Posted on 01/27/2009 6:59:07 AM PST by betty boop
Edited on 01/27/2009 7:16:52 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Now "thats" an interesting piece of data I've never really noticed before(bold).. A whole conversation could be had on that blurb alone.. Converted from what to what?.. I think.. Or even from what INTO what?.. Sounds like a metamorphosis.. does'nt it.. From utter blindness and dullness of heart to "something else".. I have several local "handles"(posters) in mind..
Well, perhaps I'm just slow-witted or dull-minded, js1138. But nowhere do I recall you ever giving a definition of "supernatural intervention."
Exactly what do those words mean to you?
They don't mean anything specific to me, which is why I don't give the possibility much thought.
What I see on these threads is the claim that some phenomenon in biology cannot be the result of natural causes. The alternative is never specified, so I have little interest in pursuing the claim.
Senescence is an interesting subject and makes for a fascinating sidebar.
Strictly speaking, age is the consequence of geometry - every "thing" travels a worldline in space/time. Moreover, the amount of time elapsed during the existence of a thing in space/time is relative. To a photon traveling at the speed of light, no time elapses (null path.) To a mortal human here on earth, his elapsed time might be 85 years. The tortoise would have a much longer elapsed time. The single cell organism, longer still.
But senescence (aging) of a cell or body is another matter directly related to successful communication of biological messages - e.g. the message to die now (apoptosis, programmed cell death), the antiapoptotic message (p35 gene), etc.
At post 440, js1138 raises another issue:
I suspect you are wondering if things die because the message [DNA or RNA] is lost or degraded over time, i.e. thermodynamic entropy.
Information [successful communication] is not physical. It is not subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
However the individual elements involved in information [successful communications] may indeed be physical - and if so, they are most certainly subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
The elements of the Shannon model are message, sender, encoding, channel, noise, decoding and receiver. When the communication is complete, the receiver has moved from one state of uncertainty [Shannon entropy] to another. Or to put it another way, he or it is informed. In the molecular machine, that is when the thermodynamic tab is paid by heat dissipating into the local environment.
It is possible for the sender's message to be altered (for good or ill) by noise (e.g. virus RNA). This is a primary pathway of genetic mutations.
But damages can also occur in the actual channel (e.g. prions introduced) which would either make the communication attempt unsuccessful or otherwise affect the received message, i.e. making it not the same as the message which was sent.
All such things could affect the lifespan of the organism. And they could also affect its senescence.
Thank you so much for your encouragements, dearest sister in Christ!
The only other alternative would be supernatural- if nature is incapable- then somethign beyond nature must be the answer- However, that has nothign to do with investigating the fingerprints left behind and presentign strong enough case to come to a reasonable understanding one way or the other..
There once was a fishing boy who fished all the day through, only to catch nothign. Day after day he went to hte same spot. An older person watched the younster trot merrily down to the river each day, only to end the day with a sad look on his face- Finally, the older person could take it no longer,and he too trotted down to the river,, looked around, and exclaimed “The reason you catch nothign here is because hte water is too shallow, too narrow, and too slow- try over there in the rapids- I bet there’s a nice fat trout just waiting for a good meal under that log over yonder.”
The boy stomped his foot and said “Nope! I nkow there’s a truot right where I’m fishing! Go away old man”
The old man hung his head, started back across the river, slipped on a rock, fell down and drowned.
Moral of hte story? Rocks are slippery
Sorry- I broke into parqbles for a minute I guess.
[[Information [successful communication] is not physical. It is not subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.]]
[[It is the action, not the message.]]
Good point- I wondre though if it is the info containers that die, or if both do? I suppose both would, or one - the container woudl die, and the info woudl just dissappear or cease to exist
I persoanlyl woudl liek to explore scenescene a bit more if JS and you and others might be up to a brief explanation of organisms that are able to ‘self-replenish’ to avoid death for a long time. If ya’ll rather not, that’s ok too- just think it’s fascinating- firts I’ve ever heard of it really.
I'm confused. Is senescence on the table for discussion?
I do not know whether it is a good idea to let this thread veer off into a discussion of the phenomenon and mechanisms of aging. I brought it up to contrast the difference between age and aging – and to respond to js1138’s points about information [Shannon, successful communications] and aging.
Aging is a fascinating subject with illuminating sub-topics such as the rapid aging of salmon returning to spawn which includes a rapid aging of the brain and thereby gives us many insights to human aging. Another example is the disease progeria (rapid aging in children.)
