Posted on 06/23/2008 3:05:46 PM PDT by betty boop
What is Life/Non-life in Nature?
by Jean F. Drew
Everywhere we see the “behavior” of life/non-life (death) in nature; but that doesn’t tell us what life/non-life IS.
Darwin’s theory of evolution doesn’t help with this question. It presupposes the existence of life axiomatically, and then proceeds to speak of the origin and evolution of species. Its fundamental assumption is that biological evolution is a wholly naturalistic, material process governed by the laws of physics and chemistry, with random variation and natural selection as the principal drivers of the system. Central to the Darwinist view is that life forms — species — evolve into completely other, more complex species; and this is so because all living beings are members of a Tree of Life that is rooted in a single common ancestor (the theory is silent on where the common ancestor came from).
But Darwinist theory doesn’t tell us what life is, or where it came from, just how it evolves (or speciates) under purely materialistic and naturalistic constraints. It is not a theory of life, and I think Darwin would agree with that.
This does not prevent theorists from speculating that, given the preferred scientific cosmology of a material universe of infinite size and unlimited duration — no beginning, no end — anything that can happen, will happen in time. Therefore, it is plausible to suppose that life itself may have originated from random chemical reactions that somehow “lucked out” and “stuck,” giving us the origin of life and its ubiquity and persistence henceforth.
The important point is that Darwinism rests on a certain cosmology, or world view. That worldview is increasingly being falsified by modern physics. (See below.)
It seems doubtful that an investigation carried out at the level of physical chemistry can demonstrate the emergence of life from non-living matter. This is called abiogenesis, which describes the situation where non-life (inorganic matter) spontaneously bootstraps itself into a living organism.
Miller and Urey attempted to demonstrate abiogenesis under laboratory conditions, using simulated lightning strikes on a suitable “pre-biotic soup.” They got a bunch of amino acids. But amino acids are the building blocks of living systems, not living systems themselves.
Wimmer got a better result in his attempt to create a polio virus, a living organism. He actually succeeded! But his “recipe” involved far more than the material “cell-free juice” he used as his culture: He introduced information into the mix: Wimmer began with the information sequence of RNA which he synthesized to DNA (because RNA cannot be synthesized) and then synthesized the message from DNA to RNA. When he added the message to a cell free juice, it began transmitting and duplicating. And he got himself a polio virus — a living being….
But the important thing to bear in mind is that, although Wimmer was successful in creating a living being, he was not the author of the information that led to this result. It was already “there” — and no scientist claims to know its source. Indeed, physics so far has been unable to locate any source for this type of life-generating information within the physical world. In other words, scientists recognize the indispensable requirement of information to living systems, they see that it is indeed “there”; but they cannot say how it got there, or from whence it came.
Consider also that the universe itself seems to be “informed,” in the sense of displaying evidence of some remarkable “fine-tuning” that guides its evolution. Physical chemistry itself rests on, is informed by, deeper principles: the physical laws, which in turn depend on certain ubiquitous universal constants — the speed of light; the value of pi; Plank’s constant; Plank time; the resonance precision required for the existence of carbon (a necessary element for life); the explosive power of the Big Bang precisely matched to the power of gravity (its density precisely matched with the critical density of the universe); the delicate balance in the strong nuclear force; the precise balancing of gravitational force and electromagnetic force; the meticulous balance between the number of electrons and protons; the precision in electromagnetic force and the ratio of proton mass to electron mass and neutron mass to proton mass; the Big Bang’s defiance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and gravity’s cumulative effect; etc., for examples.
If the universe were at bottom “random” in its evolution, these instances of evident fine-tuning would be inexplicable. The fact is we cannot say whether a system is random or not without knowing its symmetrical properties.
The “fans of random” speak and act as if they think the problem of symmetry is irrelevant to their concerns. Yet to the extent that they recognize the universe conforms to physical laws (and usually they do), the symmetry problem cannot be obviated. For laws demonstrate the property of what mathematicians call symmetry. A symmetry of some mathematical object — and the physical laws are inherently mathematical structures — is any transformation that preserves the object’s structure.
A practical application of the principle of symmetry can be found in Einstein’s observation (in his 1905 paper on Special Relativity, the same that gave us his magnificent unification of mass and energy, e = mc2) that the laws of nature are the same for all observers, regardless of their particular space-time positions.
It is evident that there are symmetries in nature, and also that mathematics has been amazingly successful in teasing them out. A favorite story is Reimann’s geometry of curved spaces. He “created” this geometry at a time when no one believed that geometry could be other than flat (Euclidean). So Reimann put his geometry on the shelf where it sat for about 50 years, gathering dust. Then a friend of Einstein pointed him to Reimann’s geometry (and Ricci’s tensor) as possible keys to the elucidation of the problems of special relativity. And they exactly did the trick.
