cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, October 18, 2020, 19:21 (1283 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The cells are trapped in a network of controls. Cell committees don't speciate.

dhw: Why “trapped”? The cells have formed a network of controls. Your last sentence is a complete non sequitur!

Trapped as under tight controls, recognizing errors can occur.

DAVID: I don't reject that cells act intelligently.

dhw: You usually add that they do so with guidelines from your God. I apologize for the misunderstanding and welcome you to the happy group of us who accept the feasibility of autonomous cellular intelligence.

You know full well they act intelligently following intelligent instructions.

DAVID: The problem is the evidence is in free-living bacteria who are responsible for their own survival and must have that ability. In multicellular organisms most cells are simply cogs in parts of constructive activities.

dhw: Thank you for conceding that single-celled bacteria are “free-living”. This is real progress.

No concession: I've always said as free-living they had to be able to take full responsibility for their adaptations, as from Shapiro.

dhw: If free-living organisms join together to cooperate, they will need to reach consensus on what action they take. They too are responsible for their survival, which is no doubt why they joined together. Yes of course “most of the cells” become cogs! But the constructive activities must be directed. So if a single-celled organism can provide its own directions, why do you think it's impossible for a colony of cooperating single-celled organisms to produce its own directions?

Bacterial mats do that to a degree, which is probably a step to multicellularity

DAVID: The only way change occurs is change in the genome of germ cells. Bacteria reproduce by simply splitting, which makes them in full control of any change, and so far Lenski's E. coli are still E. coli after enormous numbers of generations.

dhw: Yes, the genome has to change if there is to be a new species. That is why we talk of new genes and of restructuring old genes. And yes, single-celled bacteria do very nicely, but at some time some free-living bacteria decided to form communities, and those are the ones that branched out into all the species that have formed the higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth.

And I counter God did it.

Under “information flow”:
QUOTE: Each human cell has an information network like a subway system underpinning the function of one of the world's major cities. Instead of human couriers, within our cells, messenger RNAs (mRNAs) carry information. Thousands of mRNAs emerge from the cell's nucleus with instructions for cellular functions and disappear into the cytoplasm when their duties are fulfilled.

DAVID: Amazing. Messenger RNA can be watched and followed. Each cell nucleus is in automatic control of the factory output using its information content.

dhw: It sounds just like an ant colony, with each ant running round performing its particular duty. I agree that the messengers act automatically – their job is to obey. The question is where the instructions come from, and the article suggests that the intelligence lies within the nucleus of the cell. That would also be the source of the autonomous, free-living intelligence of the single bacterium.

All of which is supplied by God who created life.