Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, January 27, 2022, 07:21 (1029 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I am not saying all cells connect with each other! Do you or do you not believe that cells communicate?

DAVID: Of course they do in specific tasks.

There wouldn’t be much point in their communicating if there wasn’t something specific to communicate. Your sneer of “Telepathy?” was totally irrelevant.

dhw: One generation = one mummy and daddy, and the next generation = their offspring. We know the erectus brain capacity gradually increased: One website says that 1.7 million years ago, the average was 885 cc, but 200,000 years ago it was 1,186 cc. Doesn’t this suggest to you that brain size increased over generations? And we get excited when we find one fossil, but you want at least one fossil per cc.!

DAVID: How do we know God didn't help with those intra-Erectus changes of enlargement?

You scoffed at the idea that brains and babies may have grown bigger over generations instead of your God enlarging them overnight with one operation. Now you have him operating umpteen times! That still = gradual expansion over generations, so thank you for agreeing.

DAVID: Remember sapiens started at close to 1,350 cc. So a jump gap exists. You still have not solved how baby brain communicates to mommy's pelvis.

1350 cc is the average, but yes, every average increase is a jump. Australopithecus to habilis, and habilis to erectus, and erectus to sapiens are each around 200 cc, and I have suggested various possible causes. What’s the problem? Baby’s big brain does not have to communicate with mummy’s pelvis! Baby’s big brain is what sets in motion a chain of communications between birth canal and surrounding bones and muscles to accommodate big baby.

DAVID: Size change is the issue since complexification comes with each new-sized brain. My reason is the fact example of our brain, much too large for current use when it appeared. What requirements made it so big at its start?

dhw: How many more times? Nobody knows what requirements led to each expansion, which is why I have offered you a list of possibles (new ideas, inventions, discoveries, environments etc.).

DAVID: But we do know lifestyle comparisons. Early sapiens lived like late Erectus. Your requirements theory has no basis in known facts. Endogenous Brazilian tribes still aren't suing their brains as we do.

All our ancestors would have lived like one another and like our fellow animals, with survival the basis of their actions. But homos gradually developed more sophisticated MEANS of survival. For instance, tools and weapons. Please tell us your God’s reasons for each overnight operation that he conducted on each species of homo to make their brains jump 200 cc? To prepare for what, if you think they all lived the same way? I’m reluctant to include Brazilian tribes, as they have their own cultures which should be respected as being different but not inferior to ours.

dhw: Yet again: why is this theory illogical, especially when compared to yours, in which your God operates on groups of individuals who wake up one morning with bigger brains and birth canals?

DAVID: I accept you feel God is illogical. So?

You keep assuming that your interpretation of your God’s actions and life’s history are the absolute and incontrovertible truth. It is your interpretation that I find illogical, and you still haven’t said what is illogical about my own theory!

Camels' noses
DAVID: And my problem, and really yours is we have no current evidence of epigenetics being capable of this degree of design complexity, which complexity you recognize.

dhw: You've just said that with your “evolved thought” you CAN accept epigenetics as being capable of this degree of design complexity!

DAVID: The point is you and I do not know how far epigenetics can creete complexity.

The point is you now agree with the theory that your God has created a mechanism that can autonomously produce such complex organs as the camel’s nose. I have long agreed that we don’t know how far this autonomous ability can go, which is why it remains a theory, just as your own theory of divine preprogramming and dabbling remains a theory.

Molecular binding controls
dhw: […] I know you disagree, but we should distinguish between automatic actions that maintain the status quo and actions that change the status quo (innovations) or constitute new responses to preserve it (as in the immune system or in adaptations). These are the circumstances in which autonomous intelligence comes into play, as opposed to your God directing or preprogramming every single response to every single new requirement for past, present and future evolution.

DAVID: Cancer is an escape from control and literally errors in normal patterns. They may be wild but they don't think, which your theory requires.

I’m reluctant to use the word “think”, which is too “humanizing”. We know cancer cells send one another information, which would be useless if it wasn’t then processed and acted on, and presumably your God hasn’t instructed them on what they should attack, so a degree of autonomous intelligence is implied. But my main concern above is to distinguish between automatic and autonomous actions, since you always focus on what is already established (and therefore automatic) and try to avoid actions that require new responses.