Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 02, 2022, 08:27 (1023 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The need for more cells RESULTED from a requirement, and the brain did not expand BEFORE the new requirement existed.

DAVID: The bolded sentence does not explain the fact that our early brain was way over-expanded for the uses of that time. That defines 'anticipation'.

That is not a fact! You still haven’t grasped the sequence I am proposing. Our brain would have expanded, like every past brain, to meet some new requirement which the existing brain could not cope with through complexification. None of the brains were “over-expanded”. They all expanded to the size needed at the time, and the extra cells coped with all demands through complexification till the next major requirement. But once our sapiens brain had reached the size necessary to meet its new requirement, complexification took over. The enhanced ability of the cells to complexify even led to shrinkage, i.e. to the redundancy of some cells which had previously been in use. The same principle as loss of genes when a new species no longer needs them. No cells arrived surplus to requirements (overexpansion), but they BECAME surplus as evolution (speciation/brain complexification) developed.

Fire spot

QUOTE: "Prof. Barkai concludes: "Our study shows that early humans were able, with no sensors or simulators, to choose the perfect location for their hearth and manage the cave's space as early as 170,000 years ago -- long before the advent of modern humans in Europe. This ability reflects ingenuity, experience, and planned action, as well as awareness of the health damage caused by smoke exposure."

So you were wrong. The new brain did not go unused for thousands of years, as you have claimed, and our ancestors were a darn sight cleverer than you thought.

DAVID: […] The new brain anticipated needs, without question. I assume the cave folks experimented with different areas to find the best spots.

If cave folks experimented because they were cold and wanted fires, their brains were RESPONDING to a need, not ANTICIPATING it. And their experiments would no doubt have resulted in new complexities – like illiterate women learning to read – as they worked out solutions to their problems. Complexifications do not anticipate requirements that don’t yet exist!

Transferred from “More Miscellany”:

DAVID: The mutations required for any early Cambrian has been calculated by ID into the millions of years. Using the same math Darwinists do. The phenotypic gap survives.

dhw: By “mutations” I can only assume you and they mean random mutations. But mutations are not by definition random! If you believe in common descent, then as above even your God has to engineer mutations, and so these wonderful calculations do not take into account the possibility of intelligent design. But oops, they do, because ID-ers like yourself would claim that the brief period (= sudden appearance of new species) can only be explained by an intelligent designer. And that could be your God, or it could be intelligent cells (perhaps originally designed by your God).

DAVID: […] What happened so quickly cannot be natural.

dhw: What do you mean by “natural”? If your intelligent God can do it, why can’t he have designed an intelligent mechanism that can do it?

DAVID: Secondhand design by many cells is amorphous without a specific direction.

The specific direction of all the designs is survival. If your God exists, he will have a wider purpose, and we can only speculate what that might be. I have offered you various alternatives, each of which you agree fits in logically with the history of life. (See "More Miscellany" for a sensational new development.)

DAVID: "Those molecules literally act as if they have minds of their own” simply refers to the brilliance of their design.

dhw: Yep, a molecule with a mind of its own would certainly be a brilliant design. Why do you assume that a life form that acts intelligently (as if it has a mind of its own) is not intelligent and does not have a mind of its own?

DAVID: And I ask again, where did the information to make that mind come from?

How many more times? Nobody knows where life and intelligence come from, but they may have come from your God. Our current disagreement concerns the question of whether cells are or are not intelligent. So why don’t you answer my now bolded question?

Evidence of non-random mutation

DAVID: Livnat says complex information accumulates in the genome to guide it. Did God create the mechanism to accumulate information?

dhw: I like your question, and would extend it. Did God create the mechanism which not only accumulates information, but also processes it, communicates it, and takes decisions on how to use it? The theory of the intelligent cell does not in any way exclude your God.

DAVID: So you half-accept God, but maybe the intelligent information just 'appeared'. How? Life runs on genome information.

No form of information is of any use to anything unless it is used! Life and evolution run on the existence of all kinds of information which has to be processed, communicated, filtered into appropriate decisions, and yes, it will be stored in the genome and used by the cell when required. Nobody knows how these processes originated, but of course I accept that your God is one possibility.