What is life?

[nutronjon]

Come on guys, lets get this back to what nutron asked to begin with, what is life..... I like NASA's definition, life is a self replicating chemical reaction that stores information and can evolve to adapt to it's environment... or something like that. Choas cannot be defined as a force in of it's self, any of the known forces can be involved in chaos (since you asked)

 

That is a good explanation of life, except maybe too materialistic. Life doesn't just store information, most certianly not human life. In fact, we are as the God's because we can create. We can turn a tree into a ship, and rocks into temples. We evolved. Life has evolved from simple forms to more complex forms, that can oppose nature and transform the planet.

 

Western logic is linear and very materialistic. Other cultures operate in terms of motion and change. Maybe we can become less matericalistic, by discussing how the known forces can be involved in chaos.

[Moontanman]

That is a good explanation of life, except maybe too materialistic. Life doesn't just store information, most certianly not human life. In fact, we are as the God's because we can create. We can turn a tree into a ship, and rocks into temples. We evolved. Life has evolved from simple forms to more complex forms, that can oppose nature and transform the planet.

 

Western logic is linear and very materialistic. Other cultures operate in terms of motion and change. Maybe we can become less matericalistic, by discussing how the known forces can be involved in chaos.

 

What is life and what is sentient life is two completely different things. Again I will say there is no spark of life, information storage and transfer is a basic part of life, with out it there is no life, only chemical reactions. Even sentient life is marked by the storage and transfer of information. Everything we can do is due to and because of storage and transfer of information. Chaos isn't some new thing apart from order, order and chaos stem from the same forces. Two planets smashing together result in chaos, the same forces that allowed the planets to form in the first place also allow it to be destroyed. Order and chaos come about from the same forces. They only differ in the way those forces are expressed.

[Thunderbird]

That is a good explanation of life, except maybe too materialistic. Life doesn't just store information, most certianly not human life. In fact, we are as the God's because we can create. We can turn a tree into a ship, and rocks into temples. We evolved. Life has evolved from simple forms to more complex forms, that can oppose nature and transform the planet.

 

Western logic is linear and very materialistic. Other cultures operate in terms of motion and change. Maybe we can become less matericalistic, by discussing how the known forces can be involved in chaos.

 

Chaos is about the flow of energy, and what forms these energetic patterns can take. It’s actually a much better description of life than the older view of mechanistic models in that you can see that life is much more then the sum of its parts. The forms observed takes a bit more imagination because they are much more difficult to capture in a photo, drawing are a graph, but has to be seen though the minds eye as a dynamic geometry that is in constant flux. System thinking is more evolving and dynamic in that it does not allow the person to see a static “map” as representative of a territory as easily as in the reductionist models.

[Galapagos]

The quotes your you gave are well balanced science based accounts of where traditional physics ends, and were the uncertainty of quantum mechanics begins.

 

You statement above however goes to far, and is obvious in your connecting “No Intelligent Allowed” with "What The Bleep do We Know" you haven't seen the film WTBDWK.

Actually I saw the film two years ago when I purchased a copy of it on DVD(which I still have). Not sure where you got this from.

I likened the two films because I believe both are designed by and for people who tend to confuse abstruse science/nature with their own spiritual/religious/supernatural beliefs. For some reason, a lot of spiritual people, especially the New Ager types, tend to take the ball and run when it comes to consciousness and the quantum.

In the sense that the creators of "Expelled" and "WTBDWK" both had an agenda or presupposition about where science should lead them, they were cut from the same cloth.

Sorry for the confusion, perhaps I should have been more clear.

[nutronjon]

What is life and what is sentient life is two completely different things. Again I will say there is no spark of life, information storage and transfer is a basic part of life, with out it there is no life, only chemical reactions. Even sentient life is marked by the storage and transfer of information. Everything we can do is due to and because of storage and transfer of information. Chaos isn't some new thing apart from order, order and chaos stem from the same forces. Two planets smashing together result in chaos, the same forces that allowed the planets to form in the first place also allow it to be destroyed. Order and chaos come about from the same forces. They only differ in the way those forces are expressed.

