Defining sentient cells: Cell receptors (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, April 05, 2018, 12:47 (2424 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You quote my whole paragraph, and then respond only to the very end! If I say David is intelligent, that does not mean all his molecules are intelligent. We do not know the source of intelligence. Some people think that in humans it’s a soul; others think it’s the pre-frontal cortex. Bacteria (single cells) and cell communities (multicellular organs and organisms) may have the equivalent of either. Now perhaps you will tell us how you can distinguish between automatic and autonomous behaviour, bearing in mind the points made in the paragraph you have quoted.

DAVID: I'm sorry you are disappointed with my answer to your specific question at the end of the paragraph. I've clearly pointed out my thinking in the presentation of the discovery that the 3-D shape of organic molecules carry the information for reactions to create purposeful results.

And so apparently you know that because the 3-D shape of organic molecules carries the information for reactions to create purposeful results, human behaviour is the result of intelligence and bacterial behaviour is the result of divine preprogramming. I don’t follow your logic.

DAVID (under “Cambrian explosion”): And just where is the intelligence hiding in the automatic cellular responses? I've shown you information codes are hidden in the 3-D shape of organic molecules.

dhw: Where is the intelligence hiding when you solve problems? Has science revealed the presence of your dualist’s thinking soul?

DAVID: No, science can't find the soul, but it can show the degrees of intelligence the complexity of the brain allows.

According to you as a dualist, intelligence is the province of the soul not the brain, which implements the thoughts of the soul. Science can certainly observe the results of intelligence, as it does when it sets problems for non-human organisms to solve. But you don’t believe that behaviour can show intelligence, as is clear from your next comment:

DAVID: The only real intelligence we know involves the presence of neurons and brains. Purposeful actions can be coded, as demonstrated.

Purposeful actions can be the result of intelligence. How do you know they are not? If the defining feature of “real intelligence” (whatever that means) is the presence of neurons and brains, then of course a neuron-less, brainless creature can’t be intelligent. If an atheist’s definition of God is “a mythical being that doesn’t exist”, then of course God can’t exist. Not the best of arguments, is it? I would suggest that if any organism shows that it is capable of processing information, communicating that information to others and cooperating with them, solving problems and taking decisions, it has the characteristics of what we normally associate with intelligence (not to be equated with the degree of awareness and self-awareness that characterizes human intelligence). Please tell me what other qualities are essential to your personal definition of intelligence.