New Miscellany Part 1: evolution, intelligence, the brain (General)

by David Turell , Monday, April 21, 2025, 16:56 (8 hours, 32 minutes ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I try to remind you of our specialness, and you dilute it by equating us 'to all forms of life'. Your view is distorted.
And:
DAVID: (under “handwriting control): more evidence of how special we are.

dhw: I have never denied that we ‘re special. No other creature could send rockets to the moon, produce a Shakespeare or a Beethoven, etc. That does not, however, in any way reduce the wonder of Nature’s Wonders, the miraculous complexities of a single cell or of all the cell communities which have evolved into all creatures extant and extinct. Nor does it mean that every single one was specially designed by an unknown, sourceless mind, or that this mind designed them all with the sole purpose of producing us plus food and therefore had to kill off 99.9% of the creatures he had designed. When will you stop dodging?

You are the dodger. Our brain is the most superbly unique item in the universe. You don't believe in chance mutation, so please tell me how it arrived.

DAVID: Without the 99.9% extinct the 0.1% would not be here!

dhw: And so you continue to deny the fact that evolution split off into multiple branches of life forms, 99.9% of which became dead ends. You have agreed explicitly that we are descended from only the 0.1% of creatures that survived, and you can hardly deny that we cannot be the descendants of creatures that produced no descendants! When will you stop disagreeing with yourself?

I view it differently. The 0.1% living are the descendants of the 99.9% extinct, making the logical 100% of the process.

Zombification

QUOTE: The zombifiers are diverse. The hosts that they zombify are diverse. The mechanisms that they use are very diverse,” said Weisberger. “So individually, all of these examples are really exciting, but together, they also added up to this really interesting picture. Just what is behavior manipulation? Why is this strategy so successful? And why are so many organisms doing it?

DAVID: One can only wonder how they evolve...

dhw: I love the “Nature’s Wonders” you record for us. Many thanks. In answer to the question why they do it, I would suggest it’s BECAUSE it’s a successful way to survive. As for how they do it, the alternative to your God specially designing them (apparently for our benefit) would be that they use their intelligence (possibly God-given, and probably through periods of trial and error) to perfect their design.

Trial and error to create such a mechanism is not a logical route. The ants must learn to attach themselves and attack the host's brains. A two-step process in which the first step alone serves no purpose.

A start of multicellularity

QUOTES: each cell in an MMB is its own individual organism.

This revealed that the cells within a consortium are not clones, and that the variety of genes spread throughout the cluster enables individuals to serve different functions that benefit the whole – similar to organs in a body, or a society that benefits from its members' diverse skills and interests.

DAVID: a very logical beginning to true multicellularity.

dhw: You have agreed that bacteria have an autonomous intelligence of their own, and here you have living proof that single cells may form a community in which they retain their individual intelligences while remaining dependent on one another. But you still refuse to accept even the possibility that autonomously intelligent individuals can form autonomously intelligent communities.

Bacteria do it!! But no further now. So I agree. You always stretch the point.

The human brain

DAVID: Your distorted view of our brain is amazing. We are using a brain that is 315,000 years old that comes from a time of much less complexity in living and thinking and only recently uses language to express ideas as you point out we do.

dhw: There is nothing in your comment with which anyone could possibly disagree. But as usual, you have left out your theory that 315,000 years ago your God looked into his crystal ball, saw that we would be doing what we are doing now, and gave our ancestors a set of cells that would hang around doing nothing for 315,000 years until you and I needed them. You cannot believe that 315,000 years ago sapiens acquired new cells in response to new requirements (like all hominids before us), and went on using the same cells to meet future new requirements by complexification as and when they occurred. And yet you have agreed that your God does not intervene in the process of complexification. In which case, he either programmed all our achievements 315,000 years ago, or he allowed us to use our autonomous intelligence as and when required. Please choose.

In the now bolded is my choice. Our use of the miraculous brain created what we are today.