All of these are directly related to “information theory and molecular biology” but they are not particularly illuminating in our discussion of the AP Model or abiogenesis except perhaps for the observation that higher organisms are programmed to physically die.
For instance, the disease progeria is caused by a bad message, a misspelled gene.
And the brain is to the higher organism’s physical body much like the central processor (e.g. motherboard) is to the computer. Like a physical body, there may be many, many processors in a computer dedicated to specific functions (e.g. inputs and outputs) – and some of them may suffer damage or wear out over time without causing the motherboard to fail, ceasing communications. IBM’s supercomputer has something like 18,000 processors. If well designed, such systems can suffer a lot of damage before the supercomputer is “dead.”
This is even more evident in the internet. Imagine what damage would be necessary to bring on the death of the internet – to stop successful communications on the internet altogether.
The physical body of a higher organism is much the same. When the brain is damaged or ages, communications degrade throughout the organism. When it no longer sustains successful communications (brain death) – the rest of the body quickly follows.
Conversely, using the computer metaphor again, some processors may be so vital that a malfunction there will eventually if not immediately cause the central processor (e.g. motherboard) to stop communicating altogether. Shoot a rabbit in the heart and brain death quickly follows.
In our dead rabbit v. live rabbit thought experiments (mine at post 370) - we explored the difference between life v. non-life/death in nature, that the difference is information (successful communication.)
The point what it “is” – not the cause of it. The rabbit could be dead by reason of being run over by a car, squashed by a falling piano, etc. – or it could have succumbed to physical degradation of bodily functions (old age.)
The point I was hoping to make is that information [Shannon, successful communication] is no more physical than pi. The circle you are observing, if physical, is clearly subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Pi is not.
Likewise, the radio station transmitting and receiving – or your computer – is physical and subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Information [successful communications] is not.
Biologically, there is a thermodynamic tab to be paid for successful communication – not because information is physical (it isn’t) but because the molecular machinery is. And that tab is paid when the receiver molecular machine becomes “informed” and dissipates heat into the immediate surroundings.
It is not that organism bypasses the thermodynamic tab, it doesn't - it pays the tab by successfully communicating. If it is not successfully communicating (death) it will succumb to entropy (achieve room temperature.)
Likewise, even though a specific computer requires a cooling fan and an energy source – information itself is not subject to the 2nd law. Like pi it is math, it is universal, non-physical. The 2nd law of thermodynamics itself is also universal, non-physical.
So getting back to the AP model and abiogenesis, we are looking for the rise of successful communication in nature - which also requires an origin for autonomy and semiosis (language or code.) Moreover, as previously observed on this thread, the code itself is inversely causal or temporally non-local, it must anticipate that which has not yet happened.
Such issues were raised by mathematicians and physicists who have been brought to the abiogenesis table (Yockey, Pattee, Rocha, etc.) And nothing we have seen in abiogenesis theory or experiments to date addresses those issues.
Wimmer, for instance, began with the message. When one starts with the message, bootstrapping life (in his case the polio virus) under laboratory conditions does not constitute a theory of abiogenesis.
Hi Alamo- I thought perhaps discussing how species vary in their ability to ‘self-heal’ might further highlight the Shannon model is all. It seems to me that despite certain organisms ability to prolong life by replenishing their repair and mantainance abilities, there still seems to be a process of entropy at work. It would appear to actually be a strong case for metainfo inthat it woudl seem that a greater megainfo complexity is needed in order to control and prolong cell death. I think it also highlights the fact that you simply can’t get htis higher level of informaiton from Abiogensis- from chemical information, and I doubt that htis higher level of info could possibly come from a piling up of info due to mutaitons even if we were to try to concider life started out as biological simplicity rather than chemical.
[[The physical body of a higher organism is much the same. When the brain is damaged or ages, communications degrade throughout the organism. When it no longer sustains successful communications (brain death) – the rest of the body quickly follows.]]
This is intresting, as the body can still function somewhat if certain supports are put inplace which indicates that comunication also flows from other sources as well
[[Biologically, there is a thermodynamic tab to be paid for successful communication – not because information is physical (it isn’t) but because the molecular machinery is. And that tab is paid when the receiver molecular machine becomes “informed” and dissipates heat into the immediate surroundings.]]