 

Shiva - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another way of thinking about the divinities in Hinduism identifies Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva as each representing one of the three primary aspects of the divine in Hinduism, known collectively as the Trimurti. In the Trimurti system, Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the maintainer or preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer or transformer.

 

Trinity father- creator, son- destroyer- Jesus said he came with a sword to divide, and holy ghost- maintainer or preserver.

 

Manifest reality is three dimensional.

 

Color is also based on threes.....white light being a combination of all.

 

Triad- a triangle is statement about relationship and balance. As centers of the two circles repel and tug at each other, a reconciling third point occurs naturally above the place where the circles cross and agree. Thus the ancients mathematical philosophers referred to the Triad as the prudence, wisdom, piety, friendship, peace, harmony, unanimity, and marriage.....

 

Like a door from the Monad, the first atom of the ninety-two natural elements to emerge is hydrogen. It is a pure representation of the Dyad, the only element consisting of only two components; a positively charged proton at its center and negatively charged electron orbiting it as a circumference. All other atoms have a third neutral component........

 

Tripartite architecture braids the cosmos tapestry. Albert Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 describes the whole cosmos as Borromean rings of three distinct but unified aspects of energy, mass, and light. Modern mathematical physicists describe mass, commonly called matter, as atomic whirlpools. After emergence through the polar portal of manifestation, all subsequent atoms beyond hydrogen are composed of three "Parts", like spinning Borromean Rings of positive protons and negative electrons balanced by neutral neutrons. Atoms configure in patterns along lines of force whose surface features we smooth out and simply call "things".....

 

In short, what has been label chaos, is part of the process of the order. Out of the triad come the many. There is birth, death and rebirth and in the process we can get new combinations, new elements, more complex life forms. Still the laws regulate it all.

 

PS

Molecular Borromean rings

 

Crystal structure of molecular Borromean rings reported by Stoddart et al. Science 2004, 304, 1308-1312.Molecular Borromean rings are the molecular pendants of Borromean rings, which are mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures.

 

In 1997, biologists Chengde Mao and coworkers of New York University succeeded in constructing molecular Borromean rings from DNA (Nature, vol 386, page 137, March 1997).

 

In 2003, chemist Fraser Stoddart and coworkers at UCLA utilised coordination chemistry to construct molecular Borromean rings in one step from 18 components. This work was published in Science 2004, 304, 1308-1312. Abstract

[CraigD]

I worry, nutronjon, that you may be entertaining some inappropriate and harmful mystical ideas about physics and mathematics. Although mysticism can be very useful in many areas of life, including the intuition critical to creative aspects of science and math, it can be a great impediment when employed inappropriately, leading to a sometime emotionally satisfying but practically un-useful mingling of science and mysticism commonly termed pseudoscience. All of my intuition and experience, as well as the council of nearly every experienced mathematician and scientist of my personal and literary acquaintance, leads me to conclude that pseudoscience should be avoided, other than as an object of study of human psychology.

 

Addressing some of your observations in detail...

Color is also based on threes.....white light being a combination of all.

This is not true. Although a combination of a stream of photons of 3 frequencies – roughly 530 THz( [math]5.3 \times 10^{14} \,\mbox{cycles/second}[/math]) red, 560 THz green, and 680 THz blue appears to a normal human to be white light, so does a stream of photons more evenly distributed across the range of visible light (roughly 400 to 800 THz), such as sunlight. That human eyes can be “fooled” into perceiving a mixture of photons of only 3 frequencies as the same as common naturally occurring white light is due to the anatomy of our eyes, nerves, and brain. Light that we perceive as the same as sunlight, such as white on an RGB video screen, another animal would not, because of differences in the anatomy of its eyes and brain. We can perceive the difference between light of different spectra that appears identical to our naked eyes with the aid of a simple spectrometer, such a prism and a sheet of paper.

