Do our cells care?

[Concordicus]

I put this topic here only because Daniel Dennett was noted avowed atheist. Among his famous quotes is this gem:

Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.

I disagree with this suggestion that the cells don’t know or care about the animal they are a part of.. Every living cell on this Earth (or any other planet for that matter) has two objectives – to survive and multiply. And every living cell has some degree of cognition – that is, the ability to receive, interpret and react to information.. This is true of one-celled living things as well as multi-celled things.

In a sense, I think my cells do know who I am because they ARE who I am. Almost every one of the approximately 30,000,000,000,000 cells that are me have the same unique genome and, in most instances, where cells interact they mostly interact only with cells with the same genome to the degree that most cells with alien genomes are eliminated. They also seem to somehow know that in order to maintain their own survival, they must help me survive. So I am not so sure that even as individual cells, they do not recognize who I am.

Every liver cell in an animal that has a liver, somehow knows it must fulfill its filtering function in order to keep its host alive or it, too, will expire when the host does. To that extent, our cells do care about us. .

There are just too many articles concerning cell cognition to recommend just one.

 

[ольга]

А откуда у всего живого имеется это желание - выжить? Откуда взялся этот главный для всего живого смысл?

 

[Pinball1970]

I put this topic here only because Daniel Dennett was noted avowed atheist. Among his famous quotes is this gem:


I disagree with this suggestion that the cells don’t know or care about the animal they are a part of.. Every living cell on this Earth (or any other planet for that matter) has two objectives – to survive and multiply. And every living cell has some degree of cognition – that is, the ability to receive, interpret and react to information.. This is true of one-celled living things as well as multi-celled things.

In a sense, I think my cells do know who I am because they ARE who I am. Almost every one of the approximately 30,000,000,000,000 cells that are me have the same unique genome and, in most instances, where cells interact they mostly interact only with cells with the same genome to the degree that most cells with alien genomes are eliminated. They also seem to somehow know that in order to maintain their own survival, they must help me survive. So I am not so sure that even as individual cells, they do not recognize who I am.

Every liver cell in an animal that has a liver, somehow knows it must fulfill its filtering function in order to keep its host alive or it, too, will expire when the host does. To that extent, our cells do care about us. .

There are just too many articles concerning cell cognition to recommend just one.

No. Conscious beings, living organisms care because to care is a feeling like, hate, love fear.
A single cell does not have feelings.

 

[ольга]

No. Conscious beings, living organisms care because to care is a feeling like, hate, love fear.
A single cell does not have feelings.

А что такое чувства? Это химические реакции, происходящие в Вашем теле. Что вызывает эти реакции?

 

[Pinball1970]

А что такое чувства? Это химические реакции, происходящие в Вашем теле. Что вызывает эти реакции?

You get my posts about Goggle, Yandex and Translate?

 

[ольга]

You get my posts about Goggle, Yandex and Translate?

Получила. У меня не получается включить обратный перевод с русского на английский. Возможно, причина в телефоне.

 

[Pinball1970]

Получила. У меня не получается включить обратный перевод с русского на английский. Возможно, причина в телефоне.

When you get the phone? 1993?

 

[ольга]

When you get the phone? 1993?

Какую трубку? Что такое 1993?

 

[exchemist]

I put this topic here only because Daniel Dennett was noted avowed atheist. Among his famous quotes is this gem:


I disagree with this suggestion that the cells don’t know or care about the animal they are a part of.. Every living cell on this Earth (or any other planet for that matter) has two objectives – to survive and multiply. And every living cell has some degree of cognition – that is, the ability to receive, interpret and react to information.. This is true of one-celled living things as well as multi-celled things.

In a sense, I think my cells do know who I am because they ARE who I am. Almost every one of the approximately 30,000,000,000,000 cells that are me have the same unique genome and, in most instances, where cells interact they mostly interact only with cells with the same genome to the degree that most cells with alien genomes are eliminated. They also seem to somehow know that in order to maintain their own survival, they must help me survive. So I am not so sure that even as individual cells, they do not recognize who I am.

Every liver cell in an animal that has a liver, somehow knows it must fulfill its filtering function in order to keep its host alive or it, too, will expire when the host does. To that extent, our cells do care about us. .

There are just too many articles concerning cell cognition to recommend just one.

No. Individual cells do not “care”.

Cells do not have an objective of multiplying, generally speaking. If they do, we call it cancer.

You are anthropomorphising, and ignoring the phenomenon of emergent properties.

