What is the difference between animate and inanimate matter?
John Bode
cannot arise from "inanimate" matter or "dead" atoms, which brings up
the question:
What is the difference between "animate" and "inanimate" matter? Is
there an intrinsic difference between the hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,
calcium, iron, etc., that make up my body and the hydrogen, oxygen,
carbon, calcium, iron, etc., that make up my house?
Is a dead body composed of "animate" or "inanimate" matter? How about
a skeleton? How about a fingernail clipping? How about dried blood on
a bandage?
Atoms are neither live nor dead. Matter is neither animate nor
inanimate. Certain *arrangements* of matter can be said to be living
things, but the matter itself is not "alive".
If this is not what the anti-abiogenesis crowd means by "dead" atoms or
"inanimate" matter, then please help me understand what you *do* mean.
tgde...@earthlink.net
> There's a recurring argument among the anti-abiogenesis crowd that life
> cannot arise from "inanimate" matter or "dead" atoms, which brings up
> the question:
>
> What is the difference between "animate" and "inanimate" matter? Is
> there an intrinsic difference between the hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,
> calcium, iron, etc., that make up my body and the hydrogen, oxygen,
> carbon, calcium, iron, etc., that make up my house?
>
> Is a dead body composed of "animate" or "inanimate" matter? How about
> a skeleton? How about a fingernail clipping? How about dried blood on
> a bandage?
>
> Atoms are neither live nor dead. Matter is neither animate nor
> inanimate. Certain *arrangements* of matter can be said to be living
> things, but the matter itself is not "alive".
I'm certainly not anti-abiogenesis but I use those terms (inanimate and
animate) and what they refer to is an *aggregation* of matter
(aggregation of atoms, if that's where you draw the reductive line),
which is perfectly correct English. Do you think the words were just
invented for this debate?
-tg
CreateThis
wrote:
They don't mean either one of those. No matter what words they use,
their message is the same: "I believe in gods and so should you."
CT
Denis Loubet
"John Bode" <john...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1164802446.0...@16g2000cwy.googlegroups.com...
They think something has to be breathed into a pile of dust by a god.
Everything's a magic spell with them.
--
Denis Loubet
dlo...@io.com
http://www.io.com/~dloubet
http://www.ashenempires.com
Kermit
tgde...@earthlink.net wrote:
> John Bode wrote:
> > There's a recurring argument among the anti-abiogenesis crowd that life
> > cannot arise from "inanimate" matter or "dead" atoms, which brings up
> > the question:
> >
> > What is the difference between "animate" and "inanimate" matter? Is
> > there an intrinsic difference between the hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,
> > calcium, iron, etc., that make up my body and the hydrogen, oxygen,
> > carbon, calcium, iron, etc., that make up my house?
> >
> > Is a dead body composed of "animate" or "inanimate" matter? How about
> > a skeleton? How about a fingernail clipping? How about dried blood on
> > a bandage?
> >
> > Atoms are neither live nor dead. Matter is neither animate nor
> > inanimate. Certain *arrangements* of matter can be said to be living
> > things, but the matter itself is not "alive".
>
>
> I'm certainly not anti-abiogenesis but I use those terms (inanimate and
> animate) and what they refer to is an *aggregation* of matter
> (aggregation of atoms, if that's where you draw the reductive line),
> which is perfectly correct English. Do you think the words were just
> invented for this debate?
>
Those of us who use normal, non-rhetorical English usually use these
words when refereing to objects, e.g.
"The wizard animated the clay golem with a dark spell."
"The cartoon was animated by a former Disney animator."
When he saw the robot watching him, he began to suspect it was not an
inanimate pile of junk."
Creationists typically refer to animate or inanimate "atoms" or
"matter". And I think it is reasonable to ask how they think an animate
carbon atom differs from an inanimate.
I think it's pretty clear that in real life (not fantasies) life is
found in the *organization of a mass of atoms. The carbon12 atoms in my
body are precisely the same as the carbon12 atoms anywhere else, except
for location.
Their language seems calculated to imply that there is some elan vital
that has to be divinely infused. If they admit that their carbon atoms
"live" only in the sense that they are part of the arrangement found in
a living organism, then it's harder for them to assert that it's
obvious that it couldn't happen by natural means.
If they insist that there is something different about them, then that
will be another fantastic assertion with no supporting evidence. Or if
there *is supporting evidence, I'd be very interested in hearing it!
> -tg
>
>
> >
> > If this is not what the anti-abiogenesis crowd means by "dead" atoms or
> > "inanimate" matter, then please help me understand what you *do* mean.
Kermit
r norman
<unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Living" matter is different from "dead" not just in the organization
of material but also in the dynamic activities performed by that
material. A dead cell has essentially the same organization as a
living one. The difference is the absence of the complex interacting
processes which, of course, are very dependent on the particular
organization.
There is no difference in the kind of matter or even the types of
processes performed by living vs. dead material. It is just that
"life" constitutes a particular type of organization and pattern of
activity.
Bodega
John Bode wrote:
> There's a recurring argument among the anti-abiogenesis crowd that life
> cannot arise from "inanimate" matter or "dead" atoms, which brings up
Since the "crowd" is anti-abiogenesis, just what is the argument? You
don't argue over "that," you argue over "whether." What are the
opposing positions?
-- Mike Palmer
tgde...@earthlink.net
Of course that's what they are doing. My critique is about how you
might answer them.
>If they admit that their carbon atoms
> "live" only in the sense that they are part of the arrangement found in
> a living organism, then it's harder for them to assert that it's
> obvious that it couldn't happen by natural means.
>
It is easy enough to answer as I did, that the reference is to an
aggregation, and that it is normal English. Your counterexamples, in
case you didn't realize it, all refer to science fiction. How about "it
is harder to tow a trailer holding a couple of live horses than one
full of inanimate matter of the same composition"?
My goal in answering propagandistic language is to counteract the
effect. You and many others don't seem to understand that if people
were as strongly influenced by careful reasoning as by propaganda,
there would be no debate in the first place.
Creationists would like to have people think that the existence of
animate aggregations of matter is 'miraculous'. You apparently wish to
have people think that it is completely unremarkable. My inclination is
to find some word which resonates with people in general. Call me a
silly romantic, but I find the existence of life to be something like
'marvelous' or at least 'pretty kew-el'.
-tg
Friar Broccoli
Doesn't it just boil down to the fact that living things
can replicate themselves or parts of themselves and
dead things cannot?
r norman
wrote:
That is just one aspect of the type of process I mean. However you do
have to be careful. It is possible to define "replication" to include
crystal growth that depends on existing seeds or computer code that
makes and disperses copies of itself. Ordinarily replication is just
one component of the traditional "definitions of life". There really
is no truly satisfactory formal definition. It is mostly "I know it
when I see it" kind of thing.
r norman
wrote:
Yes, it is impolite to respond to one's own posting, but I should
mention that there are a number of factors that make defining "life" a
very tricky operation.