Indeed, mathematicians have been so good at doing this sort of thing — creating mathematical systems with an eye to symmetry, and finally beauty — that Eugene Wigner marveled about “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in its ability to model and describe nature.
At this point, it seems useful to widen our purview and revisit cosmology, for now we are speaking of the universe as a whole, and cosmology is the branch of knowledge that deals with the universe as an integrated and (some would say) even living system (in some fashion).
Cosmology is conventionally defined as: (1) a branch of philosophy dealing with the origin, processes, and structure of the universe; and (2), the astrophysical study of the structure and constituent dynamics of the universe, with a particular eye on the construction and modeling of a comprehensive theory that describes such structure and dynamics. The latter is the scientific approach. Note that (2) does not explicitly address the question of origin.
Indeed, questions of origin, both of the universe and of life, seem to be troubling to many scientists. Historically, their preferred cosmology has been the eternal universe model, wherein the universe, thought to be infinite in size, just always was, having no beginning or end; it just goes along in periods of expansions and contractions in a sort of self-conserving “boom and bust” cycle forever (no second law of thermodynamics to bother it).
Now in an infinite, eternal universe, anything can happen. And so this “classical perspective” of biology anticipates that the origin of life involves “random chemicals reacting for eons and finally lucking out, resulting in a living cell coming together,” as Harold Morowitz explains it.
But then satellite observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation starting in the 1960s provided striking evidence that the universe actually had a beginning. That is, it is not eternal, and it is not infinite. The CMBR — which is universal in extent — is thought to be the “echo” of the original “big bang,” which constituted the creation event of the universe in which we live, and which powers the cosmic space-time expansion. Thus the universe truly can be thought to have “initial conditions.”
The troubling thing about the big bang/inflationary universe theory is the suggestion that the universe was either created out of nothing, or if it was created out of something, then there’s no way we can detect or prove that cause. Using a “time-reversal symmetry transformation” here — running evolutionary time “backwards” like a videotape played in reverse — the laws of physics break down at the Planck Era — 10–43 of the first second following the big bang. “Prior” to that, there is no space, no time, no physical laws of nature, no matter; it’s pure nihil: Nothing.
The nothingness “before” the creation of the universe is the most complete void that we can imagine — no space, time or matter existed. It is a world without place, without duration or eternity, without number — it is what the mathematicians call “the empty set.” Yet this unthinkable void converts itself into the plenum of existence — a necessary consequence of physical laws. Where are these laws written into that void? What “tells” the void that it is pregnant with a possible universe? It would seem that even the void is subject to a law, a logic that exists prior to space and time. — Heinz Pagels
Which of course is precisely what Genesis says: The Creation is “ex nihilo,” initiated by and proceeding according to the Word, the Logos of God, Who Is the Law of the Void as well as of the Creation, the “logic that exists prior to space and time.”
Evidently this is not a scientific statement, though I believe it is a truthful one. Still it is true that some physicists (and biologists) find the idea of a beginning of space and time out of nothing deeply disturbing for whatever reason. Taking into effect the evidence that leads to this conclusion, some have sought a “non-theistic” explanation for the phenomenon of the Big Bang. This cosmology grudgingly acknowledges that the universe did have a beginning, postulating its origin as a random fluctuation in a universal quantum vacuum field. But of course, this line of reasoning is silent about where the universal vacuum field itself came from in which a random fluctuation can occur, or how time and space got started so that events can occur in it.
This view (non-theistic cosmogenesis) is fallacious, however, because sudden quantum appearances don’t really take place out of “nothing.” A larger quantum field is first required before this can happen, but a quantum field can hardly be described as being “nothing.” Rather, it is a thing of unsearchable order and complexity, whose origin we can’t even begin to explain. Thus, trying to account for the appearance of the universe in a sudden quantum fluctuation doesn’t do away with the need for a Creator at all; it simply moves the whole problem backward one step to the unknown origin of the quantum field itself. — M. A. Corey
Whether your cosmology is philosophical or scientific, ultimately it rests on an unknown that is directly unknowable, a mystery. Scientists just as much as anybody else ponder the origin question, despite the fact that their formal methods cannot help them much there.
Cosmologically speaking, scientists get much better traction with the problem of constructing and modeling a comprehensive theory that describes, not the origin, but the structure and dynamics of the universe. But even here, they run into “mysteries.” Such as evidence for the almost eerie fine-tuning of the universe necessary for the inception, evolution, and support of Life. As Freeman Dyson put it, “The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”
Take just one example from among many, the just mentioned universal vacuum. Because the vacuum is not “nothing,” it has energy, specifically “vacuum energy” — the energy content of empty space. Ian Stewart notes:
As it happens, the observed value [of vacuum energy] is very, very small, around 10–120, but it is not zero.
According to the conventional “fine-tuning” story, this particular value is exactly right for life to exist. Anything larger than 10–118 makes local space-time explode; anything smaller than 10–120 and space-time contracts in a cosmic crunch and disappears. So the “window of opportunity” for life is very small. By a miracle, our universe sits neatly within it.