You are also misunderstanding what is meant by cell cognition. It does not mean that individual cells can think.

 

[Pinball1970]

Какую трубку? Что такое 1993?

I was suggesting your phone is so archaic that it has insufficient function to translate.
I asked my friend in Moscow who I think will be incredulous to be honest, given the translate resources available these days on the net.
Let's see.

 

[ольга]

I was suggesting your phone is so archaic that it has insufficient function to translate.
I asked my friend in Moscow who I think will be incredulous to be honest, given the translate resources available these days on the net.
Let's see.

Нет, телефон современный. Я имела ввиду, что в яндекс браузере стоит уже предустановленный переводчик. Возможно, в нём не предусмотрена функция обратного перевода.

 

[TheVat]

There are just too many articles concerning cell cognition to recommend just one.

Better just pick one at random, then. Because your extraordinary claim calls for a citation.

 

[Concordicus]

The Vat said:

Better just pick one at random, then. Because your extraordinary claim calls for a citation.

Uhhhh when others post things I question, I usually just go and do my own research where I find articles which address both sides.

Ex-Chemist is correct that my position tends to anthropomorphize cell cognition and that it is not like cells are involved in a "thinking" p;rocess Can you explain cognition we do not fully understand without some comparison to the kind of cognition we do understand? If cells don't care if they live, why don't they just go ahead and die? If they do not have some "want" to preserve their genome, why do they reproduce?

Pinball 1970 said:

A single cell does not have feelings.

Then why does it react to external stimuli?

 

[Pinball1970]

The Vat said:



Uhhhh when others post things I question, I usually just go and do my own research where I find articles which address both sides.

Ex-Chemist is correct that my position tends to anthropomorphize cell cognition and that it is not like cells are involved in a "thinking" p;rocess Can you explain cognition we do not fully understand without some comparison to the kind of cognition we do understand? If cells don't care if they live, why don't they just go ahead and die? If they do not have some "want" to preserve their genome, why do they reproduce?

Pinball 1970 said:



Then why does it react to external stimuli?

Surrounding Biochemistry and their internal biochemistry.

 

[TheVat]

Uhhhh when others post things I question, I usually just go and do my own research where I find articles which address both sides.

Forum rules at all science websites. The one making an extraordinary claim (e.g. cells that think) is obliged to provide supporting peer-reviewed research. If you are uncertain about this, please contact a moderator here.

 

[DaveC426913]

Forum rules at all science websites. The one making an extraordinary claim (e.g. cells that think) is obliged to provide supporting peer-reviewed research. If you are uncertain about this, please contact a moderator here.

Concordicus : Confirming.

This is a discussion forum. If you want to discuss something, and it is ... contentious, the onus is on you to present a cogent argument.

There's a saying that gets used here: "Arguments that are made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". To-wit:

Q: Do our cells care?
A: No.

 

[DaveC426913]

A single cell does not have feelings.

Then why does it react to external stimuli?

Because of chemistry, not because of feelings.

 

[TheVat]

If cells don't care if they live, why don't they just go ahead and die? If they do not have some "want" to preserve their genome, why do they reproduce?

If ice crystals in Thule don't care if they continue, why don't they just dissolve? When winter came on the Greenland coast, did the ice crystals start to reproduce wildly because they wanted to spread their crystalline form? Isn't this organized matter reacting to a change in ambient temperature?

Please look up cognition in a dictionary of encyclopedia.

 

[C C]

[...] There are just too many articles concerning cell cognition to recommend just one.

Quorum sensing would presumably involve a cell responding to chemical signals in some kind of quasi-predictable way. But not "meaningful" in the sense of there being an accompanying internal experience (presentation of image, sound, odor, etc).

They don't possess a memory system like a brain or computer, so any "identification" and "understanding" of the "message" would be purely reactive behavior. Akin to one of those old-fashioned toy trains (without the tracks) bumping against a wall and then reversing or changing direction. The wandering toy train did not grok that there was an obstacle in its path via any kind of language, conceptual, and experience context, but solely as an outer action response to its environment.

 

[C C]

Нет, телефон современный. Я имела ввиду, что в яндекс браузере стоит уже предустановленный переводчик. Возможно, в нём не предусмотрена функция обратного перевода.

Well, so much for translating all your posts in one shot with Firefox's built-in translator. As a consequence, it also keeps altering my own [English] reply in weird ways. So it's back to translating them one at a time.