What is life?

[Thunderbird]

 

 

 

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 loved the film, I highly recommend it :confused:

[HydrogenBond]

Here is a something to think about. What would happen if life evolved a third base pair for the DNA. There is nothing carved in stone that states that two base pairs is the final form of the DNA. The extra base pair may appear like science fiction, but there are already some small changes that occur on existing bases. This is from Wikipedia.

 

DNA methylation involves the addition of a methyl group to DNA — for example, to the number 5 carbon of the cytosine pyrimidine ring — with the effect of reducing gene expression. DNA methylation at the 5 position of cytosine has been found in every vertebrate examined.

 

This odd base pair with the extra methyl added is there mostly to suppress genetic expression. An additional base pair could theoretically be used to tweak this control scheme with far more local reliability. It could also have an impact on the number of proteins that would be possible. The greater number of codon combinations would now be able to accommodate even more animo acids. So maybe there would be a parallel push to increase the number of animo acids. This, in turn, allows more subtle tweaks for existing enzymes. It could also allow new enzymes that are not yet possible with only the two base pairs and the current set of animo acids.

 

What this brings to the table is an impact on life as we know it. If we cranked up the coordinated complexity of the cells (assuming this took hold and was gaining forward momentum), then life's functional capability would go through a type of rapid change with accelerated evolution. Maybe this will not occur naturally, but maybe it is something humans will try to do many years in the future, leading to nature never being the same.

[Moontanman]

Here is a something to think about. What would happen if life evolved a third base pair for the DNA. There is nothing carved in stone that states that two base pairs is the final form of the DNA. The extra base pair may appear like science fiction, but there are already some small changes that occur on existing bases. This is from Wikipedia.

 

 

 

This odd base pair with the extra methyl added is there mostly to suppress genetic expression. An additional base pair could theoretically be used to tweak this control scheme with far more local reliability. It could also have an impact on the number of proteins that would be possible. The greater number of codon combinations would now be able to accommodate even more animo acids. So maybe there would be a parallel push to increase the number of animo acids. This, in turn, allows more subtle tweaks for existing enzymes. It could also allow new enzymes that are not yet possible with only the two base pairs and the current set of animo acids.

 

What this brings to the table is an impact on life as we know it. If we cranked up the coordinated complexity of the cells (assuming this took hold and was gaining forward momentum), then life's functional capability would go through a type of rapid change with accelerated evolution. Maybe this will not occur naturally, but maybe it is something humans will try to do many years in the future, leading to nature never being the same.

 

Haven't some bacteria genomes been constructed with extra base pairs? I think I read about bacteria being made with base pairs that do not exist in nature.

[nutronjon]

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

 

Thank you for that word "nucleotides". This information would do well in the chemistry of plant life thread, but that one looks like a gardening thread, more than an explanation of life- which is my fault for how I introduced the subject and all the questions I have while trying to get a garden going, while thinking of what is said here while I pull grass out of the garden.

 

Anyway nucleotides are more than digital codes. The five side form, Pentad, is essential to the nucleotides.

 

Discover Pentongonal (self-symentry) in Natural Forms

 

Each life form below is enclosed with a pentagon. Use a straighthedge to connect its five corners to inscribe a pentagram star. Further decomplete the penatagons and notice the remarkable detail with wich the creature express its archtypal design, and how each small part is structured as the whole..... (sorry I can not duplicate the pictures from my book, nor the site below, but if could, you would see how important the pentongonal archtype is to life.)

 

Nucleotide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Nucleotide structure

The structure elements of the most common nucleotides

A nucleotide is composed of a ring of nitrogen, carbon and oxygen atoms, a five carbon sugar (together referred to as a nucleoside) and one or more phosphate groups. The sugar involved in the synthesis and structure of a nucleotide may be either ribose or deoxyribose; in the latter case, the prefix 'deoxy' may be added before the name of the nucleoside in all cases except thymidine. The nucleoside may bond to one, two or three functional group(s) of phosphate(s), forming respectively a monophosphate, diphosphate or triphosphate nucleotide. There are a wide variety of nucleotide and deoxynucleotide structures, as illustrated in the diagrams below. (again pictures showing this is not just digital ordering buy pentagonal ordering, wouldn't copy and paste for me)

 

[

 

I think those who are denying the importance of mathematical archtypes, are missing an important piece to our understanding of manifestation and life. Form is essential to all matter, even the gases and dust particles that have not condensed to planets and stars. But this is a form taken on at the atom level. I must pursue this thinking because I am damn curious how the ancients became aware of such things. Why did they determine 5, the pentad archetype, is the archetype for regeneration, replicating a copy of self, before we could diagram a Nucleotide?

