Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing: cognition (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, October 29, 2021, 16:01 (1119 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: But since you have no idea how to explain your theory (you tell me to go and ask God), we are doomed to your endless dodging.

The use of the word 'dodge' is meaningless. We have an insoluble disagreement.

Immunity system complexity
dhw: you claimed that the theory [cellular intelligence] was outdated, whereas I directed you to loads of websites in which it is still current (see "Theodicy"). […]. More dodging.

DAVID: And I showed you your websites were non-supportive.

You did no such thing! Your only response was to point out that some scientists don’t believe it. Yet another dodge. (See below for another supportive essay.)

Wow!!! These are your reference websites, not mine. How many of the titles sites YOU found did you read? The quotes I gave from two in no way supported your view. Didn't waste time digging into your others. Did you? All you did was find likely titles. Lazy. I dug into them.

Common design

DAVID: Life processes are a required first in designs. Body forms are secondary designs. The real continuity is biochemistry. Darwin only knew body form (anatomy). Not confusing.

dhw: All you are saying is that all life forms depend on biochemical processes. How does this explain your theory that humans are directly descended from bacteria, but humans are descended from life forms that had no predecessors?

A designer can create gaps in form rather than miniscule tiny steps in form, if he wishes.

dhw: Do you agree that nobody knows how cells reach the decisions which trigger automatic processes to implement those decisions?

DAVID: I agree we don't have proof. What I see is all the automatic processes produce life automatically, no decision making required.

dhw: We’re not talking about “producing life” but about the manner in which live organisms cope with conditions. And this interaction constantly requires decisions. So do you agree that nobody knows how cells make their decisions?

From the outside we must theorize. Kidney cells are in constant control of blood plasma sodium levels second by second: nothing but automaticity between set boundaries.

Introducing the brain
QUOTE: 'A strong intuition among many neuroscientists is that individual neurons are exquisitely complicated: They have all of these back-propagating action potentials, they have dendritic compartments that are independent, they have all these different channels there. And so a single neuron might even itself be a network.'

dhw: I’m deeply impressed by this intuition. In the brain and elsewhere , every individual cell is part of a community of cells, and every community is part of a wider community, and they cooperate and communicate and make decisions when they respond to changing conditions. It chimes in perfectly with the concept of each neuron being an individual cognitive unit, just like those single-celled organisms that live independently.

DAVID: we've invented fantastic ways of analyzing the brain and don't have a way of understanding how it really works. A reductionism approach won't work. Will anything? The designer is laughing.

dhw: If the designer exists, I expect he is laughing (and I’m so pleased that you humanize him by giving him a sense of humour). All the clues are there, as summarized in the article you quoted last week:

QUOTES: "Perception, memory, valence, learning, decision-making, anticipation, communication – all once thought the preserve of humankind – are found in a wide variety of living things, including bacteria, unicellular eukaryotes, plants, fungi, non-neuronal animals, and animals with simple nervous systems and brains.”

GOD: David thinks I preprogrammed every cell with every decision, or kept popping in to tell ‘em all what to do. He just can’t imagine me getting them to do their own designing. Ha, ha, ha!

God is laughing (allegorically) because some human fools think the amazing neuron cells with all their complexity of form and action popped up by chance.