Biological complexity: homeostasis (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, October 28, 2018, 11:14 (2007 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You didn't note I was responding to a single concept of intelligence, specifically the ability to foresee future needs and thus design. The remainder of your comment is fine.

dhw: That is precisely what I noted and objected to. You have a single concept of intelligence which automatically excludes any organism which cannot foresee the future. If the rest of my comment is fine, then please don’t tell us that “intelligence implies the ability to use future needs theoretically” and therefore cells can’t be intelligent.

DAVID: What a weird comment. Design for the future must require intelligence that can understand the requirements for a new design. You've turned my point around backwards. Cells do not contain that type of intelligence. All that has ever been shown is simple responses to simple stimuli.

The reversals are yours. Firstly you wrote that “intelligence implies the ability to plan and design, being able to view future needs theoretically.” No, it doesn’t. That is one particular form of intelligence. I then pointed out that adaptation, problem-solving and decision-making were examples of the way in which “other life forms RESPOND intelligently to changing conditions”, and you agreed. These are forms of intelligence which have been demonstrated by cells, and so the inability to theorize about the future is irrelevant to the question of whether, as Shapiro & Co claim, cells are intelligent. Thirdly, you ignored my final point: “But to anticipate your stock reply, I agree that we do not know whether cellular intelligence can extend so far as to innovate, which is why my hypothesis is a hypothesis.” And lastly, as I keep repeating ad nauseam, I propose that evolution advances not through planning for a future which organisms know nothing about, but through their responses to the requirements and opportunities that arise out of the changing conditions in which they live at the time.