[nutronjon]

Here is a something to think about. What would happen if life evolved a third base pair for the DNA. There is nothing carved in stone that states that two base pairs is the final form of the DNA. The extra base pair may appear like science fiction, but there are already some small changes that occur on existing bases. This is from Wikipedia.

 

 

 

This odd base pair with the extra methyl added is there mostly to suppress genetic expression. An additional base pair could theoretically be used to tweak this control scheme with far more local reliability. It could also have an impact on the number of proteins that would be possible. The greater number of codon combinations would now be able to accommodate even more animo acids. So maybe there would be a parallel push to increase the number of animo acids. This, in turn, allows more subtle tweaks for existing enzymes. It could also allow new enzymes that are not yet possible with only the two base pairs and the current set of animo acids.

 

What this brings to the table is an impact on life as we know it. If we cranked up the coordinated complexity of the cells (assuming this took hold and was gaining forward momentum), then life's functional capability would go through a type of rapid change with accelerated evolution. Maybe this will not occur naturally, but maybe it is something humans will try to do many years in the future, leading to nature never being the same.

 

:( out of time already. Man, look at this question geometrically. I could be wrong, but I suspect geometry will give you that answer.

[HydrogenBond]

I look at the DNA as the analogous to the hard drive of the cell. Like in computers, if we make a copy of the hard drive and place the copied hard drive into another similar configuration, we have a clone computer. Scientists, claiming to make life, installed a DNA hard drive into a shell cell, sort of replacing the existing hard drive with another. Within that DNA hard drive are the programs that allow one to copy the hard drive.

 

If we continue the analogy, one should be able to take out the hard drive and the computer should still be able to run, with limited capacity, using the mother board. This occurs in nature with red blood cells able to remain alive or functional without needing DNA. They can't replicate but follow all the rest of the definitions of life.

 

Blood Cells without DNA

 

Although the cellular mother board doesn't need the DNA hard drive to be alive, the DNA hard drive will not work without the mother board. The DNA, by itself will neither be alive nor be able to replicate, so it is dead by itself. I realize that this is not the conclusion that most people want to hear because it makes DNA # 2, and it is our sentimental favorite. Regardless we need both #1 and #2 to form the full life affect.

 

If we go back to #1 and red blood cells, these are still able to interact with their environment, in a limited way, for O2 and CO2 exchange. What this says is the #1 is not just the mother board but also the power supply and the interface devices, such as the mouse and the keypad.

 

What this suggests is, since the #1 can function without #2, when we add the hard drive there should be a connectivity hierarchy. This hierarchy is #1 then #2. The input-output devices in the #1 is what allows #2 to help #1. One has to add it up logically instead of sentimentally, with DNA being the sentimental favorite. The cell cycle takes the DNA hard drive offline so it can be copied, with #1 still taking care of business.

 

If #1 can be semi-alive by itself and #2 is not alive by itself without tubes and wires connecting it to #1, then the alive #1 helps the dead #2, so the entire system, when up and running is better than the sum of its parts. That is why I have contended the environment is very important to evolution because #1 is interfaced to both #2 and the environment, #3.

 

Most theories that put #2 DNA, as #1, are irrational. Nothing happens on the DNA hard drive until it filters through #1. The replication the DNA occurs via #1. The #1 may need to tweak some of the programs. It may also need to shift some to archive. It is sort of like if I was going to duplicate the hard drive on my computer. I may not wish to include personal information. I may also exclude programs the other person will not need or add some extra I don't use. It does not magically appear. This magic is only possible when the cart leads the horse. The DNA role as #2 is very important since it adds more range and capacitance to #1.

[HydrogenBond]

Many year ago I saw this conceptual problem. I tried to model in terms of #1 then #2. The best model used hydrogen bonding because of simplicity. There was so much data and theory built upon the #2 before #1, foundation, that it was too complicated arguing from right to left when everyone else was arguing left to right. It would be like me writing articles starting on the right side of the paper and working to left. It would seen backwards and be rejected, because that is not the accepted convention. The hydrogen bonding approach was by itself, so I figured it was be easier using this approach. It is a framework which can be built upon to argue either way.

