Evolution took a long time: C elegans learning (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, January 09, 2017, 12:25 (2875 days ago) @ David Turell

David’s comment: Every cell in C. elegans is completely understood, including the 302 neurons. Plasticity in learning can be easily studied as this paper shows. Here it is easy to see a neural mechanism for intelligence and learning. My point is the single-celled organism, learns by a different mechanism and it is alterations in DNA as Shapiro has shown. It necessarily much simpler, and probably automatic once a new response is established.

dhw: Since it hasn’t got a brain, of course it must learn by a different mechanism, and I’m happy to accept that it is simpler. The question is not what happens once a new response is established, but how a new response comes about in the first place. I suggest intelligence. You suggest divine dabbling or preprogramming of every response throughout the history of life.

DAVID: No, you miss my point. The worm clearly modifies its neurons to make new responses. This is how the intelligent responses change. Intelligence requires neurons.

You wrote that the single-celled organism learns by a different mechanism. That is obviously true, since it doesn’t have neurons. It doesn’t mean that intelligence requires neurons. Your claim that the changes are “probably automatic” at least leaves room for the possibility that they are not automatic, i.e. that they are the product of an autonomous intelligence, as proposed by Shapiro & Co, but as usual you withdraw it in your next authoritative statement.