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?
"..Let's skip it.
I agree.
Concerning lyrics, it is oftentimes a requirement to use non-similar equations, to convey imagery or emotion.
But that is art, this is science.
(moving on...)
Just to clarify:
Information: DNA code that is recognized by the body.
Preprogrammed: Information that was inherited.
"The brains ability to re-route signals from damaged paths to unused, already present paths, is information that was preprogrammed into the cells DNA from conception."
"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?"
On the contrary, I said that there were existing
unused paths, and that the information required to connect into those already existing, unused paths, was inherited.
"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?"
Sorry for not being totally clear, I will attempt to clarify.
The
information required to
form any type of repair tissue is preprogrammed into the mechanism of the human body that actually does the repairs.
In other words, the damage repair mechanism is preprogrammed to know how to fashion the cells that will be installed.
The
information required to
install the replacement cells is also preprogrammed into the afore mentioned mechanism.
So when you cut your finger, the mechanism in your body that is responsible for repairing the damage, not only already knows how to make the cells that will ultimately be the
sum of the repairs, but it also has a set of
rules for installing those cells.
This is all
information and it
all was inherited from your parents.
An example of
new information not inherited from ones parents would be
cancer cells which can be generated from radiation bombardment, and to my knowledge, has
never been beneficial.
DNA is much like computer code, and cells are much like computers.
They do exactly what they are programed to do.
Inserting random data into DNA is like when your hard drive crashes.
It
never makes your computer run better and almost
always makes it completely useless.
In summing up, until we learn to decode the information that the damage repair mechanism uses to determine how and with what cells, repairs are done, it would be pure speculation to say
exactly how it works.
That said, it is observable that the damage repair mechanism has predefined areas where it can install new dendrites.
For example, it knows to
not repair a cut on your finger with dendrites.
On the other end of the spectrum, it would appear, that it
does have the necessary information to know exactly how to re-connect brain signals.
Just because the human body knows how to
repair damage to the brain, does
not constitute a
net increase of genetic information.
