Cellular intelligence: (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 16, 2021, 15:30 (1071 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Oxygen which appeared in large quantities 2.5 bya may have allowed the Cambrian at 540 bya, but cannot be called cause.

dhw: The theory is that changes in conditions either compel or allow life forms (cell communities) to change their structure. In that sense, they are the cause, but it goes without saying that new conditions would not change anything if (a) there were no life forms to change, or (b) life forms did not have the ability to change themselves.

Obvious. Thank you.

T cells

DAVID: Death is a built-in necessary part of God's living system. […]

dhw: […]So your God built in every imaginable correction (algorithm) for every imaginable error, but he also built in the failure of the correction, and so sometimes the algorithm works and sometimes it doesn’t. Do you think, then, that when humans design a medication to kill bacteria, your God has already selected which ones will or won’t have the efficient algorithm? I find it very difficult to understand how this algorithm automatically works/ doesn't work on all the individuals that are supposed to have it.

dhw: Not explained.

Yes it is. In any biological system mistakes happen.

Cellular intelligence

dhw: Wow! Once again, I can only thank you for your integrity. After claiming that the theory of cellular intelligence belongs to the past, you have suddenly offered us a theory which takes the intelligence of ALL life forms for granted. The only problem is its origin. And of course I agree, that problem remains wide open.

DAVID: [...] pure sophistry of thought. Skipped over is the question of how the first 'modules became intelligent The rest builds upon that enormous gap. Even dhw grants God might have given them intelligent actions. Accepting a designer is a more logical conclusion. Also dhw, please note the bold in the second paragraph!! Necessary anticipation of the future by biological organisms is recognized even by these guys!

dhw: He hasn’t “skipped” the question! He says the origin of intelligence is wide open! And yes of course intelligence involves anticipation of the future! Birds migrate, life forms of all kinds provide themselves with protection against predators and the climate, store food, prepare for winter. That is a far cry from your theory that your God looks into his crystal ball, and sees water on the way, and so pops in to operate on pre-whale legs to turn them into flippers and then leaves them lying there waiting for the water to arrive.

DAVID: The implication you skipped is that since intelligence anticipates the future, and that has to apply to process of speciation, which you keep denying, and simply call for immediate adaptation to current conditions changing. Adaptation for the future is obvious in fossils after a large fossil gap, which is the actual fossil record.

dhw: First you say he skipped origin, which he didn’t, and now you say I’m skipping the implication that intelligence anticipates the future. I have given examples of how it does so. However, I absolutely reject the idea that adaptation happens before there is anything to adapt to. You have your God operating on pre-whale legs and then leaving the poor things lying around with their flippers until the water arrives. The fossil record gives us species that appear to have no predecessors. So what caused them to come into existence? You say God anticipated future changes in conditions, but even if your theory was true and he specially designed them de novo, how would they survive if they were “adapted” to live in conditions that did not yet exist?

You've finally admitted looking into the future is important in understanding why new species are so changed. "Conditions that did not exist" don't apply when we consider the whale series or climbing out of trees, as simple examples of change. As for God designing or ME designing, it is done for future use in new ways, not necessarily for your beloved environmental changes, which ask only for minor adaptations most usually. Major ones result in extinctions like Chixculub.