There are objects, spores and seeds typically, that can remain
totally inert without apparent metabolism or activity, certainly not
replication, for many years, decades, or even millennia. Then, under
the proper conditions, they "waken" or "reanimate" to become alive.
If you define them not to be alive during the interim, then you have
life springing from non-life as an everyday phenomenon. So life must
include the "potential to show life under the proper circumstances".
Then you get into trouble formally defining the proper circumstances.
My computer might then be alive if "proper circumstances" includes the
development of some vaguely imaginable future technology in which my
computer, inserted into the "proper equipment", will replicate.
There is enormous difficulty defining the difference between an
organism being alive and defining whether any or all of the cells of
that organism are alive. People are declared dead even though their
hearts and kidneys and corneas and many other tissues and organs
remain perfectly alive. You can't transplant dead organs. (There are
some exceptions as when dead connective tissue is used as a matrix on
which new connective tissue can grow.)
The same difficulty occurs defining the start of a new "life" as in
when to say that a new person occurs. Truly the separate sperm and
unfertilized egg are alive but few people other than biologists would
say that they constitute "true individual human life" or "personhood".
But nothing magically happens at the "moment of conception" because
there is no such moment. The egg cell even has to complete its second
meiotic division after the sperm has fertilized the egg. No genes
from the sperm are expressed until after the initial cleavage
divisions have completed so you can't even call the early embryo a
proper "individual". You end up with "potential human" but then each
separate sperm and egg can be considered "potential humans" given the
"proper conditions" (which include fertilization).
This type of problem is why biologists tend not to spend any (or much)
time trying to define just what life is. Even in intro courses we
usually just dive directly into what the living things are and how
they (we) work rather than defining it. Listing the "seven essential
characteristics of life" (or four or two or whatever number you
prefer) on the first day of class is simply a meaningless exercise
used only to produce an easy exam question.
Kermit
I suspect that if you look very, very carefully - more carefully than
we can at the moment - we will see that there are differences between
the arrangement of all of the atoms in a dead cell and all of the atoms
in a live cell. I agree that this may not be the most useful way of
looking at things, but if we had a very smart computer, with very
precise and very fast tweezers, in principle we could turn a living
cell into a barely dead cell and vice-versa just by moving a few
billion atoms around. The sum of their interactions would be the
pattern of activity you mention.
Kermit
Kermit
You wound me, sirruh.
If one is developing a recording device for sound, then one could
accurately say that if one can record a frog croaking faithfully, one
could (in principle) record a Mozart symphony. This is not to denigrate
Mozart in any way, but only to cool the fevered babbling of those who
insist that a mere machine cannot capture the magic of the divine
master of music.
That fact is that life is made of atoms no more animate than atoms
found in a lump of mud, and natural processes make life from non-life
every moment, and have for billions of years. As wondrous as it may be,
we do not need more than the laws of chemistry to understand how the
atoms interact.
The exciting stuff is at a larger scale - the emergent properties of
the proper arrangment of "stuff". A science fiction novel might
postulate an alien device that could duplicate an entire orchestra atom
for atom, in an instant, and reproduce a concert in midnote. But simply
examining the location of all the atoms would not explain humans, nor
Mozart, nor the cultural history those musicians (and their
dopplegangers) brought to the stage.
In my defense, creationists have more than once used the phrase "dead
atoms" on this newsgroup when conflating abiogenesis with evolution.
The rhetorical question they ask "What random chance could bring dead
atoms together into a living cell?" sounds grander and ever so more
unlikely than "What natural processes could produce a simple system of
self-replicating molecules?
>
> -tg
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > If they insist that there is something different about them, then that
> > will be another fantastic assertion with no supporting evidence. Or if
> > there *is supporting evidence, I'd be very interested in hearing it!
> >
> > > -tg
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > If this is not what the anti-abiogenesis crowd means by "dead" atoms or
> > > > "inanimate" matter, then please help me understand what you *do* mean.
> >
> > Kermit
Kermit reloaded
Lee Jay
> I think it's pretty clear that in real life (not fantasies) life is
> found in the *organization of a mass of atoms. The carbon12 atoms in my
> body are precisely the same as the carbon12 atoms anywhere else, except
> for location.
And energy (temperature) and bond condition (what they are bonded to
and how) and potentially ionization state.
Lee Jay
Kermit
So you're saying that the universe *isn't just a bunch of billiard
balls bouncing around?
Kermit
Lee Jay
I wouldn't have put it that way, but I think it's true!
Lee Jay
r norman
<unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
The problem is that I describe life as a dynamic system. That is, it
is not just the atoms in the right place, but atoms in the right place
moving at the right velocity so as to produce the necessary physical
chemical and biochemical processes. Once you put dynamics into the
story, you no longer have pure structure, which is a static concept.
Kermit
Yeah. You're right.
That is what I was clumsily groping for. Stuff can't be considered
alive or dead except in context. Context, as you say, is not just
physical position, though. But can they be seperated? I mean, if we're
talking about sufficient numbers of the right atoms in the right place,
aren't they going to be interacting anyway? Or do we have to adjust all
the bonds and energy levels and such also? Obviously, as Lee Jay so
kindly pointed out, the temperature would have to be right, also...
Kermit
Perplexed in Peoria
"r norman" <r_s_norman@_comcast.net> wrote in message news:isavm2pmonn4ao52r...@4ax.com...
Your emphasis on the dynamics, rather than static structures, seems to
me to retain a whiff of 'vitalism'. One would think, after reading what
you write here, that a living thing is killed - never to be revived -
by rapidly freezing it and emersing in liquid nitrogen for an extended
period. All dynamism, all coherent motion is stopped, right? But if
the structure is maintained (and not disrupted by water-ice crystals)
we find that frozen organisms can often be 'brought back to life'.
tgde...@earthlink.net
Well, no offense, really, but you aren't getting that Propaganda
Minister position.
If someone asks:
"What random chance could bring dead atoms together into a living
cell?"
You could also say:
"Yeah, that's really amazing isn't it? Puzzles like that are why I
became a scientist."
The point, which I've made before, is that they are delighted to
juxtapose their 'grand' statement with your analytical rectitude. *The
content is irrelevant*. Remember the last couple of presidential
elections, where the question was "who would you rather have a beer
with?", and the guy who actually couldn't drink beer got elected? (kind
of)
-tg
r norman
Dynamic system theory differs from vitalism in not requiring any
special 'elan vitale' outside of the laws of physics. In fact dynamic
system theory merely incorporates the laws of physics and allows them
to work out the dynamic processes. Even Newtonian determinism
requires knowledge of both the position and the velocity of every
particle and thereby surpasses mere structural knowledge.