But Stewart is a tough-minded mathematical scientist, and so evidently feels constrained to add:
The “weak anthropic principle” points out that if our universe were not constituted the way it is, we wouldn’t be here to notice, but that leaves open the question why there is a “here” for us to occupy. The “strong anthropic principle” says that we’re here because the universe was designed specially for life to exist — which is mystical nonsense. No one actually knows what the possibilities would be if the vacuum energy were markedly different from what it is. We know a few things that would go wrong — but we have no idea what might go right instead. Most of the fine-tuning arguments are bogus.”
What a relief that Professor Stewart thinks that only “most” of the fine-tuning arguments are bogus, and not all of them! One of the things likely to “go wrong” under his scenario would be the end of life as we know it on this planet, and with it intelligence. But other than that, his is a respectable argument, even though it would probably be entirely moot under different values for the vacuum energy, since intelligent beings probably would not then be around to entertain it.
There is an abundance of evidence from the precision of the fundamental values of the universe that contradicts the theory that a universe compossible with life can arise (or indeed actually rose) from an “accident.” Just as “nothing comes from nothing,” the laws of nature cannot have been established via a random process. There is nothing implicit in the meaning of “random” that contains any motive spring for it to generate order, organization, higher complexity. It is simply “random”; i.e., it reflects no law in its behavior. The people who say that the universal evolution is nothing more than the effect of a process of matter in its motions and “pure, blind chance” — as Nobel laureate Jacques Monod claims — rely on the same reasoning that says, if life can be spontaneously generated from non-life, then similarly order can come from disorder.
Which is the same sort of problem, it seems to me, involved in all the multiverse and parallel universe and “panspermia” cosmologies one finds littering the landscape these days. The latter — panspermia theory — seems to be a particular favorite of atheists such as Francis Crick and Sir Fred Hoyle.
Panspermia theory holds that life on Earth was seeded here by space aliens. I gather anything that avoids the conclusion that the universe, and Life, is a divine creation, and thus has a spiritual dimension (which would include such things as intelligence, law, information, etc., all the “non-phenomenal” aspects that “tell” phenomena “what to do”) is what is being sought in such fanciful imaginings. Such theories seem ultimately designed to forbid anything that is immaterial from having causal impact in the universe. But if you say that, then where does physical law fit in, where mathematics, or logic, or intelligence, or information? Not to mention the evident universal constants? None of these are material entities.
But the fact regarding these exotic cosmologies is, not a one of them can be falsified, or subjected to replicable experiments. All these cosmologies are works of pure philosophical imagination dressed up in the language of scientific jargon.
However, that doesn’t mean the adherents of such imaginative speculations are bad scientists. Here’s Sir Fred Hoyle, a “non-Darwinian evolutionist,” contented atheist, and honest thinker:
No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning… there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (1020)2000 = 1040,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.… the enormous information content of even the simplest living systems… cannot in our view be generated by what are often called “natural” processes,… For life to have originated on the Earth it would be necessary that quite explicit instruction should have been provided for its assembly… There is no way in which we can expect to avoid the need for information, no way in which we can simply get by with a bigger and better organic soup, as we ourselves hoped might be possible a year or two ago.
Information is the key to life, just as it is the key to the fundamental structure and evolution of the universe, from the beginning. One conjectures the universe has the structure and dynamics it has because these were “programmed” in at the beginning. And this structure evidently was primed for life.
Again, this is what Genesis tells us: The Universe has an intelligent cause that is outside of space-time. Physics and biology acknowledge the necessity of information for the rise and maintenance of life, but assign no cause for this information within spatiotemporal reality. But if it cannot be found “there,” then where can it be found?
See Genesis. And consider this observation, from Albert Einstein:
“The natural law reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”
Scientists recognize so well that the universe has fundamental structure that they are encouraged to propound “grand unified theories,” GUTs, or “Theories of Everything.” The standard model of physics today recognizes four fundamental forces in nature: the nuclear strong, the nuclear weak, electromagnetism, and gravity. So far, all have been conveniently “reconciled together,” or unified — except for gravity, which continues to resist being fitted into any kind of “grand unified” model thus far.
Regarding the four fundamental forces, here are some more interesting thoughts from Ian Stewart:
Other types of forces could in principle give rise to other types of universe, and our ignorance of such possibilities is almost total. It is often claimed that without the particular forces we have, life would be impossible, proving that our universe is amazingly fine-tuned to make life possible. This argument is bogus, a wild exaggeration based on too limited a view of what constitutes life. Life like ours would be impossible — but it is the height of arrogance to assume that our kind of life is the only kind of organized complexity that could exist. The fallacy here is to confuse sufficient conditions for life (those aspects of our universe on which our kind of life depends) with necessary ones.
