Yup - argument for all three on a limited scale....perhaps not the lower limit of the scale either.

Makes one ponder the possibility that all of the details which we like to think of as the richness of our civilisation, are really just our own self-delusional gingerbread Victoriana, so to speak, all designed to make us think there's more to all this, than

React to sensory trail;

Pursue and [kill, or acquire, or impregnate] that which leaves the trail;

Thereby trigger more of the same in resulting generations. All the intention, consciousness and awareness is just accidental mutations of the mechanism, carried forward because they haven't sufficiently impeded the mechanism, such that it died out.

Or, it could be that there are microscopic dogs or cats built in to every white blood cell. Ever seen one of them hot after a mouse or some other prey? Looks exactly the same, save I haven't owned any translucent cats or dogs.

The video shows how single cell behaviour is independent of any brain function, such as intention or consciousness. The white blood cell's movements are dictated by its sensing of the bacterium. The cell's sole purpose in life is digesting bacteria, so that is what it does, automatically. We large animals, with more complicated lives, don't always do things quite so automatically.

Cells 'feel' their surroundings using finger-like structures
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 165433.htm

kennyc wrote:Cells 'feel' their surroundings using finger-like structures
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 165433.htm

Yes, but the "feeling" isn't a conscious process, is it? It's just automatic chemical and physical responses.

DavidMcC wrote:

kennyc wrote:Cells 'feel' their surroundings using finger-like structures
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 165433.htm

Yes, but the "feeling" isn't a conscious process, is it? It's just automatic chemical and physical responses.

Exactly the same can be said about the human brain. Apparently, something being "just chemical" does not conflict with it being conscious.

pl0bs wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

kennyc wrote:Cells 'feel' their surroundings using finger-like structures
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 165433.htm

Yes, but the "feeling" isn't a conscious process, is it? It's just automatic chemical and physical responses.

Exactly the same can be said about the human brain. Apparently, something being "just chemical" does not conflict with it being conscious.

Ha ha! The "just chemical" was a reference to that fact that there was no involvement of electro-chemical signalling (via a brain) in the case of the microbe, but is in the case of animals with brains.

igorfrankensteen wrote:Makes one ponder the possibility that all of the details which we like to think of as the richness of our civilisation, are really just our own self-delusional gingerbread Victoriana, so to speak, all designed to make us think there's more to all this, than

React to sensory trail;

Pursue and [kill, or acquire, or impregnate] that which leaves the trail;

Thereby trigger more of the same in resulting generations. All the intention, consciousness and awareness is just accidental mutations of the mechanism, carried forward because they haven't sufficiently impeded the mechanism, such that it died out.

Or, it could be that there are microscopic dogs or cats built in to every white blood cell. Ever seen one of them hot after a mouse or some other prey? Looks exactly the same, save I haven't owned any translucent cats or dogs.

You have been deceived by appearances, Igor. The processes inside the microbe that are responsible for its movement are a great deal simpler than those responsible for the movement (and other interactions, such as verbal ones) of an intelligent animal.

Ah, more bafflement.

Yes, Kenny, pseudoscience tends to baffle me, it's true. Perhaps pl0bs talks in meaninglessly vague catch-all term of "particles in spatial arrangements" to hide his lack of understanding of science. Now you are actually backing up his empty words. Not surprsing, though.
EDIT: Actually, it doesn't so much baffle me as annoy me, that someone bereft of scientific ideas or knowledge can fast-talk his way round that awful truth.

DavidMcC wrote:You have been deceived by appearances, Igor. The processes inside the microbe that are responsible for its movement are a great deal simpler than those responsible for the movement (and other interactions, such as verbal ones) of an intelligent animal.

If the processes are simpler, why wouldnt the intelligence be simpler also?

DavidMcC wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

kennyc wrote:Cells 'feel' their surroundings using finger-like structures
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 165433.htm

Yes, but the "feeling" isn't a conscious process, is it? It's just automatic chemical and physical responses.

Exactly the same can be said about the human brain. Apparently, something being "just chemical" does not conflict with it being conscious.

Ha ha! The "just chemical" was a reference to that fact that there was no involvement of electro-chemical signalling (via a brain) in the case of the microbe, but is in the case of animals with brains.

