The biochemistry of cell communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, September 04, 2016, 12:58 (3001 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: My Encarta dictionary defines proprioceptor as “any receptor (as in the gut, blood vessels, muscles etc,) that supplies information about the state of the body”. If this is correct, the scientists who believe in cellular intelligence believe that cell communities consciously communicate, interact and cooperate, which could not possibly happen without their acquiring and exchanging information about the state of the body they compose. 
DAVID: Your definition is correct. You are referrrng to cell communities which are whole organs.
 
You could hardly have proprioceptive knowledge of the body if you didn't have a body.-DAVID: The organs that have proprioception are muscle groups, arms and legs and torsos giving the brain body positions so the person knows where all parts are dynamically during movement. These are automatic reactions. The cricket batter could not swing at a pitch from the bowler in split-second accuracy without instant information from the entire groups of cell sensors. You are stretching your concept of cell intelligence beyond all credulity.-You have ignored my point that there is a distinction between automatic perception of the ball, non-automatic processing of the information (speed, position), non-automatic decision-making (what stroke to play), and automatic implementation of the decision (the muscles responding to the decision). But we don't need this analogy. My concept of cell intelligence does not preclude the automatic activities that are essential to the functioning of communities once an organ exists. Intelligence only comes into active play when there is a problem to be solved or, going one step further in my evolutionary hypothesis, when new conditions permit innovation. -xxxxxx-dhw: How does an organism change its “partial” immunity to full immunity? Any mechanism whereby an organism changes itself in order to counter new threats in my view requires some kind of intelligence, whether organic or divine. 
DAVID: It is a recognized concept in biology that individuals with partial immunity when mating will create progeny with better immunity. - We are trying to understand how organisms cope with new problems - not how later generations will inherit the solutions. “Better immunity”, according to your next comment, is not enough.-DAVID: The Tasmanian devils may not have perfect immunity yet, but they will get there. As for trial and error, partial success is still death. Only complete success makes for survival. That is the argument for the irreducible complexity proposal against Darwin's theory.-You said some of the Tasmanian devils may have had partial immunity to start with, so what was the point of that if partial immunity is of no use? The Tasmanian devil very nearly became extinct (and many species do when confronted by a new catastrophe). Just enough of them survived through four generations to come up with a solution that worked. They are now flourishing. Once again: you have excluded divine intervention, so did your God preprogramme the solution, and a few individuals only managed to switch on the right programme at the last minute? Or did they work it out for themselves?
 
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David's comment: I view this as two automatic molecular responses, as Leifer also seems to in her statement re' mechanism. This is an either/or reaction involving a so far unknown molecular change.
dhw;I may have missed something, but I can't find the word “mechanism” anywhere. I've found detect, recognize, determine, sensing, interpret….all of which seem to suggest some sort of…how should I put it…intelligence?-DAVID: Her statement of possible 'mechanism': "It is not yet clear how these two ligands induce such disparate effects in the same cell by the same receptor. “That's the million-dollar question,” said Leifer. It might be that the ligands recruit different co-receptors, or induce TLR4 to adopt different conformations, she suggested."
Pure molecular biochemical reactions to me. The ligand attaches to one molecular area or another. They will figure it out.-I see nothing in the words "recruit" and "induce" to indicate that she shares your view that these are automatic reactions. Figuring something out suggests intelligence to me.-xxxxxx-David's comment (re ants): ...the parallelism with human agriculture is amazing. The ant colonies show a group cleverness and one must wonder did the ants work out this arrangement on their own or were they guided? 
dhw: I keep referring to the astonishingly intelligent achievements of ants as an analogy to cellular cooperation. At least you have now allowed for the possibility that ant communities may be intelligent, whereas you refuse even to countenance the possibility that cell communities may work in similar fashion.
DAVID: Ants are whole beings with brains. Cells are not. -Some single cells are whole beings, though the analogy here is with cell communities. And as a dualist, you keep telling us that intelligence is not the product of the brain.