Innovation and Speciation (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 03, 2011, 15:26 (4952 days ago) @ David Turell

Matt drew our attention to an article concerning the possible consciousness of bees. I would prefer to leave open the question of consciousness, and instead concentrate on intelligence, which need not imply the various levels of self-awareness that we associate with consciousness. In particular I'm interested in the idea that the innovations which lead to speciation are caused by the deliberate, inventive combining of intelligent cells. I would like to draw a parallel here between communities of cells and communities of insects like bees and ants, which must at one stage have "invented" their complex architecture and social structures. -DAVID: The radio signals from bacteria may be an indication of how some sort of group intelligence works. It may be a hint into parapsychology, telepathy, etc.-And it may explain how smaller bodies combine to create more complex bodies in an inventive process leading to innovation and speciation ... two mysteries that nobody has yet succeeded in explaining, other than by unlikely sequences of countless random mutations. -DAVID: Information is the key to making organic chemistry come to life.
-"Information" seems to be the "in" word at the moment. But all things contain information ... including sticks, stones and stars. The key to organic life cannot be "information" alone, but exchanges, combinations and interactions ... information passed on, processed, and above all utilized. This is what I mean by a form of intelligence: the ability to utilize information ... an ability which we presume, perhaps wrongly, is not to be found within a stone, say, as opposed to a bacterium. -Organic chemistry coming to life is not enough either. We have to account for evolution, because we should not take it for granted that life forms will automatically evolve, let alone that single-celled creatures will eventually evolve into human beings. -David says "the idea that information runs organisms has come to the fore in scientific philosophy", and Tony ... quite rightly in my view ... argues that this does not account for speciation. It accounts for adaptation and the preservation of species. My suggestion simply takes the process one step further: that cells can not only adapt intelligently to preserve the status quo, but can also ... exceptionally ... use information in order to invent. Instead of random mutations, then, we have deliberate mutations by inventive cells. I can only ask yet again (sorry if I'm being a bore) why this is any more fantastic than chance working its magic, or a Universal Intelligence pre-programming every stage until the process reaches humanity.-Let me also repeat, however, with great emphasis, that the idea of intelligent, inventive cells would NOT provide us with an argument either for or against chance or God. I myself would still be unable to believe that chance could create such a mechanism (just as I remain unable to believe that there could be such a thing as an eternal, self-generated God). That is a separate question.