cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 21, 2020, 10:43 (1493 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

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

dhw: 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: You cannot equate our intellectual free will, which is immaterial, with bacterial reactions.

Neither I nor Talbott equates bacterial intelligence with human intelligence, and you know it. Talbott: "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". You agree that bacteria are autonomous organisms responsible for their own decisions. So are we, and it makes sense to assume that the same applies to all organisms in between.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Not an assumption, but a firm belief in God, the designer.

No problem. You can agree that all organisms have their own form of intelligence, and firmly believe that God designed the original form with its infinite potential for variation and complexification

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?

dhw: […] 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.

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

DAVID: We each interpret Talbott differently. He is questioning the source of that cellular intelligence without answering.

Originally you tried to make out that “Talbott is telling us evolution has produced us as direct decedent relatives of bacteria” and you ignored the fact that he was promoting the idea of cellular intelligence. The fact that nobody knows the source does not alter the fact that he supports the concept of cellular intelligence, so thank you again for bringing this supportive article to our attention.
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QUOTE (from “error corrections III"): "Sifers and others dug deeper into how cells dispose of misfolded proteins. They discovered that cells shuttle defective proteins from their place of synthesis, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), to the cytosol, where they are degraded in a cellular structure called a proteasome. Key to this process is to tag the proteins for destruction."

DAVID: All of this comes from studying rare genetic deficiency diseases and finds obscure God's editing mechanisms, showing He recognized/anticipated genetic errors as well as metabolic errors.

Or just possibly all of this shows how intelligent cells work out how to handle errors in the system.