More formally, a dynamic system may possess several 'basins of
attraction' in which different dynamic trajectories, different
patterns of dynamic behavior, can occur. I would define a living
system as a dynamic system which possesses one particular type of
basin that includes metabolism, responsiveness, reproduction, etc.;
the traditional features of life. In that case, a dead 'living thing'
is the system parked in an alternative basin where the trajectory
merely responds to external forces just like the basins of all
inanimate objects (systems). A living system may include alternate
basins such as an inert state found in spores or seeds or in being
frozen. These can be nudged into a different pattern of behavior,
into a different trajectory in a different basin. That is, into
'life'.
Life certainly does involve structure to a tremendous degree. There
are some very special structures which do produce a dynamic system
with such a special dynamic basin and many others, the inanimate ones,
that have no such a basin at all. But even a structure which
possesses the basin is not living in my definition unless it is
actually occupying a trajectory (that is, it is functioning in the
mode) that we call living. If a once living system traverses into the
basin called 'death', then it might be nudged back into the 'living'
state with proper environmental forces. However once in the 'dead'
state, the structure quickly alters into a form that no longer even
produces the 'living' basin so that it becomes truly inanimate at that
point.
Yes, structure and function are intimately related. But don't accept
the one without including the other.
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Doesn't it just boil down to the fact that living things
> can replicate themselves or parts of themselves and
> dead things cannot?
And living things can synthesize all the remaining non-replicated parts.
With my tiny amendment, I like your definition.
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> there are a number of factors that make defining "life" a
> very tricky operation.
> There are objects, spores and seeds typically, that can remain
> totally inert without apparent metabolism or activity, certainly not
> replication, for many years, decades, or even millennia. Then, under
> the proper conditions, they "waken" or "reanimate" to become alive.
Even an actively "living" entity doesn't carry out all the
processes of life 24/7. For example, a cell grows for several hours
without replicating its DNA, then suddenly in a brief time it
replicates the DNA. Is it not alive most of the time, when its DNA
is not actually getting replicated at that moment? No, it's alive
the whole time. So how to reconcile definitions of what life does
if it doesn't do it all the time?
Life is the whole system, which at various stages in its life cycle
performs the various tasks required per the definition of life. So
long as the entity is still in that life cycle somewhere, it is
still alive. If part of the life cycle is to be dormant as a seed
or spore, or even as viral DNA with protein coat within a crystal,
that's still considered life. When it's left that life cycle, never
to return, such as after the apoptosis cascade has gotten going,
then at some point we can declare it either dying already or dead
already.
> life must include the "potential to show life under the proper
> circumstances".
I would say that's not quite sufficient for life, but *is*
sufficient for pre-life. Like death, where what was formerly living
ceases to be alive any more, during abiogenesis what was formerly
not living but had the potential to be alive becomes fully alive.
Where you draw the line between pre-life and life is rather
arbitrary, and per my backtracking a successful replicator to very
first copy thereof it's not even possible to know something is
alive until well after the fact when it has achieved enough copies
to qualify as "was already alive when there was just one instance".
To be already alive, it must have been in active life cycle in the
past, and *also* have potential to resume active life cycle in the
future under proper circumstances.
> My computer might then be alive if "proper circumstances"
> includes the development of some vaguely imaginable future
> technology in which my computer, inserted into the "proper
> equipment", will replicate.
Well no. First of all, the computer as it stands now isn't alive,
isn't a whole living system, it's just a possible genome that might
be used as such in some future larger system of which it would be
just a part. Secondly, it hasn't yet started the active life cycle,
so it isn't yet alive. At best it could be part of pre-life now, to
become living at some time in the future.
> There is enormous difficulty defining the difference between an
> organism being alive and defining whether any or all of the cells of
> that organism are alive. People are declared dead even though their
> hearts and kidneys and corneas and many other tissues and organs
> remain perfectly alive. You can't transplant dead organs.
I don't see your problem with seeing the difference. The whole
organism life cycle includes making sperm or eggs, mating, zygote,
ball, blastula, embryo, foetus, baby, youth, and puberty. When the
"person" is dead but the liver is still alive, that liver no longer
has the capability of the full-human life cycle, so we can say
clearly the whole-organism is dead already. But the individual
cells have a different life cycle. They merely grow and undergo
mitosis. (I'm talking about somatic cells here.) They continue to
do that in the transplanted liver, so it's clear the cells are
still doing their normal life cycle, so they are still alive as
cells.
Compare this to the distinction between society and the individual.
Robinson Crusoe is stranded on an island. He is still alive as an
individual, but he is no longer part of a larger society. The
transplanted liver is still alive as a bunch of liver cells
organized into a liver orga, but is no longer part of a larger
organism of the same genotype. Now Robinson Crusoe finds his way
off the island, but not to his homeland, to some strange land with
"natives" totally unlike his original culture and biological close
relatives etc. Now he's part of a different culture, just as the
transplanted liver is nw part of a different body. Now to make the
anology closer: There's an atomic war, and everyone on Earth is
killed except Robinson Crusoe. His culture/society is *dead*. But
space aliens adopt him, and he spends the rest of his life with
them. He's like the transplanted liver after the donor body is
dead. (The original new-culture metaphor is more like voluntary
donation of body parts while the donor still alive.)
> The same difficulty occurs defining the start of a new "life" as in
> when to say that a new person occurs.
This is just a matter of people who don't bother to define their
terms before starting arguments. If people are clear whether they
are referring to
- a new diploid genome (which as you point out forms shortly after
fertilization, after the second egg division, when the *real*
merger of two haploid genomes happens), or
- a new successful bunch of cells destined to become a human embryo
(after several mitotic cell divisions have happened, whereby the
death of a few of the cells wouldn't result in death of the
foetus-to-be, analagous to my "successful" replicator during
abiogenesis where ten or so copies assure continued exponential
growth), or
- something that looks like an animal (when the blastula forms), or
- something that looks like a deuterostome (when the first
invagination has started to develop into a gut instead of a mouth),
or
- something that looks like a chordate (when the notochord
develops), or
- something that looks like a placental mammal (when the placenta
and umbilical cord form), or
- something that looks like a primate (when it starts sucking its
thumb?), or
- something that looks human (when you can tell the difference
between a chimp foetus and a human foetus), or
- when it passes the critical majority-spontaneous-abortion period
and thereby has very good chance of reaching birth, or
- when it exhibits specifically human behaviour (when it starts
talking in a way that no chimp or gorilla could ever, or when it
starts walking upright for extended times without needing to hold
onto anything), or
- when it can pass an IQ test showing it to be more intelligent in
human-specific ways than any other species, or
- when it reaches sexual maturity, demonstrating it's fertile, or
- when it reaches the age of consent, allowed to make its own decisions.
then from that definition it's clear *when* it's considered a new
person has finally occurred. For different purposes, different
definitions of what has to be achieved are appropriate. For
example, it's not allowed to vote until a certain age. But all of
these are cultural, which threshold must be reached before it will
be granted which rights/priviledges, or statistical, which
threshold must be reached before we can be reasonably sure the rest
of the life cycle will be carried out. Note that achieving zygote
is neither a statistical guarantee of probable birth, nor a
threshold for society to protect it against harm. In most cases
it's not even known whether a zygote was formed until and unless it
proceeds onward to form a foetus. Only in artificial "test tube"
(petri dish) fertilization can anyone promptly observe each new
zygote. Except in that circumstance, anyone who claims every zygote
must be protected from the moment it's formed, is being ridiculous,
due to lack of any way to even know there's a zygote in the first
place much less any technology to ensure that it develops through
the ball and blastula stages and gets implanted etc. In summary,
the whole idea of drawing a line at some point in the life cycle,
and claiming something "new" forms at that point, and therefore the
"new" thing has special rights its predecessor(s) didn't have, is a
silly argument.