It is interesting that here Stewart reduces life to the definition, “organized complexity.” The description appears to be general enough to encompass everything (everything material at least), yet at the same time, is useless to provide insight into the living nature of actual, particular living beings.
Be that as it may, it seems Stewart is working to a doctrine, to a particular world view, in giving his analysis. And he seems to recognize this in what follows:
The view that a Theory of Everything must exist brings to mind monotheist religion — in which, over the millennia, disparate collections of gods and goddesses with their own special domains have been replaced by one god whose domain is everything. This process is widely viewed as an advance, but it resembles a standard philosophical error known as “the equation of unknowns” in which the same cause is assigned to all mysterious phenomena…. “Explanations” like this give a false sense of progress — we used to have three mysteries to explain; now we have just one. But the one new mystery conflates three separate ones, which might well have entirely different explanations. By conflating them, we blind ourselves to this possibility.
When you explain the Sun by a sun-god and rain by a rain-god, you can endow each god with its own special features. But if you insist that both Sun and rain are controlled by the same god, then you may end up trying to force two different things into the same straightjacket. So in some ways fundamental physics is more like fundamentalist physics. Equations [brief enough to fit] on a T-shirt replace an immanent deity, and the unfolding of the consequences of those equations replaces divine intervention in daily life.
Despite these reservations, my heart is with the physical fundamentalists. I would like to see a Theory of Everything, and I would be delighted if it were mathematical, beautiful, and true. I think religious people might also approve, because they could interpret it as proof of the exquisite taste and intelligence of their deity.
Exactly so — that would be my takeaway!
To sum up, it appears that a model of the universe that stipulates that all that exists — life and non-life — is simply the product of random transformations of “matter in its motions” has been falsified by modern physics. To the extent that information — which presupposes intelligence — plays a role, we have to acknowledge that other, immaterial factors are at work. Which of course we do, to the extent we realize and acknowledge the universal existence of physical laws, of finely-tuned cosmic values, and of the symmetries in nature. To do so, we have to put a check on randomness as a possible explanation for the nature or structure of things.
But we cannot eliminate randomness altogether. In the final analysis, it seems to me the universe lives in the dynamic tension that obtains between that which is changeless (the symmetry), and that which is changeable (a symmetry-breaking event). Or as Leibniz put it, at the level of fundamental universal principles the universe must consist of something that does not ever change, and something that is capable of changing.
For example, consider the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first is a conservation law — matter cannot be either created or destroyed — that is, matter is unchangeable; i.e., it is “symmetrical” under all known conditions. The second law “breaks the symmetry” of the first; and if it couldn’t do that, then probably nothing would ever happen in our universe.
The most amazing thing to me is that evidently, as a consequence of such a fundamental tension, we live in a “guided” universe, but not a wholly deterministic one.
And the Guide does not seem to reside in the system — at least, as far as science can tell.
Thus it seems to me if the Guide could construct a universe finely-tuned and primed for life on the most global scale — i.e., that of the whole universe — then it should be child’s play for this Source to prime and guide any living (or non-living) sub-unit of the universe — preeminently biological creatures; and of these, Man above all.
Given that the universe evidently has been left deliberately incompletely determined, or underdetermined (Planck’s constant reminds us of this), then not only the “free development” of nature has been left intact (subject only to the natural symmetries), but so also has human free will been left wholly intact.
Given the splendors of natural reality, and the uncanny facility that man has for exploring and understanding them, really all I can say is: I am on my knees in gratitude, thanks, and praise, and all glory be to God — in Whom we live and move and have our Being.
RNA cannot be synthesized? That must come as a surprise to the enzyme RNA polymerase. Perhaps they mean that COMMERCIAL synthetic RNA synthesis is not as available as commercial synthetic DNA synthesis.
Also nothing in evolution says that a species must by necessity evolve into a more complex species.
“It’s just resting”
Check out Erwin Schrodinger’s book “What is Life?”
PING, Just in case you might have an interest in this....
Check our Bohr's "Light and Life" (1932).
http://biosyn.avxtrk.net/RNA_overview.aspx
These guys must be surprised to find out RNA cannot by synthesized! They are MAKING A LIVING selling synthetic RNA.
Why should we take anything this person has to say seriously when they do not even get the basics correct?
Albert Einstein
In science, order comes from greater order. The atheist has to explain how symmetry can arise from randomness and chaos.The deeper one looks at the natural material world there is more symmetry and order not less.
It is possible to have a fulfilling life, but that refers to the duration of one’s existence rather than to an accurate description of the stuff doesn’t appear to be “in” a rock, but is “in” a sitting-and-talking-man.
Which is more ordered, a bucket of seawater or the salt crystals that form when the water evaporates? A cloud of water vapor, or a pile of billions of unique, six-sided snowflakes?
