bacterial intelligence: they signal electrically in biofilm (Animals)

by David Turell , Monday, March 19, 2018, 14:20 (2223 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I have stated that free will exists in humans who have brains. Don't try to stretch my point to single-celled animals; it won't work.

dhw: You complained that I wanted God to be only partially in charge. My point was that he CHOSE to be only partially in charge if he gave humans free will. I am not discussing the mechanisms of free will here, but the fact that your God is prepared NOT to be in full charge. An evolutionary free-for-all would also be in keeping with your own theory that he watches with interest.

God was obviously prepared when He gave humans the degree of consciousness we have. You can't extrapolate that willingness to anything before He achieved his goal.

DAVID: I suspect the ability for single-celled animals to cooperate is a mechanism given to them by God. The ability to use ionization electricity presages the appearance of neurons later in evolution, since one early stage set up advances in future stages, under God's control.

dhw: If one believes in God, then of course the mechanism would have stemmed from him, and there is no reason to assume that the mechanism is not an autonomous form of cognition. I like the idea of bacterial electricity presaging neurons – it establishes a clear evolutionary progression. Whether your God directed that progression or watched it evolve through the mechanism he had invented (allowing for occasional dabbles) is as open to debate as the question of your God’s existence.

It all follows my thought about using patterns of development.