Biological complexity: managing cellular oxygen levels (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 15, 2019, 10:12 (1867 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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.
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DAVID: Of course there is a cellular memory represented by instincts all animals follow, once established.

Thank you. You had written “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.” I pointed out that this was precisely the process that must accompany all innovations, strategies, lifestyles and natural wonders. They must all be passed on through cellular memory. I’m glad you now agree.

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.

dhw: You have still not commented on this important issue.

DAVID: Yes, I have. You want insect parents who do not tend their larvae to foretell the future needs for protection. They cannot conceptualize the future dangers.

That is not an answer! I do not pretend that I can explain every single survival strategy devised by every single insect in the history of life, and I can understand your clinging desperately to a single example which presents special difficulties. But I reject totally the idea that insects foretell dangers which have never been experienced before. My argument is that once a danger has been experienced, either the cell communities devise a means of combating it, or the species dies out. This means that organisms are aware of existing dangers, learn from experience, find ways of combating the dangers they know exist, and these ways are passed on by cellular memory to subsequent generations. No crystal ball necessary.