True, and htis is an important point too- it’s the act of comunication that contributes to species succumbing to entropy, however, again, not to belabour hte point, but in the case of organisms prolonging death (They used to say these organism were ‘eternal’, now however I think opinion is changing on this) they are comunicating a message to replce repair and maintanance systems, however, I still think, knowing as little as I do about hte process, so I could be wrong, that this is simply a case of an organisms ability to prolong, not escape the effects of entropy.
[[Moreover, as previously observed on this thread, the code itself is inversely causal or temporally non-local, it must anticipate that which has not yet happened.]]
Which brings us to an interesting secondary possible counter-argument- it is claimed, and perhaps verified, that the reason for earlier and earlier succumbing to effects of entropy, is that species had to reproduce- the more htey reproduce, the quicker they die (Now I’m not sure if this applies to every system or just to a select few, but it brings up an interesting issue of where, how, and could it possibly occure, issue of reproduction ability. Could hte info required for the complex system of reproduction arise from mutaitons- however, this would take an incredible indepth annalysis of al lthe systems and comunicaitons that go ionto the pprocess, and probably should be a whole htread of it’s own, with just hte highlights posted in htis thread if it is found this comunicaiton of info for htis particular system of reproduciton can’t arise by simpel piling up of info fro mthe bottom up as Macroevolution demands.
[[Wimmer, for instance, began with the message. When one starts with the message, bootstrapping life (in his case the polio virus) under laboratory conditions does not constitute a theory of abiogenesis.]]
And htta is hte problem with every so called laboratory ‘example’ of ‘life’- they MUST start with hte info already present, and they MUST intelligently control and manipulate and create designer cells in order to create even the simplest of functions within hte cells, but then the very next step becoems exponentially more complex and difficult, and involves an even greater itnervention of intelligence to control and manipulate and protect in order to violate the natural laws which macroevolution MUST obey.
[[I’m confused. Is senescence on the table for discussion?]]
I think it’s related, and certainly an interesting topic, but I think also it’s simply another example of the absolute necessity of metainfo needing to be inplace BEFORE and construction of cells and organisms could take place as it involves a greater complexity than most species exibit at the molecular informaiton level.
I’m not sure variances in species ability to endure entropy effects though adds much in the way of a coutner-arrgument to what is being discussed herei n this thread unless you have reasonable examples for how the info needed for increased ability to endure the effects of entropy could arise in a purely naturalistic manner.
That; even when quite healthy flesh ages.. and dies..
but not dies a death, but dies to itself..
Not sometimes but quite literally all the time..
Maybe; flesh metamorphoses into spirit..
That flesh is the cocoon of the spirit..
In that case "human death" is an illusion/allusion of evolutionists..
That no human actually dies a death..
Same could be true of many or most animals...
Could be that human arrogance and vanity invented human death..
"Charles Darwin".... eat your heart out..
My mental concoction is as good as yours..
The Bible is about the human worm, eating salad(and a bit of chicken) for a few decades..
Then transforming into another creature..
OK... (tapping foot).. wheres MY... Nobel Prize..
Whiel that is getting into theological realm, let’s add that info doesn’t dissappear when hte cell dies, the info is passed along to hte spirit/ the soul to be carried upward and heavenward to exist as a spiritual manifestation of our former selves until we can be reuinited with our earthly bodies created anew on resurrection day, when at such time, al lthe info floating in our spiritual manifestation will once again be transferred to the new flesh bodies of our ofrmer selves.
Although this has problems inthat some of hte info only works in connection with cells- however, perhaps the soul has ethreal cell duplicates for housing our info until flesh cells can replace them later.
The butterfly never returns to the worm.. but is transformed..
The next question is does the butterfly miss the worm?..
Does the butterfly pine for the worm?..
Or does the butterfly appreciate its new appearance..
According to the metaphor.. flying is better than crawling..
No I think the butterfly glories in its new appearance..
and would never pine for being a worm again..
Please try to keep up.. (hands on hips, glasses pulled down on the nose)..
At the lower level, the organism cannot know the need for repair and maintenance exists. It is not aware. It must be “informed” of this need.
Another even more fundamental example was brought up on this thread by Diamond as I recall. Namely that coding itself requires agreement on language between sender and receiver. The receiver must be able to decode an encoded transmission. Again, this is inversely causal (or as I prefer, temporally non-local.)
