Cell response to electric field (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, April 13, 2013, 13:33 (4041 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Of course humans think and that is why we are not automotons. The emergent phenomenon of conscious thought allows us to control our brain from within and without. My 'free' thoughts are not in my brain but are part of my 'self' or 'soul', and my attempts to think and to learn, we now know, actually cause my brain to develop new neurons and new connections automatically, from which my consciousness actualy expands. This is miraculous stuff, just like the origin of life. There you have two points for the existence of God.-Since I share your feeling that I'm not an automaton controlled by my cells (many disagree), I'll only pursue the argument from that point onwards. What you've said is in line with my hypothesis on the supernatural thread: "intelligence" may be a form of "conscious" (also needs defining) energy which controls matter from within, and if you believe in psychic phenomena, this may explain how our intelligent self can leave its material confines and live on after the cells have died. Energy is the key.-DAVID: I have agreed that animals have some degree of consciousness, and it is well established that plants have reactions, but they are automatic. Plants do not have nervous systems, the basis for a degree of consciousness. I frankly have no understanding of your concept of 'intelligence'.-Your conscious 'soul' will not carry your nervous system or your brain into the afterlife which you believe in, so in your scenario "intelligence" and consciousness do not require a nervous system. What you call "miraculous stuff" is, in my hypothesis, the "intelligent" energy which controls matter. You agree that other animals have it, and since they have nervous systems, "intelligent energy" controls their animal behaviour much like our own. And so maybe plants also have "intelligent energy" to control their forms of behaviour, above all when it comes to inventing new ones and new uses of materials (e.g. the flycatcher). Once the innovation is established, the plant cells will conform to the new pattern (giving the appearance of automatism, much as ants fulfil their particular roles in the community). This concept of "intelligence" is indeed nebulous, just like your concepts of "quantum" and of "God". "Life" is also a nebulous concept, since no-one can define it. But we know it's not cells and chemicals, because when we die, the cells and chemicals are still there on the deathbed. Maybe we can define it as "intelligent energy". We're dealing with "miraculous stuff" we do not understand, so how can we put it into clear words? -DAVID: I have explained to you that the information in living matter is put into the genome by prior timing from intelligence which I presume to be God. We are looking at a step-wise process. Again this is the basis of the Intelligent Design theory, with which I agree. [...] Cells do not think or plan. They can only react according to their pre-set programming. (My bold)-If I've understood this correctly, you're now saying that, in direct contradiction to your claim that the flycatching sundew was a "byproduct", every innovation that ever took place in plants and animals was preprogrammed and even timed by God. (Please keep in mind that I'm focusing on innovation as the prime example of "intelligence" in my panpsychist hypothesis.) And God therefore knew precisely what was coming.
 
DAVID: Which is why livers are so wonderful. We have no idea how they could have been developed de novo by chance! Or any of the other wonderful complex organs we have.-Let me keep on my theist hat for the sake of this discussion, and offer you a different scenario. In the beginning God created the first forms of life, and he built into them a mechanism that would enable them not only to reproduce but also to adapt to changing environments and to invent new forms. He would have found it immensely boring if he'd known what was coming, and so this mechanism was in the form of "intelligent energy" like his own, which could exercise control over the materials in which he had embedded it (just as 'free thoughts' in humans are said to develop new neurons and connections in their brain). Then he sat back and watched, as his invention created more and more forms of life, both plant and animal. Some of the cells in which he had embedded this "intelligent energy" got together to create all kinds of wonderful mechanisms de novo ... sexual organs, eyes, livers, brains etc. Whenever a particular organ was successful, its cells settled into that particular pattern of behaviour, but with each new invention the "intelligent energy" embedded within the cells of the organism as a whole (because every organism is a community of cooperating cells) acquired more and more information, and so life forms became increasingly complex, and "intelligent energy" became increasingly intelligent. In due course, this process led to a form of life that was so intelligent that it even began to think about how it had become so intelligent.
 
Why is this scenario less believable than your own?