Clever Corvids: using tools (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 08, 2015, 17:47 (3152 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Now we can agree that it is not just possible but even probable that organisms have their own inventive intelligence, subject only to the restrictions imposed by their own nature and that of the environment. (And God may have invented the inventive intelligence.)-DAVID: No. You need to add that God has his own guidelines along with those of nature and environment. View His guidelines as limitations to the directionality and scope of independent innovations. Please remember, I view God as guiding evolution toward humans.-Now that organisms produce their own independent innovations (as opposed to being preprogrammed), I wonder how God can limit their scope and direction other than through the nature of the organism itself and the environment. I can only think of him intervening if he doesn't like them or if he needs an innovation to take a particular organism in the direction of humans, but perhaps you have other means of guidance in mind? Otherwise, there would have to be an awful lot of dabbling.-dhw: It is not those “many cellular responses” that are in dispute. It's the rest of the process. What these researchers have drawn attention to is “individual cells sharing their experience and information to perform a team function” - a process common “from animal species to the level of the cell”. That is not an over-interpretation. They are the words used by the researchers. Animals, including humans, share experiences and information in order to make decisions and solve problems. So do cells, according to these researchers. -DAVID: My view is the sharing of information is through chemical signals to which the cells respond automatically using the intelligent information and instructions they have to use.-Does this mean that God issued every different type of cell with detailed instructions on how to deal with every different type of problem? Unless he intervenes when each problem occurs, this means he must have preprogrammed the first cells with all the information and instructions to be passed down through billions of years....In the name of Ockham, wouldn't it be simpler if cells used their own (God-given?) intelligence to process and exchange new information as and when it came in, and to cooperate in taking their own decisions accordingly?
 
dhw: If that denotes intelligence in us, it denotes intelligence in cells...... The hypothesis we are dealing with here relates only to the intelligence of living organisms and its possible (or even probable) influence on the course of evolution, which you have now agreed to, as above.-DAVID: Once again, the intelligent actions of cells are not equivalent to human intelligence and decision making.-No one is claiming that cells have the range or even the form of intelligence that we have. The claim is that within their own limitations, they work together intelligently and not automatically to reach their decisions.