> No genes from the sperm are expressed until after the initial
> cleavage divisions have completed so you can't even call the
> early embryo a proper "individual". You end up with "potential
> human" but then each separate sperm and egg can be considered
> "potential humans" given the "proper conditions" (which include
> fertilization).
Yup.
And from a reductionist view, counting atoms, most of the atoms in
the foetus weren't present in the blastula, so the blastula is only
a tiny part of the future human, and likewise most of the atoms in
the blastula weren't in the zygote, so the zygote is only a tiny
part of the future blastula, and some of the atoms in the zygote
weren't in the egg (and a vast majority weren't in the sperm) so
the egg is only part of the zygote and the sperm is only a very
tiny part of the zygote. A vast majority of (the atoms of) what
constitute a full human being came from food rather than from the
zygote. So to say the zygote is already a human being is silly.
> Listing the "seven essential characteristics of life" (or four or
> two or whatever number you prefer)
One? Convert matter unlike-self to more like-self?
> on the first day of class is simply a meaningless exercise used
> only to produce an easy exam question.
Agreed. On the other hand, a listing of characteristics that all
life has, and which some life has but other life doesn't have,
might be a good think-about topic.
Oh, one last thought: To directly answer the question in the
Subject field: There's no intrinsic difference between animate
matter and inanimate matter. Animate matter is any matter that
happens to be currently part of a living organism, while inanimate
matter is any other matter elsewhere. Any given particle of matter
changes roles as it enters or leaves a living organism. For
example, when a molecule of water (inanimate matter) enters a
photosynthetic cell, all three atoms temporarily become part of
that cell, hence "animate matter", then later when the hydrogen
atoms are taken away to form part of a sugar molecule, and the
oxygen atom is joined with an oxygen atom from another water
molecule to form a molecule of oxygen, and vented out to the air,
the oxygen atom ceases to be part of the cell, hence reverts to
being "inanimate matter" again.
r norman
When you get down to all the little details, the difference between
'animate' and 'inanimate' is devilishly difficult to define precisely.
It generally comes down to "I know it when I see it".
Glenn
Denis Loubet
"Glenn" <GlennS...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:1165008129.9...@16g2000cwy.googlegroups.com...
Well, technically that would be alchemy. ;-)
John Wilkins
Well, technically and *plausibly* that would be nuclear physics.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
Friar Broccoli
>r norman wrote:
>>Friar Broccoli wrote:
[snipping to get to what *-*-*_I_*-*-* said]
Keeping in mind some of Robert Maas's points (especially the
Robinson Crusoe analogy) I still think that replication is the
condition that is both necessary and sufficient to define life.
The reason I believe this results from my consideration of
abiogenesis, where the ONLY difference between the objects that
gave rise to life and all the other inanimate stuff about was
the ability of those first forms to replicate.
I therefore propose this slightly modified definition:
Something is alive when it can, as an individual, or as part
of a group, at least potentially, make independent copies of
itself in a natural environment. In short, something is
alive if it can replicate.
I hope the "independent copies" clause gets rid of the crystal
problem (although it is interesting that that's what Trilobites
used for eye lenses.)
Similarly I hope the "natural environment" clause gets rid of
the viral computer code problem. By "natural" I just mean: not
an artificial human creation. (more below)
I don't see seeds as a problem because they can replicate.
The "as part of a group" and "at least potentially" clauses are
intended to get rid of problems like non-reproducing worker
ants, homosexuals, individuals who are beyong reproductive
age, and separate cells (including sperm) or organs.
That leaves the problem of robots building copies of
themselves. From my point of view this is just the start of a
new life form. Eventually (perhaps within my life time), this
will begin to happen. When it takes hold "evolution" will
really accelerate, since then there will be no doubt that some
"life" really is designed. Actually I expect that the robots
will, in fairly short order (well within a few million years)
exterminate (out-compete?) us. No doubt this has already
occurred elsewhere in the universe.
Bracing for the counter offensive:
Cordially;
Friar Broccoli
Robert Keith Elias, Quebec, Canada Email: EliasRK (of) gmail * com
Best programmer's & all purpose text editor: http://www.semware.com
--------- I consider ALL arguments in support of my views ---------
r norman
wrote:
>r norman wrote:
I am often considered offensive but not necessarily as a counter.
Without going into lists of exceptions that we could quibble about
forever, your definition illustrates the real problem. You say "in
short, something is alive if it can replicate" but then your longer
preamble includes so many hedges and not-well-defined concepts: "at
least potentially", "natural environment", 'individual", "part of a
group", "independent copies", "copies of itself". All of these need
precise definition if you are to give a useful formal definition. In
particular, there are serious problems with "potential', with defining
an "individual", between formally defining what you mean by "natural",
by how accurate or approximate you mean by "copy". Are you saying
that viruses are alive? That sterile or celibate individuals are not
alive? You say your clauses are designed to cover these issues. I
claim your clauses are designed to allow different people to interpret
quite differently just what "alive" really means. Once you start
explaining just what you mean, your definition is not terribly clean
and simple.
I also have a philosophical issue of focussing exclusively on
replication. For example, an organism is a machine that transforms
energy from one form to another to accomplish some purpose (that being
to stay alive and to reproduce). So is an electric motor (although
with different purpose). An organism is a machine that processes
information (notwithstanding John Wilkins' severe demurral). So is a
computer. However it takes energy to construct an organism, an
electric motor, or a computer. In the case of a living entity, the
energy to build itself derives from its own operation, its metabolism.
The energy to construct an electric motor or a computer comes from
outside. It also takes "information" (John, yes it truly does!) to
specify the details of how the machinery is to be assembled. In the
case of a living entity, the information comes from the operation of
the whole biological process, from evolution. In the case of a motor
or a computer, the information comes from outside.
So I would claim that a living system is one in which the operation of
the machinery of life produces the necessary energy and information in
which specific portions (organisms within the system) can produce that
self-same machinery, including multiple copies of the machinery.
I don't have it all down carefully circumscribed and formally defined.
If I did I would just refer you to the paper in its published form.
But that is the way I approach it. Still, I would argue that the
energetics and the informational aspect are necessary parts of the
notion of life.
