slime mold decisions: begins to study loners (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 27, 2020, 15:45 (1639 days ago) @ dhw

We can skip all the preliminaries, since you have kindly made my case for me:

DAVID: Not knowing exactly how the bees figured it out with God's help doesn't remove the point I made above. Obviously, God might have manipulated the genome so bees had a new instinct. I really doubt He appeared and gave lessons. Why didn't you accept that genomic point when I made it yesterday? To advance bee intelligence! Same old tired agenda.

dhw: Thank you for agreeing that bees act intelligently.

I didn't. The tired agenda is yours pushing intelligence that doesn't exist. God helps them to act intelligently.

dhw: If you think he dabbled with their genome in order to make them more intelligent than they were before they bit the leaves, that’s up to you. But we can explain all the natural wonders and strategies if (theistic version) we assume that your God endowed cells with intelligence right from the start, instead of this non-stop dabbling with the genome, and that the cell communities which make up every multicellular organism used their God-given intelligence to perform their wonders.

Thank you for bringing in God to explain the intelligent actions you see. That way you avoid explaining how intelligence could arise naturally without Him..

From your second post:
QUOTE: "Making more observations of high-energy neutrinos is crucial, Fang says. “This is the only way we can clearly understand how the universe is operating at this extreme energy.'”

DAVID: We still don't understand a lot of why the universe works as it does.
This shows that chance events warrant repeated observation to be understood. The bee problem is no different.

dhw: I have no idea what this is meant to prove. Nobody expects bees to understand why bitten leaves lead to early flowering! All they need to know is that it does. And using the intelligence which you have at last granted them, they would have latched onto anything which improved their chances of survival.

You miss the point yet again. Only repeated observations will lead to a recognition of cause and effect with bitten leaf and subsequent early flowering. And that requires a correlating conception by a mind capable of it..

Under “ants control aggression”:
QUOTE: "Researchers have discovered they use a clever, precise mechanism to switch on aggression towards intruders from other colonies to defend their own…”

QUOTE: “But the new research shows it is not that simple. Ants hold off on attacking if they cannot smell anything—or even if they do not recognize a scent. “Rather a precise signal present on the non-nest mate must be correctly decoded for aggression to occur…”

DAVID: Note this is very tightly controlled automatic response, no thought involved, and indicates most animal responses are quite automatic.

dhw: If I see someone rushing at me with a knife in his hand, I will automatically decode the signal and conclude that he is an enemy. Therefore most human responses are quite automatic, eh? Why don’t you focus on those areas of behaviour which do not involve automatic responses: ants “have complex, highly organised social structures that help their colonies thrive”, build cities, devise military strategies, have sophisticated farming techniques, make themselves into bridges. If God exists, he might have dabbled with their genome each time in order to “advance their intelligence”, but I reckon it’s more likely that intelligence was built into the first cells and inherited in different forms by all the different combinations of cells that led to all the different life forms.

Ants are not human. You still want oodles of intelligence everywhere, but please explain then how it arises naturally as life evolves naturally, no God ever involved. As an agnostic you keep explaining it both ways but only one way is correct, but that keeps you comfortable.. Intelligence always involves mental activity. Try being uncomfortable and pick a side.