Clever Corvids: using tools (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, September 05, 2015, 10:49 (3150 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Back you go to your meaningless “semi-autonomous”. Either he preprogrammed the innovations or he didn't. 
DAVID: Semi-autonomous is 'largely self-governing' in my Webster's Collegiate dictionary, which fits my theistic evolution concepts. Organisms have much innovative freedom as long as they fit God's desires.-This is a long, long, long way from your hypothesis of divine preprogramming and dabbling. What do you mean by “innovative freedom”? Are you now saying that innovations are NOT preprogrammed/dabbled but are created by the independent intelligence of cell communities, and allowed to survive if God approves? If not, please explain. (See also below.)-http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/43917/title/Neutrophils-Lead--T-C...

QUOTE: "For Kim, the phenomenon he and his colleagues have uncovered highlights the extent of collective behavior and shared information from animal species to the level of the cell. This is individual cells sharing their experience and information to perform a team function,” he said." (David's bold)-David's comment: These are thinking cells just like Shapiro describes. All the information to act is built in.-dhw: You begin by calling it “automatic action”, and you end by saying the "information to act" is built in. The article does not mention automatism - though it describes the mechanics of cellular communication - and it does not mention built-in "information to act"....Yes, indeed, these are also the thinking cells Shapiro describes as cognitive, sentient, decision-making beings.-DAVID: I don't see how you can draw such conclusions about the inflammatory cells. Of course they are acting on built-in instructions. I once had to give a second year lecture on the inflammatory reaction to my Med school class. If I had to present your concept of what I presented in the above article I would have been laughed out of the class.-In those days, you probably would. That is what Shapiro complains about. When asked why the concept of bacterial cognition is controversial, he replied: “Large organs chauvinism, so we like to think that only we can do things in a cognitive way.” If what Kim and his colleagues uncovered is the conventional concept of automatic behaviour, why are they making a fuss about their discovery? Please explain what you think they mean by this phenomenon highlighting “the extent of collective behavior and shared information from animal species to the level of the cell.” Individuals sharing experiences and information, and working as a team, is a phenomenon integral to the functioning of all communities. You grant that these are signs of intelligence in humans and our fellow animals. What, then, do you think Kim and his colleagues are trying to draw our attention to by equating cell behaviour with that of the animal kingdom?-DAVID: I will not change my concept of how all this works. -Fair enough. You defend your beliefs and attack my hypothesis, and I defend my hypothesis and question your beliefs. That way, we may get some clarification.-DAVID: We come from bacteria by evolution, and cell processes were set way back then, and simply modified for multicellularity by specialization. That is evolutionary continuity.-I don't know what you mean by “simply modified for multicellularity by specialization”. In my hypothesis, evolution began with multicellularity, and each innovation was the result of cellular communities exploiting new conditions by pooling experience and information and working as a team, as per Kim and colleagues. (This fits in with the concept of the intelligent cell.) “Evolutionary continuity” is common descent, i.e. all organisms are descended from earlier organisms (regardless of innovative jumps), and specialization is the result of individual cells taking on a particular role within each cell community. Your concept of how it all works has been through divine preprogramming and/or divine dabbling, but you have taken to fudging it with terms like “guided”, “directed” and “semi-autonomous”, and “guidelines” (which turned out to be nothing more than the restrictions imposed by the nature of the organism and the environment). Now we have “innovative freedom so long as they fit God's desires”. I wonder how your Med School class would have responded to that. Be bold, be brave, be decisive, in the true tradition of all Texas cowboys, and shoot from the hip. Either God preprogrammed/dabbled evolutionary innovations (plus complex nests and lifestyles) or he didn't. Which is it?