Biological complexity: bacteria use electrical signals (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 16, 2016, 13:41 (3174 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You keep telling us that what appears to be autonomous behaviour is actually automatic behaviour, and nobody can tell the difference from the outside. I am merely pointing out that determinists can use the same argument about human free will.
DAVID: Wrong analogy. Cells are material objects, free will is immaterial. In my view determinists are absolutely wrong and cannot prove their case. - The analogy only seems wrong to you because (a) you think you know that cells can't think, and (b) you think you know that we have free will. Some people believe that cells can think, and some people believe we do not have free will because we are trapped by the chain of limitless causes and effects. It is because there are different opinions that the analogy is correct: nobody can tell the difference from the outside between automatic and autonomous behaviour. And neither the believers nor the sceptics can “prove their case”. - dhw: You have admitted that your argument is based on incredulity, so please don't tell us that these complexities “cannot have been invented by existing organisms”. You simply cannot believe they were. - DAVID: With good reason. Their brains are too simple to be so inventive. - dhw: Man is so sure of his dominion
That he states as fact his mere opinion.
(New Taunton proverb) - DAVID: Only when backed by facts, 
Which IM conjecture lacks.
(Texan two-gun assertion) - I ain't denyin' my IM hypothesis is simply conjecture.
So's your insistence that weavers can't think. End of lecture.
(Put your guns away)