Bacterian Intelligence and Self Programmed Legos

[Pytharchimedes]

What kind of intelligence are you suggesting, and how intelligent are you thinking of?

Sufficient intelligence to reason logical propositions represented by IF/AND/THEN statements.

[rwatts]

Sufficient intelligence to reason logical propositions represented by IF/AND/THEN statements.

Well, I suspect that would profoundly alter things, particularly if those kind of statements were built into very complex ones which gave a sophisticated kind of reasoning.

I think bacteria can operate on a kind of if/then/else statement but so far they look to be very simple constructs, for example - if light, then swim towards it. That kind of thing.

[Pytharchimedes]

If light, then swim towards it.

Allegorically speaking, I wish Humans were so intelligent.

[Pytharchimedes]

More views from Shapiro on the nature of evolution;

(1) Cells do not act blindly. We know from physiology and biochemistry and molecular biology that cells are full of receptors. They monitor what goes on outside. They monitor what goes on inside. And they’re continually taking in that information and using it to adjust their actions, their biochemistry, their
metabolism, the cell cycle, etc. so that things come out right. That’s why I use the word cognitive to apply to cells, meaning they do things based on knowledge of what’s happening around them and inside of them. Without that knowledge and the systems to use that knowledge they couldn’t proliferate and survive as efficiently as they do.

(2) We’ve learned a great deal about hereditary variation through molecular genetics studies. I was personally involved in this back in the late 60s and 70s and since then we’ve learned about a wide variety of biochemical systems that cells use to restructure their genomes as an active process. Genome change is not the result of accidents. If you have accidents and they’re not fixed, the cells die. It’s in the course of fixing damage or responding to damage or responding to other inputs — in the case I studied, it was starvation — that cells turn on the systems they have for restructuring their genomes. So what we have is something different from accidents and mistakes as a source of genetic change. We have what I call “natural genetic engineering.” Cells are acting on their own genomes in a large variety of well-defined non-random ways to bring about change.

This is consistent with what Barbara McClintock first discovered in the 30s when she was studying chromosome repair and then later in the 40s when her experiments uncovered transposable elements. All of these natural genetic engineering systems are regulated or sensitive to biological inputs. That sensitivity is what we’ve learned about cell regulation in general. As I say, cells don’t act blindly, and they don’t act blindly when they change their genomes.

(3) So if genetic change is not a series of accidents and not a series of necessarily small changes, then how does it work out in evolution? That’s where the DNA record from genome sequencing comes in and confirms what many of us had argued for a long time: namely, all of these systems of genetic change, of natural genetic engineering, have played a major role in evolutionary change. We have a new view of how cells operate in evolution, which is much more information technology friendly.

Is there a reason to believe evolution was somehow driven by converse factors in the past? If not, and evolution operates the same it did today as it did eons ago...then why the discrepancy in thinking? How could it be the basic idea of random mutation/natural selection that drives evolution? If this research is true;

http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/21st...View_Evol.html

I ask this, because I see many people ridicule the nature of biological design based upon an understanding of modern Darwinism. Darwinism supports atheism...of this I have no doubt...but I doubt that evolution is anything like Darwinism.

[Roy]

Although, I am not speaking about an intelligent designer. The intelligence I am noticing is going on within the cellular activity, hence my question; what would be the implications of intelligent bacteria?

Probably a host of frustrated and grumpy bacteria who had figured out the answer to many important problems and questions but were unable to do anything about it due to limited mobility and lack of communication.

Roy

[Pytharchimedes]

Probably a host of frustrated and grumpy bacteria who had figured out the answer to many important problems and questions but were unable to do anything about it due to limited mobility and lack of communication.

Roy

Maybe they are frustrated for different reasons...

Microparty.jpg

[Duragizer]

Self-programmed legos, eh? Kinda removes the fun from playing with 'em, doesn't it?

[Pytharchimedes]

Self-programmed legos, eh? Kinda removes the fun from playing with 'em, doesn't it?

Well, it all depends, do you enjoy playing with the built legos? or do you think building legos is more fun?

I could go either way on the matter.