Defining sentient cells: Cell receptors (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, April 01, 2018, 11:14 (2211 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Thank you for your skepticism. As for thinking humans, most of what happens every day in their bodies is entirely automatic.

dhw: Again I agree. What is not automatic is the power to solve problems, make decisions, cooperate with others – those activities which indicate autonomous intelligence and are to be observed in all our fellow organisms, including bacteria.

DAVID: Again: they are automatically programmed by intelligent information which makes them look intelligent.

dhw: Our fellow organisms also include insects, birds, fish, other animals and our fellow human beings. So I wonder how you manage to distinguish between those that merely look intelligent and those that actually are intelligent. Do please tell us your secret.

DAVID: It is analyzing instinctual behavior vs. inventive behavior. Humans are inventive.

How can you tell the difference between the instinctive and the inventive solution of problems? Every single natural wonder that you have described must have had a first, and that first would have to be called inventive. So how do you know that the very first weaverbird’s nest, beaver dam, monarch migration, chameleon camouflage, ant raft, termite city were NOT the result of inventive behaviour?