And in the end, it is still best for philosophers, lawyers, and
ethicists to debate just "what is life" and for biologists to simply
get on with the job of figuring out just how it works without worrying
about the definition.
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> I still think that replication is the condition that is both
> necessary and sufficient to define life.
I agree. But the key is to precisely define how replication relates
to life. Remember that cells don't replicate. Only the DNA
replicates, and actually it doesn't directly replicate, it
anti-replicates (new strand is exact T/A C/G opposite from the old
strand). All the rest of a cell is *synthesized* rather than
replicated. It's only in a statistical sense that two daughter
cells are each a copy of their single parent cell (at corresponding
stages within the overall life-cycle). In a catalytic loop as
proposed for the first successful replicator, there's not even
anti-replication, there's around-the-loop production which ends up
with true replication each one time around the loop. With a more
complicated auto-catalytic set, there isn't even a single loop like
that. On the other hand, with dislocation patterns in clay
crystals, there is *direct* replication.
> The reason I believe this results from my consideration of
> abiogenesis, where the ONLY difference between the objects that
> gave rise to life and all the other inanimate stuff about was
> the ability of those first forms to replicate.
That's a good argument, and it's short enough to make a good "sound bite"!
> Something is alive when it can, as an individual, or as part
> of a group, at least potentially, make independent copies of
> itself in a natural environment. In short, something is
> alive if it can replicate.
By that definition, cells aren't alive, only the DNA within cells is alive.
Is that what you wanted?
> I expect that the robots will, in fairly short order (well within
> a few million years) exterminate (out-compete?) us.
We keep farm animals and pets for our own use, and we don't
exterminate lots of other kinds of life even though we out-compete
them. Maybe the dominant robots will keep us as pets or domestic
animals, or will just ignore us except where we get in their way.
Maybe the robots will build Dyson spheres and generation ships to
travel to the vicinity of other stars using the energy of Dyson
spheres to power the spacecraft. Maybe they'll take some of us
along with them as pets or as domestic slaves to perform some
biological tasks they'd rather not bother with themselves. Or maybe
they'll take some *other* species along as pets and domestic
animals, and take us along as "lab rats" for testing of drugs they
would later use to keep their pets etc. alive.
> No doubt this has already occurred elsewhere in the universe.
It almost surely hasn't yet happened anywhere close enough that we
have their galaxy cataloged and photographed in infrared, since we
see no evidence of Dyson spheres or anything similar, just natural
red giants about the same size but clearly produced naturally by
stars which have exhausted their hydrogen fuel. We don't ever see a
reddish/nearinfrared sphere surrounding a yellow main-sequence
star. Accordingly I have doubt whether it's ever happeed anywhere yet.
How can you have "no doubt" that it did in fact happen already?
John Wilkins
> I also have a philosophical issue of focussing exclusively on
> replication. For example, an organism is a machine that transforms
> energy from one form to another to accomplish some purpose (that being
> to stay alive and to reproduce). So is an electric motor (although
> with different purpose). An organism is a machine that processes
> information (notwithstanding John Wilkins' severe demurral). So is a
> computer. However it takes energy to construct an organism, an
> electric motor, or a computer. In the case of a living entity, the
> energy to build itself derives from its own operation, its metabolism.
> The energy to construct an electric motor or a computer comes from
> outside. It also takes "information" (John, yes it truly does!) to
> specify the details of how the machinery is to be assembled. In the
> case of a living entity, the information comes from the operation of
> the whole biological process, from evolution. In the case of a motor
> or a computer, the information comes from outside.
>
> So I would claim that a living system is one in which the operation of
> the machinery of life produces the necessary energy and information in
> which specific portions (organisms within the system) can produce that
> self-same machinery, including multiple copies of the machinery.
I think, he severley demurred, that we can make do with causation and
thermodynamics in a complete specification of biology. In fact I was
thinking fo trying to do a characterisation of the unification of
ecology, evolution and metabolism in terms of free energy sometime.
If you want to equate causation with information, then that is another
thing, but then all physical systems are information processing.
Friar Broccoli
Yes, I most definitely do think they are alive.
From my point of view, defining them as non-living only occurs
because a lot of non-essential baggage (like metabolizing and
carrying your own replication equipment) has been added to the
definition of life.
That said, my position here doesn't really help because the
next step down is prions. I could probably make some sort of
logical case that they are alive, but will feel stupid doing
so.
> That sterile or celibate individuals are not alive? You say
> your clauses are designed to cover these issues. I claim
> your clauses are designed to allow different people to
> interpret quite differently just what "alive" really means.
> Once you start explaining just what you mean, your definition
> is not terribly clean and simple.
I agree with all your foregoing arguments, which for me just
boil down to your original assessment that no clean definition
works well. Given that I think I am going to go with:
Something is alive if it can replicate, but there are some
fuzzy border line cases.
>
> I also have a philosophical issue of focussing exclusively on
> replication. For example, an organism is a machine that transforms
> energy from one form to another to accomplish some purpose (that being
> to stay alive and to reproduce). So is an electric motor (although
> with different purpose). An organism is a machine that processes
> information (notwithstanding John Wilkins' severe demurral). So is a
> computer. However it takes energy to construct an organism, an
> electric motor, or a computer. In the case of a living entity, the
> energy to build itself derives from its own operation, its metabolism.
> The energy to construct an electric motor or a computer comes from
> outside. It also takes "information" (John, yes it truly does!) to
> specify the details of how the machinery is to be assembled. In the
> case of a living entity, the information comes from the operation of
> the whole biological process, from evolution. In the case of a motor
> or a computer, the information comes from outside.
>
> So I would claim that a living system is one in which the operation of
> the machinery of life produces the necessary energy and information in
> which specific portions (organisms within the system) can produce that
> self-same machinery, including multiple copies of the machinery.
which, if I understand correctly, leaves you excluding
viruses, and also a lot of the first replicating stuff for
abiogenesis.
Note also that a lot of the reason I intend to stick with
"replication" is because I'm not interested in doing actual
biology, just arguing with creationists, so for me simpler is
better.
Reality is so inconvenient, that is best just dispensed with.
>
> I don't have it all down carefully circumscribed and formally defined.
> If I did I would just refer you to the paper in its published form.
> But that is the way I approach it. Still, I would argue that the
> energetics and the informational aspect are necessary parts of the
> notion of life.
>
> And in the end, it is still best for philosophers, lawyers, and
> ethicists to debate just "what is life" and for biologists to simply
> get on with the job of figuring out just how it works without worrying
> about the definition.
r norman
wrote:
<snip all the foregoing arguments>
> I agree with all your foregoing arguments, which for me just
> boil down to your original assessment that no clean definition
> works well. Given that I think I am going to go with:
> Something is alive if it can replicate, but there are some
> fuzzy border line cases.
>
r norman wrote:
>> So I would claim that a living system is one in which the operation of
>> the machinery of life produces the necessary energy and information in
>> which specific portions (organisms within the system) can produce that
>> self-same machinery, including multiple copies of the machinery.