 

Let me go with the metaphor of putting the cart before the horse and compare this to the horse before the cart. With the cart going first, the system is far more vulnerable to the terrain. It can only go down hill unless it has gained momentum to climb another smaller hill. It is also vulnerable to the road if it slants left or right with the cart shifting either way leading to the cart and horse going off the road. If the road takes a turn and the cart has momentum, then it keeps going straight. The result is all the uncertainty that has to be designed into the current biological sciences.

 

If we put the horse first, now we can go slower down hills and even climb the next hill without needing a lot of momentum. The tilting in the terrain, pot holes, and sudden turns are not a problem since the horse knows the way. There is still some uncertainty in the cart, but much less than before. It brings things out the land of chaos into a transition zone. The next logical step requires simplifying assumptions.

 

If we use a practical application, like evolution, one can see potential problems being created, philosophically, putting the cart first. I believe in evolution, but question the cart before the horse premise. But this is consensus thinking which sort of makes it right, because of might, but not because of reason. If we we put the horse first, things still evolve, but there is less need to model all the extra uncertainty. This may seem too simple without all the expected chaos, required of the existing system. Chaos is really a state of mind created when affect is placed before cause. Reason starts to break down and we become empirical by necessity.

[nutronjon]

I look at the DNA as the analogous to the hard drive of the cell. Like in computers, if we make a copy of the hard drive and place the copied hard drive into another similar configuration, we have a clone computer. Scientists, claiming to make life, installed a DNA hard drive into a shell cell, sort of replacing the existing hard drive with another. Within that DNA hard drive are the programs that allow one to copy the hard drive.

 

If we continue the analogy, one should be able to take out the hard drive and the computer should still be able to run, with limited capacity, using the mother board. This occurs in nature with red blood cells able to remain alive or functional without needing DNA. They can't replicate but follow all the rest of the definitions of life.

 

Blood Cells without DNA

 

Although the cellular mother board doesn't need the DNA hard drive to be alive, the DNA hard drive will not work without the mother board. The DNA, by itself will neither be alive nor be able to replicate, so it is dead by itself. I realize that this is not the conclusion that most people want to hear because it makes DNA # 2, and it is our sentimental favorite. Regardless we need both #1 and #2 to form the full life affect.

 

If we go back to #1 and red blood cells, these are still able to interact with their environment, in a limited way, for O2 and CO2 exchange. What this says is the #1 is not just the mother board but also the power supply and the interface devices, such as the mouse and the keypad.

 

What this suggests is, since the #1 can function without #2, when we add the hard drive there should be a connectivity hierarchy. This hierarchy is #1 then #2. The input-output devices in the #1 is what allows #2 to help #1. One has to add it up logically instead of sentimentally, with DNA being the sentimental favorite. The cell cycle takes the DNA hard drive offline so it can be copied, with #1 still taking care of business.

 

If #1 can be semi-alive by itself and #2 is not alive by itself without tubes and wires connecting it to #1, then the alive #1 helps the dead #2, so the entire system, when up and running is better than the sum of its parts. That is why I have contended the environment is very important to evolution because #1 is interfaced to both #2 and the environment, #3.

 

Most theories that put #2 DNA, as #1, are irrational. Nothing happens on the DNA hard drive until it filters through #1. The replication the DNA occurs via #1. The #1 may need to tweak some of the programs. It may also need to shift some to archive. It is sort of like if I was going to duplicate the hard drive on my computer. I may not wish to include personal information. I may also exclude programs the other person will not need or add some extra I don't use. It does not magically appear. This magic is only possible when the cart leads the horse. The DNA role as #2 is very important since it adds more range and capacitance to #1.

 

:( When I got my first computer there was no Windows to tell my computer what to do. I turned it on and it just sat there with a turn on hard drive, waiting for dirictions. All computer users had to be programers too, capable of telling the hard drive what to do, how to open a program. Computers came with several books telling the buyer how to talk to the computer. God I was frustrated! Then a kid programmed my computer to start up the programs with a click on the program I wanted, and I was happy again.

 

DNA is not everything.

