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> > DAVID’s comment: [i]Bigger brains can think and find solutions.[/i]
> > 
> > dhw: “Large organisms chauvinism”! I wonder where you draw the line. Insects have smaller brains, and appear to think and find solutions. Bacteria have no brains, but appear to think and find solutions. One might argue that if organisms appear to think and find solutions, maybe they do think and find solutions. Alternatively, if smaller ones have been preprogrammed to look as if they think but they don’t, maybe bigger ones have been preprogrammed to look as if they think but they don’t. Your God can do anything, so if bacteria are mere automatons, why not you and me, brother?
> > 
> > I’ll be very bold here. It seems to me that if organisms behave as if they are intelligent - i.e. they are able to solve problems, take decisions, respond to their surroundings and adapt their behaviour accordingly – the least one can do is allow for the possibility that they ARE intelligent.
> 
> Yes be bold. Use your writer's imagination to become a bacteria in your mind. What is your life like? What are your everyday duties and  accomplishments? To find food and eat. To expel waste. To avoid predators. To reproduce by using a standardized mechanism to split in two. To shift from one metabolic pathway to another available one to adapt to local environmental changes. Not like a dolphin, or a human. Bacteria live within one cubic millimeter their entire lives, extreme or not. Bacteria live extremely limited life styles, which allows for my contention they are automatons. Please try your imagination.