The biochemistry of cell adhesion and communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 21, 2015, 13:01 (3048 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: I don't know why you suddenly emphasized Shapiro's work on intelligent single cells, as if that meant cell communities were not intelligent.
DAVID: Conclusions from work on single cells does not carry over to multicellular organs. Each bacteria must take care of itself or as I've pointed joined with its fellows to cooperate in battle.-It is the communal activity that provides the analogy to how multicellular organs may have been formed in the first place: through the intelligent cooperation of cells.-DAVID: You've picked up on it:
http://phys.org/news/2015-12-bacteria-resist.html
dhw: “A way of sensing that” indicates the sentience of bacteria, and unless your God has preprogrammed every possible response to every possible situation for the rest of the life of Planet Earth, I would suggest that ”turning on the response” requires the autonomous intelligence that Shapiro & Co. attribute to bacteria. -DAVID: You seem to attribute a very complex lifestyle to bacteria. They are simple. They absorb food they sense or they engulf it. If a chemical attack appears they move away or attack. Not a great deal of onboard information is necessary. A kidney cell does much more complex work, and all of its decisions are automatic.-You keep ignoring my response to the kidney argument, so let me repeat it: “...if single cells are intelligent, you don't have to be a genius to work out that cell communities must be intelligent too. HOWEVER, as I have said repeatedly, once an organ has been invented, of course the cells will perform their allotted duties, just as ants do in their community. (Active, inventive intelligence would only be required when new situations arose.)”-dhw; And in Shapiro's view: ”Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth, and proliferation. They possess corresponding sensory, communication, information-processing, and decision-making capabilities." (Quoted on the “More James Barham introduces James Shapiro” thread, 19 August at 21.01)
DAVID: Of course bacteria are just like described above. Old ground. I have my own interpretation of Shapiro's findings. -May I ask what other attributes you would add to Shapiro's list before you would describe an organism as “intelligent”? -DAVID: This is where my opinion comes from. My knowledge that single cells in complex organisms like humans do much more automatically than bacteria do as independent organisms. So to me bacteria work automatically...-Of course single cells in the kidney do much more automatically than bacteria do as independent organisms. They have their role in a fixed community. But if bacteria are LESS automatic than kidney cells, how does that lead to the conclusion that bacteria work automatically?-DAVID: ...and no one can tell whether Shapiro or I am correct as to automatic or independent mechanisms control their lives.-That is true. You are a bacterial determinist and a human compatibilist, and you have every right to ignore the findings of these eminent experts whom you admire so much.