What they are talking about are siRNA or ‘short interfering RNA’.
siRNA: Oligonucleotide (or Oligo) is a short segment of RNA or DNA, typically with twenty or fewer bases. Although they can be formed by cleavage of longer segments, they are now more commonly synthesized by polymerizing individual nucleotide precursors. Automated synthesizers allow the synthesis of oligonucleotides up to 160 to 200 bases
http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/Brands/Sigma_Genosys/siRNA_Oligos.html
Beautifully said, mjp!
Jeepers, just think of the extraordinary symmetry and order of quarks....
Thank you so much for your astute observation!!
May “the Old One” ever bless Albert!
read later
“With over 20 years experience in custom synthesis for the biomedical research communities, BSI has developed the expertise to deliver custom synthesized RNA with quality that meets all your RNAi, siRNA, shRNA and other RNA projects...”
They mention RNAi and siRNA because that is the “new hotness”. They can also meet your “other RNA project (needs)”.
The author should have said “because RNA synthesis is more difficult/more expensive”, but hopelessly out of their depth the author went with “because RNA cannot be synthesized” which is incorrect any way you look at it.
Um, you addressed your post to Jean ... insult and all.
To which you replied: Which is more ordered, a bucket of seawater or the salt crystals that form when the water evaporates? Etc.
Salt crystals are more ordered than a bucket of seawater. But living systems are not "ordered" in the same sense or way as inorganic systems are. And I don't think mjp was using the word in the same sense you are.
Stanley N. Salthe writes to clarify this point, referencing an article by Rod Swenson:
...[L]iving systems, unlike self-ordering or material systems, display “intentional dynamics” in their behavior, which Swenson defines as “end-directed behavior prospectively controlled, or determined by meaning or information about paths to ends,” in contrast with “end-directed behavior which can be understood as determined by local potentials, and fundamental laws.” ... Thus the patterns that we observe in biological nature do not principally arise from the properties of matter under the control of the physical laws. There is an informative process at work that appears to be mediated by a field or fields.Just for the fun of it, Swenson has some amusing thoughts, a list of six “main problems” with the adequacy of Darwinism as a theory of evolution:
1. Natural selection requires the intentional dynamics of living things in order to work, and this puts the intentional dynamics of living things outside the explanatory framework of Darwinian theory.
2. Darwinism has no observables by which it can address or account for the directed nature of Evolution.
3. Because natural selection works on a competitive population of many, and the Earth as a planetary system evolves as a Population of One, Darwinian theory can neither recognize nor address this planetary evolution.
4. Darwinian theory has no account of the insensitivity to initial conditions (like consequents from unlike antecedents) required to account for the reliability of intentional dynamics or the evolutionary record writ large.
5. The incommensurability between biology and physics assumed by Darwinian theory provides no basis within the theory according to which epistemic or meaningful relations between living things and their environments can take place.
6. Evolution according to Darwinism is defined as a change in gene frequencies, and this puts cultural evolution outside the reach of Darwinian theory.
Actually, you will find that Jean enjoys a spirited debate, if condescension is kept to the minimum. Along that line, do you think RNA arises or arose spontaneously from a pre-biotic soup? When men synthesize RNA are they not using complex mechanisms (generated by intellect-information application) applied with a goal in mind?
That being said your essay doesn't really address the title very well, you kick a bit of stuffing out of the “randomness” strawman you propped up, but don't really address the topic.
As to randomness, your argument is like saying that casino's cannot make money with a random game because they would lose money as often as they made money.
Also as far as Life and Randomness.....
The very first time the unique sequence of one of your specific Chromosomes was when your mom (still in the womb herself) mixed RANDOMLY the genes from her dad and mom to make sure you had a unique assortment of traits. The other half came when your dad mixed RANDOMLY the genes from his dad and mom to make a unique assortment that would go into the specific sperm out of many thousands that would fertilize mom's egg to make you.
This process is random and makes a unique shuffle of the two parental chromosomes such that the space between genes can be expressed in “centi-Morgans”. If gene B is 40 centi-Morgans from gene C, then in 60% of the offspring the parental traits B and C will stay together and only 40% of the time will the traits be swapped (grandma's B and grandpa's C).
Just food for thought as far as life and randomness.
That's very nice.
But "Darwinism" is a creation that exists largely in the minds of creationists, with little relevance to the theory of evolution.
Perhaps "Swenson" could try again with direct reference to the theory of evolution, rather than this strawman, "Darwinism" produced by the fevered imaginations of creationists.
2) If one assumes a “directed nature of evolution” without any evidence I suppose it must be the fault of the theory of evolution through natural selection that it doesn't focus on finding the evidence for you (as if it could).
3) Planetary Evolution? Population of One? Wow man, like pass the bong.
4) A theory need not have every initial condition described or explain everything in order to explain quite well how living systems respond to environmental pressures, explain evidence both new and old, and allow one to make predictions.
5)Biology and evolution work through physics/chemistry and living things interact with their environment utilizing predictable and natural electromagnetic forces (amino acids are charged/polar/non-polar to create a particular electromagnetic environment capable of doing work or catalyzing reactions).
