Bacterial electrical communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 14, 2017, 13:13 (2629 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Looking into cells, one can see that all the processes act automatically as the molecules scurry about and interact. This activity is wildly complex, beyond any possibility of chance formation. It is easy to conceive of a planning mind as the designer of life. I know you can't see it, but lots of us can.

dhw: You have said yourself that it is impossible to distinguish between intelligent behaviour and automatic behaviour. Shapiro and others have looked into cells and concluded that their behaviour is intelligent, but you insist that it is automatic. I don’t know why you contrast this with chance formation. The argument is not about how cells acquired their intelligence (it may well be that a god gave it to them) but WHETHER they are intelligent.

DAVID: The point for me is where did the intelligent information came from. It obviously exists. For me it is evidence for God, especially since I think they act automatically.

It is your interpretation of how evolution works that is under discussion. I have agreed a thousand times that intelligence of whatever kind is evidence for God, and so I put on my theist hat and challenge your hypothesis that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder, all for the sake of producing Homo sapiens and his brain. I propose a different hypothesis that does away with all the anomalies and contradictions and illogicalities of your own, but depends on the (God-given?) intelligence of all organisms. I do not expect you to accept it, and I myself accept that there is a question mark over the potential range of cellular intelligence, but I do not expect you to reject it on the grounds that you know more about cells than Shapiro, Margulis, McLintock, Bühler & Co.