Biological complexity: managing cellular oxygen levels (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, October 21, 2019, 14:20 (1860 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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. […]

DAVID […] I agreed above, your theory is a possibility, if they watched and the quit watching when the problem was solved. But we cannot know if they watched in the beginning, because we do not know if they can conceptualize a solution like we would with our abilities. I think you hope for special insects with some degree of our consciousness. I still doubt it.

dhw: I don’t hope for anything. You asked me for a possible explanation, and I gave you one. I don’t know why you refer to “special insects with some degree of our consciousness”. Insects were here long before us, and I do not regard consciousness as the exclusive property of H. sapiens. What I have described in bold is consciousness, but it is not “conceptualization” in the sense of abstract planning for the future. They don’t need a crystal ball to know that they are confronted by a present danger and must find a means of combating it if they are to survive.

DAVID: The only consciousness I'll agree to for insects is that they are obviously aware of their environment and can react to it. Most of what they do is pure instinct as in monarchs metamorphosing and migrating and nothing more.

I’m happy with “most of what they do”. The same applies to all organisms, including ourselves – or do you consciously control every single process that takes place in your body? You simply refuse to accept that all the processes and decisions and variations and behaviours and strategies must have had an origin. If problems created by the environment have been solved in the past, the solutions will be passed on (in ALL forms of life, including our own). That is your “most of”. If they are new, then new solutions must be found - and that is where consciousness comes into play. All summed up in the bold at the start of this post, which you grudgingly accept and then try to brush aside..