Biological complexity: feedback loops are vital (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, September 23, 2019, 18:22 (1888 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Or to put it a different way, decision-making requires the use of intelligence. Where did that intelligence come from? Maybe from your God. Nobody knows. Materialists believe intelligence comes from the brain, which is a mass of individual cells.

DAVID: Back to the discussion about the baby brain being a blank slate, except for inherited tendencies.

dhw: We are talking about bacterial intelligence.

No, intelligent responses requires intelligent information or a brain that creates its own intelligence as babies eventually do.

dhw: In that case bacterial intelligence would come from the bacterial equivalent of a brain within a cell.

DAVID: Such brainy organelle has never been described.

dhw: Albrecht-Buehler thinks the centrosome and centrioles constitute the “brain” and “eyes” of the cell. Who knows? Nobody has yet succeeded in describing how ANY form of intelligence is generated. We only have theories.

A-B is a solo practitioner of his theory. Intelligence is part of consciousness, by learning and thinking. it is consciousness we don't understand. Intelligence involves information, a concept in cells, which you have problems in understanding. I think God supplied it when He started life.

DAVID: Comment (under “Genome complexity”): The importance of activating the correct genes in each cell is backed up by a complex of six special proteins each of which can do the job. Such a system has to be designed, and cannot develop by chance. How does a mindless mechanism recognize the need for such an important backup system?

dhw: There is a similar comment under “How cholesterol enters cells”. It is unfortunate that there are no atheists currently contributing to this forum. I do miss George Jelliss! For me, the complexity of the cell alone is sufficient to cast doubt on the chance theory that is the atheist alternative to design. I accept the atheist argument that one mystery (God) doesn’t solve another mystery (life’s complexity), which is why I stay on my agnostic fence, but I would really like to know how an atheist justifies his faith in the ability of chance to create the mechanisms of the cell.

What you do not accept is the necessity of a signing mind having to exist.