Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution => Topic started by: EvaH on 27/07/2020 14:29:11
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Dinesh asks:
If atoms are the building blocks of everything, then what makes living beings different from non-living things? In brevity, what is life?
What do you think?
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Iife is an emergent property.
You can analyse a brick any way you like, but you won't find any "house" in it.
You can even look at the stack of ten thousand bricks waiting on a building site, but you only get a house wen you stack them together with cement in the right layout.
Being a house is a property that emerges out of nowhere when you assemble the bricks in the right pattern.
(and a bomb can remove that property).
Being alive is a property of some arrangements of atoms.
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what is life?
One characteristic of life is that it represents a temporary, local, decrease in entropy (when viewed from a certain angle).
A bacterium can take disordered matter, and convert it into more bacteria, identical to the first (hence producing more order, from the viewpoint of the bacterium).
- Another observer may see this same event as part of the decay of a blue whale, which might be seen as an even larger and less local decrease in entropy...
Another characteristic of life is that it involves the transmission of information - in the case of a bacterium or a blue whale, this information is encoded in its DNA.
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What do you think?
According to my worldview, if we are doing "zoom out" on life in a crude way, we can notice two things that together make up life.
The desire to have the filling.
2. The filling itself.
In short: the meal is not tasty if I am not hungry. This life is the same combination points between the filling and the desire to receive the filling.
If the same object that had a desire to receive the filling did not exist, then those fillings would not exist either.
Our mind does not perceive reality as it is but is in an imaginary world where the gap between the existing and the desired provides it with a desire for movement, and movement creates in it the effect of time.
It follows that if all fulfillments and desires were in oneness, place and time would not exist.
And life? Would move to another phase.
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In short: the meal is not tasty if I am not hungry.
No.
Have you never met the experience of not being hungry- until you see the dessert trolley.
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In short: the meal is not tasty if I am not hungry.
No.
Have you never met the experience of not being hungry- until you see the dessert trolley.
This I have not argued but that what determines pleasure is not only the pleasurable object but also the preparation to receive it.
That is, there is a connection between the size of the vessel and the pleasure.
There is the recipient in the thimble and there is the recipient in the bucket, depending on what you prepared.
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In short: the meal is not tasty if I am not hungry.
No.
Have you never met the experience of not being hungry- until you see the dessert trolley.
This I have not argued but that what determines pleasure is not only the pleasurable object but also the preparation to receive it.
That is, there is a connection between the size of the vessel and the pleasure.
There is the recipient in the thimble and there is the recipient in the bucket, depending on what you prepared.
It may be a language thing, but that makes no sense.
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It may be a language thing, but that makes no sense.
Go talk to someone who had kidney stones, he will tell you how much pleasure there is in urinating.
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the meal is not tasty if I am not hungry.
Then I think you are an exception. A chocolate bar definitely does taste good to me even if I'm not hungry when I eat it.
The desire to have the filling.
There are plenty of living things that don't desire anything. Bacteria, for example.
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A chocolate bar definitely does taste good to me even if I'm not hungry when I eat it.
A comedian once commented that the meal is not over when his plate is empty.
The meal is only over when he hates himself.
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Life, like beauty, is an abstract noun which is only defined as a property that we ascribe to certain objects that we call living (or beautiful). We can define a living thing as a dynamic array that tends to homeostasis in response to a stimulus.
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There are plenty of living things that don't desire anything. Bacteria, for example.
I think that Bacteria do have genetic drives, to find water and nutritious food, discard wastes, avoid toxins, stay at a comfortable temperature, and reproduce.
You can even do experiments to find the relative priorities of these drives - for example by placing food at a higher temperature, you can work out the relative priorities of finding food and staying at a comfortable temperature. And these relative priorities may change depending on how long it is since the bacterium last fed.
You could consider these as a chemical-driven will.
In humans, the will is a little less direct, since the chemical balance (eg glucose levels in our blood) impact our subconscious, which then modifies the priorities in our conscious mind.
- With the addition of learning and memory, we developed agriculture and shopping malls that are just less direct ways of finding food more efficiently, and responding to the chemical balance in our bloodstream.
- Airconditioners and refrigerators are a technological way to balance the conflict between avoiding uncomfortable temperatures, avoiding toxins and finding nutritious food.
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There are plenty of living things that don't desire anything. Bacteria, for example.
I disagree.
Although he willingly says in a low degree that at the moment we are not perceived as a desire because we describe a desire as something else. But it still exists. If there was no desire there would be no movement.
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A comedian once commented that the meal is not over when his plate is empty.
The meal is only over when he hates himself.
An interesting sentence that requires thought
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I think that Bacteria do have genetic drives, to find water and nutritious food, discard wastes, avoid toxins, stay at a comfortable temperature, and reproduce.
That's a given. I would not call that desire, though:
"desire; noun, a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen."
