Genome complexity: variation within species (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 21, 2016, 17:48 (2675 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: My same old point. From the outside, the odds are 50/50, but with research on the inside what is found are automatic molecular responses to stimuli and reactions, n nothing more.

dhw:And my same old reply: This also applies to what is found inside the human brain. You cannot see the intelligence that gives rise to thought that gives rise to action. You can only see the molecular responses.

DAVID: Apples and oranges. I am discussing demonstrable material actions and you are bringing in immaterial consciousness. Whew!

Of course I am bringing in immaterial consciousness! That is the whole basis of our disagreement. Let me spell it out for you: if bacteria are intelligent, as Shapiro et al claim, researchers will still only be able to study the molecular reactions, because consciousness/intelligence is immaterial or undemonstrable. Put it another way: neuroscientists can observe demonstrable molecular responses in the human brain, but they cannot observe consciousness. The fact that you cannot study something materially does not mean it is not there.

dhw: As for bacteria, same old same old: the only way you can test whether they are intelligent is to set them new problems, which some experts have done, drawing the conclusion that they are intelligent.

DAVID: Since bacteria started so long ago and faced every possible threat, all their survival mechanisms had to be present from the beginning.

Agreed. In my hypothesis, the survival mechanism would consist in their “plasticity” and the intelligence to work out how to use it in solving the problems posed by each individual threat. Some succeed and some don’t. Your hypothesis has your God preprogramming the first cells to pass on “all the alternative pathways they need for any crisis from the beginning” (see under “big brain evolution”), which I take to mean every solution to every problem. Not very efficient programming if some succeed and some don’t. Does he also select the successful bacteria, or leave that to chance?