More Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, April 27, 2024, 17:01 (208 days ago) @ dhw

A new consciousness declaration

QUOTES...new research at Moffitt led by Dipesh Niraula, Ph.D., and Robert Gatenby, M.D., discovered a nongenomic information system that operates alongside DNA, enabling cells to gather information from the environment and respond quickly to changes.

The researchers suggested that this system, which allows for rapid and local responses to specific signals, can also generate coordinated regional or global responses to larger environmental changes.

This intricate network enables cells to make swift and informed decisions, critical for their survival and function.

dhw: Thank you for providing yet more evidence for Shapiro’s theory that cells gather information, respond to changes in conditions, and make decisions based on what is best for their survival.

No question, cells adapt but only at a local level, not speciation.

Bioluminescence

DAVID: light is always helpful, but these organisms don't have eyes. It is a mystery but developments in evolution always have reasons.

dhw: I agree, and one very logical reason is that in one way or another they improve chances of survival. It seems to me highly unlikely that the reason for bioluminescence is that your God (if he exists) considered it to be essential for the evolution of humans and their food, although you tell us that we and our food were his one and only purpose right from the beginning of life.

DAVID: My point exactly.

dhw: Just to clarify: is it now your point that these developments serve the purpose to improve chances of survival? Or do you still think your God couldn’t have designed us and our food without designing bioluminescence for eyeless organisms?

DAVID: All part of required diversity of forms.

dhw: Why do you think bioluminescence for eyeless organisms was essential to the fulfilment of your God’s sole purpose of producing us and our food?

My God wished to produce an Earth filled with diverse life forms for our use.

Importance of Microbiomes: skin wound effects

dhw:The discussion is not about how glad we are to be alive. Which purpose are you talking about now? You seem to be accepting the theory that your God created a free-for-all battle for survival as a means of avoiding boredom, so I don’t know why you reject it as an explanation for the 99.9% of species that were not connected with us and our food.

DAVID: Back we do to your irrational analysis of evolution. God does not get bored, but your overly humanized form does. When will you learn how to think about a possibly real God?

dhw: Your theory was that your God allowed human evil and created murderous bugs (for which he is to be blamed) in order to avoid boredom – his and ours. Now, with your astonishing first-hand knowledge of how God thinks and feels, you dismiss your own theory. When will you learn that nobody can learn how to think about a possibly real God, but if you propose certain ideas one week and then propose the opposite the following week, it becomes more and more difficult to take any of your ideas seriously. I still vividly remember your certainty that your God enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, and has thought patterns and emotions like our own. When you proposed your boredom theory, it was nicely consistent with your earlier beliefs. But suddenly out they all go again.

God is not human. Does He have emotions like ours is questionable. Religions claim He loves us, but is that human wishful thinking? I have never been 'certain' about God's personal attributes you listed. Perhaps it is my human wishes that He be that way.

The role of the interstitium

QUOTE: "Understanding how the interstitium works will define more of the rules about how the trillions of cells in the human body communicate across vast distances to create the exquisitely complex system that is the body. How these things all add up are vast scientific questions that will require a meticulously reductive approach as well as cultivation of a beginner’s mind.”

dhw: The new articles were too technical for me to grasp, but this paragraph leapt out at me. These vast communities perform different functions, but communicate with one another to create a single community of communities. Awesome. And I love the emphasis on the need for a reductive approach and a beginner’s mind. The logical outcome of a reductive approach would seem to be just how each individual cell plays its part, and perhaps the beginner’s mind will find that each cell actually knows what it’s doing. But I acknowledge that you would expect the approach to lead to the conclusion that all cells are robots obeying your God’s instructions.

IN DNA there are instructions, but as these articles show there are other levels of communication constantly in action.