is life about the survival of the fittest chemistry?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by globali, Jan 29, 2018.

  1. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Of course we do.


    Of course it does.

    There seems to be some confusion here. Consciousness is not required for either pain or smell. Witness the lowly flatworm.

    Almost all mobile lifeforms can seek out their food via smell.

    All lifeforms react to irritation (pain). That is one of the criteria for life.
     
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  3. pluto2 Banned Valued Senior Member

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    I read a lot of books about biochemistry, molecular genetics, neuroscience and biophysics and from this I can say that we still do not completely understand how the human body works.

    But there is still hope.

    Science will keeps advancing and through innovation, critical thinking and further research I believe that scientists will finally find a way to completely figure out how the human body really works.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2018
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  5. gamelord Registered Senior Member

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    You are moving the goalposts.
     
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  7. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Taken at face value, they won't.

    There is at least one other element that they will have to figure out before they can fully understand the human body.

    Given time, we will come to realize that any complex organism is not an island. We will come to realize that the environment that is a complex organism does not end at the skin, and in fact does not end at all, but just peters out at a distance of several or many feet. Within this halo of collective organisms, a whole host of players will become important, in the form of microbes, viruses, phermones and other mechanisms, that are interacting every second of every day.

    A functioning organism will not be a discrete body, but a cloud with fuzzy edges. We will not be able to definitively say 'this is the human - while this stuff floating around him is not part of the human.' We will see interactions with other humans and other creatures as overlapped clouds teeming with busy exchanges of bio-chemical materials.
     
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  8. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    Your assertions were pretty straightforward, and I was pretty straightforward in refuting them.
    Are you sure you're using that phrase correctly?
     
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I think I understand what you mean, but I'm not sure if your conclusion is correct.

    Platyhelminthes (flatworms).
    Distinct brain;
    Yes
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatworm

    Does this not indicate at least a rudimentary consciousness, but perhaps not self-awareness.
    Somewhat like our subconscious motor-control brain function? But then, "pain" is consciously experienced when our motor control goes wrong.
    Where do we draw the line?

    Anil Seth: "You do not have to be smart to feel pain, but you probably have to be alive".
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2018
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Life is a cycle. When the cycle is broken the individual line goes extinct.
     
  11. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    You seem to be equating 'consciousness' with simply 'being a living creature that has a nervous centre'.

    If that were true, it would mean consciousness has no meaning, since it is indistinguishable from simply having a nervous centre. They would be synonyms.

    They're not. Consciousness means a qualitative property more than simply having a brain.
     
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  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    When an organism "responds" to external stimulus it is "experiencing" the stimulus , no?
    According to Hameroff and Penrose, this experiencing already happens in single celled organisms.

    Any organism which has micro-tubules (scilia) experiences a small "bing", due to the probability that micro-tubules are very small dedicated quantum computers, which process a quantum wave-collapse as a true experiential event, to which the organism responds.

    What would be the problem with that? Could it be a little hubris to think that we are the only organism which can mentally process and respond to specific sensory information in a specific way?

    When I was raising chickens, I had a rooster who would stand watch and warn the flock when something of concern presented itself. The interesting part was that when the perceived threat was ground bound he would use low tones in his crowing, but when the threat was in the trees or sky, he would crow with a high pitch. Each type of warning resulted in a different behavior in the flock. When the threat was on the ground (in the brush) the chickens would rush to the covered pen and gather, when the threat was from high up, the chickens would take cover in the brush. When I first noticed that different response to a verbal warning in chickens, I was really intrigued. Have a listen to this!


    I am not speaking of abstract thought, which is a very sophisticated model of sentience and consciousness. But why should consciousness such as feeling pain, warmth, cold, affection, belong only to a few hominids?
    How about apes, dogs (land animals).
    Or whales, octopus, cuttlefish (ocean animals).
    Or birds, which dwell in both mediums. Penquins, sea-otter?

    The question is where is the treshold, a "blind" physical response to stimulation or "knowing" your response to stimulus?

    I just believe that living organisms posses communication methods and awareness far beyond what we normally assume from our own "limited" knowledge of animal languages.

    Koko, the recently passed lowland Gorilla, had a beautiful poetic mind and great depth of emotionsl responses with her interactions with humans.
    Think of this - she chose a Manx (no tail) kitten from a litter and named it "All-ball".
    When the cat was later runover by a car, Koko wept and mourned her loss by signing; "All-ball not come back". I find this astounding abstract thought. It brought tears to my eyes.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2018
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  13. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

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    I did not rule out any of those. I would certainly place them somewhere along the curve.

    If we decide that flatworms are 'conscious' then we'd just need another word to describe how complex minds are distinct from mere ganglia.
     
  14. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Intelligence? It is a relative term and given to a sentient organism, one can have an entire range of conciousness or conscious experiences, from simple navigation in single celled organisms, to complex migration navigation abilities in birds and whales. The complexity of the neural network both in the body and in the central processor , the brain.
    We test for IQ, no?

    I don't think this can be compared to inorganic computers, which do not have sensory physical experiences, thus no specialized sensory receptors are effective, regardless of brute computing powers, many insects share the same limitation of AI. They just follow a set program from birth to death. They communicate by scent.

    The micro-tubules (organic computers) in the brain and all over your body (trillions of them) form a communication network which includes the ability to experience the state of overall health , i.e. "feel good" v "feel bad" and the ability to seek the way of "movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction."
    When you think of it, this makes a powerful compound computing network.

    To view the astounding quantity of information processing micro-tubules perform, open link and be amazed....

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    https://www.proteinatlas.org/humancell/microtubules
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2018
  15. pluto2 Banned Valued Senior Member

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    It makes me sad that scientists still can't figure out why we feel pain and how the human body works at a deeper level.

    Some people don't suffer from severe pain after injury and scientists today are still too stupid to figure out why.
     
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  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Read up on Dr. Stuart Hameroff; He and Roger Penrose are collaborating in a new area of brain research.
     
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  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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  18. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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  19. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    question: is the universe a living object or is it merely a non-sentient dynamical object?

    We speak of half-life of an isotope. This means it is clearly dynamical but I don't think anybody wants to declare that isotopes are sentient "living" objects.
    Yet the predicted "life" (death) of an isotope can be mathematically approximated with some reasonable accuracy . It's just mathematical probabilities.

    So, at what point can we start distinguishing "dynamical" sentient life from being "dynamical" non-sentient mathematical patterns?
     
  20. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Is this your attempt to get this thread moved to pseudoscience?
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Why? What did I say that warranted such a response to a question about the subject under discussion?
     
  22. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    How about this absurd question:
    "question: is the universe a living object or is it merely a non-sentient dynamical object?"
    Dynamic implies life? Do you think maybe clouds are alive?
    It is impossible to know when an individual isotope will decay. Nobody with any knowledge about this would say otherwise.
    This is another absurd question.

    Just a waste of time.
     
  23. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Why is that absurd? Have you tried formulating an answer at all?
    Hameroff believes sentience begins with the wave collapse at the microtubular level
    Roger Penrose believes sentience begins at quantum scale, wich would make the universe at least semi sentient, or pseudo intelligent.

    Why do we use terms like "half-life" for non-living objects? And that is not absurd? Be consistent.
     

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