cellular intelligence; information controls (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, May 30, 2019, 01:27 (2003 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: [...] if you think the autonomous ability of cells to “reconfigure” themselves momentarily is 50/50, you can hardly discount the possibility that this ability may extend beyond the momentary.

DAVID: Again, you miss the point. Cells have the ability to reconfigure chemical reactions to immediate stimuli, but the cells themselves are not changed. What is 50/50 is only applied to the debate about innate intelligence vs intelligent information controlling their immediate actions. It is a pipe dream to assume they can design and manufacture new forms by committee actions.

dhw: Again you miss the point that any innovation has to involve a restructuring of the cell communities that make up every multicellular organism, whether your God did it or not. According to you, the majority of scientists now accept the idea that cells are intelligent,

All I have agreed to is all current scientists know is cellular responses to stimuli can be interpreted as intelligent results. No one knows how that is achieved.

dhw: but of course nobody knows the cause of speciation, and the idea that cellular intelligence (perhaps God-given) might lie at the heart of the process remains a hypothesis. However, I doubt if many scientists would regard it as more of a pipe dream than the hypothesis that an unknown power provided the first cells with a computer programme for every innovation, or alternatively popped in to perform operations on various organisms to prepare them for events over which – in your latest hypothesis concerning local environmental changes – he had no control.

No one knows how life got a start. We all have our own hypotheses.

DAVID: But in considering mechanisms God is always involved. that is the underlying point of this website

dhw: The underlying point of this website is to discuss every theoretical solution to the unsolved mysteries of the universe. For those of us who believe in evolution, the unsolved mystery is how speciation occurs. Godly preprogramming and dabbling are one possible solution; a godly or godless autonomous mechanism is another; godly or godless random mutations are another. Speciation is the subject here, and not the existence of God.

DAVID: As an agnostic you may want to skip over God's role, but I consider Him as an answer to the unanswered questions.

dhw: The question we are dealing with here is speciation. “God” is not an answer if you propose that your God preprogrammed or dabbled it all, and I propose that your God designed an autonomous mechanism. You repeatedly try to make out that my agnosticism invalidates any criticism of your highly subjective view of your God’s purposes and methods. Sorry, but that is a total cop-out.

Of course God is an answer just as you describe my thoughts. I agree that God might have designed a semi-autonomous design mechanism, but you view God as wishy-washy in control of evolution, and i view Him in firm control.