Animal Minds; termite automatic class recognition (Animals)

by David Turell , Wednesday, August 15, 2018, 15:33 (2291 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Under "Bacterial intelligence?"

DAVID’s comment: This is an editorial description of her work, and describes how highly organized and controlled are the systems in any bacteria. It reeks of intelligent design.

dhw: I don’t know why you headed this: “Bacterial intelligence?” The article has nothing to do with the decision-making capabilities of bacteria. All organisms have highly organized and controlled systems that work automatically, and that “reek of intelligent design”. That doesn’t mean they are not intelligent.

DAVID: Headed that way because we are in constant discussion about bacterial intelligence. If all of their activity is automatic, they are no innately intelligent.

dhw: But the article has nothing to do with bacterial intelligence. Your “if” is countered by the equally pointless response that if some of their activities are not automatic, then they are innately intelligent! I have reproduced a long list of activities in support of the argument for intelligence, but of course this has been ignored.

Not ignored. Your vaunted reproductions simply show the activities of the organisms have the appearance of intelligent decisions. Without direct proof, yours is just opinion, as is mine.