Evolution: as immaterial information (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 15, 2022, 15:25 (891 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

I'm not confused by using the term as you just have.

dhw: 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.

Cells respond to new conditions with automatic answers following instructions they carry and by adding methylation for epigenetic responses.

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

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

Stones carry static descriptive information we assign to them. Cells operate by interpreting instructional information to make them alive.

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.

dhw: 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?

I never inferred the brain had no 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?

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

I know that, but that doesn't tell me how it happens without God, which you seem to prefer..