Bacteria are not conscious. I wouldn't consider chemical reflexes as desires.
I disagree.
Given the definition of the word "desire", something that is not conscious cannot experience it.
Although he willingly says in a low degree that at the moment we are not perceived as a desire because we describe a desire as something else.
I can't parse this sentence.
If there was no desire there would be no movement.
Reflexes say otherwise.
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It does not mean desire but about the will.
There are many terminology for the word will.
It is not a matter of free choice or a will related to cognition but to the form in which matter exists.
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Reflexes say otherwise.
Because having a reflex is a will. It is indeed an unconsciouswill but it is still a will.
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Because having a reflex is a will. It is indeed an unconsciouswill but it is still a will.
I don't think that fits the definition of "will". Quote the relevant definition from a dictionary if you disagree.
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Reflexes say otherwise.
Because having a reflex is a will. It is indeed an unconsciouswill but it is still a will.
No.
Sneezing is a reflex and it's fairly common to try to avoid sneezing. So which way is the "will" acting- to sneeze or not to?
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So which way is the "will" acting- to sneeze or not to?
Conflicting drives are common.
Add in longer-term concerns like the desire to not spread Coronavirus, or to keep your moving car in the center of the lane, and the number potential conflicts increase.
I think that the presence of conflicts does not negate the idea of a will.
But how you try to resolve these conflicts is important.
- Do you go with whatever feels best at the time?
- Or do you draw on experience and remember that this resolution did not turn out so well last time?
- Or do you think ahead to the potential outcomes and use that to guide your decision?
- How to weight the desirability of different potential outcomes then comes back to ethics
Naturally, you don't have time for much contemplation to control a sneeze - perhaps long enough to sneeze into an elbow instead of the person in front of you...
- That's why communication and advice in advance can sometimes lead to better outcomes
- Humans have long had some control of their breathing - speech communication is, after all, a modulation of our natural desire to keep our blood oxygen levels within a narrow range.
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No.
Sneezing is a reflex and it's fairly common to try to avoid sneezing. So which way is the "will" acting- to sneeze or not to?
There are two desires here: the desire of the body to get rid of some foreign factor, and in contrast a conscious desire to refrain from sneezing for one reason or another. The existence of two forms in parallel does not contradict the fact that the will exists in each and every parting.
And again: every movement results only from a state of imbalance, that is, a gap between the desired state and the existing state that requires movement.
If the gap between the existing state and the desired state was in unity then we would call such a state complete rest in which not only would no movement take place but also time would not exist. Because time is a feeling and it is felt just as I feel different experiences in other senses. Have you ever wondered how I feel about time?
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the fact that the will exists in each and every parting.
You just made the word meaningless.
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You just made the word meaningless.
I'm curious to know how you came to that conclusion
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So Yovav has now defined will as "whatever motivates an action" whereas others distinguish between an autonomic reflex to a stimulus and a deliberate move towards a future goal, only the latter being motivated by will.
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So Yovav has now defined will as "whatever motivates an action" whereas others distinguish between an autonomic reflex to a stimulus and a deliberate move towards a future goal, only the latter being motivated by will.
Try to describe it as the white in the book and the letters. When there is no more than both. So in reality. There is the fulfillment of the will, and the will itself. And apart from both of them there is nothing else.
And actually it can tie us to what was before the big bang.
how? What is the connection?
I claim that all the will that exists was full. And therefore time, place, and motion did not exist.
Think what will happen if I take a certain desire say in the lab and I will make it fuller something capable of containing. Will he feel anything? The answer is no. It will be flooded with filling until the filling completely eliminates it.
And that is the difference between what existed before the "Big Bang" and what exists now.
In one word: the feeling.
In fact we are only one thing: feeling.
Everything we do, make an effort, get tired of, is created for one thing: to make us feel.
Feeling is everything in our lives. And according to which our happiness is measured.
When the gap between the will which is the filling and the existing which is my given situation is high I will feel suffering. And vice versa. I know this is totally an idea that goes beyond the norm, but try to think about it ...
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Dinesh asks:
If atoms are the building blocks of everything, then what makes living beings different from non-living things? In brevity, what is life?
What do you think?
And from a slightly different angle: just because you breathe does not mean you are alive.
Alpha Romeo
:)
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what was before the big bang.
And therefore time, place, and motion did not exist.
You can't say that time did not exist before the Big Bang. Without time, the word "before" has no meaning.
Think what will happen if I take a certain desire say in the lab and I will make it fuller something capable of containing. Will he feel anything? The answer is no. It will be flooded with filling until the filling completely eliminates it.
This is the kind of rambling that belongs in the "New Theories" (or maybe "That CAN'T be true!") section. I can't even make sense of it.
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You can't say that time did not exist before the Big Bang. Without time, the word "before" has no meaning.
