Counterintuitive Facts

[avandonk]

Craig there is no confusion. All I was saying that given the same exact starting conditions, life on Earth would be different. Over ninety nine percent of once living species are extinct.

We mammals only really got going after the dinosaurs were rendered extinct by an asteroid.

As humans are we all that intelligent? I see us being like an ants nest where the individuals follow simple rules and the result is a very complex well organised super organism. We of course follow far more complex rules but the result is the same. I guarantee you that 99% of humans have no clue as to how even all our technology works even at a simple level.
Yet give a twelve year old a modern phone he will find all the features very quickly while a highly educated physicist like me only uses it to make phone calls. Which one of us is smarter?

The take home message is that our ants nest has produced a very complex society where we can follow our individual specialities without knowing how to make the tools to make the tools ...... to make the object we need and use.

Just try and make a $20 pop up toaster from scratch. A metal axe head would be easier. Mine the ore after finding it. Refine the ore to metal etc you get the idea?

It took single cell bacteria over three billion years to explore some of the many possibilities of biological molecular interactions. They 'invented' photosynthesis which uses quantum mechanical tunnelling to transport protons before multicelled organisms developed.

Once multicelled organisms started we then have far more complexity space for them to randomly explore.

Your body is a super organism of many cells following 'simple' rules. Thirty percent of your dry weight is foreign bacteria without which you would die.

All your primal behaviours are programmed by your DNA because of the unbroken chain of your ancestors all the way to single cells that survived and procreated. So you hopefully carry all the 'correct answers' when you are born.

It is all simple really once you realize what is going on. It is fractal layers of complexity all the way down and up!

Bert

[CraigS]

Bert;
Thanks for clarifying.

'Twas only me who was a little confused .. it takes a while for these things to sink sometimes.

Its much clearer now for me.

If found an extremely interesting article which takes me further along in my quest. It is an interview with Stuart Kauffman, an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher, concerned with the origin of life on Earth.

His life's work has resulted in the perspective that complexity of biological systems and organisms, might result as much from self-organization and "far-from-equilibrium" dynamics, as from Darwinian natural selection.

Bert, you may know of him …

The interview style article poses questions about Complexity, Chaos, Evolution, God, Consciousness, Philosophy and the Emergence of Life.

I am really excited about the research this guy has done, as it encapsulates everything we've been touching on, in this thread.

I think I'm also excited by the fact that it all fits within the fundamental Laws of Physics, whilst stepping beyond the confines imposed by reductionism inherent in the approach of Classical Science.

This article is tremendous, and I fully recommend a thorough read and 'soak' in all that is said.

Its made my day.

Now, Bert don't spoil my fun too much, by telling me this guy is regarded as a Biological Science Outlaw !

(Just kidding).


Cheers

[avandonk]

He is a god fearing wanker! Another religious idiot posing as an atheist!
Bert

[Brian W (Brian)]

Bert, lighten up, just cause some of us do not share your views does not give you the right to be nasty.
Brian

[avandonk]

Originally Posted by Brian W

Bert, lighten up, just cause some of us do not share your views does not give you the right to be nasty.
Brian

OK just for you this man is propounding ideas against his own logic. He invokes a mythical god when he just said there is none. He then goes out to say that Dawkins is totally wrong because he believes in something higher he cannot define. He again is deluded like all religious people are.

I am sorry I was not being nasty just correct.

I am arguing science here not the tooth fairy or the easter bunny or some fictitious god. I am just like all you believers, you do not believe in gods of all the other faiths. I just happen to believe in one god less!

Bert

[Brian W (Brian)]

Actually Bert you have no idea of how restrictive or how ecumenical my beliefs may be. You also have no idea of what god or gods I may believe in.

With absolutely no attempt to find out any of the datum required to make a true analysis of my position you simply jump to your own biased, bigoted and unfounded conclusions.

To paraphrase one of my favourite authors; and these are the actions of a scientist!

Brian

[avandonk]

Brian I really hope so! Bert

[CraigS]

Actually, I find him invoking 'God' in a very similar sense to Hawking.

