Ants, slime mold & bacteria (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, April 23, 2016, 13:17 (2887 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw; Here are some quotes from the video you recommended: - "These studies are “redefining what is it to be intelligent.” They “challenge what we think of as intelligence.” “It's not that nature lacks intelligence, but our own concepts do”. Not quite the same as “no intellect required”. - DAVID: Resident intellect is not required if the organisms is programmed as I have describe. The quote presumes no God/mind planning the organism. - Of course intelligence is not required if the organisms are preprogrammed. You are simply saying that if the organism is not intelligent, it is not intelligent! The research has nothing whatsoever to do with God: the experts in this particular field merely tell us that the organisms are intelligent. A theist can go on to argue that it was God who created the intelligence in the first place. But of course you have every right to believe that these experts are wrong. - dhw: But please do not focus on chemical processes of acquiring or communicating information as if they explained decision-making, and do not focus on human concept-making as if its absence in bacteria denoted absence of intelligence. Your view that bacteria are not intelligent is a purely personal opinion, to which of course you are perfectly entitled, but the scientific (chemical processes) and philosophical (no concept-making) evidence you have cited is irrelevant. - DAVID: The evidence is not irrelevant. My interpretation simply differs from the one you prefer. - You drew the distinction yourself: “Most of your bodily functions except thinking are automatic”. Solving puzzles and making decisions are not bodily functions. They are the products of thinking. The references to bodily functions are therefore irrelevant to your belief that what looks like thought is in fact divine preprogramming. Similarly, your references to human concept-making are irrelevant to the possibility that bacteria have a less complex form of intelligence.


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