 

Regulating Evolution: How Gene Switches Make Life: Scientific American

Key Concepts

Because genes encode instructions for building animal bodies, biologists once expected to find significant genetic differences among animals, reflecing their great diversity of forms. Instead very dissimilar animals have turned out to have very similar genes.

Mutations in DNA “switches” that control body-shaping genes, rather than in the genes themselves, have been a significant source of evolving differences among animals.

If humans want to understand what distinguishes animals, including ourselves, from one another, we have to look beyond genes.

 

I am not clear on what you mean by #1 and #2 but you have to have both the programmed hard drive and programming switches because it is the switches that make a fly a fly and not a horse. The DNA can pretty much become either. That means, like a computer can be used for many different things, so can the DNA be a wide variety of animals. When we get this figured out, we might be able to program DNA to get back extinct animals. How is that for an exciting science fiction? Reminds me of the stories I have heard about earth being colonized by aliens.

 

PS, I don't believe chaos above the quauntum level. I believe, once manifestation begins, everything from there is cause and effect.

[nutronjon]

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 ;)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.

 

:( Number 3 is not magical. However, number 3 can represent many different things. Keep in my mind our numbers are Arabic and the Greeks were not working with these numbers. Pythagoras was doing math with unmunber stones, holding places. This math is conceptually different from working with Arabic numbers.

 

Schneider’s writes of archetypes discovered by a very different aprouch to math than what our colleges teach. I believe these archetypes are as real as gravity. The difference of which you speak, is kind of like beginning with astromony and getting astrology. I don't think we should confuse the mathematical archetypes with astrology. The archetypes are geometry, and the shape of something detemines its strength and if it can attach to something or not; it is conservation of space and energy. The shapes become concepts, such as the concept of gravity. The number three is a triangle and we are speaking of the properties of this geometric form, not the magic of a number.

 

I think you actually know much more than I do, so I will ask you to explain how scientist use a matrix to explore infomation. How about this, we should not be overly reliant on one method of logic, but after having an intuitive idea, we need to check it out with experiments and observations and other people, and even after everyone agrees, we still need to question what we think we know.

 

And how about this? How about making some room for fun? Might many more people be interested in science if we were a little more friendly about it and took care to protect people's dignity when possibly their ideas need correcting? What if we just avoiding using insulting words- kind of reminds me of all the different churches. Some religious people are extremely uptight about their truths, and for sure drive everyone away with their piety and self rightousness. Other religious are very friendly and make everyone feel welcome. Sometimes it isn't what we know that is so important, but our attitude regarding this information and our own sense of self importance. Our technological society has become self destructive with such a nasty attitude about what is right and what is wrong. The social implications of this are just dreadful, no better than when the church powers got totally out of hand. So let us lighten up a bit and keep it friendly. :):doh: not :eek::)

[HydrogenBond]

By #1 and #2, I was comparing the bulk cell to the genetics. A cell can function without genetics as demonstrated by red blood cells, and show all the conditions of life except replication. The DNA does not demonstrate life apart from the rest of the cell. That is why I called it the hard drive. It takes both to get the entire life affect. I was working under the assumption that partial life was#1 with the non living genetics #2. It seemed logical to put alive ahead of dead.

 

This hierarchy makes it easier to explain what you were saying about the DNA of diverse species being much closer than was originally expected. If DNA was #1, which was the new assumption many moons ago, it made logical sense there should be as considerable genetic difference in various extreme life forms. One also expected more complicated life needing more genes than simple. But it didn't turn out that way. The differences are often in the ordering of genes and the final active shape of the DNA. We also discovered genes from the past and parts of the DNA with limited day-to-day functionality, i.e., junk.

 

If we assume DNA is #2, this is less surprising. The #1 can ignore what it does not need. It can alter the DNA shape to make it better suited to what it does needs. It can retain old programs in the hard drive since these will not suddenly become active unless #1 sees the need. This is a better control system for environmental interaction. If we alter the environment #1 has the interface via the membrane. It can go to archive if needed. The other way around we need to wait for a mutation before any adaptation, since the DNA is sort of virus in the sense of needing #1 to come alive.

 

Where #1 comes in really handy is multicellular differentiation. This should have created the paradox that moved genetics to #2. How can the DNA, which is dead apart from a cell, know how to limit itself, so each cell can have the same DNA, yet, various cells can place their own limits on the genes used. This will occur while the DNA is able to be stretched out as it replicates the same way for all the cells.

