Immunity system complexity (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, June 25, 2020, 11:57 (1399 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Yes, the immune cells can only follow the instructions they have given to them as fetuses.

dhw: You say yes and proceed to state the opposite! My 2) states that the immune cells are NOT given instructions to counter all diseases, because as you said above, the cells add NEW instructional information (= instructions in my language) for the NEWLY developed antibody response to their ever expanding library.

DAVID: Again. For once and for all: all antibodies are made by the same cellular process. The output product differs only in that it identifies the protein in the new infection. The new product is added to the library.

All books in a library are made by the same process: somebody puts words on paper or on a screen, somebody else prints them. But they are all different. The antibodies are all produced by the same process, but they are all different, and the fact that the immune system cannot produce antibodies for all diseases proves that immune cells do NOT “contain all the instruction they will ever need to fight all and every infection.” I think we’re squabbling partly over language, but also partly over the implications of “instructions”, which you often use when opposing the concept of cellular intelligence.