Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 03, 2022, 20:12 (810 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: That is precisely what I have said, but you have left out the question of why the brain expanded in the first place. I have bolded it for you. Instead of your God operating on brains to expand them BEFORE extra cells were needed, I propose that brains expanded IN RESPONSE to a need, and then proceeded to cope with subsequent needs through complexification, until once again they needed extra cells. No brain was/is OVER-EXPANDED! The cells are in use all the time. And sapiens shrinkage was not because of “over-expansion” but because cells which had been in use became redundant when complexification took over.

So you have a theory that brains expand by doing it themselves, and I have God, the designer.

Fire spot

dhw: 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: Not wrong. Just enabled to figure out a new problem.

dhw So you don’t think that figuring out a new problem constitutes use of the brain.

Just what I said/

DAVID: The larger brain has new capacities to be used and complexify. Arrived in advance of new needs.[/i]

dhw: There is no disagreement here, other than over the cause of expansion and the silly notion of “over-expansion”. We do not know of any changes to the brain that take place in anticipation of a new requirement. And so, as above, the brain expands to meet a new requirement; its cells then use their ability to complexify to meet further requirements until the next biggie again requires more cells. In sapiens, complexification took over completely. You have tried to use this process to illustrate your belief that your God designs species in anticipation of changing requirements. I am pointing out that both brain and species undergo their changes IN RESPONSE to requirements. The brain expands and complexifies IN RESPONSE to new requirements/conditions; common descent entails organisms changing IN RESPONSE to new requirements/conditions. Nothing originates BEFORE it is needed or BEFORE conditions allow for innovations.

A repeat. You think brains can expand themselves, and I state God designs them.

Transferred from “More Miscellany”:

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

dhw: 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.

DAVID: No speculation, humans!

dhw: And so you repeat your theory, ignoring the massive contradictions we are discussing on that thread, and you refuse to speculate on logical alternatives.

Just as you continuously repeat your illogical view of God

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?

dhw: 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?

DAVID: God designed cells so perfectly they look intelligent but are automatic.

dhw: You assume that are not intelligent because you assume that they are not intelligent. Not much headway there!

We cannot agree if the possible interpretations from the outside of cells are 50/50. From inside the cell, all studies show automaticity.