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"The stream was just an example of a self-adjusting system that "makes engineering decisions" in the absence of an engineer or decider. It wasn't meant to prove anything about how cells work."

Water simply allows it self to be governed by outside forces.

last I knew, it requires intelligence to make decisions, but you have me just about convinced otherwise.

"And yet there is no engineer making the decisions--heck, a stream's not even alive! Think about how much more a living system can do."
"To say that because water does something[that in fact it does not], is proof that living cells containing DNA do something similar for the same reason, is a logical fallacy."
"Good thing I never said that then, isn't it? The stream was just an example of a self-adjusting system that "makes engineering decisions" in the absence of an engineer or decider. It wasn't meant to prove anything about how cells work.

By comparing the two in an equating manner, you were either indicating a similarity, or being deceptive.

" They are not necessarily already present: "When an individual has a significant injury to the brain, several things can cause improvement....Over the long term, there can also be sprouting of dendrites in the brain. The remaining neurons sprout, establishing new connections. After a traumatic brain injury, the brain tries to recover by creating new pathways."

http://www.vistacentre.ca/brain_info.html

Now, I expect you to say that that ability was preprogrammed into the brain. You're welcome to believe that if you like, but I don't know how you'd demonstrate it."

If the information required to sprout dendrites and neurons is not present before the brain injury, then why do different brains that have been injured all sprout the same kind of dendrites and neurons, and in the same fashion?

If it is as you say, the exact same thing should never happen twice.

But from that excerpt you posted, it would appear that the sprouting of dendrites and neurons has been observed to be repeatable.

The healing of damaged tissue(brain tissue included) falls under the same category as conception.(i.e., inherited, preprogrammed information)

Perhaps water was a bad example. It was really meant only as an example of how systems can appear to make decisions in the absence of intelligence, but it seems to have gotten us stuck in the ways water is not like a living system. Let's skip it.

By comparing the two in an equating manner, you were either indicating a similarity, or being deceptive.

Why yes, I was indicating a similarity--a very limited similarity in a very narrow aspect of their behavior. When the singer sings "lips like strawberry wine," do you complain that lips aren't liquid?

If the information required to sprout dendrites and neurons is not present before the brain injury...

You're changing your terms as you go. First you said the paths themselves were already present, now you're saying the information required to create paths is already present. Which do you mean? For that matter, what do you mean by "the information required," and what do you mean by "preprogrammed"? Yes, the brain comes equipped with the ability to grow new dendrites. Are you saying the particular dendrites and their locations are predetermined?