 

A summary of this can be found at many sources, such as the wikipedia article “Color vision”

Like a door from the Monad, the first atom of the ninety-two natural elements to emerge is hydrogen. It is a pure representation of the Dyad, the only element consisting of only two components; a positively charged proton at its center and negatively charged electron orbiting it as a circumference. All other atoms have a third neutral component

Only most – about 99.985% - not all hydrogen consists of a proton and an electron. The remaining roughly 0.015% consists of a proton, neutron, and electron. Both H-1 and H-2 are stable isotopes of hydrogen. H-3 occurs naturally, but is not stable, having a half life of about 12.32 years. Other isotopes as heavy as H-7 have been artificially synthesized and detected, all with half lives shorter than [math]10^{-21} \,\mbox{s}[/math].

 

Also, the best accepted present day scientific theory describing atoms – the Standard Model - does not consider the proton to be a indivisible, fundamental particle, nor the proton, neutron, and electron as the only particles present in an ordinary atom. So, in the best scientific terms, hydrogen, the kind with or without neutrons, can be described as a strange, intricate dance of 5 fundamental (also called elementary) particles: up quarks, down quarks, gluons, photons, and electrons.

Albert Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 describes the whole cosmos as Borromean rings of three distinct but unified aspects of energy, mass, and light.

Though I like the ring of this sentence – and have learned a cool, history-rich term for a familiar object, Borromean rings :) - it’s not an accurate statement of the principle of mass-energy equivalence described by the equation [math]E = m c^2[/math] and a center piece of Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

 

Relativity makes no predictions about the fundamental nature of mass and energy. Its formalism works perfectly well in a lightless reality consisting of simple bodies of arbitrary mass conforming not at all with the predictions of the Standard Model. Although the Standard Model is required to agree with the predictions of Relativity, Relativity is not required to predict the various particles, properties, and interactions of the Standard Model.

 

Modern mathematical physicists describe mass, commonly called matter, as atomic whirlpools. After emergence through the polar portal of manifestation, all subsequent atoms beyond hydrogen are composed of three "Parts", like spinning Borromean Rings of positive protons and negative electrons balanced by neutral neutrons.

Who says? (a serious, not rhetorical question – what’s the source of the quote in you previous post?) :QuestionM

 

Can you find a single mathematical physicist who agrees with, or even uses phrases like “polar portal of manifestation” and “spinning Borromean rings”, to describe mass, or any other subject of their scientific discipline?

 

I believe the person making this claim is not familiar with mathematical physics. As is often the case when someone expresses views not his own, or even of people with similar world views, these claims are, I think, profoundly incorrect.

[Thunderbird]

Actually I saw the film two years ago when I purchased a copy of it on DVD(which I still have). Not sure where you got this from.

I likened the two films because I believe both are designed by and for people who tend to confuse abstruse science/nature with their own spiritual/religious/supernatural beliefs. For some reason, a lot of spiritual people, especially the New Ager types, tend to take the ball and run when it comes to consciousness and the quantum.

In the sense that the creators of "Expelled" and "WTBDWK" both had an agenda or presupposition about where science should lead them, they were cut from the same cloth.

Sorry for the confusion, perhaps I should have been more clear.

 

 

One is an honest cloth from real physicist and some doctors that work in the field of neurophysiology and neuropsychology. and I believe some sincere new age therapist.

 

Expelled is an exempt to dethrone science in a completely insincere campaign of misinformation, with closed minding thinking about our place in the world. There could not be two cloths as dissimilar as these.

 

You were plenty clear the first time.

[Thunderbird]

I worry, nutronjon, that you may be entertaining some inappropriate and harmful mystical ideas about physics and mathematics. Although mysticism can be very useful in many areas of life, including the intuition critical to creative aspects of science and math, it can be a great impediment when employed inappropriately, leading to a sometime emotionally satisfying but practically un-useful mingling of science and mysticism commonly termed pseudoscience. All of my intuition and experience, as well as the council of nearly every experienced mathematician and scientist of my personal and literary acquaintance, leads me to conclude that pseudoscience should be avoided, other than as an object of study of human psychology.

 

.

There is nothing harmful about using your left brain to see that there exist recurring geometrical patterns in nature, and find them inspiring , and even hold these patterns as scared. This is the best of how art, science and the spirit can all find a happy medium in ones own personal view of the world.

 

You may not see it in this way but an artist that also studies nature may.