6)What does cultural evolution have to do with Biological evolution? Why would a theory in Biology have to be applicable to culture for it to be valid within Science?
RNA could very well have formed spontaneously in the pre-biotic world. It would be well in line for the complexity of God's creation for these abiotic processes to be hardwired into the universe, like gravity and nuclear fusion that forms stars, like the laws of physics and those same stars creating complex atoms, like those complex atoms coalescing into worlds that circle stars, and then those complex atoms (possibly) forming complex molecules capable of utilizing energy to maintain and reproduce their structures (a commonly used definition of life).
Essentially allmendream, I said something very much like that in my piece, when speaking of the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Here is an example of an unchanging symmetry on the one hand and, so to speak, an inexhaustible repository of the random on the other. It seems to me the tension between them is (somehow) the physical basis of Life.
I never said that there is no randomness in nature. Indeed, unless the world were strictly determined in every respect, things can and will change (evolve), new things arise, etc. Our universe seems structured (for all the reasons I cited), but it doesn't seem to be "over"-determined. But then neither does it seem to be a "random walk, governed by pure, blind chance.
Of course a casino can make money with a "random" game, at least if they were using Bayesean probability theory. Then they can almost certainly make money virtually all the time, and still have a "random" game.
Thanks for your kind words, allmendream, and for sharing your thoughts.
Excellent! ... I happen to have a cosmological paradigm which asserts that dimensions are interwoven in stages, with variables entering into continua as complex expression allows: dimension Time and dimension Space are intertwined in linear, planar, and volumetric/past, present, future expressions I call ‘continums’. I also posit a dimension of Life, having variable expressions of will, emotion, and mind, for want of better terms. I suspect there is also a dimension of Spirit, with three variable expressions also. To have insight into the variable expressions (which are graduated by complexity level), notice the relationship of linear to planar to volume.
Another point about biological evolution and randomness is that at some point a given population of sufficient scope will realize ever possible single nucleotide polymorphism of a given gene and many of the possible double nucleotide polymorphisms. Most of them will be “noise”, but some of them will be “signal” and the bacteria will “tune in” on how to metabolize nylon or citrate or survive heat stress, etc.
Another example of how life uses randomness, besides in each individuals unique genetic shuffle of grandparents DNA, is the immune system. Our immune cells “shuffle” the DNA of their antibodies “highly variable” region so that it becomes a wrench to fit a random socket. Any ones that recognize “self” are destroyed and the rest are assumed to only bind to something “non-self” and anything they bind to is attacked by the immune system.
Indeed.. to know what life is you must be able identify death, as death is where life is not.. Since dead DNA is indentical to live DNA... well thats a dead end street for answers.. DNA seems not to be the source of life but merely lifes clothing.. WHatever Life is, clothes itself with DNA..
No one I know of or have heard of can tell me what life is.. I'm talking physical life.. I wonder if life is not spiritual and not physical at all.. since DNA seems to be lifes clothing.. Lifes space suit.. to exist on this planet.. And that "life" on/in another place might need a different space suit.. Still life but with different clothing..
If life is spiritual then there may be different levels of life... all of course needing a space suit.. of some kind.. On this planet all life seems to be DNA'o'saurs.. similar in needs with different clothing.. Spiritual life from the spiritual realm must need a space suit to function in this realm.. And when, say humans, leave this realm into "space" they need two space suits.. One for the spirit to be able to exist/function(DNA'o'saur) and another for the DNA'o'saur to be able to exist/function..
HEY!... this is fun....
There may actually be such a thing as quarks..
If it acts like a Durk.. moves like a Durk..
and quarks like a Durk.. it is actually possible there may be Durks..
There is a Durk hunt going on in Switzerland now, I think..
If that is the case, you may like the Natural Theology Series.
I suspect it's an exercise in futility, but Miller on, by all means.
Researchers announced on July 11 that infectious viruses can now be created in the test tube of any modern laboratory. In fact, it has been done most recently at Stony Brook University (SBU), where biochemist Eckard Wimmer’s team has generated active polio virus particles that are capable of infecting living host cells.
According to Wimmer, the viruses were made based on "sequence" information pulled from scientific literature. The word "sequence" refers to the arrangement of chemical base-pairs, which is the chemical spelling of a gene. By getting the "spelling" of each gene in a tiny virus, it is possible to string the genes together in the correct order so they exhibit emergent properties and are fully functional.
Experts can now download a genetic blueprint from the Internet and use mail-order materials to assemble a deadly virus. At a time when the word "bio-terrorism" is a reality, the consequences of this development are both alarming and encouraging, he added. It means that scientists probably can create and prepare vaccines faster and more precisely to fend off biological attacks.
However, this also means anyone could manufacture viruses, or even alter them, potentially making them more dangerous. According to Wimmer, ready-made chunks of DNA were purchased from commercial sources, and the researchers took the instructions for piecing them together from literature available on the Internet.
