Evolution: as immaterial information (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 09:28 (891 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: In cells, where is that 'mind'? What really exists is the cells ability to interpret the information code which also requires information.

dhw: We’re off again! Interpretation is a mental activity! What is the difference between a code and an information code, and what information does an information code require in addition to its information?

DAVID: All cells act as if they have mental activity. Cells use information they have to decode DNA and perform their procesees, all automatically.

DNA carries “genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms and many viruses.” (Wikipedia). Cells carry out these instructions. We don’t need all the blather about information code requiring information, not to mention propagating information, instructional information, operational information and informational concepts. The rest of your post is basically concerned with shoving in the word “automatically”, which leads to a discussion on cellular intelligence, and we don’t need to blather on about information in order to continue our endless discussion on that topic.

dhw: So far all you have told me is that for the start of life, cells had to contain information. We agree that cells spend their lives interpreting information, but that does not tell us how life started, or HOW they are able to interpret information. Information itself, we agree, is passive. It requires mental activity if it is to be interpreted.

DAVID: We are not discussing how life started but the fact that information had to be part of it.

In yesterday’s post, when I challenged the blather, you replied “All it means is bbbfor the start of lifebbb the cells had to contain information.” All materials, animate or inanimate, contain information, so of course information is “part of it”! I’m not denying the existence of information! I’m complaining about the way the term is used to confuse instead of clarify the issues we are discussing.

DAVID: Life does not run on mental activity. Life runs by automatically interpreting the information it contains.

dhw: Living organisms respond to information both inside and outside themselves. I agree that many of these responses are automatic, when the information remains unchanged – e.g. no abnormality inside, and no environmental changes outside. bbbBut when conditions change, what you call the “information” changes, and that is when the mental activity of interpretation and decision-making is required.bbb

DAVID: Cells automatically respond various stimulations outside them.

No need for informational blather. We are back to discussing the theory of cellular intelligence and your refusal to distinguish between automatic repetition when conditions remain normal, and the need for new interpretations and decisions when conditions change.

DAVID: You can't escape that without information life can't/doesn't exist.

All materials, whether animate or inanimate, contain information. That explains absolutely nothing.

Missing a part doesn’t matter

QUOTE: "Study of EG has proceeded on the assumption that other regions of her brain had taken up the task of processing language. That’s not as unusual as it sounds; the brain is a living organ, not a machine. Given an opportunity, it can shift burdens around (neuroplasticity.)

dhw: Doesn’t this suggest to you that the cells of which the brain is composed are able to respond intelligently to new demands by taking on new functions?

DAVID: Yes, brain plasticity processes take on new tasks.

The “plastic” cells of the brain make the necessary changes to conduct new processes to deal with new tasks. Why are you so reluctant to acknowledge that the brain is composed of cells?

Entropy
dhw: […] Incidentally, the far-sighted Lynn Margulis was also a champion of the theory that cells are intelligent.

DAVID: Yes, they appear to be that way.

dhw: And what appears to be intelligent might actually be intelligent.

DAVID: So tell how they developed that intelligence, by chance?

Do I have to keep repeating that your God may have been the designer?