Biological complexity:how toxoplasmosis parasitizes (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, December 05, 2016, 17:51 (2910 days ago) @ dhw

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....I am 99% sure that bacteria are automatons. I don't just look at the obvious 50/50 odds. I go much deeper.

dhw: As we have said over and over again, science can only study the physical means whereby organisms perform their actions. ... But the question with ALL organisms is how the instructions are given to them in the first place.

Exactly the question about the information that runs the processes of life. That information cannot appear de novo by chance. Life originated from a rocky inorganic planet Complex organic molecules had to appear and then coalesce into living forms by some magical process we do no understand at all: 60 years of research is no closer to an understanding.

dhw: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).

Quite a mix-up of my theories. YES, no planning for the future without a brain in living organisms wanting to speciate to continue evolution. But NDE's involve death, and I believe there is a special arrangement in the living brain to create a quantum- based soul mechanism to survive death, and return to a universal consciousness. You are poo-pooing my theories just as I do yours. Tit-for tat, double standards.

dhw: 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.

Confusing to you. I have separate theories, not one all-inclusive theory to cover everything which you always seem try to do. I see no need for that all-inconclusiveness. In each area of thought I follow the known research findings. A brain allows for some integration of received stimuli and responsive alteration. Most of the intelligent planning I refer to is God's in relation to speciation. Again 50/50 is an external assessment, with no insight from the inside of organisms where only molecular reactions are found, the guidance from DNA not understood. You want DNA to think!

DAVID: I understand your position which avoids the evidence of purpose.

dhw: 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.

Preservation of life is implanted in all organism that struggle, or don't have to struggle, to survive. That doesn't explain why the original land mammals became whales at great complications to their original physiology. Defies all logic. You are back to Darwin and the concept of competition as the driving force. I reject that idea. It is back to the tautology of survival of the fittest.