>
> which, if I understand correctly, leaves you excluding
> viruses, and also a lot of the first replicating stuff for
> abiogenesis.
>
> Note also that a lot of the reason I intend to stick with
> "replication" is because I'm not interested in doing actual
> biology, just arguing with creationists, so for me simpler is
> better.
>
> Reality is so inconvenient, that is best just dispensed with.
>
Yes I exclude viruses and most probably a lot of first replicating
stuff as being truly "biologically alive".
I rephrased the issue because, as artificial systems get more and more
complex and as we might someday face the prospect of totally alien
life-forms somewhere else in the universe, I want to distinguish
between biology as we know it here on earth and some abstract notion
of life. I will accept whatever definition you may wish for abstract
"life", even the cartoonish examples of "artificial life" that your
computer science colleagues like to exhibit. I reserve my definition
which includes more factors than simple replication for what we know
as "biology".
The most important point, one which we will both readily accept, is
that there is no question about either the origin or the mechanisms
of biology; both are the result of natural processes (formally called
abiogenesis plus evolution) from prior non-living matter and energy
through a process involving nothing more than the working out of the
laws of physics (and the other physical sciences).
r norman
wrote:
Yes, all physical systems are information processing; most in a
trivial sense and some in a very important sense.
I don't understand why you accept thermodynamics, which is merely a
very useful way of organizing and describing a complex set of
mechanistic processes, but refuse to accept information processing,
which is merely a different very useful way of organizing and
describing a complex set of mechanistic processes.
Frank J
John Bode wrote:
> There's a recurring argument among the anti-abiogenesis crowd that life
> cannot arise from "inanimate" matter or "dead" atoms, which brings up
> the question:
>
> What is the difference between "animate" and "inanimate" matter? Is
> there an intrinsic difference between the hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,
> calcium, iron, etc., that make up my body and the hydrogen, oxygen,
> carbon, calcium, iron, etc., that make up my house?
>
> Is a dead body composed of "animate" or "inanimate" matter? How about
> a skeleton? How about a fingernail clipping? How about dried blood on
> a bandage?
>
> Atoms are neither live nor dead. Matter is neither animate nor
> inanimate. Certain *arrangements* of matter can be said to be living
> things, but the matter itself is not "alive".
>
> If this is not what the anti-abiogenesis crowd means by "dead" atoms or
> "inanimate" matter, then please help me understand what you *do* mean.
Not sure why I didn't notice this thread earlier, but I'll take a
chance that you haven't heard this answer before. Because I almost
never hear it.
The matter is all the same. What constitutes a living thing is not the
matter (which as you know keeps getting replaced), but the series of
*reactions.* The reactions radically change after death, even though
the "arragement of matter" is little changed. It runs counter to our
linguistic conventions, to be sure, but an organism is not an object,
but an "event."
Don't forget that the "anti-abiogenesis crowd" comes in two "species":
those simply confused by years of misleading sound bites, and those
deliberately spinning those sound bites - conflating abiogenesis with
evolution, confusing the fact that abiogenesis occurred at least once
by definition with the mechanism, ignoring that most anti-evolution
positions require abiogenesis to have occurred millions or more times,
etc.
Friar Broccoli
.
Estimate of Galaxies in visible universe => 200,000,000,000
Qty stars in Milky Way Galaxy => 100,000,000,000
Suppose (very conservatively) that intelligent life leading to
technological capability gets going in 1 galaxy in 200.
That gives 1,000,000,000 technological societies.
Suppose that 1/1000 reached our current level of technology
one million years (or sooner) than we did (measured in years
since the "Big Bang" event).
That will give 1,000,000 advanced technologies that are
already at least one million years old. (Or maybe 10,000 if
99% exterminate themselves)
At least some of them will have allowed robots/computers to
start manufacturing AND designing the next generation of
robots/computers autonomously.
After that everything else follows "naturally".
Friar Broccoli
I think this is a nice clean idea, well expressed.
John Wilkins
What *I* don't understand is why intelligent folk like yourself want to
privilege as "more real" somehow an abstraction that exists solely in
the description over something that exists whether not not we describe
it. Information doesn't "exist" as such unless a system happens to match
an abstract representation of information processing. Thermodynamics
exists whether we represent it or not. You can find information in
anything, but you can't do work unless there is free energy available.
r norman
wrote:
Information is involved in the organization of material into
structure. Organization, to me, is an absolutely essential part of
biology. It is, for example, the reason that we are organisms with
internal organs and cellular organelles. The complex hierarchies of
organized structure is an essential part of the ability of biological
things to behave in the manner we call "living". Hence that
organization is an essential part of the different between animate and
inanimate matter.
What I don't understand is why intelligent folk like yourself who deal
professionally with nothing other than abstractions deny that luxury
to others.
John Wilkins
Organisation <> information.
>
> What I don't understand is why intelligent folk like yourself who deal
> professionally with nothing other than abstractions deny that luxury
> to others.
Professional jealousy. Or maybe I'm just perverse.
TomS
<1hptqoj.1d52m08488iqdN%j.wil...@uq.edu.au>, John Wilkins stated..."
[...snip...]
>Organisation <> information.
[...snip...]
Doesn't an increase in organization often go with a decrease in information?
The most highly disorganized needs the most information to describe?
It's just that when something is too disorganized that we give up and don't
bother to describe it. So, perhaps, in some sense there is an intermediate
state of organization that gets the most information-laden description?
--
---Tom S.
God might have created, and doubtless did create, the world with all the marks
of antiquity and completeness which it now exhibits.
Chateaubriand, Genius of Christianity (1802), 1.4.5
John Wilkins
> "On Mon, 4 Dec 2006 14:00:13 +1000, in article
> <1hptqoj.1d52m08488iqdN%j.wil...@uq.edu.au>, John Wilkins stated..."
> [...snip...]
> >Organisation <> information.
> [...snip...]
>
> Doesn't an increase in organization often go with a decrease in information?
>
> The most highly disorganized needs the most information to describe?
Not all organisation is information, no matter how long or short the
description.
>
> It's just that when something is too disorganized that we give up and don't
> bother to describe it. So, perhaps, in some sense there is an intermediate
> state of organization that gets the most information-laden description?
It depends too much on the choice of differences to describe. There is
no limit to the amount of description one can give of any particular
system, depending on what one relates it to and the amount of detail one
wants to give or elide. Physical systems have whatever structure they
have - we at best describe whatever is salient to us.
r norman
wrote:
>> Information is involved in the organization of material into
>> structure. Organization, to me, is an absolutely essential part of
>> biology. It is, for example, the reason that we are organisms with
>> internal organs and cellular organelles. The complex hierarchies of
>> organized structure is an essential part of the ability of biological
>> things to behave in the manner we call "living". Hence that
>> organization is an essential part of the different between animate and
>> inanimate matter.
>
>Organisation <> information.