[nutronjon]

I know I replied to CraigD but I can't find the reply, so I will do it again. I was quoting from "A Beginner's guide to constructing the Universe, The Mathematical Archtypes of Nature, Art, and Science" by Michael S. Schneider. This is not pseudoscience, but a language and concept of the world that obviously does not come with today's technological education. For another book that speaks this language, there is "Mind Tools, The Five Levels of Mathematical Reality" by Rudy Rucker author of "Infinity and the Mind".

 

"A dyad is a basically static grouping of concepts- a sort of frozen tug of war. On of G.W.F. Hegel's contributions to philosophy was the idea of grouping concepts into triads, which consist of three concepts arranged in the well-known thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern. The triad is an essentially dynamic grouping, for each synthesis can become the thesis for a new antithesis.....

 

Just as Hegel goes a step beyond the Greeks, the pyschologist C.G. Jung goes a step beyond Hegel. For Jung, the fundamental pattern of thought is not the triad, but the tetrad, a balanced, mandala-like arrangement for four concepts, also known as the quaternity: "

 

The government of the US is based on the triad model, excutive, legislative, and judicial. This is balanced powers.

 

There is another book about closed minds, and I have concerns that education for technology has closed our minds, and this presents a threat that could be our down fall, almost identical to the down fall of Athens. You appear to know a lot, but if what we know is memorized facts and not dynamic concepts, our conscousness will atrophy instead of make that leap of consciousness that is crucial today.

[Galapagos]

One is an honest cloth from real physicist and some doctors that work in the field of neurophysiology and neuropsychology. and I believe some sincere new age therapist.

 

Expelled is an exempt to dethrone science in a completely insincere campaign of misinformation, with closed minding thinking about our place in the world. There could not be two cloths as dissimilar as these.

 

You were plenty clear the first time.

There were physicists and doctors in "WTBDWK", and there were biologists and astrophysicists in "Expelled". There also happened to be sincere and delusional spiritualists behind the scenes of both. No disrespect was or is meant to the sincere and honest scientists involved in either film.

The sincerity of a New Age therapist, however, is as valuable as the sincerity of a psychic detective, or a proponent of Irreducible Complexity or any other manifestation of creationism. I'm sure these people sincerely believe what they are saying, and that they sincerely believe what they are doing is right.

I just also happen to think they are gullible, foolish, presumptuous, and just generally intellectually dishonest.

 

Are these the sincere New Agers you were referring to?

Let's get metaphysical | Salon Arts & Entertainment

The three directors at the helm of "What the Bleep," William Arntz, Betsy Chasse and Mark Vicente, financed the film themselves -- to the tune of $5 million -- and have employed a grass-roots marketing strategy that appears to be paying off with remarkably high per-screen revenue.

 

(Editor's note: Arntz, Chasse and Vincente are all students of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, a controversial school named after a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit a woman named JZ Knight claims to channel. Ramtha, via Knight, appears in the film. The directors insist that Ramtha had nothing to do with the funding of the film or its marketing.)

 

People who belong to a New Age religious cult lead by a woman who claims to talk to a 35,000 year old spirit from Atlantis?

JZ Knight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting to note that this sincere leader of the sincere New Agers was taken to court by her husband before he died of HIV under the accusation that she discouraged him from seeking treatment on the grounds that Ramtha would heal him:

Essay on Gordon Melton's study of Ramtha

In the Knight vs. Knight case (1992-95 in Tacoma, WA), I was the initial witness on behalf of Jeff Knight, who sued ex-wife JZ over the divorce settlement. Jeff alleged that JZ kept significant assets hidden from him, and that he was yet under the undue influence of Ramtha when he settled initially. For several years Jeff avoided treatment for his HIV infection because he yet believed that the "Ram" and the C&E breathing technique taught by JZ could protect and possibly cure him. Apparently, JZ was not infected, but the delay in treatment for Jeff may have cost him years of a productive life. We will never know. By 1991 he was broke and too weak to work steadily. After the evidentiary hearing, the judge awarded Jeff and his team expenses only. He died at peace with himself, according to his mate, Geoff, and family, in 1994 before he could carry an appeal further.