Energy laws do not apply before the Big Bang. And yet there is something we cannot describe due to the limitations of our current perceptual tools. In other words, if something exists there, it is unattainable for us and therefore does not exist for us.
The experience of human beings by their cognitive and biological skills, drawing their conclusions and logic from this universe to understand reasons that have formed before them is problematic in the first place and does not allow these data to be discovered.
What happened after the big bang?
After the big bang the laws of physics began to work. When energy, matter and space began to appear, there was also room for time.
After the Big Bang, a process of billions of years began in which the Earth also formed, plants, animals and humans evolved. Does the very fact that we are products of the same phenomenon bind us to it in threads we have not yet discovered? Are the same connections that are revealed between us, a result of the same occurrence that occurred 13.8 billion years ago?
A question that has not yet been answered.
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You can't say that time did not exist before the Big Bang. Without time, the word "before" has no meaning.
This is the kind of rambling that belongs in the "New Theories" (or maybe "That CAN'T be true!") section. I can't even make sense of it.
In fact, anything that tries to predict what happened before the Big Bang is a theory only.
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In fact, anything that tries to predict what happened before the Big Bang is a theory only.
No, it's a guess.
A "conjecture" or an "hypothesis" if we want to be nice about it.
A theory takes a lot more than that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
"A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can be repeatedly tested and verified in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results. "
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Energy laws do not apply before the Big Bang.
What makes you think that?
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Energy laws do not apply before the Big Bang.
Irrelevant. Like I said, phrases like "before", "now", "after" are meaningless without time. It's as nonsensical as asking, "what does a piece of iron smaller than an iron atom look like?"
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No, it's a guess.
My fatal mistake, i mean presumption and not Inference
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rrelevant. Like I said, phrases like "before", "now", "after" are meaningless without time. It's as nonsensical as asking, "what does a piece of iron smaller than an iron atom look like?"
With all due respect, when talking before the big bang, do not talk about meaning!
Does it matter? Does it exist? Certainly. But you will not discover it in your current tools. But with the tools you will need to develop.
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With all due respect, when talking before the big bang, do not talk about meaning!
If it doesn't mean anything, then you can't (by the definition of "meaning") have a sensible conversation about it.
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Sneezing is a reflex and it's fairly common to try to avoid sneezing. So which way is the "will" acting- to sneeze or not to?
Certainly it is a will. Only that the sneezing is on a physical level, and the prevention experience is on a higher level of consciousness.
The question is just which will is higher and it will be the sum of the result.
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Certainly it is a will.
According to what definition of the word?
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Certainly it is a will.
According to what definition of the word?
I understand your right question and I will try to explain.
I do not mean the dictionary definition of will which is a cognitive process in which an individual decides to perform an action.
The will I am talking about is a cluster of molecules that determine the knowledge of that creature. Determine his thoughts and actions.
for example: We leave the house. I see a dog, a cat, birds. I see flowers, trees.
But what do I actually see?
What is reflected in me so that I experience what I see in this way?
Each of them is a will. It has accumulated molecularity with its own uniqueness. And this cover, this dress I see in the form of a dog, a cat, a flower. Is just his outward expression.
And so does each of us. We too are an external expression of a more internal thing. More internal than our thoughts because our thoughts are the result of our will. (I am aware that it is difficult to digest)
I first want and only then think about how to realize the will
Therefore those molecules of will created with what one tends to call the "big bang" are the ones that need to be to change. (I can not explain everything at once).
Not by plants or animals. But rather by us. By humans, the highest level of nature.
And since we are all one system, once we correct ourselves, automatically as in a pyramid, nature will also be corrected.
The phenomena of nature that befall us are nothing but reminders that we should hurry up and take the reins.
And what is the method of this changing? What is the paradigm through which the correction of the will, the correction of man, will be realized?
This - We have not yet discovered ....
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I do not mean the dictionary definition of will
Then how about not using a word for something that it doesn't mean?
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I do not mean the dictionary definition of will
Then how about not using a word for something that it doesn't mean?
Can you find a suitable word for the description I wrote down?
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Experience and memory.
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Experience and memory.
Experience and memory?
What is our life? Not really.
Life is an emotion. Everything, every action, act we do is done to bring us to emotion.
Now the question is what is the essence of emotion.
If the emotion is of acceptance in those five senses then it is a momentary life in this world.
If the emotion is an opposite emotion from a receiver. That is, if we have made the qualities of acceptance an influence, then that emotion will be life.
But completely different.
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By humans, the highest level of nature.
That's a bold claim. Prove it.
Some would call it specism; others hubris or chauvinism.
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You just made the word meaningless.
I'm curious to know how you came to that conclusion
If you use the word "green" to mean things that absorb red light more strongly than other colours, then it has a meaning.
If you use it to describe anything that absorbs any light at all regardless of wavelength and extent, then the description applies to everything and the word doesn't mean anything.
