Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, March 10, 2022, 13:33 (771 days ago) @ David Turell

Immune system

dhw: I’d have thought your all-knowing, all-powerful, all-purposeful God would only create what he wanted to create. Are you now saying the “constant war to survive by eating” was NOT part of his plan?

DAVID: Don't understand the question. Life requires energy intake constantly.

Let’s focus on carnivorousness, which seems to me the cruellest method of obtaining energy. Do you think it is impossible for animals (including ourselves) to obtain energy without eating other animals? We can then broaden the question: did your God deliberately create a system whereby life forms had to wage constant war on each other, or are you saying it was an accident, or he couldn’t think of any other way of providing energy?

Evolution of consciousness (This article is a review

QUOTE: They [the authors] argue that minds of a sort have existed since the first archaea colonized the planet, billions of years ago.

dhw: Another boost for the theory of cellular intelligence, but either the reviewer or the authors then seem to get into a muddle.

QUOTE: They state that insects have no consciousness, when there is good reason to suppose that bees, at least, have many of the mental attributes associated with consciousness, such as foresight and the ability to imagine. Even bacteria are not the simple automata portrayed here; other researchers describe bacterial behaviours in the language of cognition.

dhw: If minds have existed since the first archaea, why would the authors deny the existence of insect and bacteria minds? Something has gone wrong here, or have I misread it?

DAVID: No, the reviewer infers his disagreement with the study.

You have missed the point. Why would The AUTHORS say minds have existed since archaea, and then say that insects and bacteria do not have minds? I have bolded the apparent discrepancy.

DAVID: Seeing something that seems to act intelligently doesn't mean it is intrinsically intelligent in and of itself. It may dimply be following instructions it has been given. Thermostats and robots are just that, looking as if they take intelligent actions and we understand how they do it by following built-in designed algorithms. So can cells and simple one-celled animals. To assume actual intelligence exists is a very thin analysis.

dhw: Artificial intelligence is just that. And natural intelligence is natural intelligence, but you want to make it into artificial intelligence by having your God insert algorithms into living material. Why not follow through the analogy: humans use their natural intelligence to create artificial intelligence, just as your God may have used his natural intelligence to create our natural intelligence, as well as the natural intelligence of the cells of which all life forms are composed?

DAVID: You simply want to believe things that act intelligently are intelligent. Just remember thermostats.

Thermostats are irrelevant! They are ARTIFICIALLY intelligent designs made by NATURALLY intelligent humans (whose intelligence may have been provided by your God). How does that even begin to suggest that the NATURALLY intelligent designs of new organs, lifestyles, strategies and natural wonders could NOT have been made by NATURALLY intelligent cells (whose intelligence may have been provided by your God)?

Bone body communications

QUOTE: ..what’s clear already is that the skeleton is not just a nice set of mechanical supports. Bones constantly remodel themselves in response to the body’s needs, and they’re in constant communication with other parts of the body.."

DAVID: a laundry list of how bones are designed to work with all the other parts of the body. A marvelous example of irreducible complexity.

Bones apparently evolved from earlier protective structures, so I don’t know about “irreducible complexity”. However, it’s a marvellous example of the intelligent way cell communities are “in constant communication” with one another as they work out ways in which they can respond intelligently to one another’s needs in the great community of cell communities of which our bodies are composed.

Carnivorous plant origin

Quote: studies of two of its grislier elements — digestion and absorption — are revealing how evolution repurposed existing genes, putting some to work in new places and giving others new functions and the odd tweak to suit them better to their new roles. In many cases, plants that evolved carnivory entirely independently have repurposed the same genes. Faced with the problem of consuming flesh, they all hit on the same solution, Albert says. And central to the transformation was the plant’s age-old system of defense.

DAVID: What controlled the 'whole operation' of coordinating new gene functions all at the same time. I cannot imagine this developed stepwise since partial change had no survival advantage. Back to God as the designer.

I don’t see why it had to be immediate. The “age-old” method of feeding need not have disappeared immediately. The carnivorous form of feeding may have taken over once it had perfected itself. Back to your theory: why do you think humans could not have evolved or found food without plants becoming carnivorous?