"If someone publishes the sequence of any old virus, you can chemically put together a DNA copy of that, and then create the virus," he said. "So with enough money, knowledge, and equipment, you can make any virus for which you can determine the sequence."
The chemical instructions, including the DNA sequence information of many disease organisms, are available on the Internet for scientific use, and more are being added as researchers pursue their work against disease.
In the experiments at SBU, Wimmer and co-workers Jeronimo Cello and Aniko Paul ordered small chunks of viral DNA, called oligonucleotides, and strung the chunks together.
"The most important part of this work is the proof of principle," Wimmer said. "This says that you can generate a virus from the written sequence, and that has consequences."
James LeDuc, at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, told the journal Science that "it is a little sobering to see that folks in the chemistry lab can basically create a virus from scratch."
Given the potential for bio-terrorism, Wimmer said government agencies could monitor what chunks of DNA are being ordered from commercial sources. This would allow the appropriate state authorities to keep track of those who are doing research on dangerous organisms capable of being used for bio-terrorism.
To make the virus, Professor Wimmer and colleagues Jeronimo Cello and Aniko Paul had to first take a step backward.
"You cannot synthesize RNA," Professor Wimmer said. "So we converted the sequence from RNA into DNA. And DNA you can synthesise.
"Then we had to go back to RNA. That was very simple - by using an enzyme which can read DNA and synthesise RNA, called a transcriptase.
"Now you have the RNA. That RNA we put into a cell-free juice that we developed in 1991 ... and lo and behold out came the virus. It built itself."
The "cell-free juice" is made by taking the virus's favorite home - a human cell - shredding it up and removing the big pieces such as the nucleus.
"The remaining juice that is there contains all the goodies that you need for the process," Professor Wimmer, whose team first sequenced the polio genome in 1991, said.
There were not too many ingredients to throw into the broth. Polio virus has a single, long gene that produces what is called a polyprotein.
But the virus can cut this long protein into smaller pieces that can be used for its few functions.
It is rather easy to describe what life looks like but quite another matter to say what it "is."
It's like the question "who are you?" usually gets lots of descriptive answers. And then you have to ask again, "yes, but who are you?"
But since you speak his lingo, you should send Dr. Wimmer or one of his team members an email and ask what he meant by the remarks quoted in the article.
Thank you so much for writing!
1. Restating him, Swenson claims that natural selection requires the intentional dynamics of living things in order to work, but that Darwin’s theory lacks an explanation of such intentional dynamics. You say this view is “absolutely correct.” But then you deny that this can be a valid criticism, on the strength of an analogy: “…Celestial motion requires the dynamics of gravitational attraction of mass to work, this puts the origins of mass/gravity outside the framework of any theory of Celestial motion.”
But jeepers, if celestial motion requires such dynamics, then how can it be considered “separately” from them? It seems clear there is nothing “intentional” about Celestial motion; it simply demonstrates a response to the dynamics of massive bodies in a gravitational field. But how does it follow from there that the origin of mass/gravity is “outside” the theory of Celestial motion? Indeed, the theory implies there would be no celestial motion without mass/gravity. It seems to me the theory of celestial motion reduces to mass/gravity, such that the “origin” of mass/gravity is the same as the origin of celestial motion, and not “outside” its framework. In any case, there is no “intentionality” involved here; this is simply the way physical/mechanical systems ordinarily behave.
But biological systems do not “behave” in this way. Unlike physical systems, biological systems — and presumably only biological systems (from the amoeba on “up” to man) — display the behavior known as intentionality. That is, they possess a form of sentience/perception/intelligence that enables their ability to discern the features of their surroundings; to identify possible alternative paths relevant to their survival and prosperity; and to choose one of them. As far as I know, no physical/mechanical system has ever been observed doing this.
As far as I can tell, there is nothing in Darwin’s theory that accounts for, or explains, this “strange” feature of biological systems, probably because, first, it’s difficult to reconcile with any explanation from randomness; and second, intentionality itself is not a physical/mechanical system, though assuredly it’s a bona fide feature of Nature all the same. After all, we do know that animals choose their mates, for instance.
2. Swenson wrote, “Darwinism has no observables by which it can address or account for the directed nature of Evolution.” I gather you are “agnostic” re: “the directed nature of Evolution.” Well, it sure looks “directed” to me! I guess our difference consists in how we look at things; i.e., on our respective worldviews.
But what do we mean when we say that something looks “directed?” One way you could look at it would be to say that (very crudely put), something is suspected of being “directed” if you “get ever so much more out of it than you put into it, at its initial conditions.” Darwin’s theory meets this test: From random mutation, via natural selection, we get the entire Tree of Life.
3. You really yukked it up over this one: “Because natural selection works on a competitive population of many, and the Earth as a planetary system evolves as a Population of One, Darwinian theory can neither recognize nor address this planetary evolution.”
