Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 31, 2021, 18:48 (1333 days ago) @ dhw

Introducing the brain

DAVID: How else to explain the time delay in the brain?

dhw: The tiny time delay (half a second) might just possibly be explained by the fact that the sensation of pain has to travel from the finger to the brain, but the tiny time delay is so tiny that most people would think the sensation was immediate.

Funny the trained neurosurgeon didn't understand that!

Tectonics and environment

DAVID: Using information that exists runs the process of living, and new forms are based on new information. The issue the source of the new information, more complex than the old info. I choose God.

dhw: The source of new information would seem to be changes in living conditions which either demand or allow changes in behaviour and/or the anatomy. Plants would not need to develop responses to drought if there was no drought.

Living condition changes represent new external information. I'm discussing the source of new internal DNA information to handle the changes. Why dodge the point?

Engulfing adds function
DAVID: It was important for the evolutionary process to develop wide spread photosynthesis to free up enough oxygen to reach 21% of our atmosphere. And thanks to Lynn Margolis for recognizing the way to add a function by ingulfing another organism.

dhw: I’m delighted by your acknowledgement of Lynn Margulis’s theory of endosymbiosis. You will of course remember that she was also a champion of cellular intelligence.

I'm quite convinced about Margolis' theory.

Power laws
DAVID: It seems patterns guide evolutionary developments. I said before God likes to use and follow patterns.

dhw: It makes perfect sense that if life forms build on the “patterns” of their predecessors, the basic patterns will be preserved. That in fact was the basis of Darwin’s theory of common descent, since organisms displayed common patterns.

That is Darwin theory I readily accept.