Bacterial Intelligence? self ID virus that kills enemies (General)

by dhw, Saturday, April 27, 2019, 13:42 (1797 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Once again it looks like a lucky relationship, with a trapped virus helping a bacteria.

dhw: In all walks of life, luck may trigger whole processes, but intelligence is required to use that luck. However, at least your championship of randomness makes a change from your insistence that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every aspect of bacterial behaviour. Or do you think he preprogrammed E-coli’s response just in case it ever met up with SW1?

DAVID: In human life we use our intelligence. That doesn't mean it is present 'in all walks of life', which has all sorts of levels of possible mentation.

Nobody is even suggesting that bacterial intelligence is on a level with or even of the same kind as human intelligence.

DAVID: My interpretation of how cells receive information through chemical reactions is clear in the article. I have just avoided the Darwinian interpretations of the authors. When they say the bacteria 'uses the virus', they purposely imply the bacteria knows what it is doing, when it all looks perfectly automatic to me and they even discuss the protein reaction involved.

You continue to ignore the fact that all forms of life, including ourselves, receive information through chemical reactions. Even you, when you claim to be a dualist, draw a distinction between material acquisition of information and the processes through which we analyse that information, choose between options, take decisions etc. You acknowledge that these are the hallmarks of intelligence, but then you always fall back on the automatic material or chemical processes as if they provided evidence that there is no intelligence.

DAVID: A protein molecule is not like as trained dog. It reacts to other proteins in a series of reactions, as far as I am concerned all set off automatically.

Molecules react automatically to receive information and to implement decisions. But what sets off the process of implementation (i.e. decision-making) is a mystery. You tell us your God must have preprogrammed or dabbled all the decisions or steps for whenever a decision is required. A theistic alternative is that he gave all organisms, including bacteria, the means by which to take their own decisions. Simple choice for you. You have now at least acknowledged that your own choice is not a belief, which I find encouraging.


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