You are right about that. It is involved in the idea, though.
OK, I'll admit that I have been thinking about how to describe
structure in informational terms for almost fifty years now,
completely unsuccessfully. It is a problem that I have been obsessed
with since my college days. I am convinced there is a really
important connection even if nobody has yet found out how to express
it.
Dick
wrote:
>On 30 Nov 2006 09:23:53 -0800, "Friar Broccoli" <Eli...@gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>r norman wrote:
>>> On 29 Nov 2006 08:18:02 -0800, "Kermit"
>>> <unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >
>>> >tgde...@earthlink.net wrote:
>>> >> John Bode wrote:
>>> >> > There's a recurring argument among the anti-abiogenesis crowd that life
>>> >> > cannot arise from "inanimate" matter or "dead" atoms, which brings up
>>> >> > the question:
>>> >> >
>>> >> > What is the difference between "animate" and "inanimate" matter? Is
>>> >> > there an intrinsic difference between the hydrogen, oxygen, carbon,
>>> >> > calcium, iron, etc., that make up my body and the hydrogen, oxygen,
>>> >> > carbon, calcium, iron, etc., that make up my house?
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Is a dead body composed of "animate" or "inanimate" matter? How about
>>> >> > a skeleton? How about a fingernail clipping? How about dried blood on
>>> >> > a bandage?
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Atoms are neither live nor dead. Matter is neither animate nor
>>> >> > inanimate. Certain *arrangements* of matter can be said to be living
>>> >> > things, but the matter itself is not "alive".
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>Doesn't it just boil down to the fact that living things
>>can replicate themselves or parts of themselves and
>>dead things cannot?
>
>That is just one aspect of the type of process I mean. However you do
>have to be careful. It is possible to define "replication" to include
>crystal growth that depends on existing seeds or computer code that
>makes and disperses copies of itself. Ordinarily replication is just
>one component of the traditional "definitions of life". There really
>is no truly satisfactory formal definition. It is mostly "I know it
>when I see it" kind of thing.
>
>
>
Doesn't an ability to "communicate" within cells and between cells
represent a priority? Can a cell divide without communication? How
does the cell "know" to divide? I have been told the "mother's" DNA
is the "boot strap" initializing cell division and DNA's translating
(not sure I have the right term, I am thinking of how the first read
gene is located, such as the boot address to find the Bios's first
instruction).
dick
Dick
see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) wrote:
Nice analysis, but I think it gets too close to the trees to see the
forest. Most would say, they know life when they see it.
Perhaps you are comfortable with seeing chemical to life forms as
gradations rather than cutoffs. The layers of our atmosphere come to
mind. Going the other direction into lower levels of our world, Zero
Point Field ties all mater together. Instant community communications
such as witnessed with Entanglement produce a Gestalt of everything.
An interesting example, I am a non smoker, I smell smoke from your
pipe even though I see neither you nor your pipe. My body can detect
and interpret a "non life" chemical set and recognize it is smoke, and
further, most likely from a pipe smoked by another human, possibly
"Joe" as he is the only one that smokes a pipe in this building.
Has an artifact of Joe communicated to me?
What other chemicals communicate with my body?
How much of this "information" is shared with the rest of the universe
through the immediate channel of the ZPF?
We usually think of "local" or "distal" events. However, with
Entanglements linked through the ZPF are we not part of the whole,
influenced by the whole and providing information to the whole.
There is a dichotomy between the macro and micro world. One follows
the laws of Newton, the micro the laws of Einstein. You and I exist
in the macro world, touching and being touched. At the same time our
body's atoms react as though the environment is mostly vague
boundaries. Talking bout two people being in love or in hate, it is
common to speak of good or bad chemistry.
Now we reach another level, even less acceptable to our thinking,
quarks and particles, theories such as string theory and its multiple
dimensions. Perhaps this is still above and integrated by the ZPF.
The King of Siam movie/play comes to mind, when the king, overwhelmed
with new thoughts brought in by his hired, Western teacher: "How can I
say 'what is' and "what is not?"
Science balks at concepts of NDE, ESP, Reincarnation, et al, but don't
seem somewhat closer as our material existent becomes less embodied?
dick
r norman
wrote:
There are a lot of internal details that need to be handled before a
cell can use its metabolic energy and its metabolic synthetic
abilities to produce a copy of its highly complex and organized self.
I would argue that "communication" or, more properly, "cell signaling"
is one of those internal details. But that is a quibble. I insist on
life having processes and abilities beyond the simple term "replicate"
and if you want to include communication and control systems, the
original definition of cybernetics, then that is fine with me.
Dick
Accepting Design, the next question, for me, why design a Universe at
all. As Behe noted, believing in a Designer says nothing of the
Designer/s intentions.
One possible intent is to create a hobby, however such intent accepts
as rules of engagement: Anything goes. A more benevolent intent would
be to have lab animals for experimentation. This would provide some
level of caring, the "control" life forms would be prevented from
becoming less than 'normal.'
We could already be the studied ones.
dick
Dick
see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) wrote:
>> From: "Friar Broccoli" <Elia...@gmail.com>
>> Doesn't it just boil down to the fact that living things
>> can replicate themselves or parts of themselves and
>> dead things cannot?
>
>And living things can synthesize all the remaining non-replicated parts.
>
>With my tiny amendment, I like your definition.
Somewhere in this thread it was pointed out we routinely bring
non-life back to life when we take "parts" from cadavers. That sure
messes with the definition. "Yeah, you are looking at me, all but
that new kidney. Came from a dead kid. Makes me feel young again!"
Spooky things go bump in the darkness of ignorance. Will ever be able
to integrate what we know and fit any definition?
dick
Dick
<unrestra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>r norman wrote:
>> On 30 Nov 2006 13:51:47 -0800, "Kermit"
>> >I suspect that if you look very, very carefully - more carefully than
>> >we can at the moment - we will see that there are differences between
>> >the arrangement of all of the atoms in a dead cell and all of the atoms
>> >in a live cell. I agree that this may not be the most useful way of
>> >looking at things, but if we had a very smart computer, with very
>> >precise and very fast tweezers, in principle we could turn a living
>> >cell into a barely dead cell and vice-versa just by moving a few
>> >billion atoms around. The sum of their interactions would be the
>> >pattern of activity you mention.
>> >
>>
>> The problem is that I describe life as a dynamic system. That is, it
>> is not just the atoms in the right place, but atoms in the right place
>> moving at the right velocity so as to produce the necessary physical
>> chemical and biochemical processes. Once you put dynamics into the
>> story, you no longer have pure structure, which is a static concept.
>
>Yeah. You're right.
>
>That is what I was clumsily groping for. Stuff can't be considered
>alive or dead except in context. Context, as you say, is not just
>physical position, though. But can they be seperated? I mean, if we're
>talking about sufficient numbers of the right atoms in the right place,
>aren't they going to be interacting anyway? Or do we have to adjust all
>the bonds and energy levels and such also? Obviously, as Lee Jay so
>kindly pointed out, the temperature would have to be right, also...
