Cellular intelligence: (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, December 30, 2021, 12:59 (1057 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: All reasoning about God is circular: we look our reality, assume a creator mind which must be extremely powerful and then decide upon the personality of that mind again based on the good and bad we see.

dhw: I proposed a God who designed precisely what he wanted (a free-for-all), and you dismissed such a God as “weak” compared to your version, who tries to correct some of the unwanted errors resulting from his design, but sometimes fails. I suggest that a God who gets precisely what he wanted is STRONGER than a God who doesn’t. Theodicy is irrelevant to this discussion.

DAVID: Your answer is to look at results without considering personality which leads to God's desires. No wonder we differ.

One moment you moan that my interpretation of your God’s actions “humanizes” him, and the next moment you’re telling me that I don’t consider his personality! How do you consider personality without “humanizing”? In any case, the ONLY way we can extrapolate a notion of your God’s personality is through the “results”, i.e. the history of life. So now will you please explain why a God who designs precisely the system that he wants to design is weaker than a God who designs a system containing errors which he doesn’t want and which he tries – sometimes in vain – to correct.

A cell repair design
DAVID: ID folks agree with me. We use our minds to find the imaginary numbers that MUST exist for quantum theory to work, which it does. Magnificently

dhw: You stated that materialism was dead. Are you now saying that all scientists are now ID-ers?

DAVID: Of course not. The point is still imaginary (mental) numbers are required. Pure materiALism is dead.

Please explain the difference between materialism and pure materialism, and why some scientists don’t believe in God in spite of imaginary numbers.

T cell
DAVID: […] All organisms prior to vertebrates had immune systems and vertebrate immune system came from them. Your point is is off base.

dhw: Of course it’s not off base. Clearly if T cells only exist in vertebrates, they were not part of the immune system of earlier life forms, and therefore you cannot say they were there from the beginning. They would have evolved, just as vertebrate structures evolved from invertebrates in what you constantly tell us has been a development from the simple to the complex. […]

DAVID: We actually agree. All steps are designed in my view, remember?

dhw: I remember you telling us that all steps are designed in advance of their being required, and that therefore T cells must have been there from the beginning. I propose that all steps take place as and when they are required by new conditions. I therefore suggest that T cells would have originated when new life forms (vertebrates) were confronted by new invaders.

DAVID: And my point is T cells probably existed before vertebrates arrived, and designed to prevent infection.

We know the purpose of the immune system. Your point was that T cells must have been there “from the beginning”. I proposed that they evolved, along with vertebrae, when they were needed to combat new infections. All part of evolution’s development from comparatively simple to extremely complex. All the websites I have looked at tell us that T cells originate in the bone marrow. How, then, could they have originated in organisms without bones?

Zebrafish inner ear

On the subject of cells cooperating and using different forces:
DAVID: Of course they do automatically as controlled by DNA instructions.

dhw: I don’t have a problem if you think that, in accordance with the theory of cellular intelligence, the autonomous guiding intelligence of cells is situated within the DNA.

DAVID: Yes, designed into the DNA

dhw: If I didn’t know you better, I would take this as your agreement that cells are possessed of an autonomous guiding intelligence which is situated within the DNA, with the additional caveat that it was designed by your God. However, no doubt you will withdraw your agreement.

DAVID: Why withdraw? The intelligence cells exhibit is from God's instructions in the genome.

Do you mean that God tells all cells what to do at all times, or do you mean that his “instructions” have created the autonomous (i.e. information-processing, communicative, decision-making) intelligence I referred to in the passage you agreed with?