slight distance compared to reverential religious folk.-That is a fair comment. The difference between us, as you will have gathered over the last eight years (!), is that I am not prepared to stop at the design argument.