Ants, slime mold & bacteria (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, April 24, 2016, 13:04 (3133 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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.-DAVID: I'll repeat: if a bacterium receives a stimulus, it is clear it can recognize it through chemical reactions and it can automatically use chemical reactions to respond. All intelligently programmed.-No need to repeat it. I know your opinion, and will simply hold onto your sporadic acknowledgement that the two theories (preprogramming versus autonomous intelligence) are equally possible.-dhw: 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.-DAVID: Human bodily functions are as preprogrammed as bacterial bodily functions. A cell is a cell is a cell ( apologies to Gertrude). We are still based on the very first cell. Bacteria do not have a 'less complex form of intelligence' any more than my automatic cells have. They are intelligently preprogrammed.-As above, you are entitled to your opinion - though you sometimes state it as fact - and so are experts such as McClintock, Margulis, Shapiro, Buehler, Lipton, and our slime-molders.