I tend to take a larger view of this problem. I don’t think it’s at all foolish to consider the problem of planetary evolution, for the simple reason that it’s the very context in which biological evolution proceeds. So it’s not nonsense to speak of a “Population of One” at some basic level of the problem.
Plus I don’t stop at planetary evolution. My passion is cosmology. And that means I try to think as much as possible in universal terms. Thus I recognize such a thing as the evolution of the universe itself. Intuition tells me that, if we understand the particulars of the evolution of the universe, this may give us splendid guidance in understanding its “special cases”: planetary evolution, and biological evolution. Not to mention the evolution of human culture and society collected under the rubric, “history.”
But then, I tend to have a speculative train of mind. Do I expect Darwin’s theory to “explain” all of this? Absolutely NOT! Nor does Swenson. And I gather that is precisely his point.
4. Swenson wrote: “Darwinian theory has no account of the insensitivity to initial conditions (like consequents from unlike antecedents) required to account for the reliability of intentional dynamics or the evolutionary record writ large.”
To which you replied: “A theory need not have every initial condition described or explain everything in order to explain quite well how living systems respond to environmental pressures, explain evidence both new and old, and allow one to make predictions.” But Swenson is right, it seems to me, at least to the extent that Darwin’s theory does not even begin to deal with “initial conditions”: that is, whatever it was that happened, which caused life to emerge. On your view, it isn’t necessary to know the “initial conditions” in such a case in order to make reliable predictions. And I’m sure this is the case. For you and Darwin, Life is simply axiomatic, a presupposition…. A really really good guess. But I don’t know myself how one can derive/account for the evolutionary record of Life writ large without tracing the guess down to initial conditions. But hey, that’s just me….
5. “The incommensurability between biology and physics assumed by Darwinian theory provides no basis within the theory according to which epistemic or meaningful relations between living things and their environments can take place.”
I think here Swenson is raising an issue you may not have thought of before. I’ve already given an example of the “incommensurability between biology and physics,” of the irreducibility of biology to purely physical laws: intentionality. Here Swenson proposes another incommensurable: How to place living systems within the non-living world in a unified scientific approach. Darwin really is no help here.
6. You really seemed to object to this: “Evolution according to Darwinism is defined as a change in gene frequencies, and this puts cultural evolution outside the reach of Darwinian theory.” To which you replied: “What does cultural evolution have to do with Biological evolution? Why would a theory in Biology have to be applicable to culture for it to be valid within Science?”
Well you’ve got a point there! On the other hand, it’s possible to view the problem another way, as Swenson evidently does.
Here’s a proposal: Darwin’s theory states that evolution is a time-directed process involving the dynamics of random mutation and natural selection, to a very large extent driven by changes in the natural environment that in turn drive the unfoldment (evolution) of biological processes. Now it seems to me that Darwin’s theory does not take into effect the fact that a certain species, Man, unlike other animals, has the obvious ability to modify the environment itself, by virtue of the fact that his intentional processes (“intangibles”) play out in “tangible” (i.e., physical or material) ways that contribute to human fitness and survival value in the long run.
Now we unavoidably are talking about cultural context here: Man modifies the “existential space” in which he himself is “modified” as an evolving entity.
Darwin’s theory sheds no light on this problem at all.
By which I do not mean to suggest — at all — that Darwin’s theory is useless. It has been of enormous help in elucidating problems in many scientific domains. All I mean to suggest that it is not a complete theory, in that it has no theory of Man.
Thanks for sticking with me so far, allmendream; and thank you so very much for your last. Sorry to take so long responding; but you gave me a lot to think about! May God ever bless you.
The theory of BIOLOGICAL evolution through natural selection has nothing to do with PLANETARY evolution, CULTURAL evolution, SOCIETAL evolution, LEGAL evolution or any other change that someone wishes to describe as evolutionary.
The theory explains how BIOLOGICAL system evolve through natural selection. Planets do not undergo natural selection, they undergo gravity, cooling, rotation, impact, etc.
This guys criticisms are infantile. Who is this joker?
There is a place some where for a Celestial Mechanics Comedian.. A physics comic.. a cosmetolical jester.. even a Quantum Mechanics 3 Stooges.. There is massive amounts of humor going to waste.. As Cargo Cultists of Java see 747's in the sky and worship them and the cargo they carry.. many "scientists" see galaxy's and other un-dark matter with their scopes and worship the cargo they carry.. The similarity between those shamans is eerie.. and should be studied..
I thought the standard definition of life is the ability to reproduce oneself.
Interesting play on cosmology.. There could be a niche for Cosmetological Cosmology.. All the pictures of galaxys created from various wavelength views of space.. A little rouge here and some eye makeup there, and a schmig of eye lash lengthener over there.. makes for some beautiful pictures of galaxys that are totally cosmetological.. i.e. maybe.. Cosmology Porn..
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