Shocking, right? What is even more shocking, is that the film "WTBDWK" had an eerily similar theme exposed in its conclusion when the main character throws away her medicine in favor of New Age pseudoscience:

Review: What the #$*! Do They Know?(Skeptical Inquirer September 2004)

People who espouse New Age philosophies are not generally known for their knowledge of modern science or their respect for critical thinking. Ironically enough, though, when it comes to quantum mechanics, everything seems to change, and they embrace it wholeheartedly. Given half a chance, many of them have something to say on the subject. But what New Agers really seem to like about quantum mechanics is all those alleged bizarre effects that they mistakenly believe can be appropriated to support their views on the nature of reality and the cosmos.

...

After dazzling the audience with dubious pronouncements from quantum physics, the storyline returns to Marlee Matlin's character, who is having an ever-increasing number of mind-expanding experiences, culminating in her realization that she no longer needs her prescription pills and that she can toss them into a lake. What a pity that the appreciation of modern science shown by New Agers is restricted to the more esoteric parts which are seen as supporting their worldviews. Meanwhile, something as beneficial (and mundane) as modern pharmacology is viewed with utter contempt to the point that people are effectively being told to throw away their prescription drugs and to cure themselves by waking up to the real meaning of life.

 

I'm hard pressed to say this isn't on the same level of pernicious and mendacious disinformation being disseminated by surely sincere spiritual nutjobs as Expelled is, in the sense that apparently these same ideas can convince even an HIV sufferer to avoid treatment.

 

 

BBC - Movies - review - What The Bleep Do We Know!?

Physics get turned into metaphysics in What The Bleep Do We Know!?, a documentary aimed at the totally gullible. Shifting from quantum theory to mystical mumbo jumbo in the blink of an eye, it blends hard science fact with Star Trek visuals, and talking head interviewees with a deadly dull drama about hearing impaired photographer Amanda (Marlee Matlin) and her attempts to achieve a happier life through positive thinking. What does it all mean? We're bleeped if we know.

 

 

Commentary, April 1, 2005, Capitalizing on Tragedy, Scientific Integrity Demonstrated, Kreskin Is Not a Breakfast Cereal, Ghost Story, Perceptions Revisited, A Silent Red Elk, An Interesting Phenomenon, Volunteer Call, Seeing Beauty In the Real World

Category #3, to the media outlet that reported as factual the most outrageous supernatural, paranormal or occult claims: The prize goes to the film "What the #$*! Do We Know?," a fantasy docudrama cult hit supposedly about the "nature of reality." More than a dozen scientists, theologians and mystics appear. However, the product placement reveals that among the physicists, neurologists and academics who expound the film's thesis is "new age" icon J.Z. Knight, who claims to be channeling a 35,000-year-old god/warrior from Atlantis named Ramtha. The films' producers, writers, directors, and some of the stars are members of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment in Washington State. Several of the scientists are affiliated with Knight's school, and the film was largely financed by one of Knight's students. It's a blatant effort by religious, mystical, and New Age gurus such as Deepak Chopra to disguise their views as real science. Thrown in are the fantasies of Masura Emoto, who claims to have proven that thoughts can change the structure of water; his "experiments" consist of taping written words to glasses of water. (See Commentary, May 23, 2003 — Chiropractic Crackup, Talking to Water, Sylvia Emerges!, Bidlack's Lumps, An MS Miracle, and a Korean Magic Stone...) The "Maharishi Effect" — an equally vacuous notion, is also offered. A rampant example of abuse by charlatans and cults, it is still filling theatres all over the world.

 

 

In retrospect, perhaps I was clear enough the first time; I just wasn't thorough enough. The films "WTBDWK" and "Expelled" are cut from the same cloth-- they are both films made by spiritual nutjobs from the fringes of society who are trying to reconcile a need to believe in magic with modern science, and anyone spreading them around is either ignorant to these facts, or a delusional spiritualist themselves.

Quantum mysticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[HydrogenBond]

The question of "what is life", shows that even science can get bogged down in philosophical abstractions. The proof of is in the fact that if we knew this answer we would not be still discussing it, but teaching it. The matter of fact attitude that science has all the answers, is a myth. It is the best myth in town, when it comes to life, but it obviously is not yet complete. That should open the mind to other rational possibilities.

