The biochemistry of cell adhesion and communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 22, 2015, 17:42 (3046 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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: We are totally apart. The intelligent cooperation comes from the information implanted into them from the beginning of life.-So let's look at gradations. Would you say that all the cooperative decisions made by ants were preprogrammed in the first cells? By wolves? By humans? Somewhere along the line, there has to be autonomy of thought. If God did not preprogramme every single communal, communicative decision made by humans/wolves/ants/bacteria, they must have the means of making their own decisions. You will accept that for humans and wolves, perhaps hesitate over ants, but you are absolutely certain that your God preprogrammed every single bacterial response to every single situation that bacteria have faced since the year dot.
 
dhw: 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.)”
DAVID: Still very apart. Cells are cells. Single-celled bacteria do less complex work in living on their own than do kidney cells working for me. If my kidney cells can work automatically at that high level of complexity, then it is logical that bacteria work automatically at their lower level of complexity.-But you are viewing the kidney as an established community of cells in which each one has a role to play (like ants),but how did it form in the first place? You say God programmed it in the first cells, along with every other organ, lifestyle, natural wonder etc. Or he did a dabble. My alternative is that cells cooperated to work out what they needed to do in order to filter waste, just as leaf-cutting ants cooperated to work out their own complex way to dispose of their waste, with particular ants taking on their very specialized roles. Only when cell/ant communities are faced with new problems does this cooperation require departure from the automatic role. Then decisions are made, and that is when cellular/ant intelligence is no longer automatic.
 
dhw: May I ask what other attributes you would add to Shapiro's list before you would describe an organism as “intelligent”? 
DAVID: Their intelligent responses are all automatic.-But "my" experts keep telling me that bacteria are cognitive, sentient beings and not automatons. If we accept the term “artificial intelligence” for computers, I am asking what attributes in addition to Shapiro's list would in your eyes distinguish automatons from autonomous beings.