Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, February 06, 2022, 15:54 (809 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: This whole discussion about the brain is part of your desperate attempt to prove your theory that speciation occurs in anticipation of changing conditions – a theory which you yourself have demolished in post after post, the latest being under the heading of “Mass extinctions relate to volcanos”.

DAVID: Sorry for your disappointment but both question marks sentences are answered. [...]

dhw: What have I missed? Please tell us (again?) why a God who could create a mechanism for autonomous complexification could not have invented a mechanism for autonomous expansion of cells and skulls.

What you keep ignoring is a three-part problem. DNA from father and mother combine into baby DNA producing a new larger skull. Mother's pelvis must respond simultaneously. The cells from all three individuals do not communicate in a way that God can create an autonomous mechanism by themselves. You blithely hope for anything but God directly designing, and ignore the real problems of secondhand design for God who has specific purposes for the direction of evolution.

DAVID: As for new larger brains, I thought we agreed new brains are larger, then capacity is used and new larger size appears.

dhw: Yes, new larger brains are indeed new and larger, and they appear when the existing capacity FOR COMPLEXIFICATION has been used up and new cells are needed to meet a major new requirement.

The degree of new brain use is directly related to present required activities of dailliving, a concept you ignore.

DAVID: We differ on cause and that difference won't change as long as you invent no-God scenarios that do not fit the known facts as I see them.

dhw: Yes, we differ...I suggest that the new cells are necessary to meet a new requirement, and the same cells continue to be used – through complexification – until once more their number needs to be increased to meet the next major new requirement.

Ignoring not many new neurons are immediately used.

Fire spot

DAVID: Cave-dwelling earliest homos did not use much of their brain capacity! Face the fact. Shrinkage shows our brain came oversized for use, as you noted above.

dhw: I noted no such thing! I maintain that they used ALL their cells, and any new requirements were met by the efficiency of complexification.

Your love of complexification is pure confusion. The advanced use of a new need, like London cabbies results in a thickened complexified area!!! That is a tiny example of enlargement, but we also know modern heavily used brains shrank 150 cc and also had London cabbie regions!!!

dhw: Why do you think the brain is now “fully” used?

DAVID: We now handle everything with the complexification you champion.

dhw: And so you believe that complexification is finished, do you? Every time we learn something new, there is new complexification (remember the illiterate women?) – and so the brain will only be “fully used” when there is nothing left to learn!

Our God-given brain can handle all the new knowledge in the future. No future expansion ever.

Transferred from “More Miscellany”:
DAVID: The studies clearly show the inner workings of cells on information in their genome they follow.

dhw: The studies clearly show that some cells remain the same and some can change, and the latter sometimes appear to act intelligently – even you point out that “molecules literally act as if they have minds of their own”. And the studies show that cells absorb, process, remember, communicate and act on the information they absorb. You believe your God provided them with instructions, some scientists believe the above processes denote autonomous intelligence, and I suspect many scientists would rather not delve into the possible source of what appears to be intelligence. Please stop kidding yourself that your theory is the norm.

Enter ID to see their norm.