Trashing natural selection as a special case.

I want to explain just how much intelligence would be needed for an organism to decide it would do better with a roratory flagellum and to plan the necessary changes to the organism to manage this feat.

1)      It would be necessary for the organism to apply some sort of hydrodynamics to actually figure out that this addition would be useful.

2)      It would have to create a mental model of all the various protein components needed to create the device.

3)      For each molecular component, it would have to work out a suitable amino acid structure, bearing in mind that like all proteins, the linear chain of amino acids will fold. Without understanding this folding process, it can't possibly ensure the shape of the component being designed.

4)      Steps two and three would then need iterating until it ends up creating a protein that can perform in the desired way.

Now I think Nbtruthman and I would agree that this design work is happening (not by RM+NS) and that it is an extraordinary feature of biological organisms. I suppose Rupert Sheldrake sees something similar and calls it a morphic field.

Suppose it really is possible for a bacterial cell to handle all that 'computational load', That then presupposes that the bacterium also has a computer inside it. The whole scheme reminds one of this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

Here is a very old paper that discusses evidence that cells do indeed have intelligence:

http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/FRAME.HTM

David

Here is a very old paper that discusses evidence that cells do indeed have intelligence:

http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/FRAME.HTM

David

I am very familiar with this paper/webbook.  My argument is that we can follow the information both bits and bytes of code. as well as the functional meanings that are revealed by logic. (N-S semantic info)   In cells, in organic systems, in whole organisms and in societies - there are patterns that we can decode with science.  I am all about what can we learn with hands on study about mental evolution - now that we know it is causal.

You and NB are very literal.  All these requirements that conscious (self-aware) designers achieve, must be reflected in sub-conscious biological information processing is just not germane outside of metaphysics.  Cell intelligence is pragmatic.

 Cells process clues from the surroundings and can re-program a new heading.
Most startling, however, is the unknown nature of these clues. In order to follow a line the cell must detect and process the signals from at least 2 points on the line. The signals cannot be chemical in nature. Thus, the cells seem to be able to process spatial data. Subsequently, they override their earlier movement program and follow the guidance. The term 'follow' can be applied only in a global sense. Locally speaking, the cells move in and out of guiding roads at will. In other words, their long term movement has been re-programmed for a new heading while their minute-to-minute movements seem to remain quite free.

Perception drives life.  Fluid dynamics (as wonderful a subject as it is) are not needed as computations to import immediate bio-information objects, such as defined by the term affordance.  And when that perceived object becomes mutual information within the cell's state of affairs - adaptive responses result.  This is not automation, it is agency.  The agency effects of cells are a sub-conscious aspect of the whole organism.  Bio-information processing is happening on many levels and supports all bodily systems.

How does this agency accumulate into a single mind - is a somewhat metaphysical question.  However, all functional teleological information processing does to guide organisms -- is a science question.  Command and control are information science goals states.  What is clearly known now is that the idea that bio-evolution is random makes no sense from facts in evidence.  There are non-random manipulation factors built into the genome and living things use them assiduously (Darwin in the Genome).  There is agency (mind) in all levels of biological organization.  What can we learn from mapping and measuring its activity?  Natural selection only makes sense in research framework of minds processing information - because selection can be from mental activity.

Single cells can select food, target chemical compounds, assist sex or wag their tail for motion.  Al can be analyzed with hard science in a physical environment.  The new story is that side-by-side with physics - we can analyze how agency (goal seeking), perception (afferent signal capture), adaptive behavior (understanding) and social organization skills (regulation of self) in the informational environment.

Here is a very old paper that discusses evidence that cells do indeed have intelligence:

http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/FRAME.HTM

David

I am very familiar with this paper/webbook.  My argument is that we can follow the information both bits and bytes of code.  As well format the functional meanings that are revealed by logic. (N-S semantic info)   In cells, in organic systems, in whole organisms and in societies - there are patterns that we can decode with science.  I am all about what can we learn with hands on study about mental evolution - now that we know it is causal.

You and NB are very literal.  All these requirements that conscious (self-aware) designers achieve, must be reflected in sub-conscious biological information processing is just not germane outside of metaphysics.  Cell intelligence is pragmatic.

 Cells process clues from the surroundings and can re-program a new heading.
Most startling, however, is the unknown nature of these clues. In order to follow a line the cell must detect and process the signals from at least 2 points on the line. The signals cannot be chemical in nature. Thus, the cells seem to be able to process spatial data. Subsequently, they override their earlier movement program and follow the guidance. The term 'follow' can be applied only in a global sense. Locally speaking, the cells move in and out of guiding roads at will. In other words, their long term movement has been re-programmed for a new heading while their minute-to-minute movements seem to remain quite free.

Perception drives life.  Fluid dynamics (as wonderful a subject as it is) are not needed as computations to import immediate bio-information objects, such as defined by the term affordance.  And when that perceived object becomes mutual information within the cell's state of affairs - adaptive responses result.  This is not automation, it is agency.  The agency effects of cells are a sub-conscious aspect of the whole organism.  Bio-information processing is happening on many levels and supports all bodily systems.

How does this agency accumulate into a single mind - is a somewhat metaphysical question.  However, all functional teleological information processing does to guide organisms -- is a science question.  Command and control are information science goals states.  What is clearly known now is that the idea that bio-evolution is random makes no sense from facts in evidence.  There are non-random manipulation factors built into the genome and living things use them assiduously (Darwin in the Genome).  There is agency (mind) in all levels of biological organization.  What can we learn from mapping and measuring its activity?  Natural selection only makes sense in research framework of minds processing information - because selection can be from mental activity.

