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> Dhw: [i]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.[/i]
> 
> DAVID: [i]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.[/i]
> 
> Use your imagination. Become a refugee in your mind, fleeing from the horrors of war. What are your everyday duties and accomplishments? To find food and eat. To expel waste. To avoid predators – especially those on two legs like yourself. To reproduce by using a standardized mechanism of sperm and egg. The name of the game is survival, and you use your intelligence to find ways of fulfilling all these basic needs, according to the environment in which you find yourself. Nobody is claiming that when bacteria have fulfilled all their basic needs, they begin to philosophize, to paint pictures and write symphonies, to explore the universe. All forms of life live extremely limited life styles,  but some are more limited than others. That does not make them automatons. The appearance of intelligence, no matter how limited, may well denote the existence of intelligence.