Are plants conscious?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Musika, Mar 26, 2018.

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Are you expecting an entire artificial human to be trotted out and recite Shakespeare at this point? Do know how many molecules it would take?
    Lets start with something simple like a one celled organism that is able to reprduce and displays awareness of it's environment. Something like a brainless slime mold maybe. That would be a giant leap, but would prove that living things can be "made", even if they are brainless.
    As far as I know we have made living tissue, a small step, but in the right direction.
    https://www.ft.com/content/92cc1f70-f737-11e5-96db-fc683b5e52db
     
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  3. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    I guess I would be on the look out for a bunch of gross materialists patting themselves on the back for a job well done.

    If you can't pat yourself on the back because you can't do it, why call it "magical"?
    Do you think that there is some "magical spark" that enables fish to breathe under water?
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The bacteria who did it while you were typing that don't have backs - but it was a job well done.
     
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  7. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Evolution over billions of years is the "enduring" spark which formed/forms all living beings.
    When an organism finds a hospitable environment it's evolution slows down, but is used for refinement of living in that environment.
    IMO, this is proven by the existent range of living things, some which have not changed much for billions of years. They have found a niche of optimum parsimony, such as organisms formed around "black smokers".

    Hazen showed that a simple experiment (Urey -Miller) already can create a "balanced diet" for the formation of living things. The problem there was not to few, but too many molecules.

    The earth itself has had the time and space to perform some 2 trillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion experiments, eventually creating the ability for polymerization and cell division.
    From that point on it was a matter of functional specializaton.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2018
  8. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    They are just tweaking whatever already exists. Actually their experiments illustrate very nicely the distinction between life and the chemicals life utilizes.
     
  9. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    A redneck couple living in a mobile home with 12 kids do have backs.... but I'm afraid if you go up and pat theirs, your act may be misinterpreted.
     
  10. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Making such vague statements won't get your back patted I'm afraid. Infact using the word "evolution" to contextualize abiogenesis may even get your face slapped by quite a few of them.
     
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Apparently you do not understand the "combinatory richness of vast spaces and times", resulting in the formation of probabilistically "rare" events. Note the term probabilistic, which indicates a range of possibilities of such rare events.
    Right, we're discovering the clues of what is necessary to create life. But you cannot expect any laboratory to conduct the near infinite chemical interactions and the properties of these complex patterns and properties for life, given the short times and small spaces available.

    No one denies that living things are not easy to duplicate, but we are able to represent targeted evolution at much shorter times by the aid of computers which are able to perform theoretical calculations much faster than a probabilistic (random) phenomenon over enormous spaces.

    Darwin himself experimented with doves and created to most interesting varieties. In Holland variegated tulips once were priceless possessions, until we found out it was a disease which created the beautiful patterns in the flowers.
    Perhaps you don't remember "tulip mania".
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2018
  12. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    It's just when you start to get into the specifics of probalistics that wearing ice hockey masks may be warranted. Its basically like a dysfunctional board meeting where things can remain amiable for as long as discussion points remain vague.

    Precisely.
    The clincher in science is "doability".
    Saying you can make 50 million dollars is completely different from actually making it.
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Well, there are many millionaires, even billionaires, so it can be done, no?

    Not easy, but doable! It's a matter of using a formula and according to Hazen, we're getting close in the area of bio-chemistry to form a self replicating cycle of some 500 biomolecules, each reinforcing the pattern. Are we a pattern of bio-molecules placed in just the right way to create a living organism?
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2018
  14. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, but can it be done by you?
    Pointing at the variety of"expensive" things on the planet and saying "I can buy that" doesn't help you for as long as you only have $200 in the bank.
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    The universe is a BIG BANK and some bio-molecules are already formed by the trillions in cosmic clouds, by ultra-violet bombardments. We are made from stardust.

    Of course I can't, I'm not a bio-chemist. But as bookkeeper I have dealt with vast sums of money, the life blood of business patterns.
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2018
  16. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    I guess its not unusual for a big bank to bewilder people's estimations of their financial prowess. Its like an unpleasant shadow of the mind that provides an instant commentary of ownership .... like "oh what a beautiful house" becomes "I wish I could live in it" ... or "oh what an attractive person" becomes "I wish I could enjoy with them" .... or "oh what a powerful position" becomes "I wish I could occupy it".

    Given that ambition and desire can have noble avenues (such as the pursuit of knowledge for example), one has to wonder whether instantly defaulting to notions of proprietorship destroy or limit such progress.

    Is this a necessary condition for our existence or a necessary condition for us to establish proprietorship?

    It doesn't have to be talked up as a malignant sense of propriety. The ambition and propriety can be driven by a sort of naivety like piglet in winnie the pooh

    Piglet's favorite food is acorns (or as the book often spells it, "haycorns"). At one point he plants one just outside his house, in hopes of someday having a handy supply. He lives in a house in a beech tree in the Hundred Acre Wood, next to a sign which says "TRESPASSERS W". An illustration shows that the sign is broken off after the "W." According to Piglet, that is "short for Trespassers Will, which is short for Trespassers William," which was the name of his grandfather.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piglet_(Winnie-the-Pooh)



     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    It is a necessary condition for life to emerge.
     
  18. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    The same is true of pez candy.

    On top of this however, life also acts and, as we can understand from our intimate association with the human species, develops quite array of ideas as to why it is acting.
     
  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Incoherent.
    Well that depends on your experience with other animals and some flora and trying to communicate meaningfully, but in a respectful way. It's also called "bonding", finding a common empathic intimacy.
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2018
  20. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    Life is more than merely emerging. Anything that exists, emerges. Being spat out a distributing orifice (like pez candy) tends to spell our beginning chapter, not our complete edition

    My point was we are distinct because we have a strange sense of propriety. .... its kind of the double edge of having a more developed intelligence .... it can either work to or against our advantage. Human life fails to sit comfortably with the mere pursuit of animal propensities.
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, it has about a high probability of emerging from the primordial soup and would fall under category of "rare events"
    We just dont know the exact conditions and sequences, which would create such a "specific" event or separate events. A bio-chemical organic assembly under a specific sum of extant conditions.

    The term "spitting" actually is a nice metaphor, although Bohm called it "enfolded states" and "unfolded states"
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    But not different from pointing to examples and saying that's how it's made.
     
  23. Musika Last in Space Valued Senior Member

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    If ideas about how to do things were not different from actually doing them, the world would certainly be a magical place. Takes us back to Winnie the Pooh.

    Piglet's favorite food is acorns (or as the book often spells it, "haycorns"). At one point he plants one just outside his house, in hopes of someday having a handy supply.
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2018

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