More Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 30, 2024, 12:04 (15 days ago) @ David Turell

A new consciousness declaration

DAVID: Why are you afraid of opinions? You know my view, and I know yours.

dhw: I am not afraid of opinions. But I’m not happy when people express opinions as if they were facts, as in “No question [cells adapt but only at a local level, not speciation]…” Of course there is a question.

DAVID: I express my thoughts about God as fact for my faith. Please remember that as you question me.

I am constantly aware that you express your opinions as fact, in your effort to support your faith that your God is what you want him to be.

boredom and theodicy

DAVID: […] I have never been 'certain' about God's personal attributes you listed. Perhaps it is my human wishes that He be that way.

dhw: You were once certain he enjoyed creating and was interested in his creations, but apparently you have never been certain. You are certain that he is omnipotent, omniscient, all-good, can’t get bored, is selfless and acts without self-interest etc. In fact, you are certain about anything that supports your wishes, and you are certain in your rejection of anything that contradicts them.

DAVID: Contradictions are your inventions.

Examples of your contradictions have been listed elsewhere (e.g. an all-good God who is to blame for the bugs that kill millions of people).

DAVID: No, no one can be certain about God's attributes. My thoughts about God are within a faith structure. When I offer an opinion it will come across as if fact.

All agreed. This is particularly irksome when you use your contradictory opinions to dismiss any theory different from your own. For instance, your opinion one day is that your God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, but the next day when I propose that he might have created life in order to provide himself with interesting things to do and watch, you insist that he has no self-interest. You even propose that he would find puppets boring, which leads to his knowingly allowing evil and creating murderous bugs (for which you blame him) in order to avoid boredom, but again, he has no self-interest.

The role of the interstitium

DAVID: […] as these articles show there are other levels of communication constantly in action.

dhw: All of which reinforce the image of a vast community of communities cooperating to perform existing functions and to respond to new requirements. It is certainly not unreasonable to suggest that they know what they’re doing.

DAVID: "Know" in a mental sense? Please define.

dhw:To be aware of the available information, to deliberately process it, communicate with other cells, and make decisions as to the best way to deal with it. This is what all organisms do in order to survive, and I don’t think even you believe that all living organisms are robots whose decisions always depend on instructions provide by your God.

DAVID: No, in adaptability there are some minor processes that do not need instructions.

Please tell us which category the next item covers:

Aquatic spiders

DAVID: Why did the spiders go back to water? As with whales many physiological changes had to occur. God must have stepped in as a designer.

dhw: The article answers your question: “Presumably, the spiders that later returned to a life aquatic were strongly drawn by something to eat there, or driven by unsafe conditions on land.” […] you will not even consider the possibility that this wide variety of adaptations might be the result of intelligent cells responding to new conditions in their own different ways. And I’d better not ask why you think your God specially designed all these variations. Do we humans really need them or use them?

DAVID: They play a role in seaside ecosystems, of course. The authors spouted the usual reasons we all think of to explain such an unusual action.

And what do you find unacceptable in the usual reasons? Now please tell us why you think your God found it necessary to specially design all the different ways in which these spiders have adapted to life in the water.

Cerebellum helps learning

QUOTES: Our research provides clear evidence that the cerebellum is not only important for learning how to perform skillful actions, but also for learning which actions are most valuable in certain situations," says Bostan.

"'It helps explain some of the non-motor difficulties in people with cerebellar disorders.'"

DAVID: the cerebellum is packed with specialized neurons. We see connections to the cortex and are still trying to find out how those connections work.

The brain, like the rest of the body, is a community of cellular communities, and these all communicate with one another. Even specialists can communicate with other specialists. Would it be too simple to suggest that the connections work because cells are intelligent, sentient, cognitive, information-processing, decision-making entities “that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth and proliferation” (James A. Shapiro)? (NB: This theory leaves open the possibility that your God was the designer of cellular intelligence.)