I'm pretty sure he's talking down the mythical 'God'. He seems to be attempting to use it, in order to hook into the psyche of the masses he is attempting to reach with his message. He is, after all speaking to a primarily US audience.

Apart from his beliefs, his mainstream research on Complexity in Biological processes, might be an interesting read sometime.

Cheers

[avandonk]

Please be aware for millenia the 'bit' we did not understand was called GOD. This is a total copout.
We are just as ignorant now as our ancestors when I see drivel about non existent beings seriously considered as real I really worry about the sanity of my fellow humans.

Next time I give a lecture on chemistry or physics I will start off with how god makes it so! In the immortal words of John Makenroe 'YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!'

Bert

[snas (Stuart)]

Craig

Does this thread bring us back around to somewhere that we have been in a previous thread on life? I think I have previously written that I feel that complex exo-life is likely to have numerous similarities to life on Earth. It will need an external source of energy (in our case, food and also oxygen to assist with turning that food into energy). It will therefore require the ability to catch, ingest and digest food and, if it is using oxygen like we do will clearly need some sort of respiratory system. It will need to be able to perceive light and probably also sound, so there will therefore be a need for some sort of visual and auditory system which will also require that it has some sort of central nervous system. because the CNS is a very important part of the life form, it will be encased in some tough material (in our case, a bony skull). And so on it goes.
I'm not saying that either exo-life or a complex life form on earth that started from the same point as we did must be human; just that there would be certain similarities to the complex animal life forms on Earth.

And yet, given the exact same starting condition, life on Earth would be different; yes, I totally agree that humans would be very unlikely to be here, but also feel that the "basic plans" would be here.

Stuart

[CraigS]

Yes Stuart.

That's also what Bert is saying .. message received and understood !

This model fits well with the principles of deterministic classical physics and chemistry, and Evolution by Natural Selection.

The thing I'm querying however, are the assumptions behind a purely deterministic (and predictable), chemistry and physical environment, like that we think existed on Earth before life got started, and will this always result in life (of some form or another). How much do we rely on inferences within this scenario. What are the inferred bits, and what is known ?

And how complete is our knowledge of those conditions and the processes leading to Emergence ? Are they complex processes, chaotic or purely deterministic ? Is our knowledge complete enough for us to reasonably expect that life will evolve from those same conditions elsewhere ? Is there the possibility of a null (ie: 'no life') outcome, also ? What effect does Chaos/Complexity play in the pre-biotic, primordial environments ? Can we learn anything from this ? What implications does this have on our search for exo-life ? At what scales is the Chaotic/Complexity view of it all relevant ? How might it then influence our thinking ?

The whole modern way of thinking about this, has a lot of empirical evidence coming from physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics. The tools are there to be used, provided we understand how to use them. I don't understand them yet, others do.

Coming back to the theme of this thread, what counter-intuitive aspects might we discover, by thinking more about the chaotic origins of our own beginnings, and then what might emerge when we think about exo-environments ?

Cheers

[avandonk]

Craig the most complex thing in the Universe is the human brain with over 100 billion neurons and more possibilties of connections than all the atoms in the Universe. Those whales and dolphins have just emailed me and they claim their brains are bigger and more complex and reckon us humans are stupid.

They said something about that they never enslaved their fellow swimmers and would you land people stop killing us and stop stealing our fish!

Bert

[CraigS]

I wonder what else they think about while they're conscious, Bert ?



Cheers

[snas (Stuart)]

Craig

What follows is what I FEEL on this subject. I use the word "feel" rather than the stronger word 'believe' because I am not a believing type of person.

Anyway, what I feel:

Given the conditions on Earth at the time that life first arose, I suspect it was perhaps almost inevitable for life to arise. (But, remember, this is just what I feel.) Yet how can I dismiss the "null life" possibility? I cannot. But, given certain conditions such as chemical composition of atmosphere, ocean etc, temperature and whatever extra little, non-supernatural "spark" needed to be added to trigger the change from no life to the origin of life, it was just going to happen. I think Bert has actually said this earlier on.

As for the complex or chaotic system that was the early Earth, and still is today. If you change one or two things slightly it was maybe going to be impossible for life to arise at all or we may well have ended up with completely different life from what we have today. However, I still believe the basic plan of macroscopic life would still be present.

