Bacterial Intelligence? making decisions chemically (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 01, 2019, 19:49 (1815 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: If new conditions arise (e.g. new drugs to be combated), then of course the behaviour is new. If the species remains the same, that is adaptation. And I have suggested the possibility that in multicellular organisms, the same mechanism “might even lead to innovation” and hence evolution.

DAVID: You have again stretched adaptation to speciation. Back to pure Darwin.

dhw: I have suggested that cellular intelligence may be responsible for innovation as well as adaptation. It is a hypothesis, just like your divine preprogramming and dabbling. Please tell me where Darwin proposes that cellular intelligence might be the driving force behind evolutionary change.

But what you stated is pure Darwin, adaptation after adaptation leading to speciation, whether by intelligent action or not. Darwin never discussed intelligence as a driving force. That is your imagined process.

DAVID: Our intelligence and free will have to do with our consciousness. What a stretch of comparisons! You suggest by your comparison bacteria are somehow conscious.

dhw: Do you really think I am stupid enough to propose that bacterial intelligence is on a par with human intelligence? On Saturday 27 April I replied to the same point: “Nobody is even suggesting that bacterial intelligence is on a level with or even of the same kind as human intelligence.” You know perfectly well from your own experience with animals that there are different LEVELS of intelligence. You usually like to equate consciousness with self-awareness, which is perhaps why you introduced the word. I don’t, so let’s stick to intelligence in order to avoid that pitfall.

DAVID: I can certainly agree that conscious organisms (without self-awareness) show intelligence.

dhw: Thank you. And bearing in mind that the majority of modern scientists apparently agree that bacteria are (rather than seem to be) intelligent, you can hardly assert with any authority that intelligent human behaviour is autonomous but intelligent bacterial behaviour is preprogrammed or dabbled.

Nothing factual here just consensus opinion. Cells actions are seen only from outside the cell. Still 50/50 probability as to how it is achieved.