Summations Only

The plant's movement is just a result of chemical reactions.When you move your hand near a fire, your cells do not think "I'd better tell the brain it is warm!": instead the damaged cells react chemically to the heat which, in turn, sends an electro-chemical signal to the brain.
Their behaviour is as regular and predictable as the motion of a newton's cradle - no intelligence required.The only thing that controls the chemical reactions are chemical laws/laws of physics.
Once certain conditions are met, the cells have no choice but to react in specific ways.

Memory or information Sure it's mechanics but it take information/memory/intelligence to initiate it. It's a bit like us pulling our hand away from a hot burner. It's instinctive and it's mechanical but it took information/memory/intelligence to initiate the act.

I replied to jar brfore seeing your reply.I agree that it isn't active intelliegence but it seems to me that a plant or my hand requires stored information or intelligence to react. A dead leaf doesn't turn towards the sun as the information has been lost.It seems to me that the chemical reaction and the electro-chemical signal that you mentioned required stored information in the living cells of the plant to behave the way they do.By the way, you're up late.

Utter crap.No it does not take information/memory/intelligence to initiate it. And your example of pulling a hand away from hot surface is NOT similar.The plant cannot decide to turn away from the sun.There is no "learned response".There is no "memory" involved.There is no "information" in any sense that might be even vaguely related to intelligence.The plant turning to face the sun is simple mechanics with NO decisions involved.

The behaviour of chemicals inside the plant's cells are dependent on the laws of physics. They cannot behave in any other way.
A plant has a particular combination of chemicals+cells which when subjected to sunlight will rotate the plant to face the light.
If they have that particular combination of cells then they have no choice but to turn to the light - in the same way that ice has no choice but to melt when heated. This is because the chemical reactions have finished.
Think of it like paper: you can't burn paper twice.
The fire changes the paper chemically and it cannot be re-burnt.
A dead leaf is similar - it has changed chemically and can no longer turn to the light. But it is just a chemical reaction.
If you stretch an elastic band and then release it, it will return to its original length.
Do you think that is because of stored information?
Or is it just the unavoidable behaviour of rubber due to its chemical composition? I only need 4-5 hours of sleep.

There is here a tedency to oversimplification and using exambles no analogues to each other.That offspring does not rely only to mutation rate in its evolution. It is memory, decisin making, repairing, ineraction between information units,etc. Thinking is clearly a human characteristic, but grades of it is met to animals, even lower ones, as well.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oversimplification and inappropriate using of analogues.Edited by zi ko, : No reason given.

It's not oversimplification.It's just reality.You are suggesting mechanisms and abilities within cells when there is no evidence that such is present and no need for them to be present to accurately describe what is happening. Yes, but we aren't talking about pigs or dolphins.We are talking about individual cells.There's no evidence that my (however many) skin cells are each involved in independent thought.

Thanks PandaFrankly even after googling around I don't understand the subject anywhere near well enough to debate you so if you don't mind I'll just ask another question.My understanding is that the human body changes every cell in that body at least once every 7 years. (Which begs the question who is the real me. ) This being the case then I assume that replacement cells require information gathered from outgoing cells to perform their required function in the body. Wouldn't that constitute information or stored intelligence?Cheers

Information and intelligence are 2 very different things and the idea that the former requires the latter is a pernicious assumption of ID arguments (see Gitt Information for a particularly blatant example).The sort of information you are talking about is in 2 places, one is in the stem cell populations which produce new cells and the other is in the environment in which the cell develops. The stem cell already has an accumulation of information in the form of epigenetic changes to its genome which reflect its developmental history. On top of this the daughter cell will develop its own individual developmental history as it progresses towards final differentiation and the environmental signals from surrounding cells/tissues will principally define that.TTFN,WK

Nope. He really is talking about a cell having intelligence. In a previous thread he was talking about exactly the same thing but using the word empathy. This is a purely chemical reaction; mediated by light levels, not mediated by intelligence.Edited by Larni, : Second [qs]

Since you seem reluctant or unable to explain or support your statement, I will simply assume the opposite position:
No, it is not an oversimplification and inappropriate using of analogues.

I am a long way from being an expert.
I think I might simply have a couple more years of googling than you. Different cells change at different speeds.
From what I have read, cerebral cortex neurons are the only cells never replaced - so they would seem a prime candidate for being the real you. As pointed out by Wounded King (above), information and intelligence are not the same.
Books contain information, but we would never consider them intelligent.Cells can be created by a parent cell dividing into 2 daughter cells (these are duplicates of the parent cell) or by a stem cell dividing into 2 daughter cells (which are not identical to the stem cell).
The parent cell uses itself as a template for creating its 2 daughter cells.
I bow to WK's more learned description of where the stem cell gets it template from.To expand a bit on 'information', it is very easy to confuse what we consider to be information and actually knowing something.
The soil in my garden is quite acidic. This is information.
But the plants don't know it is acidic. They don't know if they can or can't grow there.
A seed lands on my garden and either successfully grows or dies.
The plant doesn't know the information that the soil is acidic - it just reacts chemically to the acid in the soil.
There is no intelligence telling the plant to die - it is just a simple chemical reaction. Edited by Panda, : No reason given.

I think ziko is playing a game of definitional dimwittedness of epic proprtions. But having said that.....I am going to ask a devils advocate question that you can choose to pursue or ignore as you see fit.Are brain cells any different to what you have described above? Don't they obey the laws of physics? Can they behave in any other way? If NOT being restricted by these things is the criteria for "intelligence" then can we really say that our brains, and thus we, are "intelligent"....?

OK. But to "think" requires a brain of some sort does it not?In what sense do cells "think".....?
Is my computer "thinking" as it responds to my keyboard inputs?
Are pebbles "thinking" as they respond to gravity or any other forces applied to them?If you are going to say that cells "think" then you need to provide some sort of dividing line between that which "thinks" and that which doesn't and explain your reasons for drawing that boundary.