 

The chaos philosophy is there for practical convenience. It was math that was developed to help explain things when systems got too complex for reason. It was a tool designed to assist reason, but somewhere along the line, it was turned into the ultimate fudge factor to replace the rational mind. If we can't explain it logically, add a couples chaos steps and dash of random and bang, we can pretend we know the answer. We can even use this tool to undermine reason. In the old days, they would still be looking for a rational explanation, with chaos as a tool for direction. But now it has taken over for reason and assumed it has its own reality apart from reason. This is a delusion. One has to go back to when it began to see this tool was designed for digging and not serving food. But now we pretend it is ultimate food serving tool for life. It is a shovel designed to dig in the dirt to help us discover rational reasons. One doesn't eat from a shovel unless one has loss their ability to reason.

 

Let me put in perspective with an example. Say chaos theory was around at the time of Newton, before he started to work on his gravity equations. If there was a strong push in science to use the chaos approach, it would have undermined Newton's ability to even try to reason. The idea of creating definitive equations would have appeared suspect to the science community, since it would undermine chaos. To play the game, one would have been assume that gravity is not something we can reason, so don't even try. It is a phenomena that ebbs and flows with anything possible. We would have to do a unique study for the moon, on top of mountains, in valleys, as though each was a unique phenomena. This reality would appear real because the correlations would seem to work in their little niche With life we have successfully precluded any reasoning that doesn't make use of chaos. There is no drive to get beyond this empirical alchemy approach, other than improve the tools. I am trying to put the shovel back in the barn and get it out of the house. This puts the alchemy approach in a bind, so the shovel keeps coming back to serve food.

 

I have tried to overview how hydrogen bonding is the foundation for all bioactivity. The bulk molecules without hydrogen bonding are useless. Although this is the most reasonable place to look for the integration called life, alchemy is not rational, so one can't seen to see this. It is expecting to see something far more random. It is like saying gravity is the basis for all objects falling to the earth. This is too simple and rational. Instead we need to treat rocks separate from trees, bugs, etc. because chaos is out there, like the boogie man, making everything separate. I am not sure how to deal with the church of modern alchemy.

[nutronjon]

There were physicists and doctors in "WTBDWK", and there were biologists and astrophysicists in "Expelled". There also happened to be sincere and delusional spiritualists behind the scenes of both. No disrespect was or is meant to the sincere and honest scientists involved in either film.

The sincerity of a New Age therapist, however, is as valuable as the sincerity of a psychic detective, or a proponent of Irreducible Complexity or any other manifestation of creationism. I'm sure these people sincerely believe what they are saying, and that they sincerely believe what they are doing is right.

I just also happen to think they are gullible, foolish, presumptuous, and just generally intellectually dishonest.

 

Are these the sincere New Agers you were referring to?

Let's get metaphysical | Salon Arts & Entertainment

 

 

People who belong to a New Age religious cult lead by a woman who claims to talk to a 35,000 year old spirit from Atlantis?

JZ Knight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interesting to note that this sincere leader of the sincere New Agers was taken to court by her husband before he died of HIV under the accusation that she discouraged him from seeking treatment on the grounds that Ramtha would heal him:

Essay on Gordon Melton's study of Ramtha

 

Shocking, right? What is even more shocking, is that the film "WTBDWK" had an eerily similar theme exposed in its conclusion when the main character throws away her medicine in favor of New Age pseudoscience:

Review: What the #$*! Do They Know?(Skeptical Inquirer September 2004)

 

 

I'm hard pressed to say this isn't on the same level of pernicious and mendacious disinformation being disseminated by surely sincere spiritual nutjobs as Expelled is, in the sense that apparently these same ideas can convince even an HIV sufferer to avoid treatment.

 

 

BBC - Movies - review - What The Bleep Do We Know!?

 

 

 

Commentary, April 1, 2005, Capitalizing on Tragedy, Scientific Integrity Demonstrated, Kreskin Is Not a Breakfast Cereal, Ghost Story, Perceptions Revisited, A Silent Red Elk, An Interesting Phenomenon, Volunteer Call, Seeing Beauty In the Real World

 

 

 

In retrospect, perhaps I was clear enough the first time; I just wasn't thorough enough. The films "WTBDWK" and "Expelled" are cut from the same cloth-- they are both films made by spiritual nutjobs from the fringes of society who are trying to reconcile a need to believe in magic with modern science, and anyone spreading them around is either ignorant to these facts, or a delusional spiritualist themselves.

