Miscellaneous (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 19, 2024, 16:22 (1 day, 17 hours, 10 min. ago) @ dhw

Immunity system complexity (C elegans, and also “our whole body has memory”)

DAVID: They are automatic in solving issues. Cells make only minor alterations in their output.

dhw: So did your God provide the first cells with every solution, or did he provide cells with the ability to work out the solutions for themselves?

Yes, every major solution. Cells made minor adaptations as above.

And:
dhw: I’m not talking about major v minor adaptations. The question is whether cells do or do not perform all the above actions, which require thought.

DAVID: It only looks like they do.

dhw: If something looks as if it thinks and acts as if it thinks, it is hardly unreasonable to suggest that maybe it thinks.

You forget design can make it look like thought.

Theoretical origin of life: Space is filled with organics

dhw: why did he leave them floating around for about 1000,000,000 years, and then use them to create and cull all kinds of life forms, if all he wanted to do was create us and our food?

DAVID: God does not tell us why.

dhw: And you can’t think of any reason why, but still you insist that you know his purpose was to indulge in his messy, inefficient way of achieving the one and only purpose you allow him to have.

I 'allow' nothing. God chose to evolve us for His own reasons. We are the final step in evolution.

Introducing the brain: consciousness as ephaptic fields

DAVID: Consciousness as a free floating entity could settle into an ephaptic field.

QUOTES: traditional synaptic firing speeds could not explain the speed of cognitive functions he had observed over the years in rabbits and cats.

"Instead the recent spate of ephaptic effects findings suggest a solid mechanism to explain these speeds. Our recent theoretical paper, building on these findings, suggested that ephaptic field effects may in fact be the primary mechanism for consciousness and cognition, rather than neural firing.”

dhw: Even if it is the mechanism, that doesn’t suggest "free floating" dualistic immortality.

DAVID: It only supports the living side of duality.

dhw: Nobody knows the truth. If consciousness arises through the actions of neurons, that fact alone could be taken to support materialism.

Neurons act as receivers of consciousness which can operate without the brain in NDE's.>

The missing fossils argument; new very early Ediacaran

QUOTE: "This discovery reconciles a major gap between predictions based on molecular data and the lack of described ecdysozoans prior to the rich Cambrian fossils record and adds to our understanding of the evolution of animal life,"

DAVID: this is the first animal like Ediacaran fossil I've seen. None of the others seemed to be mobile. Also it appears de novo as do the Cambrian animals.

dhw: I was going to compliment you on your integrity in presenting us with articles that shed doubt on your pet theories, but your comment takes some of the shine off your halo. Nobody knows the true story of life’s evolution, but we are talking about life 600,000,000 years ago. It’s a miracle that ANY fossils have survived, let along been found, but you expect every single stage of every single species to have been recorded for us on our ever changing planet. Otherwise, you will claim that every new discovery must have been created “de novo”. How many remains of current individual species do you think will still be around 600,000,000 years from now?

For your edification read Bechly on fossilification:

https://evolutionnews.org/2024/11/fossil-friday-new-research-on-how-delicate-soft-bodie...

"Anoxic conditions in the burial environment would have slowed bacterial decay and minimized disruption by scavengers, while fine sediment encasement shielded delicate structures from mechanical breakdown. This unique combination of rapid burial and anoxia, possibly supplemented by specific chemical interactions in the sediment, allowed the Emu Bay Shale to capture fine anatomical details, adding a vital piece to our understanding of Cambrian ecosystems."