Biological complexity: managing cellular oxygen levels (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 16, 2019, 10:10 (1647 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

dhw: 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. (David’s bold) 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. (dhw’s bold) No crystal ball necessary.

DAVID: The bold is the problem. If insect parents try to hide unattended larvae from unforeseen dangers, how did they know there were future dangers? Some insects do shepherd their larvae. Why the difference? We can say instinct for the former, and the latter group of shepherders learned by experience. Fine, but how did the instinct develop in the former not with the abandoned larvae? No awareness is possible.

You are still clinging to this one example and refusing to comment on the general point I have made above. Maybe in this case the whole process began when Mr and Mrs did see what happened to their larvae and worked out a solution which then got handed down, and after that, succeeding generations of mummies and daddies knew they didn’t have to bother shepherding their larvae. We don’t know the origin of every single strategy, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life, but we do know that organisms including insects learn from experience etc. as now also bolded above and as totally ignored by you. So do you or do you not agree with my bold?

DAVID (under “water control in trees”): these are complex designs to help the trees handle changing wet and drier climates where they exist. The complexity can be appreciated by looking at the article's illustrations. Only design explains this system.

Further evidence that even plants learn from experience and refine their survival techniques in accordance with the demands of the environment. Or do you think your God preprogrammed every plant strategy 3.8 billion years ago, or steps in to dabble every time a tree gets into trouble?