Single cells can select food, target chemical compounds, assist sex or wag their tail for motion.  Al can be analyzed with hard science in a physical environment.  The new story is that side-by-side with physics - we can analyze how agency (goal seeking), perception (afferent signal capture), adaptive behavior (understanding) and social organization skills (regulation of self) in the informational environment.

I am very familiar with this paper/webbook.  My argument is that we can follow the information both bits and bytes of code.  As well format the functional meanings that are revealed by logic. (N-S semantic info)   In cells, in organic systems, in whole organisms and in societies - there are patterns that we can decode with science.  I am all about what can we learn with hands on study about mental evolution - now that we know it is causal.

You and NB are very literal.  All these requirements that conscious (self-aware) designers achieve, must be reflected in sub-conscious biological information processing is just not germane outside of metaphysics.  Cell intelligence is pragmatic.


Perception drives life.  Fluid dynamics (as wonderful a subject as it is) are not needed as computations to import immediate bio-information objects, such as defined by the term affordance.  And when that perceived object becomes mutual information within the cell's state of affairs - adaptive responses result.  This is not automation, it is agency.  The agency effects of cells are a sub-conscious aspect of the whole organism.  Bio-information processing is happening on many levels and supports all bodily systems.

How does this agency accumulate into a single mind - is a somewhat metaphysical question.  However, all functional teleological information processing does to guide organisms -- is a science question.  Command and control are information science goals states.  What is clearly known now is that the idea that bio-evolution is random makes no sense from facts in evidence.  There are non-random manipulation factors built into the genome and living things use them assiduously (Darwin in the Genome).  There is agency (mind) in all levels of biological organization.  What can we learn from mapping and measuring its activity?  Natural selection only makes sense in research framework of minds processing information - because selection can be from mental activity.

Single cells can select food, target chemical compounds, assist sex or wag their tail for motion.  Al can be analyzed with hard science in a physical environment.  The new story is that side-by-side with physics - we can analyze how agency (goal seeking), perception (afferent signal capture), adaptive behavior (understanding) and social organization skills (regulation of self) in the informational environment.

This seems mainly to boil down to a reiterated argument by assertion, in vague and ambiguous terminology, that it simply is a fact that simple cells like bacteria have perceptions and subconscious minds, and therefore have conscious minds and intentionality (agency). And it is further assumed that collectively many such organisms can "accumulate into a single (larger?) mind. All this is asserted with no concrete explanation whatsoever.

In fact, your entire approach including especially equating perception with "afferent signal capture" and understanding with "adaptive behavior", completely ignores the Hard Problem of consciousness, which is the realization that consciousness, subjective awareness, perception and qualia etc. are fundamentally immaterial and in an entirely different and higher existential order than matter and its workings. This reveals the Hard Problem, which is the impossibility of explaining consciousness via physicalism or materialism. 

Back in post #60 (https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-t...3#pid57203 ), I went into a little actual specific detail in explaining just part of the intelligence that design of an example biological molecular machine (the bacterial flagellum) required. There is also the major challenge of determining the required DNA sequences for the various parts of the irreducibly complex flagellum. All of this requires ingenuity, insight into meanings and purposes, foresight in visualizing expected future results, and formidable calculating capabilities to determine the amino acid sequences necessary for the required protein 3-D shapes, and many other essential technicalities. 

All of these requirements are in our experience only encountered with focused conscious intelligence of a high order.

Do you seriously claim that simple cells or a collective assemblage of such cells have these specific capabilities? Please explain exactly and not with vague generalities how cells can accomplish all these creative mental tasks including agency, imagination, perception and understanding, which are in our experience all aspects only of focused conscious minds. It isn't enough to say these arise because of there being an "informational environment".

I am very familiar with this paper/webbook. 

Yes, it is interesting. What it reveals is that those cells can somehow access intelligence that is not onboard, so to speak. As I pointed out Rupert Sheldrake cottoned on to this idea many years ago.

It would be fun to be able to debate with one or other of the Third Way crowd - do you know of a forum in which they debate with others.

I think they rely on strangely ambiguous assertions related to information. This lets them stay in academia and do the kind of research that interests them. I can't really blame them for that - people do much worse to stay in academia - such as falsifying research results.

I want to keep on stressing that NS-information is only information relative to a particular mind. You would need a mind already tuned in to the subtleties of DNA/RNA encoding in order to validate that it was information. It is a chicken-egg situation - once you have a suitable mind, the information makes sense, but where did this mind come from?

You and NB are very literal. 

I am more than happy to be grouped with nbtruthman!

I think you would feel a lot more comfortable if you gave up the (IMHO false) idea that biology (particularly evolution) can be handled totally from a materialistic perspective.

David

I am more than happy to be grouped with nbtruthman!

I think you would feel a lot more comfortable if you gave up the (IMHO false) idea that biology (particularly evolution) can be handled totally from a materialistic perspective.

David

lol

My message hammers just the opposite home - information tells a large part of the story.  Bio-evolution is moving forward with formal research on information processing as mental evolution.   And with emphasis on the importance communication plays in biology.  Darwin believed that mind "like the turtles" goes all the way down the ladder of complexity. Observe -- and then respond logically is the basic algorithm of living things.  Cybernetics is just this field of study, documenting channels of feed-back and adaption in ecological environments.
  
Sci just pointed out a perceptional paradox about life and mind.  Implied was the idea that perception from computation is the highest form of intelligence.  I think that Psi researchers have something to say about that!  Deep understanding is my candidate as being part Psi/part wisdom.  That's not caused by materials science.  It's about anomalous information gain by living things being found in all places and all times. 

Is there any difference between an aha moment in science and Psi?