We may have seen the same original progenitor of life appear and stumble along for a billion or two years almost without change (a major problem with asexual reproduction; no exchange of genetic information) but if the asteroid of 65 million years ago had swung by the Earth in a near miss, we may still be small mammals (I think up to the size of a domestic cat was about the largest mammal of 65 million years ago) and hiding from dinosaurs. But who knows; would the dinosaurs have survived the climate changes asociated with the break up of the continents?

Well, it's all very interesting , but we can never know for sure. It's fun to speculate though.

Stuart

[Karls48 (Karl)]

Originally Posted by avandonk

They said something about that they never enslaved their fellow swimmers and would you land people stop killing us and stop stealing our fish!

Bert

No, they don't enslave their fellow swimmers - they kill them. http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/reprint/38/3/505.pdf

[Brian W (Brian)]

Originally Posted by avandonk

Please be aware for millenia the 'bit' we did not understand was called GOD. This is a total copout.
We are just as ignorant now as our ancestors when I see drivel about non existent beings seriously considered as real I really worry about the sanity of my fellow humans.

Next time I give a lecture on chemistry or physics I will start off with how god makes it so! In the immortal words of John Makenroe 'YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING!'

Bert

Hi all, the above is the type of close minded crap that I have no desire to be associated with. I joined this group for discussions that were honest and interesting but the above is just a bigoted rant from an angry person who does care who he insults or hurts.

I'm out of here.
Brian

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by Karls48

No, they don't enslave their fellow swimmers - they kill them. http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/reprint/38/3/505.pdf

Yeah .. they're wild, intelligent animals .. same goes for polar bears !

They're certainly not these cuddly, cute things certain people make them out to be !

We're all in a struggle for survival. Humans are also part of the same nature systems as these animals. We are not separate from nature and imposing our wills on it .. we are part of it .. and are imposing our wills on it.

Perhaps our destiny is to destroy ourselves .. just like these dolphin brutes !

[bojan]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Perhaps our destiny is to destroy ourselves .. just like these dolphin brutes !

Quite possible...
We evolved in very rough , cut-throat environment, full of predators and prey... and we are both of them. Our basic instinct is one of pack animals..

Recently, we have a situation where our (real) predators are actually gone.. so we must turn against each other (individually and collectively) to discharge the instinct.
Yes, most of those urges are channelised and sublimed by laws, and by substitute activities (sport, business etcetera).. but is this enough to ensure our survival in the long run?
Maybe not...

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by Brian W

Hi all, the above is the type of close minded crap that I have no desire to be associated with. I joined this group for discussions that were honest and interesting but the above is just a bigoted rant from an angry person who does care who he insults or hurts.

I'm out of here.
Brian

Brian ;
I for one, do not share Bert's style, nor the depth of his emotions on this topic. There is no 'group' here either. There are a bunch of individuals who voice their views in their own different ways.

Bert;
I am aware of your reasons for the position you take, however I also have difficulty when you express, with such aggression, your opinions on sensitive topics. You have grossly offended another individual, and as such, you should take some measures to correct for the impact of your actions.

My greatest concern here, is that this interaction between the two of you, has diminished our abilities to explore tricky topics with due care. I must protest Bert's behaviour on this basis. Whilst Brian could easily have responded in kind, this is not his way, and I have much respect for him, because of it.

The only reason I think we get away with discussing such topics here, I had hoped, is because we try to refrain from going to extremes of emotiveness and expression, and make a genuine attempt to listen to others' views, and not respond from pure bald-faced instinct.

I am very disappointed that this has happened.


Craig

[CraigS]

Originally Posted by bojan

Quite possible...
We evolved in very rough , cut-throat environment, full of predators and prey... and we are both of them. Our basic instinct is one of pack animals..

Recently, we have a situation where our (real) predators are actually gone.. so we must turn against each other (individually and collectively) to discharge the instinct.
Yes, most of those urges are channelised and sublimed by laws, and by substitute activities (sport, business etcetera).. but is this enough to ensure our survival in the long run?
Maybe not...

Does our survival matter ?
If so, why and to whom ?