Biological complexity: managing cellular oxygen levels (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, October 13, 2019, 11:02 (1655 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Why do you always insist that [God] wanted to create a world of automatons? In your more open-minded moments you have conceded that he may be watching the world with interest. Which do you find more interesting – a show in which everything is totally predictable, or a show full of wonderful surprises? “You’re humanizing him!” will be the cry. And the next moment you’ll agree that he “very well could think like us”. So why not accept the possibility that in certain respects he “very well could think like us”, instead of pretending that you know he doesn’t?

DAVID: My guesses about God's personality and thoughts is a result of trying to politely answering your queries. Only guesses.

And your incongruous account of his purpose and method is also a mass of guesses, the logic of which depends on abandoning all human reason, although he “very well could think like us.” Your subsequent comments repeat this one or others made under “David’s theory of evolution”.

dhw: [Insects’] form of consciousness is vastly less advanced than our own. But it is sufficient for them to maximise their own chances of survival, and that means taking steps to protect themselves against future dangers already known from past experience.

DAVID: You have again glibly assumed insects can imagine the future in order to protect their larvae. […] Insects are totally programmed in their genome. Metamorphosis calls for all cells to dissolve and become different cells in a different body, and you think that change is supposed to carry neuronal memory? Preposterous and totally illogical.

DAVID (under “IMMUNITY SYSTEM COMPLEXITY”): Once an infection is defeated there must be a memory for the next time that same infection is attempted.

dhw: But it doesn’t occur to you that precisely the same argument applies to every innovation, strategy, lifestyle,and natural wonder. As soon as something is successful, “there must be a memory for the next time”.

DAVID: Apples and oranges. The T cells are programmed to develop a memory. the insects in your view an foretell the future. totally illogical.

Cells have memory. I don’t know why you insert the word programmed. So do insects. I keep emphasizing that they do NOT foretell the future. They respond, just like bacteria and just like our fellow animals, to PRESENT conditions, and whatever they have learned is passed on through memory to enable them to take precautions against or to counter the same dangers or to solve the same problems.

dhw: “Imagining the future” is your phrase, not mine. I wrote: “Do you honestly believe that organisms are not aware of dangers and do not learn from experience and do not take precautions”? These are manifestations of consciousness, and we know they are capable of solving new problems as and when they arise.

[…] If a solution to an EXISTING (not a future) problem had not been found, the species would have died out, as happens all the time in life’s history. I do not claim to know any more than you do how every strategy was first discovered, but do please answer the question bolded above and the bolded comment that follows.

DAVID: My point is God steps in and helps.

So now it’s not even a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for every single innovation, strategy, lifestyle and natural wonder. God personally steps in whenever he anticipates a new, i.e. not yet existing problem, except that one minute later you go back to pre-programming!

DAVID: T cells are obviously programmed to have a memory of previous infections. Insects can not see the future and if they plan to protect larvae, they are programmed to do so.

So 3.8 thousand million years ago, your God preprogrammed every solution to every problem that would ever be faced by every cell and every insect (except when he “steps in and helps”) – and all because he had to cover the time he’d decided to wait before he preprogrammed or dabbled the beginnings of human evolution, which was the only thing he actually wanted to do in the first place!