Summations Only

Jar writes: 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.

Peter Swain writes: The Swain labCENTRE for SYSTEMS BIOLOGY at EDINBURGHUniversity of EdinburghWe study how cells make decisions. Gathering and processing information is fundamental to life. In all cells, this ability is conferred by biochemical networks, collections of genes and proteins that interact with each other and the extracellular environment. Information is detected by proteins at the cell membrane, processed by biochemical networks in the cytosol and nucleus, and then used to decide an appropriate cellular response. Such cellular decision-making is at the core of synthetic biology and its failure causes disease: whether it is a hijacking of the signalling network by a viral invader, the uncontrolled growth of cancer, or mistimings in the contractions of individual heart cells.Our work is supported by the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance and the BBSRC.

Theodoric writes: First of all that is web site not cite. You might want to learn how to use these two words properly.
Second of all any chance you might provide a link or do we have to do the research ourselves?

Theodoric writes: You really need to have some very basic science classes I think. Do you know anything about chemistry?
It seems you just did a web search for anything that remotely supported what Zi Ko is proposing.

Admin writes: Shadow, please, that's enough quoting other people as your only argument. The Internet's a big place. You will always be able to find someone to quote. Here at this discussion board you're expected to make your own arguments. If you want to promote Swain's views that's fine, but you'll have to do it using your own words, not his, and you'll have to do it at this website, not by sending people to Swain's website. Use other websites only as supporting references.

Malcolm writes: That probably doesn't make it much clearer, but what it's basically explaining is that this 'decision-making' process is nothing more than a series of protein-protein or protein-gene interactions governed by biochemical properties, intelligence not included. This also gives us insight into what he refers to on the homepage when he talks about how cells 'decide an appropriate cellular response'.

Larni writes: You could also think of the behaviour a one person in a building where they work: impossible to predict. But the behaviour of every one in the building obeys certain predictable rules that can be used to predict the behaviour of the group.
Also like in the formation of ice: we can't predict exactly where the first crystal will form but we know they will form.

Larni writes: No they don't: please show how they do.

Wounded King message 253 writes: At its heart biochemistry is a study of stochastic processes. This is not, as you put it, 'completely random' but neither is it deterministic, instead it is probabilistic.

Wounded King writes: And the behaviour can be unlearnt ...Using microevolution experiments in which increase in temperature was unnaturally followed by increase in oxygen, Tagkopoulos et al evolved
bacteria in which the association between oxygen and temperature was substantially reduced.They do not posit any intelligence planning the response, instead the stochastic cellular processes of the population are entrained by the environment and the process of natural selection to 'expect' certain conditions to follow certain other conditions and respond accordingly.The only way I can see this qualifying as any sort of intelligence is if you define the term simply to mean anything demonstrating an ability to respond to its environment.