The biochemistry of cell communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 08, 2016, 12:26 (2997 days ago) @ David Turell

Once again I am putting different threads together as they deal with the same subject.-David (under “Rumination on multiverses”): The research road ahead is clear, more and more complexity: chance has no chance of being the correct solution to the question of why is there life.
dhw: This is a major reason for my inability to believe in chance. However, we are looking at developments that have been perfected over thousands of millions of years by organisms which may be intelligent enough to invent them. That is why the concept of the intelligent cell is so important. Even if there is a God, there is no need to have him painstakingly working out every single detail of every single complexity for every single organism if you grant that he might have given organisms the means to work it all out for themselves.-DAVID: I couldn't agree more that God may have given organisms the ability to 'work it out for themselves'. I would just like proof that such a mechanism exists. Until then pre-planning or dabble.-There is no proof of pre-planning or dabbling either, but I am more than happy with your agreement that organisms' ability to “work it out for themselves” may exist. (See also “Holographic Universe”). That means that cells/cell communities may be intelligent after all. Hallelujah! I'd better frame this post.-Xxxx-dhw: But I'm afraid I don't see how bell curves relate to the origin of any degree of immunity: once again, is immunity a matter of luck, divine intervention/ preprogramming, or intelligent DIY? 
DAVID: I'll try again. Darwin knew this: all organisms constitute populations of variation in their attributes. No two individuals are the same. As so with immunity. Those with some are lucky that their general immunity will partially respond to a new threat, providing the mechanism to survive and create progeny with better immunity. What I think God created is the variability as part of the evolutionary process. DIY does not apply.-And yet you couldn't agree more that God may have given organisms the ability to work it out for themselves. That is DIY. Developing immunity is just as much a part of an organism's method of coping with the environment as developing new means of locomotion, of breathing, of working out defensive strategies etc. Individuals are communities of cell communities, and so if cell communities react in their own individual ways to changes in environmental conditions, what exactly has been pre-planned? If your God planned “variability” in the evolutionary process, doesn't that suggest that he gave cell communities the ability to work it out for themselves rather than merely obeying inbuilt instructions either to die, to be lucky enough to have partial immunity, or to develop full immunity?-xxx-dhw: So do you believe that after your bodily death your brainless soul will retain your intelligence, memories etc. or not?
DAVID: My consciousness stays intact and carries intelligence and memories, etc.
-Thank you. That means intelligence and memory are independent of the brain, and therefore it cannot be argued that brainless organisms are incapable of being intelligent.