 

If we put #1 first, the story goes like this. The gamete cells are due to an internal environmental induction of the body, where the DNA is adapted to the potential to make the gamete cells. In the end this environment and #1, boot half of the DNA out, since the #1 does not really need all that DNA to be alive. When the male and female DNA combine, #1 does a little shuffling of the genes to get the DNA right. It is rearranging the files on the new combined hard drive to put the programs it needs up front. What #1 is preparing to do is set up a small home network by making clone PC's. The #1 spreads out and now a network.

 

What happens next, is the environment changes as the little home network attaches to the uterine wall. One side of the network will see a different environment than the other side. There is communication, but through the filter of the internal network #1. This allows differentiation. As a loose analogy, one side of the network is surfing the web gathering files. It only shares certain files with the rest of the network. It may even photoshop some of the picture before sending them onward. The boss only wants the final analysis and not all the raw data. We need to tweak the DNA to get the correct format for information exchange.

 

If we look at the complete human body, the entire network of #1 is like a huge multinational organization. Each factory has its own autonomy, while also being in contact with the regional and then world headquarters for some coordinated stirring set by the global organization. The genetic #2 is under the control of the organization. Everyone uses the same company manual although not everything will apply to your particular position. The global, regional and local #1 will then set the local environment to make sure the manual is being followed. Stem cells are the raw colleges student trainable for any position in the organization.

 

One important part of the organization will induce the environment that is needed to make the DNA generate gamete cells, with half the DNA booted out after construction. That make part of the DNA a subcontractor. Any smart company will diversify. It starts up the new company with some stirring, but also allows considerable autonomy since this is new area. This keeps things open for the flexibility of a merge,r When these two DNA hard drives merge we form a new manual for the new company.

[HydrogenBond]

I am going add a little bit. This will bring us to some of my logic behind how to model the network. Based on the vast majority of observations the interaction of cells within the human body appears to occur via chemical exchange. But there is a simple observation that shows this assumption is not a complete explanation. I live in Florida, where they grow oranges. Depending on the amount of rain, the oranges come out with either thick or thin peels. If it is a dry growing season the peels are thicker, helping to keep the oranges from dehydrating.

 

If you look at this logically, the difference between thick and thin peel oranges is only dependant on water. The cells are mostly water while variation in environmental water can affect the DNA. There is no distinction between the rain water and the cell water, it is all H2O. The net affect is we can get a very directed and predictable genetic pertubation using a very diffuse chemical variable that does not appear to carry any distinction. One can explain this by saying the amount of water will affect the nutrient uptake thereby adjusting these concentrations. But again the NKP variable is also very diffuse with only proportions and not molecular specificity making the difference.

 

The net affect is, currently, not only is the cart being placed before the horse but the horse seems to be missing a leg. From a practical point of view, a three legged horse is not the best horse to pull a cart. This could explain needing to place the genetic cart before the horse. It is sort of a merciful approach because of the handicap of the horse. One way to switch this around is we need to add a bionic leg. This will make the horse stronger and faster so it can pull the cart.

 

The best bionic leg I could figure out is connected to hydrogen bonding or hydrogen bonding potential. It is bionic in the sense of not seeming very intuitive, at first, but appears to be an artificial variable. To make it natural would require translating a mountain of observation. This is overwhelming. It would be easier if others could help narrow down the requirement that would make it appear more natural to them. At this point in time, the hydrogen bonding model is more like a peg leg, but it does help the horse so it can pull the cart.

 

It is not coincidence that hydrogen bonding is the basis of water and all the active bio-structures. This variable was chosen by nature. Whether the cart or the horse leads, this variable is still the foundation of bio-activity. It is a holographic variable being everywhere in almost everything. Theoretically. one can model the tens of thousands of molecular variables in terms of just one variable. This simplicity can explain thin or thick peels. Both are just equilibrium hydrogen configurations.

[nutronjon]

Hydrogenbond, I have read what you wrote a few times, trying to digest what you have said. Can a blood cell be produced without DNA doing the producing? If I understand correctly, it does not carry DNA and can not divide and reproduce itself. Be gentle with me okay? These are new concepts for me and I am having trouble gesting them.