Still, the brain is a physical system, and this does not preclude it from being conscious/intelligent. Why would this be different for other organisms, like these white bloodcells?

I think what's interesting is that this is going on inside humans all the time so could be viewed as accessory to consciousness rather than independent events themselves.

Not sure where I'm going with this. Will have a whisky and think about it.

pl0bs wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

pl0bs wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:
Yes, but the "feeling" isn't a conscious process, is it? It's just automatic chemical and physical responses.

Exactly the same can be said about the human brain. Apparently, something being "just chemical" does not conflict with it being conscious.

Ha ha! The "just chemical" was a reference to that fact that there was no involvement of electro-chemical signalling (via a brain) in the case of the microbe, but is in the case of animals with brains.

Still, the brain is a physical system, and this does not preclude it from being conscious/intelligent. Why would this be different for other organisms, like these white bloodcells?

Firstly, white blood cells aren't organisms, they are cells within an organism. There are no wild populations of white blood cells, roaming free! Secondly, white blood cells never have ideas of their own about what top chase and what to flee. They just do what their cellular machinery makes them do. They don't have opinions or feelings about it. Some animals do have them.

pl0bs wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:You have been deceived by appearances, Igor. The processes inside the microbe that are responsible for its movement are a great deal simpler than those responsible for the movement (and other interactions, such as verbal ones) of an intelligent animal.

If the processes are simpler, why wouldnt the intelligence be simpler also?

It's not a question of "simpler intelligence", but of no intelligence, as such. They just carry out their function, like any other cell type in the body. If they had intelligence, they might complain about their miserable lot, and that woud be bad news for their owner!

It looks pretty much like prey/predator behaviour as seen everywhere else in nature. I just dont think it makes sense to divide organisms into black and white categories like "intelligent" and "non-intelligent". By doing so you simply run into problems explaining where the behaviour of other organisms (and ultimately our own) comes from.

DavidMcC wrote:Firstly, white blood cells aren't organisms, they are cells within an organism. There are no wild populations of white blood cells, roaming free!

Fine, they operate inside an organism.

Secondly, white blood cells never have ideas of their own about what top chase and what to flee. They just do what their cellular machinery makes them do. They don't have opinions or feelings about it. Some animals do have them.

You can say the same thing about brains: they do what their cellular machinery makes them do. Yet we know brains are conscious. Clearly, one does not exclude the other.

pl0bs wrote:...

You can say the same thing about brains: they do what their cellular machinery makes them do. Yet we know brains are conscious. Clearly, one does not exclude the other.[/quote]
There is a difference between a brain and a brain cell, pl0bs, and between a brain and other organs. Only the brain has a complex network of electrochemical signallers (neurons), some of which are in loop circuits that allow them to briefly hold information electrochemically (conscious awareness), and store that in memory (unconscious). Individual brain cells do not have these functions, but enable brain circuits to carry them out. AFAIK, there is no analogy elsewhere in biology to these brain circuits.

DavidMcC wrote:There is a difference between a brain and a brain cell, pl0bs, and between a brain and other organs. Only the brain has a complex network of electrochemical signallers (neurons), some of which are in loop circuits that allow them to briefly hold information electrochemically (conscious awareness), and store that in memory (unconscious). Individual brain cells do not have these functions, but enable brain circuits to carry them out. AFAIK, there is no analogy elsewhere in biology to these brain circuits.

My bs-detector always lights up when ppl start talking about feedback loops. Its a telltale sign that one is using the complexity of the brain as a scapegoat to hide metaphysical assumptions under. But complexity does not offer a safe haven for conjectures about intelligence/consciousness, because any complex system in any organism always stems from a simpler system in its ancestor. Try and focus on the very "first" instances of "networks" and "loops" on the evolutionary timeline and you will find that the fence around the safe haven has collapsed and now spans across many more species than just ones with brains.

The electrochemical reactions in the brain are physical, as are the "networks" and "circuits". So, as before, the mere fact that something is physical does not imply there is no intelligence/consciousness. It is popular nowadays to talk about intelligence in computer terms, but such terminology is a metaphor. Back in the days when clockworks and cogwheels were the most advanced machinery around, people used to think organisms were just like that. That clockworkmetaphor was overly simplistic compared to living beings, as is the computermetaphor right now.