Quantum mysticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I see a lot of criticism there, and a lot of name calling. There probably is truth in what you have said, but it certainly it certianly is not a good argument. It really needs to be broken down, instead of lumping everyone and everything together.

 

Why attack Deepak Chopra? What is his wrong?

[Larv]

The essential trait that distinguishes living from non-living is, as best I’ve been able to reason it, self replication. Simply put, all living entities, be they cells within a larger organism or autonomous organisms, are able to make, from ambient sources of matter and energy, similar or identical copies of themselves.

This is a great question, and nobody has been able to pin down that one essential trait. Self-replication is a tempting answer, but certain crystals, for example, might qualify as 'self-replicating," if structural organization is the key. I don't think it is. I would instead point to the information behind the biological structure that is responsible for self-replication. In that case I would nominate digital code—genetic information—as the essential trait. I know of no other natural structures beside living ones that employ a digital code to communicate from one generation to the next.

 

In that case, then, genes are the essential "trait" distinguishing biotic from a biotic materials. But, physically, genes are nothing more than nucleic acids. It is their coded arrangements that make all the difference.

 

One more point: There is only one code that informs all biological life. You can have all the nucleic acids you like, but if the nucleotides are not properly coded (i.e., digitally arranged) biological life is impossible .

 

—Larv

[nutronjon]

The question of "what is life", shows that even science can get bogged down in philosophical abstractions. The proof of is in the fact that if we knew this answer we would not be still discussing it, but teaching it. The matter of fact attitude that science has all the answers, is a myth. It is the best myth in town, when it comes to life, but it obviously is not yet complete. That should open the mind to other rational possibilities.

 

The chaos philosophy is there for practical convenience. It was math that was developed to help explain things when systems got too complex for reason. It was a tool designed to assist reason, but somewhere along the line, it was turned into the ultimate fudge factor to replace the rational mind. If we can't explain it logically, add a couples chaos steps and dash of random and bang, we can pretend we know the answer. We can even use this tool to undermine reason. In the old days, they would still be looking for a rational explanation, with chaos as a tool for direction. But now it has taken over for reason and assumed it has its own reality apart from reason. This is a delusion. One has to go back to when it began to see this tool was designed for digging and not serving food. But now we pretend it is ultimate food serving tool for life. It is a shovel designed to dig in the dirt to help us discover rational reasons. One doesn't eat from a shovel unless one has loss their ability to reason.

 

Let me put in perspective with an example. Say chaos theory was around at the time of Newton, before he started to work on his gravity equations. If there was a strong push in science to use the chaos approach, it would have undermined Newton's ability to even try to reason. The idea of creating definitive equations would have appeared suspect to the science community, since it would undermine chaos. To play the game, one would have been assume that gravity is not something we can reason, so don't even try. It is a phenomena that ebbs and flows with anything possible. We would have to do a unique study for the moon, on top of mountains, in valleys, as though each was a unique phenomena. This reality would appear real because the correlations would seem to work in their little niche With life we have successfully precluded any reasoning that doesn't make use of chaos. There is no drive to get beyond this empirical alchemy approach, other than improve the tools. I am trying to put the shovel back in the barn and get it out of the house. This puts the alchemy approach in a bind, so the shovel keeps coming back to serve food.

 

I have tried to overview how hydrogen bonding is the foundation for all bioactivity. The bulk molecules without hydrogen bonding are useless. Although this is the most reasonable place to look for the integration called life, alchemy is not rational, so one can't seen to see this. It is expecting to see something far more random. It is like saying gravity is the basis for all objects falling to the earth. This is too simple and rational. Instead we need to treat rocks separate from trees, bugs, etc. because chaos is out there, like the boogie man, making everything separate. I am not sure how to deal with the church of modern alchemy.

