More "miscellany" PART ONE (General)

by dhw, Monday, May 15, 2023, 12:07 (318 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE

THE HUMAN BRAIN

DAVID: I am using our brain, with a factual starting point, and we see a 315,000-year-old acting as fresh today as it did long ago. It descended from previous brains who must have acted in the same way.

dhw: And thank you yet again. We are now agreed that past brains could have expanded and complexified autonomously, just as today’s brains complexify autonomously and we know that autonomous expansion is possible, thanks to the hippocampus. Enough said.

DAVID: Past brains complexified. Newer larger brains were the result of God speciating.

You wrote: “It is possible in your airy-fairy way of thinking of a preferred weak God not in full control, as described in the last entry, allowing organisms to self-expand their brains.” You agree that your God has designed autonomous complexification and expansion of the hippocampus, so why is that OK, but designing autonomous expansion of other brain sections makes the argument “airy-fairy” and your God weak? However, I only wanted your agreement above, that autonomous expansion is possible, so I can ignore your contrary belief.

DAVID: What does your theory prove if the brains generated enlargement all on their own???

dhw: It proves that there is a mechanism which enables cells to organize their own restructuring – as Shapiro proposes. Also, as you often point out, cells are unlikely to forecast the future, and so it proves that not only the human brain but also each species must have changed IN RESPONSE to new conditions and not, as you believe, IN ANTICIPATION of them.

DAVID: All it proves is you don't want God at work in evolution.

All three of my alternative theistic theories show your God at work in evolution. The intelligent cell theory allows for your God as the designer of the intelligent cell, and your remark above simply proves that you refuse even to consider any theistic theory which departs from your own illogical, non-sensical theory discussed on the other thread. And to add insult to injury, you even call my opposition to your view of God as an inefficient designer the result of bias on my part!

DAVID: Again brushing aside the problem that enlargement of brain requires many thousand new coordinated mutations. For survival expanding memory is a requirement. Thus, the hippocampal ability to enlarge.

dhw: Why is coordination a problem? Single-celled organisms are able to make the complex changes necessary for their survival, so why should multicellular communities not be able to combine their various functions in order to make changes to their overall community? We see ants and humans doing just that all the time. As for the brain, all sections serve particular requirements (often coordinated), but in the modern brain, new requirements (apart from the hippocampus) are met through complexification. What is your point?

DAVID: Any speciation requires thousands of coordinated mutations, as stated above, and ignored by you.

I have answered you directly! I don’t see it as a problem, when we know that communities of all kinds coordinate in producing extremely complex changes to themselves. If your all-powerful God can pop in and personally restructure millions of cells in groups of organisms, why do you think it’s impossible for him to give them the means to do it themselves? And if he can give millions of brains the autonomous means to complexify, why is it impossible for him to give them the autonomous means to expand? (Though you have just agreed that it IS possible.)

Shapiro’s theory

DAVID: Shapiro's theory is an extrapolation of his brilliant work on bacterial DNA.

dhw: I haven’t seen a bibliography as I don’t have his book, but don’t you think he might just possibly have been aware of research done by others in the field? In any case, he collaborated for many years with the Nobel-prizewinning cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock, who was also a firm believer in cellular intelligence. Please stop pretending that your own “vast background in modern biochemistry” as a retired physician qualifies you to overrule the findings of specialists in the field, let alone to justify your own muddled theory of evolution.

DAVID: I've read all of Shapiro's book which, of course, is in my library. My judgement stands.

So please tell us if there is a bibliography. Do you mean you stick to your prejudice against the theory, or you stick to your belief that your “vast background in modern biochemistry” qualifies you to dismiss the conclusions of other experts in the field?

Back to Shapiro: how some bacteria handle DNA

DAVID: Cells cannot design the processes of life. See Tony's entry.

dhw: What do you mean by the “processes of life”? Shapiro’s theory does not deal with the origin of life and of the intelligent cell but with Chapter 2 in life’s history, which is the evolution of species. But I don’t know if Tony’s entry covers Shapiro’s theory. (See PART TWO.)

DAVID: What is the intelligence level of germ cells??? How is it determined?

We are not talking of IQ tests for germ cells! Shapiro defines what intelligence means: cells and organisms are “cognitive (sentient) entities…they possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities.” You say they don’t. So be it.


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