Biological complexity: protozoa sans mitochondria (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, June 03, 2016, 13:08 (3095 days ago) @ David Turell

Following on from your agreement, David, that your God may have given organisms an autonomous mechanism to produce the complexities of all the different species: -Dhw: There is therefore no escaping the concept of cellular intelligence […] Why is this argument not to be taken seriously?
DAVID: Because cell intelligent responses can be intelligently planned fixed molecular reactions.
dhw: “Can be” fixed reactions, but “can” also be the result of cellular intelligence. Your dogmatic insistence that you are right, although nobody can know which version is true, does not entitle you to dismiss the hypothesis as unworthy of serious consideration. Ts, ts!
DAVID: You cannot shake my dogma!-That is not a reasonable argument.
 
dhw: Organs such as livers act automatically (or appear to act automatically) once they have been invented. They play their part in all the automatic activities that enable organisms to go on living. Cells and cell communities will only have to use their inventive intelligence firstly to create the organ (my hypothesis attempts to solve the mystery of evolutionary innovation), and secondly to solve new problems.
DAVID: How does the liver community of cells work out all of the cooperative events they have to invent with the kidney cells. Sounds like whole body cellular cooperation.-Of course it has to be whole body cellular cooperation, with the intelligence of each cell community combining forces. We KNOW that the cell communities cooperate now (even if/when their cooperation is “automatic”), and so it is not illogical to assume that when the organs were first invented, they cooperated then. How did they work it all out? Nobody knows. But if you are now willing to concede that your God may have given organisms an autonomous “complexification” mechanism - and you will be the first to agree that the invention of liver and kidneys is a complexification - then instead of marvelling at your God's wonderful dabbles or 3.8 billion-year computer programme, perhaps you can marvel at his ability to endow cell communities with the intelligence to come up with these complexities! You are forever saying how smart “Nature” is, when you can only mean how smart living organisms are.
 
dhw: As for Shapiro agreeing with you, he explicitly states that “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” 
DAVID: You needn't keep repeating the same quote. I know what he has written. I still consider it hyperbole, emphasis to make a point. The cells care fully endowed as he describes, just automatic.-You said you would love to interview Shapiro because “I think we actually believe the same things.” I repeated the quote to point out that with regard to the issue we are discussing, you do not believe the same things.