Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, January 21, 2022, 18:27 (826 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You haven't answered the problem posed! The bone cells must know what the brain size has enlarged into. How does your imagined cooperation work? Please tell me a coherent theory, not platitudes.

dhw: It works through what I believe is known as communication. Cells communicate, as you have shown in countless articles that you have reproduced here. In your excellent book The Atheist Delusion, you quoted James Shapiro: “Living cells…are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth and proliferation. They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities.” Even if you don’t believe it, please don’t tell me that it’s not a possible answer to “the problem posed”.

In skull and brain changes the Mother's cells must need to know in advance how big the new baby's skull is going to be. That is not cooperation but knowing what is coming.

DAVID: I've made my guesses and I've read your humanized theory of God. we differ.

dhw: Of course it’s the current point at issue. I find your programming and your dabbling theories almost impossible to believe. I ask why, if your God gave cells the intelligence to complexify autonomously in response to new requirements (not in anticipation of them) , he couldn’t also have given cells the ability to expand autonomously to meet new requirements, but you don’t answer. And I can’t see what is “humanizing” about the invention of flexible, intelligent cells.

I've answered: God will not desire to reach His goals by handing off to the cells secondhand designing. Cells might not go in His desired direction unless He constantly instructs them..

DAVID: [under “Biochemistry"…] all new conditions allow exploitation as more oxygen allowing more organismal complexity.

dhw: And so you agree that conditions change BEFORE organisms (cell communities) change. Cell communities do not change IN ANTICIPATION of new requirements.

Only in a major gap like the Cambrian or plant bloom are the conditions prepared for a major change/advance.

DAVID: God made sure by designing photosynthesis there would be enough oxygen for complex animals. Conditions changed to allow Cambrian forms. We agree….

dhw: At last!

Note gaps only!!!!

DAVID: ...but I've presented plenty of evidence of the opposite, as the simplest example of preparation for future use, our brain.

dhw: You have produced no evidence at all. See above. You agree that complexification is the brain cells’ RESPONSE to new requirements, not an anticipation of them, and you have no evidence whatsoever that expansion was NOT a similar RESPONSE to the need for greater capacity.

No!!! The brain is prepared in advance for new uses as the history of the sapiens brain shows, and complexification allows to handle future use.

Camels’ noses
DAVID: Great design, as usual better than the ones we make. Did this come with the original camelids? One can propose starting close to a desert and by slowly venturing out the design develops. But the complexity is precise and effective and I believe far beyond dhw's wishes for cellular intelligence. Cells just ain't that smart, even if given design ability by God as dhw always theorizes. A purposeful God sees established endpoints to development by evolution. Cell designers don't have God's foresight or His direct abilities. That makes dhw's designer cells as secondhand designers not likely to give God the results He definitely wants.

dhw: Humans are currently creating forms of artificial intelligence that can work wonders. But as you say, these natural wonders are often better than the ones we make. Why do you think your all-powerful God is incapable of making a mechanism that can create better wonders than we can? Cellular intelligence – if it exists (it remains a theory) – would be totally different from ours, but every natural wonder is geared to the same concept of improving an organism’s chances of survival in whatever conditions it finds itself. The camel’s nose is a wonderful example of cells responding to the requirements of the environment. You insist that it was all preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago, or your God popped in to perform an operation on camels’ noses even before they found themselves in the desert (your "foresight"). Of course the complexity is precise and effective, and I don’t have a problem with it developing as camels became more accustomed to life in the desert - just as whale flippers would have developed as they settled down to life in the water. If humans can invent mechanisms that perform wonders, why can’t God? And for good measure, do you really believe that your God specially designed camels’ noses as part of his one and only goal to design humans and their food?

I agreed camel's nose can be an adaptation. His one an only goal followed a prelude of preparation for an Earth rich with resources for us: oil and gas, metal deposits, a a huge variety of food source. You just can't see it that way.