More "miscellany" PART ONE (General)

by David Turell @, Sunday, May 28, 2023, 19:31 (305 days ago) @ dhw

PART ONE

DAVID: We agree in a way, but we don't have the same viewpoint. Each new brain had more neurons which implies they were provided for future use as well as immediate use.

dhw: Yes, they were there in response to an immediate need, and then the same neurons complexified autonomously to deal with new requirements until their capacity for complexification was inadequate, and then the next expansion took place. New neurons were used right from the start. They were not “excessive” and the brain was not “oversized” (which would imply "anticipation").

You can't get away from anticipation as shown by new brains adequately handling the present and future until they couldn't, and had to have more neurons.


DAVID: God speciating explains why the more complex brain appeared with the ability to handle the future.

dhw: ALL brains were equipped with the autonomous ability to complexify in response to future needs, but ALL brains expanded to meet the new needs of the moment. You now agree but refuse to acknowledge that new cells were never excessive and brains - including ours - were never oversized. The only difference between us now is your insistence that although all brain changes take place through response to new requirements, and complexification and hippocampus expansion are autonomous, your God could not possibly have given brain cells the autonomous ability to add to their number. No reason given for this limitation to his powers.

Your fertile imagination has existing neurons inventing new neurons like five layers of pyramidal, specialized neurons in our brain. Reeks of a designing mind speciating.


DAVID: From a natural viewpoint, an existing primitive brain would not be concerned about the future requirements.

dhw: I don’t know what you mean by a “natural” viewpoint, but I suspect that most brains including ours responded and respond to requirements as and when they arise.

Natural as in Darwin, not from God. God speciates, brains don't.


Cellular intelligence: the cancer problem

DAVID: God did not give cancer cells their abilities. The cancer cells usurped God's mechanisms and twisted them for their own purposes.

And you have said they are intelligent. If your God did not give them the intelligence to use his mechanisms for their own nasty purposes, who did?

DAVID: I do not think the cancer cells are intelligent enough to invent the mutations that make them so independent and act with such seemingly intelligence.

dhw: So despite your “obvious evidence of cellular intelligence”, they are not intelligent enough to invent the mutations which led them to work out their nasty methods of survival. Then who did? Obviously only your God could have done it! He must have provided them with instructions for the nasty deeds they are not intelligent enough to perform! Curiouser and curiouser.

DAVID: Mistakes in DNA reproduction from constant natural cell divisions produce the rogue DNA. God did not do it since they are chance mistakes.

dhw: What happened to the intelligent rogue cells you told us about? You know as well as I do that cancer treatments can work for a while, and then they may stop working. The tumours have found a way to defeat the pills or the chemotherapy. Are they obeying your God’s instructions? And how come your all-knowing, all-powerful God didn’t know what was going to happen and was powerless to stop it from happening?

God's DNA code is built to allow many amazing alterations with chance mutations. Cancer seems to encourage them.


Role of the centromere

DAVID: A centromere is never mentioned as cell functions are now presented.

dhw: You’ve lost me. Buehler says the centrosphere (not the centromere) was the “brain” of the cell. Have modern instruments disproved his theory?

The centrosphere was a physical light microscope image, no longer discussed in cell function studies which delve into nuances of genome controls by molecular actions. I'd never heard of him until you pounced on him in WIKI since he gave a glimmer of hope cells were innately intelligent. He was never mainstream. Others you mention were, Margulis, Shapiro.


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