cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 20, 2020, 07:46 (1283 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The problem is the evidence is in free-living bacteria who are responsible for their own survival and must have that ability. In multicellular organisms most cells are simply cogs in parts of constructive activities.

dhw: Thank you for conceding that single-celled bacteria are “free-living”. This is real progress.

DAVID: No concession: I've always said as free-living they had to be able to take full responsibility for their adaptations, as from Shapiro.

dhw: Yes of course, if they are free-living they “take responsibility” for their adaptations. That is what autonomy means. And if (theistic version) your God gave bacteria the freedom to do their own adapting, why on earth do you think that a community of cells could not have been given the same freedom and responsibility – culminating in human free will?

DAVID: Our brain with free will plays no role in this particular discussion.

Of course it does. We are descended from bacteria, remember? And if bacteria are free-living and responsible for their own decisions, and we are free-living and responsible for our own decisions, it is not unreasonable to assume that every organism in between was also free-living and responsible for its own decisions. See Talbott.

DAVID: The free-living aspect of bacteria REQUIRES the adaptability they have.

All organisms REQUIRE adaptability, and if they haven’t got it they die! If the very first organisms had the responsibility for their own adaptations, why do you think their descendants don’t have it?

DAVID: Multicellularity involves a completely different set of considerations which involves the basic cooperation of all cells in their various organs run by the information in each modified DNA to handle all the myriad of functionality.

Of course a community of cells requires cooperation, and of course they will be run by information that can handle all the different functions, but if singled celled bacteria can process information and send it to their molecules, so can multi-celled organisms. Same process, but on an ever increasing scale.

DAVID: Bacterial mats do that to a degree, which is probably a step to multicellularity

dhw: Yes indeed, that is the whole point! Free-living, autonomously intelligent bacteria form communities, and that starts the whole process of multicellularity: free-living, autonomously intelligent cells pool their intelligence, thus branching out into all the species that have formed the higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth.

DAVID: Again I view it as designed by God, well beyond the capacity of cell committees.

We know your beliefs. The autonomous intelligence and responsibility of bacteria may indeed have been designed by your God, and it makes no sense to assume that it would not have been passed on to the single cells that formed communities. It is not a proven theory, but your opposition to it is based on an assumption, not on any facts.

Read Talbott: file:///C:/Users/pacemaker/Desktop/Stephen%20L.%20Talbott.html

QUOTE: "When, then, we reflect upon the incredibly complex, end-directed tasks expertly carried out by vast collections of molecules even in the simplest and most primitive cells, it is natural to call to mind the eons of evolutionary transformation that have led from single cells to our own experience as conscious and willful agents pursuing our own meaningful tasks. Does the human outcome illuminate primordial origins?

"It would, of course, be a fatal error to collapse all distinctions and talk about those early cells in the same way we talk about conscious human cognition and behavior. But the error would be equally egregious if we simply ignored the evident relation and historical continuity between the earliest forms of life and ourselves." (dhw's bolds)

DAVID: Talbott is telling us evolution has produced us as direct decedent relatives of bacteria.

dhw: If we are direct descendant relatives of bacteria, so is every other life form that ever lived. That is the theory of common descent, and I really don’t think we need Talbott to tell us that. The quotes could hardly be clearer: he is pointing out the fact that although cellular intelligence is not to be compared to our human intelligence, nevertheless single cells are intelligent! In other words, ALL levels of intelligence are descended from bacterial intelligence.

DAVID: Once again my position is God designed all species and what appears to be cell intelligence is a function of cells following God's intelligent instructions as they act and react.

I know your position. Thank you for quoting Talbott’s support of the concept of cellular intelligence.