bacterial (cellular) intelligence shown to be DNA driven (Animals)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 05, 2017, 12:15 (2326 days ago) @ David Turell

I am again combining two threads, as they repeat the same arguments.

DAVID: I agree that the immune cells look as if they contain their own intelligence, but can be programmed that way by design. Kidney cells make decisions all the time to maintain fluid balance and salt levels. They certainly act as if they are intelligent. Their molecular reactons are known to measure levels. For me cells are cells and all are created with purposeful programming. Don't ignore purpose to help explain function.

dhw: Do you think an intelligent organism would act without a purpose? The cells use their intelligence to perform their functions. The function IS the initial purpose, and the intelligence is the mechanism by which they achieve it. The overall purpose is the onward drive for survival and, when these organs first appeared, improvement – which you have now agreed is a “major tenet” of evolution.

DAVID: And you admit all of this purposeful activity could be the plan of a designer.

You are a master of obfuscation! I admit that the autonomous intelligence of organisms could be the invention of your God. If my hypothesis is correct, all this purposeful activity has been designed by the cellular communities themselves. I do not admit that your God could have preprogrammed all this purposeful activity – along with every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder – 3.8 billion years ago, or that he personally dabbles to direct every new, purposeful activity performed by every cell community. If cells learn by experience, that suggests to me that they are not preprogrammed or being dabbled with.

DAVID: (under"revisiting convergence"): In my view the appearance of cellular intelligent action can be from designed activties in the cell supplied by God's design. How this can be translated into cell committies designing their own future evolutionary changes is for me beyond reason. What is the source of heir intelligence? Evidence not available in science.

“Activities supplied by God’s design” is another of your nebulous phrases which can only mean your God’s instructions passed on through a computer programme inserted in the first cells 3.8 billion years ago, or personally dabbled as each new set of circumstances arises. This for me is “beyond reason”. If your God exists, he must be the source of cellular intelligence. If he doesn’t, the source can only be chance or some form of panpsychism. The evidence for ANY of these hypotheses is not available in science.