Biological complexity: feedback loops are vital (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 25, 2019, 11:54 (1669 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: intelligent responses requires intelligent information or a brain that creates its own intelligence as babies eventually do.

dhw: Please explain how information can be intelligent.

DAVID: Properly functioning information must be designed by an intelligent mind, which provides meaningful processes in the cell and appropriate responses to challenges. I agree information itself is not intelligent, but its source must be. I was writing a sort of shorthand in my response.

Not only is information not intelligent, but information doesn’t function. It requires intelligence to make it function. Your shorthand simply obscures the argument.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: That is precisely the theistic version of my theory: that God supplied the cells with consciousness (not to be confused with human self-awareness), of which intelligence is part, when he started life. Thank you.

DAVID: I don't think He made bacteria or cells conscious in the usual way we mean. He gave them intelligently drawn information to use in appropriate ways.

What is the “usual way we mean”? Intelligence involves conscious use of information. Consciousness involves awareness, the ability to process information, to communicate, to make decisions etc., and is not confined to human self-awareness. And yes indeed, if God exists, I agree that he would have supplied it when He started life. Thank you again.

Under "Big brain evolution": "If the mouse needed to prioritize auditory information, the prefrontal cortex told the visual TRN to increase its activity to suppress the visual thalamus — stripping away irrelevant visual data."

What we have here is a process in which all parts of the body (i.e. cell communities) tell one another what to do. The pre-frontal cortex appears to be the controlling cell community. In micro-organisms, there would have to be an equivalent. Communication and cooperation between cells is integral to all aspects of our lives, as illustrated in the next example:

Under "Immunity complexity": "The cells of our immune system constantly communicate with one another by exchanging complex protein molecules. A team has now revealed how dedicated cellular control proteins, referred to as chaperones, detect immature immune signaling proteins and prevent them from leaving the cell."

Communication and cooperation are the key to survival on all levels of existence.

DAVID: the immune system is vital to protect organisms from attack. Proper targets must be identified accurately, and release of antibodies controlled and prompt. This protection must have been designed in the beginning of life as all organisms need ways to block infections

I don’t think every “attacker” or “infection” was present at the beginning of life. Perhaps it might be more accurate to propose that the first cells were provided with the intelligence to adapt themselves to new conditions as and when they arose. Immune systems would therefore have developed enormously over time as they worked out ways to combat new threats but also preserved ways of combating old threats, just as single-celled bacteria do.