Biological complexity:how toxoplasmosis parasitizes (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 05, 2016, 14:09 (2910 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: …if the chances of the cell/cell community being intelligent are 50/50, we have good reason not to reject the hypothesis, which is your stance. I do not expect you to believe it, but what happened to open-mindedness? Outright rejection of a 50/50 hypothesis is prejudice, not science.

DAVID: The 50/50 odds I give are based on the fact that we are not inside the bacterial cell. In my opinion, from the outside, there is much more to consider. The bacterial reactions are all molecular responses when they are studied. The movement of the architecture within the bacteria (flagellum) is all mechanical. All of it is perfectly consistent with automatic response guided by automatic messages from the genome. This is the way cells act in our bodies, and I see no difference in lone bacteria. Therefore I am 99% sure that bacteria are automatons. I don't just look at the obvious 50/50 odds. I go much deeper.

As we have said over and over again, science can only study the physical means whereby organisms perform their actions. You complain when neuroscientists try to reduce human activity to the automaticity of cell responses. Human cells and bacteria automatically respond to instructions. But the question with ALL organisms is how the instructions are given to them in the first place. You are convinced that autonomous intelligence is not possible without a brain – and yet you are also convinced that autonomous intelligence IS possible without a brain (NDEs and the afterlife). The deeper you go, the more confusing your arguments become. I accept your odds of 50/50, but I do not accept the argument that automatic responses in one organism (bacteria) must denote automatic instructions, whereas in others (with brains) they denote autonomous intelligence. The odds are 50/50 regardless of how deep you think you are going.

dhw: Of course God is in the picture, and so is chance. I am a 50/50 agnostic, and find both hypotheses equally difficult to believe. That is why I leave open the question of the ORIGIN of the intelligent cell. Once again, that has no bearing on the question of whether evolution is the result of God’s total control, planning, preprogramming and dabbling, or is a free-for-all, possibly designed as such by your God.
DAVID: I understand your position which avoids the evidence of purpose.

Dealt with under “Life’s biologic complexity”. But I’d like to remind you that apart from a possible divine, overall purpose for life itself, there is also the individual purpose (whether God-given or not) of organisms to survive and/or improve, which I have suggested is the driving force behind evolution.