And at the very bottom of the abiogenesis ladder is the issue of where autonomy came from in the first place. At that theoretical level it is all a “soup.” Any message sent in its direction would be a broadcast to the soup. Things would have to become autonomous within that theoretical soup for successful communications to occur as we observe it today – otherwise there would still only be that theoretical soup.
you: This is intresting, as the body can still function somewhat if certain supports are put inplace which indicates that comunication also flows from other sources as well
But the bottom line for me, is that no matter what message is being sent – the organism is alive while it is successfully communicating. Once communication comes to an end, the organism is physically dead.
By the way, for those Lurkers following the spiritual or theological side of this discussion – information (successful communication) is not physical. It does not die a physical death like the molecular machinery which facilitates successful communication in biological life or like the computers we are using will eventually succumb to entropy.
you: Which brings us to an interesting secondary possible counter-argument- it is claimed, and perhaps verified, that the reason for earlier and earlier succumbing to effects of entropy, is that species had to reproduce- the more htey reproduce, the quicker they die (Now I’m not sure if this applies to every system or just to a select few, but it brings up an interesting issue of where, how, and could it possibly occure, issue of reproduction ability. Could hte info required for the complex system of reproduction arise from mutaitons- however, this would take an incredible indepth annalysis of al lthe systems and comunicaitons that go ionto the pprocess, and probably should be a whole htread of it’s own, with just hte highlights posted in htis thread if it is found this comunicaiton of info for htis particular system of reproduciton can’t arise by simpel piling up of info fro mthe bottom up as Macroevolution demands.
And I agree such subjects would involve a lot of research and postings and thus might be good fodder for a new thread.
you: And htta is hte problem with every so called laboratory ‘example’ of ‘life’- they MUST start with hte info already present, and they MUST intelligently control and manipulate and create designer cells in order to create even the simplest of functions within hte cells, but then the very next step becoems exponentially more complex and difficult, and involves an even greater itnervention of intelligence to control and manipulate and protect in order to violate the natural laws which macroevolution MUST obey.
[[Please try to keep up.. (hands on hips, glasses pulled down on the nose)..]]
Oh I’m keeping up- infact two steps ahead dear teach...
The butterfly doesn’t pine for hte worm again because the worm is still in it’s lower corruptible form. When we are ruinited with our earthly bodies, they will be in the form of a transformed to hte likeness of Christ bodies- never to die, suffer, sneeze or cough again -clearing htroats and blowing boogars will be a thing of hte past as our glorified former selves will be passed away to be replced with boogarless new bodies, yet we’ll retain our present bodies inthat we’ll still be who we are- just more better (not that htat’s really possible with me- but I spose it’s worth a hsot trying to improve on perfection)
[[Another even more fundamental example was brought up on this thread by Diamond as I recall. Namely that coding itself requires agreement on language between sender and receiver. The receiver must be able to decode an encoded transmission. Again, this is inversely causal (or as I prefer, temporally non-local.)]]
Excellent point- I must have missed this- this shows predesigned compliance between the two- one can not exist without being predesigned to recieve from the other. Not sure htough if an argument can be made that this agreement ‘could arise’ in stepwise fashion- I strongly doubt it, but mym ind is too tired today to noodle this over much.
[[And at the very bottom of the abiogenesis ladder is the issue of where autonomy came from in the first place. At that theoretical level it is all a “soup.” Any message sent in its direction would be a broadcast to the soup. Things would have to become autonomous within that theoretical soup for successful communications to occur as we observe it today – otherwise there would still only be that theoretical soup.]]
Rhis rules out biological (which didn’t exist in the first place) to chemical comunication for sure- and although we have chemical to biolgical ‘creation’, what was created had nothign needed for sucessful comunication within itself in order to move to more complexity via billions of years of mutations.
[[But the bottom line for me, is that no matter what message is being sent – the organism is alive while it is successfully communicating. Once communication comes to an end, the organism is physically dead.]]
I fully agree withhtis- the sideargument though is that ID says everythign is subject to entropy, and since htere are organisms that prolong this loss of comunicaiton for very long times, then apparently not everythign is subject to effects of entropy (although they would have to prove these organisms are eternal) But again, I aghree, the issues of htis thread are abotu whether complex cominicatiosn can arise naturally, and not abotu how species vary in resisting cell comunicaiton death timelines.
You could be wrong.. there is no evidence this will happen in this way.. (I Cor 2;9)
But then, I suppose "some" still love the flesh..
Romans 8 argues against that, I think..
On the otherhand the parable of the talents implys that this could be true "for some".. not true for others..
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