 

By #1 and #2, I was comparing the bulk cell to the genetics. A cell can function without genetics as demonstrated by red blood cells, and show all the conditions of life except replication. The DNA does not demonstrate life apart from the rest of the cell. That is why I called it the hard drive. It takes both to get the entire life affect. I was working under the assumption that partial life was#1 with the non living genetics #2. It seemed logical to put alive ahead of dead.

 

Oviously DNA is not life, because we take it out of mummies that have been dead for a long time. Hum, however, DNA can loose its integrity, because we can not retrive useful DNA from all dead bodies. Can you help with this? Like a virus, DNA appears to maintain its integrity for a very long time, but not forever. Under what conditions does DNA maintain or loose its integrity? I think this may be important to the question of what is life.

 

I just read some DNA material floats in the air and can become part of snow flakes that fall to the earth. This is written in the May-June copy of American Scientist page 209, "Into Each Rain Some Life Must Fall". That could spread life around a planet pretty fast, and spread it into many different environments. DNA, the basic program for life, can be spread in water and air. Like the orange comes up different depending on environmental conditions, surely the DNA would come up different, depending on environment conditions.

 

While reading of the oranges, I wondered if the trees are watered when the air is dry, do they develop thin skins? If so, it doesn't matter how much fluid they loose as long they can take in enough to compensate for the loss. However, this would change the flavor of the orange. I am marveling over the system that would inform the orange cells to become skin, depending on the amount of moisture available to it. That appears to be intelligence to me. Any reason why we should not consider this intelligence? Can you provide a fuller explanation of this decision making process?

[HydrogenBond]

The DNA is very important. What makes it very useful is that the DNA is a very stable molecule and therefore a very stable hard drive. But the DNA sitting in a mummy's tomb will never form a cell around itself. If a bacteria's #1 sees it, it will eat it like another piece of food.

 

But on the other hand, finding an ancient DNA hard drive does allow one to deduce some of the capabilities of the computer or #1 that it may have stemmed from. For example, if the #2 or DNA has the latest game programs, we know the computer may have had to have at least a certain level CPU and graphics card. But this may not always be the case. There is more DNA in the cell, than the cell will actually use. If we assume what was not used, was being used, simply because it is on the DNA, one may be deducing the ideal and not the real. For example, modern chickens have genes for teeth and fangs. If chicken went extinct and 1000 years from now science found it genes, these particular genes may lead everyone to believe chickens in our time had fangs. The carbon dating would say 1000 years ago and the genes would say fangs. This is hard to refute.

 

The reality is, the chicken cell bodies take their DNA, fang genes and all, and create an equilibrium shape with these fang genes sort of buried somewhere in the middle. This active shape or configuration due to the cell bodies may not be preserved in fossils. It is important to go from #1 to #2 too help narrow the range of possibilities. But the living part of the cell is not as well preserved, so this is not always possible.

 

Multicellular differentiation is a good example of potential problems. White blood cells in the human body also have our entire DNA, but remain single cells. It is sort of a single cell us, with our face on it. I am just kidding about the face. But it is fully autonomous as a single cell with the entire human DNA. If we found just its DNA we might assume it was an entire multicellular life. Maybe some large single cells having enough DNA might be assumed to be an ancient forms of multicellular life. The #1 will not create this ambiguity because it will tell us the genes used at that time.

 

But on the other hand, an ancient multicellular blob life, due to cells dividing and then sticking together could create an equilibrium zone or internal environment needed to put it over the top so it can generate some pre-gamete cells in one of its zones. This was in the DNA, but would not appear active until #1 could create the right internal environment. The next thing is a little fish coming out of the blob, i.e., magic. It may have come down to #1 creating a simple network environment for amplification. Now those genes are an active part of a valid equilibrium DNA shape.

[REASON]

While reading of the oranges, I wondered if the trees are watered when the air is dry, do they develop thin skins? If so, it doesn't matter how much fluid they loose as long they can take in enough to compensate for the loss. However, this would change the flavor of the orange. I am marveling over the system that would inform the orange cells to become skin, depending on the amount of moisture available to it. That appears to be intelligence to me. Any reason why we should not consider this intelligence? Can you provide a fuller explanation of this decision making process?

 

First of all, it is not proper to characterize a physical adaptation in plants as related to a "decision making process." Plants do not have brains, and are therefore incapable of thought, meaning that they cannot make decisions.