Telling someone that a cat is green- using that definition- does not tell them anything about the cat.
You might just as well say that the cat is "ghnj^yj%bh"
Similarly, you have chosen to expand the meaning of the word "will" tosay that " that the will exists in each and every parting."
you have left it with no meaning.
If you say that any parting includes "will", then saying that a parting includes "will" is meaningless.
It might help if you explained what you think "parting" means.
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Life is an emotion.
Um, no.
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humans, the highest level of nature.
Arguably the dumbest. This year's fashionable virus has managed to spread around the world without buying a single flight ticket, and multiply several billionfold with the deliberate help of its new prey species.
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and multiply several billionfold
I think you need at least another half a dozen zeroes there.
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Life is in the complex motion of cells, the organized molecules. It seems once a cell dies, it cannot be restarted. Some life depends directly on the sun, and wind, maybe waves and tides.
In our bodies there is a fire burning in every cell, existing in the mitochondria. But there are viruses with no fire of their own and a car engine burns fuel and runs, but is not alive. A virus is arguably not alive but a mechanism.
Living things grow, respire or transpire, reproduce, excretes waste. A great end indeed is the mind, as part of life. Animals like cats have very small minds compared to us people. The mind is more than the work of mitochondria or mere mechanisms. Some disagree.
Life is energy, and energy cannot be destroyed. Energy that does work and thinks, it can't happen by chance. Blood in motion, muscle, and the nervous system. I think there is physical life tied to soul and spirit. That is why there is no revival of the dead after a certain point.
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GOD breathed
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spirit
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Dinesh asks:
If atoms are the building blocks of everything, then what makes living beings different from non-living things? In brevity, what is life?
What do you think?
I would seperate between things that can decide on their own and think. Sure a stone might be from the same building blocks but in comparison to a human being a stone can't decide what to do, it is not thinking or participating in any way (maybe we also just don't understand or so on).
For me the ability to get the big picture and think about myself makes me feel alive.
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spirit
poor definition
I assume you don’t mean whiskey or brandy!
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Dinesh asks:
If atoms are the building blocks of everything, then what makes living beings different from non-living things? In brevity, what is life?
What do you think?
Our lives are the way our senses simulate reality.
Is our reality really like that? No. Except to the extent that our senses perceive it.
Our atoms bonded together for a time of about 70 years of life.
for what?
What is the purpose of life?
As various phenomena in nature of renewal result from two or more components, so we will find that by changing those molecules of our will, the matter that existed before creation or the Big Bang, we will achieve new phenomena. And not just as you discover when you combine hydrogen and oxygen and water is created, but we will discover a new life, a new world. It could truly be called our true Independence Day
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I would seperate between things that can decide on their own and think.
So, you don't think plants and bacteria are alive.
That's an unusual perspective.
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Our atoms bonded together for a time of about 70 years of life.
Not really. They all get shuffled and many get replaced.
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What is the purpose of life?
What evidence is there that life has a purpose?
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Life is being alive. Atoms make up the things IN life. And not everything is made of atoms, e.g. thoughts, dreams, actions, etc. It's like how ink makes the words in the book. Ink doesn't make the book. It makes the content of the book.
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And not everything is made of atoms, e.g. thoughts, dreams, actions, etc. It's like how ink makes the words in the book.
Interestingly, thoughts, dreams and actions are the result of interactions between atoms :)
Ink doesn't make the book. It makes the content of the book.
That’s true, but I would probably reserve the word content for the information or meaning the book contains.
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Living entities have only one purpose to to reproduce and make more copies of themselves
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The arrangement of the ink in space on the pages is what defines what information the book conveys.
The phrase "man bites dog" uses the same ink as "dog bites man".
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Life is in the complex motion of cells, the organized molecules. It seems once a cell dies, it cannot be restarted. Some life depends directly on the sun, and wind, maybe waves and tides.
In our bodies there is a fire burning in every cell, existing in the mitochondria. But there are viruses with no fire of their own and a car engine burns fuel and runs, but is not alive. A virus is arguably not alive but a mechanism.
Living things grow, respire or transpire, reproduce, excretes waste. A great end indeed is the mind, as part of life. Animals like cats have very small minds compared to us people. The mind is more than the work of mitochondria or mere mechanisms. Some disagree.
Life is energy, and energy cannot be destroyed. Energy that does work and thinks, it can't happen by chance. Blood in motion, muscle, and the nervous system. I think there is physical life tied to soul and spirit. That is why there is no revival of the dead after a certain point.
Finally someone who just acknowledges the beaty of scientific analysis. We don't have to enter into philosophical or even religious themes just to describe how the world works around us. Life is a process that, although not fully explained, can be rationally analyized and understood. That does not take away from its uniquiness. Understanding the mechanism and its complexity, which is the purpose of modern biology, should make it even more valuable and precious.