cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, October 19, 2020, 14:20 (1278 days ago) @ David Turell

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!

DAVID: Trapped as under tight controls, recognizing errors can occur.

Hardly trapped then if some cells can go off and do their own thing!

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.

DAVID: You know full well they act intelligently following intelligent instructions.

In that case they don’t act intelligently – they follow intelligent instructions. What a shame! But it was fun while it lasted.

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.

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

Yes of course, if they are free-living they “take responsibility” for their adaptations. That is what autonomy means. And if (theistic version) your God gave bacteria the freedom to do their own adapting, why on earth do you think that a community of cells could not have been given the same freedom and responsibility – culminating in human free will?

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

Yes indeed, that is the whole point! Free-living, autonomously intelligent bacteria form communities, and that starts the whole process of multicellularity: free-living, autonomously intelligent cells pool their intelligence, thus brancheing out into all the species that have formed the higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth.

DAVID: And I counter God did it.

God did what? If he gave single cells their autonomy, then it is not unreasonable to assume that a community/communities of single cells will also function autonomously.

Under “information flow”:

DAVID: 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.

DAVID: All of which is supplied by God who created life.

I have always accepted the possibility that your God created life and supplied cellular intelligence.