 

If a plant develops an adaptation through mutation for instance, that gives it a greater chance of survival, that adaptation will have a better chance of being propagated, whereas an unsuccessful adaptation will not. There is no decision making involved in this process. That is why we should not consider it "intelligence."

[HydrogenBond]

The plant has, within its genetic hard drive, the programs needed to adapt to a wide range of conditions. If the environmental potentials imply drought, it uses the needed genes. What is sort of interesting, in the spring we can thin the plants of little oranges. The goal is to have fewer oranges, with the ones remaining growing bigger and stronger. The solar power establishes how much energy that is going into the system. A similar share of energy goes into the remaining oranges making what is left bigger.

 

I am going to overview hydrogen potential and then return to the plant. The easiest way to introduce this is to look at the molecule HCl which makes hydrochloric acid. If you look at HCl it has a charge dipole with the H side positive and the Cl side negative. These charges are equal and opposite. Although the charge dipole is equal and opposite this is a strong acid, implying the main activity resides in the hydrogen end. The Cl- is a weak base. This observation tells us is charge alone is not sufficient to explain this. Both sides have the same charge, but the activity of each side is very different. The reason is, the entire potential on both sides of the dipole is electromagnetic implying the magnetic potential of the H is higher than the Cl- to account for the difference in activity, since charge is a wash.

 

One could have deduced this with the observation that there is a dipole to begin with. In other words, separating charge takes energy. Where it comes from is the magnetic potential lowering in the Cl as it completes the octet. This is exothermic enough to separate the charge and give the H an extra boost that we call being a strong acid. Here is an example nature creating hydrogen potential. The H will try to lower this potential.

 

If we place HCl is water, the hydrogen is able to lower its potential, somewhat, by attaching to a water molecule. But this is not perfect. The oxygen in water is also highly electronegative, similar to the Cl, and although it will share electron density with the H, it is stingier than H would like. That is why if we stick some metal like iron in the water, the hydrogen will go after iron's electrons. What is interesting is although the acid is +1, it can cause the iron to go all the way to +3. The little H, although small, has sort of a Napoleon complex. The living state makes use of this bad attitude in H. What life does is bond the H chemically in ways where it can't fully get rid of its potential, loosely analogous to the acid H in water. Sure it will form hydrogen bonds, but this is not enough in many cases, since it has to share with the rather cheap O and N. Their much higher electronegativity (magnetic lowering) favors O and N. If we add this residual H bad attitude throughout an entire enzyme, now the enzyme has a bad attitude. It is now able to chew up molecules.

 

In a cell the H account for up to 65-70% of the atoms. This is a lot a bad attitude. Life goes into nature with this H attitude and can adapt and even alter the environment. In the case of the plant, the environmental potentials will either make the bad attitude better or worse. This spreads out through the cell with the DNA not exempt from doing its share to help the cause since its shape and activity make use of hydrogen bonding. The shape and activity of the DNA is an H based dynamic equilibrium, with the mood of the hydrogen in the cell, accessing the DNA hard drive getting it involved in the battle. This is way oversimplified. It was presented just to give a rough feel for H's bad attitude and how this helps the drive within life.

[Boerseun]

The debate about "What is Life" is a debate as old as Science and Philosophy itself. It is, unfortunately, a debate that too often gets sidetracked by the metaphysical convictions that is stirring in even the most astute philosopher's subconscious.

 

Life, in short, is simply what organic molecules and compounds get up to if you pile enough of it on a ball of rock in the proper vicinity of an hospitable star, stir, and leave to simmer for a few billion years.

 

Iron oxydizes, there's no magic there. Same with life.

 

Carbon is incredibly weird - ask any organic chemistry student.

 

But even with all the millions of possible ways that carbon connects with the rest of the Periodic Table that are so far described, "magic" have never been inferred to supply a suitable answer to the weirdness organic compounds get up to. Something is only "weird" until its described and understood. Then it migrates from the "weirdness" inbox to the "technical and complex, but perfectly understandable" out-tray.

[InfiniteNow]

I see the question as somewhat a waste of time, myself. Mental masturbation as my godfather likes to call it.

 

What could be the possible application of having a clear distinction between "life" and "non-life?" (especially considering it's more appropriately looked at on a spectrum as opposed to framed into some false boolean state).