Logic and evolution: the giraffe problem (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, January 16, 2019, 13:03 (2137 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It can’t change the conditions, can it? But why are you rewriting the sentence? It continues: “…and figures out the best possible arrangement by itself” – the exact opposite of “reacts automatically”.

DAVID: By itself of course can mean automatically. It only reacts to light or food as the article says.

dhw: Why do you keep ignoring the words “figures it out by itself” – that can’t mean automatically!

DAVID: Because that is exactly where the authors offer an opinion not based on their description of the slime mold's abilities 'reacting passively'. One cannot have it both ways, or perhaps you want them to.

So you choose to ignore their opinion and impose your own.
“Reacting passively” refers to the following:
“...the amoeba doesn’t have to calculate every individual path like most computer algorithms do. Instead, the amoeba just reacts passively to the conditions and figures out the best possible arrangement by itself. What this means is that for the amoeba, adding more cities doesn’t increase the amount of time it takes to solve the problem.”

I take this to mean that the amoeba ignores the on-and-off lights (remember it is the FURTHEST that goes on and off most frequently), i.e. does NOT automatically do what you would expect it to do, but instead works out the shortest route by itself.

Dhw: I’m not sure I understand all of this, but you obviously did and called it “amazing work”, and you also used the word “amazing” in your heading. Mere automaticity is hardly amazing. We needn’t dwell on it. I’ll stick with McLintock, Margulis, Buehler and Shapiro if you prefer.

DAVID: The amoeba works like the bi-digital programming of 01 or 10. It is either yes or no at each channel. The amoeba can only reacts to food or light. That is automatic. What is puzzling is the mechanism whereby the amoeba chooses to react or not. That obviously can be automatic based on strength of signal, accept or ignore, still yes/no programming.

Yes indeed, the amoeba makes a choice. I am assuming the food would have been the same at the end of each channel, and so the amoeba chooses to ignore what should have been the “automatic” route dictated by light and dark. You see this choice as being the result of an instruction your God planted in the first cells 3.8 billion years ago, whereas the researchers see it as a sign of intelligence. Shall we leave it at that?