 

Thank you, I really enjoyed your argument. I am starting a new thread that I hope will be more restricted, and therefore, more comprehensive as Moontanman, repeatedly tried to pull this thread back down to earth. What if we work on strictly the Chemistry of Life?

 

I wanted to bring in the mystical, but this thread has really gotten out of control and is no longer appropriate for this forum, nor is it comprehensive. However, I want to know in this thread, before another one gets messed up, are the mathematical archetypes as acceptable as Newtons gravity, and if not why not? Should the mathematical archtypes be a separate thread?

 

The more philosophical part of this thread, should perhaps go to philosophy? Or back to the thread I started about light energy and life. That is the thread I expected to consider light energy and manifestation, and things like "What the bleep do we know?"

[CraigD]

There is nothing harmful about using your left brain to see that there exist recurring geometrical patterns in nature, and find them inspiring , and even hold these patterns as scared. This is the best of how art, science and the spirit can all find a happy medium in ones own personal view of the world.

 

You may not see it in this way but an artist that also studies nature may.

I emphatically agree. Coming as I do from an academic Math background by way of previously majoring in English and Fine Arts, I was and remain practically an intuition cultist.

 

However, I’m equally emphatic in my belief that metaphoric approaches to sciences have great potential for leading people terribly astray. While creativity is an essential and vital part of math and science, formalism and the scientific method, which, in a manner almost exactly opposite one of the fundamental maxims of philosophy – “seldom affirm, never deny, always distinguish” – largely involves precise determination of what formal statements are not true. Deficiencies in either inductive creativity and intuition or deductive, reductionistic formalism are, I believe, impediments to understanding. Having passable creative and critical proficiency isn’t proof against inappropriate, imbalanced excesses of either, but a lack of adequate proficiency effectively guarantees it.

 

For all of these pitfalls, we have communities such as hypography. As the song goes, we get by with a little help from our friends :)

I know I replied to CraigD but I can't find the reply, so I will do it again. I was quoting from "A Beginner's guide to constructing the Universe, The Mathematical Archtypes of Nature, Art, and Science" by Michael S. Schneider. This is not pseudoscience, but a language and concept of the world that obviously does not come with today's technological education. For another book that speaks this language, there is "Mind Tools, The Five Levels of Mathematical Reality" by Rudy Rucker author of "Infinity and the Mind".

Rudy Rucker is one of my favorite authors, his “ware” series among my favorite fiction, the image of protean AI robot spacecraft kidnapping humans among my favorite literary images (from “Freeware” – if you’ve not read it, it’s beyond my ability to briefly explain :)). I read his non-fictional “Infinity and the Mind” in the mid 1980s, while I was still in school (post-graduation, as a very junior faculty member), but not “Mind Tools”, nor much of his newer fiction. Nutronjon’s reminded me of the need to catch up.

 

I’ve not read anything of Schneider’s but the outlines at his constructingtheuniverse website. Though his writing looks interesting, it appears I’d have to read him at length to be able to form an informed opinion. The difference between very loosely structured, highly metaphorical speculation and pseudoscience can be subtle, and dependent on the background and expectations of the reader.

 

I must repeat my caution about the misuse of metaphor in understanding math. In particular, one must be cautious to avoid approaches that are, effectively, numerological - for example, concluding that ideas and phenomena with descriptions containing the number one, two, three, or other small, ubiquitous numbers are necessarily related. The 4th century Catholic church did adopt the orthodoxy of God’s ternary nature, space does have 3 non-compact dimensions, and the US federal government does have 3 branches, but he assertion that these 3 share non-trivial mathematical properties related to the number 3 isn’t mathematically sound.

 

PS: This tread seems to have branched in several different directions. If there are no objections, I’ll try splitting them out and putting them in the physics and math and philosophy forums.

[REASON]

I would instead point to the information behind the biological structure that is responsible for self-replication. In that case I would nominate digital code—genetic information—as the essential trait. I know of no other natural structures beside living ones that employ a digital code to communicate from one generation to the next.

 

—Larv

 

It would follow then that:

 

Life is what you make of it. :)

[Larv]

It would follow then that:

 

Life is what you make of it. :confused:

Well, I guess that settles it then, especially with that poignant smily face.