David's theory of evolution Part One (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, November 14, 2019, 12:34 (1834 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Cell committees are not ants who have brains and could have noted molted feathers on the forest floor trapped insects in dips in the ground. Not the same as autonomous ants all doing the same thing as in bridges.

dhw: I had misunderstood you! All these years I thought you believed that ant strategies and all the other natural wonders you have presented to us had been preprogrammed or dabbled by your God, but now you agree that all of these natural wonders have been designed by the autonomous intelligence of the organisms themselves. A red letter day in the history of the AgnosticWeb.

DAVID: Wow! What a misinterpretation. I simply said brains in ants can reach some simple conclusions, which cell committees are incapable of doing from your illogical extrapolations.

What a shame! When you said that cell “committees” are not autonomous ants with brains and therefore could not create traps and bridges, I thought you meant that autonomous ants autonomously created traps and bridges. My mistake.

dhw: I often use ants as an analogy for cell communities, but it’s true that cells do not have brains. The fact that their behaviour displays the same sort of intelligence displayed by ants (they process information, communicate, take decisions etc.) suggests to me – as it must to the many pro-cellular-intelligence scientists who specialize in the field – that they have their own equivalent of a brain.

DAVID: Wow! None of your scientists talk about the equivalent of a cellular brain. They simply note the cells show reactions that appear to be intelligent, an impression which is never proof.

We know the theory can’t be proved, any more than you can prove that they are NOT intelligent, but if one believes that cells are intelligent and intelligence is linked to a brain, it is only logical to assume that cells have the equivalent of a brain. Albrecht-Bühler thinks the centrosome is the cell’s equivalent of the brain.

dhw: Even you believe that the plastic human brain makes its own decisions autonomously, so why can’t you accept the possibility that the mouse brain and the ant brain and the bacterium’s equivalent of a brain might also make their own decisions autonomously?

DAVID: See above. I think they do.

dhw: Hallelujah! Except that a few minutes later you posted an article about ants, and drew this conclusion:

DAVID: I don't know what the hallelujah is. Our brain can do some plastic changes in responses to new use. Bacteria live on their own and are programmed for automatic responses to their needs, which are very simple. Avoid trouble, find food, quorum sense and fight if necessary.

Sorry again, but when I wrote that mouse brain and ant brain and the bacterium’s equivalent of a brain might make their own decisions autonomously, you said “I think they do”, which I took to mean they do make their own decisions autonomously. I didn’t think “autonomously” meant programmed for automatic responses. And I’m sorry again, but the list of bacterial needs should also contain solving new problems (e.g. new medications designed to kill them), and although these needs apply to most organisms on earth, the means of fulfilling those needs are often far from simple but require actions which from the outside would seem to denote the use of intelligence – and of course nobody can possibly prove that they do or do not denote the use of intelligence.