Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, August 03, 2021, 10:34 (1206 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: More word play. By 'ability' I mean instructive mechanisms in recognition and response by the cells..

dhw: What is an “instructive mechanism”? The ability to recognize a problem and to respond by solving it is the polar opposite of being provided with instructions on how to solve each individual problem. Please stop obfuscating.

DAVID: Once again, on the outside looking in, cells following instructions look as though they are innately intelligent. Our usual difference.

Your usual desperate backtracking. You wrote: “..we are designed to learn about every invader with newly developed responses we create. We are designed for future problems by making new answers de novo.”

How can “we create new answers de novo” possibly mean we obey instructions already planted in us by your God?

New extremophiles
DAVID: As above God provides cells with complete mechanisms of recognition and response.

dhw: yes, the mechanisms enabling recognition and response are what give cells the ABILITY to recognize and solve problems. As above, being able to recognize and solve problems is the exact opposite of being provided with instructions on how to solve each individual problem.

DAVID: Same difference in interpretation.

Same refusal to accept your own statement that God gave cells “complete mechanisms of recognition and response” which constitute what, in another quote, scientists call “the rudimentary ability to remember prior results and learn from experience”. All these abilities enable cells to “create the answers de novo”. Remembering, learning and then creating de novo do not mean following instructions.

Caterpillar memory
DAVID: At least you note the need for design from the beginning.

dhw: Yes, of course. And you have agreed that cells/cell communities have the ABILITY to do their own designing.

DAVID: That is your misinterpretation of my theories.

dhw: You agree that they have the mechanisms for recognizing and responding, and the response is a designed mode of survival, so what have I misinterpreted?

DAVID: You implied cells design for speciation. They design minor adaptations only.

I imply that just as we know cells can change themselves for minor adaptations, it is perfectly feasible to argue that the same mechanisms for recognizing and responding, and the ability to create answers de novo, could produce the major changes which lead to speciation.

Larvae use virus for immunity
dhw: Another wonderful example of the gigantic free-for-all, as all life forms struggle to find their own ways of survival. It’s half the story of evolution – the other half being cooperation for exactly the same purpose of survival. And yet some people can’t see the connection between evolution and the quest for survival.[…]

DAVID: Same repeated feeble survival of the fittest.

dhw: I don’t know why you think this repetition, accompanied by the word “feeble”, somehow invalidates the theory that organisms adapt and innovate in order to improve their chances of survival, and those which fail to master new conditions fail to survive. The same principle would apply even if your God did the designing. As I have asked above, why else would he have changed legs into flippers?

DAVID: God obviously knew flippers were a requirement.

A requirement for what, if not for improving their chances of survival?

Retinal design allows prediction of movement
Quote: The ganglion cell ultimately collects the incoming information from the bipolar cells and encodes it in signals that provides the brain with information about the motion of the object. With information from many thousands of these ganglion cells about the path of the object, the brain can then quickly predict its trajectory.

Yet another example of the ways in which cells gather information and send it to the brain cells, which process the information and make their decisions. We are a community of cell communities, all working in harmony with one another, much like my favourite analogy, the ant colony. Where does the guiding intelligence/consciousness come from? The term “swarm intelligence” comes to mind in the context of this analogy – following the line that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But of course that does not exclude the possibility of God as the original designer of cellular intelligence.

QUOTE: It's an ability so important to survival that evolution has hardwired it into our nervous system.'"

David doesn’t believe in the quest for survival as a determining factor for evolutionary innovation. And he doesn’t believe that it is natural that something important for survival should itself survive.

DAVID: pure initial design. If this required stepwise development over massive amounts of time, hunting animals would not have survived to evolve the process.

How massive is massive? It is perfectly possible that a nerve’s rudimentary sensitivity to light should be advantageous, and that in time, increased sensitivity should prove even more advantageous. Even now, different animals have different degrees of vision, hearing and smell. Do you think your God kept stepping in to adjust them all?