Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, March 21, 2022, 11:20 (976 days ago) @ David Turell

BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER CONTROLS

DAVID: Let's not go back to theodicy.

dhw: We are not discussing theodicy here, but the question of what your God did or didn’t design. Initially you claimed that he provided disease and cure simultaneously, but now you have agreed that the process is stepwise. Even then, you continue to insist that the cure has been provided by God’s instructions but you fail to acknowledge that it may take many deaths before the cure is found. This suggests to me that your all-powerful God did not provide instructions but – in line with your proposal that he deliberately created “a constant war to survive by eating” – gave organisms the means to work out their own ways of waging that war.

DAVID: God know what He is doing even if you don't seem to. A breast-fed newborn receives colostrum with ready made generalized antibodies until he starts to make his own from day one. Neutrophile attack cells work from day one, and solve simple skin infections with no antibodies needed. Your imagined death rates don't exist. And, yes God gave bacteria methods to fight and defend.

You may not have noticed, but we are in the midst of a pandemic caused by a virus. Millions of people have died or been permanently damaged, and your God’s instructions have apparently not yet come into play. We poor humans are left to try and make up for their inadequacy. Thank you for acknowledging that your God may have given bacteria methods to fight and defend. May I suggest that he gave all life forms the means to work out their own methods (which would explain why inevitably there are winners and losers), as opposed to providing them with a list of sometimes inadequate instructions?

Bird migration

DAVID: Tell me a logical way for birds to decide on a winter resort over 10,000 miles distant and do it every year?

dhw: I told you last time. It would have originated with a search, and when a suitable spot was found, it was remembered and the details were passed on. Now would you please answer my bolded question. [Now bolded below.]

DAVID: This doesn't answer the first attempt issue. How long would search birds last searching the whole Earth for a suitable feeding spot 10,000 miles away? Your answer is insufficient to prove your point.

dhw: They didn’t search the whole Earth! They stopped when they found a suitable spot, and some of them obviously did survive! Now please tell us why your God sent them 10,000 miles to find a suitable spot.

DAVID: No answer again. The birds went 10,000 miles plus and had 360 degrees of direction to do it in. So in your view they simply flew off directionless for many days with no built-in preparation of extra calories/fuel, discovered a great feeding warm spot and they decided to fly back each year and do it all over again, incidentally using the magnetic field receptors they somehow had on board!! The birds easily planned it in your just-so mind.

You asked about the first attempt – i.e. the origin of migration. Your account is exactly what I am suggesting, and I don’t know why you suddenly bring in planning. Now would you please answer the question you keep ignoring: Why is it OK for God to choose a spot thousands of miles away, but “just-so woolly” if birds find the spot themselves?

How cells communicate

DAVID: dhw how do cells exchange design ideas with these molecular signals?

dhw: These molecular signals are their language. If they can notify each other of threats, why should they not be able to notify each other of means to counter the threats, and of means to threaten others in what you call “the constant war to survive by eating”?

DAVID: What you do not realize is a molecular signal is a one-on-one reaction of one molecule with another molecule, which reaction sets off an automatic series of responding reactions. Where is the planning thought?

Your question is the essence of the dispute, though I don’t know why you insert the word “planning”. The thought is a reaction to an immediate requirement, not a crystal ball gaze into a not yet existing future. It is the thought that governs the signals that set the automatic processes in motion. The molecules are responsible for transmuting the thought into action. I join Shapiro in proposing that the thought comes from the intelligence of the cell as it RESPONDS to new requirements, but you already know that.