More "miscellany" PART ONE (General)

by David Turell @, Tuesday, May 23, 2023, 17:07 (310 days ago) @ dhw

The human brain

DAVID: A brain cannot endlessly complexify unless the necessary neurons are present for complexification. Those neurons are alive and active in minor ways until major new ideas need to be implemented. They are then brought into major new networks.

dhw: If the neurons are alive and active, they are not excessive and the brain is not oversized. Your subjective distinction between minor and major is irrelevant. They are still the same neurons!

With complexification they are the same neurons with new uses. We don't make new neurons but tie them into new networks of use. If the number of neurons is so limited complexification cannot occur, a new brain is needed. Our 315,000 year-old is still working fine because our brain came with five pyramidal layers of neurons in our frontal cortex. I wonder how many layers Erectus had?


Cellular intelligence: the cancer problem

dhw: You have not commented on this important evidence of cellular intelligence, or on its implications. If your God can create nasty (“rogue”) autonomous intelligence, why do you think he can’t create "nice" autonomous intelligence?

DAVID: Cancer is a non-God event. These are cells uncontrolled by God in any way. All activity by normal cells is 'nice' following God's instructions.

dhw:So your all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God has no control over the “baddies”. Please tell us where you think their autonomous intelligence came from, and why – if he's all-knowing – he didn't prevent it from coming into existence, and why – if he's always in control – he cannot control it, and how the existence of autonomously intelligent "rogue" cells supports your belief that there is no such thing as autonomously intelligent cells.

It seems you have forgotten cancer cells are not normal living cells, but cells gone wild in uncontrolled growth. They have twisted their lives because their DNA is contaminated with bad mutations.


Role of the centromere

DAVID: Buehler's old light microscope observations are supplanted by todays' advanced methods of observation of much more than centromeres.

dhw: I thought we were talking about your bias being OK and miner being unacceptable. As regards the theory of cellular intelligence, you keep agreeing that the behaviour looks intelligent from outside, and the odds are 50/50. Have modern instruments disproved it?

The new studies show such complex reactions, they must be designed.


INFORMATION IS THE BASIS OF LIVING BIOLOGY

DAVID: Yes information is dormant until used. But information cannot appear de novo. A mind creates it and a mind or a mind-like cell interprets and uses it.

dhw: So when the wind blew the rock down on the man’s head and killed him, the masses of information contained in that incident were created by a mind, were they? Of course it takes a mind to extrapolate information. But information does not create anything, so I repeat: how can it be the basis of living biology? What is your objection to the statement that biochemistry is the basis of living biology?

DAVID: Biochemistry, as a subject, is our understanding of how living biology works. We see it as a result of living cells using instructive information in their genomes.

dhw: No response to my first question. Yes, biochemistry is a subject for study, but it's also the chemistry of living things, as in: Chemistry: “the composition, properties and reactions of a particular substance”. (Encarta) Cells have to be alive before they can “use” information, so don’t you think the basis of life/living biology must be whatever composition, properties and reactions give them life? But let me repeat: I have no objection to the term “information” when its meaning is clear. I only object when it obscures rather than clarifies, as in such statements as “information is the basis of living biology” and “information can never form by chance”.

The now bolded is blantently wrong. The information in DNA allows cells to produce life


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