>
>Kermit
Information and communication. DNA can be interpreted to have
information if there are vehicles that know where on the DNA to go to
pick up a byte of new instructions. The first reading may be selected
from the mother (I was told) thus a bootstrap taken from the living.
The mother's gene instructs a bit of new life's protein to strip the
first gene and the program is initiated.
Dick
<jimme...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>"r norman" <r_s_norman@_comcast.net> wrote in message news:isavm2pmonn4ao52r...@4ax.com...
>Your emphasis on the dynamics, rather than static structures, seems to
>me to retain a whiff of 'vitalism'. One would think, after reading what
>you write here, that a living thing is killed - never to be revived -
>by rapidly freezing it and emersing in liquid nitrogen for an extended
>period. All dynamism, all coherent motion is stopped, right? But if
>the structure is maintained (and not disrupted by water-ice crystals)
>we find that frozen organisms can often be 'brought back to life'.
I have read of such events, NDE stories often indicate official
death.
dick
Dick
>Of course that's what they are doing. My critique is about how you
>might answer them.
>
>>If they admit that their carbon atoms
>> "live" only in the sense that they are part of the arrangement found in
>> a living organism, then it's harder for them to assert that it's
>> obvious that it couldn't happen by natural means.
>>
>
>It is easy enough to answer as I did, that the reference is to an
>aggregation, and that it is normal English. Your counterexamples, in
>case you didn't realize it, all refer to science fiction. How about "it
>is harder to tow a trailer holding a couple of live horses than one
>full of inanimate matter of the same composition"?
>
>My goal in answering propagandistic language is to counteract the
>effect. You and many others don't seem to understand that if people
>were as strongly influenced by careful reasoning as by propaganda,
>there would be no debate in the first place.
>
>Creationists would like to have people think that the existence of
>animate aggregations of matter is 'miraculous'. You apparently wish to
>have people think that it is completely unremarkable. My inclination is
>to find some word which resonates with people in general. Call me a
>silly romantic, but I find the existence of life to be something like
>'marvelous' or at least 'pretty kew-el'.
>
>-tg
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> If they insist that there is something different about them, then that
>> will be another fantastic assertion with no supporting evidence. Or if
>> there *is supporting evidence, I'd be very interested in hearing it!
>>
>> > -tg
>> >
>> >
>> > >
>> > > If this is not what the anti-abiogenesis crowd means by "dead" atoms or
>> > > "inanimate" matter, then please help me understand what you *do* mean.
>>
>> Kermit
Uh, excuse me, but "Amen!"
dick
r norman
wrote:
>Somewhere in this thread it was pointed out we routinely bring
>non-life back to life when we take "parts" from cadavers. That sure
>messes with the definition. "Yeah, you are looking at me, all but
>that new kidney. Came from a dead kid. Makes me feel young again!"
If that was me, then it was not a distinction between life and
non-life but between life of an organism and life of the cells and
tissues and organs. The transplanted kidney is most definitely alive
at the time of transplantation.
What constitutes the "me" that you may be looking at is a whole
different story. The prime example is what would happen if you
transplanted a brain. Would the 'personhood' remain with the brain or
with the body? Of course, human brain transplants are totally
unethical, immoral, and illegal (since death is now defined as brain
death), not to mention technically impossible at this time.
Walter Bushell
r norman <r_s_norman@_comcast.net> wrote:
>
> What constitutes the "me" that you may be looking at is a whole
> different story. The prime example is what would happen if you
> transplanted a brain. Would the 'personhood' remain with the brain or
> with the body? Of course, human brain transplants are totally
> unethical, immoral, and illegal (since death is now defined as brain
> death), not to mention technically impossible at this time.
See "I Shall Fear No Evil", by Robert Heinlein for a fictional
examination of this theme.
--
Divided we stand!
John Wilkins
It is just that inability to be cashed out that makes me think that we
are being misled systematically by a metaphor that we desperately *want*
to be true, but which is in fact a byproduct of our general tendency
towards anthropomorphism. The "information metaphor" has been decidely
unproductive outside the domain of information processing (and
subsidiary fields like control theory). In biology, it does almost
nothing but serve to mark out groups of researchers and theoreticians
from each other.
I sat through a paper recently in which a developmental biologist
attempted to argue that organising poles in the fertilised egg were
"positional information" about 3D structures downstream. I wondered then
as now if it might not be less confusing (and less dramatic!) to simply
say that gradients in the cell body cause differentiation later in
development. A lot less impressive, to be sure, but also less likely to
lead us into grand obfuscation.
r norman
wrote:
"Information" is simply the medium through which the causation is
mediated. What is it about the gradient that causes differentiation?
Some gradients do, others don't. This one is informational because it
is involved in causation.
Returning as I always do to physiological control systems, a hormone
is an "informational" molecule because it does carry a "message" to
the target organ whereas all the multitude of other types of molecules
floating around in the bloodstream do not carry information or carry
other information. All that happens is that the hormone binds to a
receptor to cause a physical event to occur. That is the mechanism.
But the informational aspect is a useful conceit. In molecular
biology there is something about nucleic acids that makes the
particular pattern of nucleotides important. It is the pattern, not a
carbon here, a nitrogen there, that acts as the mediator of protein
synthesis. That is, the pattern carries information used in the
protein synthesis process.
Control theory is what cells and organisms are all about. If
information is useful in control theory, it is useful in cellular and
organismal biology.
John Wilkins
So, information = *special* causation?
>
> Returning as I always do to physiological control systems, a hormone
> is an "informational" molecule because it does carry a "message" to
> the target organ whereas all the multitude of other types of molecules
> floating around in the bloodstream do not carry information or carry
> other information. All that happens is that the hormone binds to a
> receptor to cause a physical event to occur. That is the mechanism.
> But the informational aspect is a useful conceit. In molecular
> biology there is something about nucleic acids that makes the
> particular pattern of nucleotides important. It is the pattern, not a
> carbon here, a nitrogen there, that acts as the mediator of protein
> synthesis. That is, the pattern carries information used in the
> protein synthesis process.
>
> Control theory is what cells and organisms are all about. If
> information is useful in control theory, it is useful in cellular and
> organismal biology.
Here I read you as saying that the metaphor aids you heuristically. I
still do not see reason to think that the metaphor is an end in itself.
Surely once you have identified control pathways it remains to unpack
that metaphor in strict molecular terms? Or, in other words "importance"
is a property of the observer, not the thing observed...
Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Somewhere in this thread it was pointed out we routinely bring
> non-life back to life when we take "parts" from cadavers.
Anyone who made that claim, was telling a lie. If the cells in a
transplanted organ had already died, the transplant couldn't
possibly work, the transplanted organ would simply break down
inside the new host, or cause a serious infection. There's no way
it'd function as an organ. Once the cells have died, there's no way
to bring them back to life.