[DonQuichotte (OP)]

You didn't directly address my questions. Part of the problem of saying "read what Sheldrake said" is that you admit that you do not adhere to all of his beliefs. Therefore, you must be specific as to which of those beliefs you do adhere to.

So please answer this directly: Which step in the molecular replication process requires an immaterial explanation?

Here is a diagram just in case you need one:

[/quote]

Physics and chemistry are just one single part of the whole pic : there might be some sort of formative or other unknown to science non-physical foms of causation ,that might be underlying the laws of physics themselves , the non-physical or mental as the other more fundamental side of the whole pic ,without which we can't know how DNA , for example , is made  the way it is ,as to give form to itself by self-replication, by 'coding " the synthesis of proteins ...by preserving and by giving form to biological traits or genetical inheritance ....
Physics and chemistry alone cannot account for just that , let alone the rest .
Example ? : epigenetics :  acquired characteristics get passed on from generation to the next and beyond :

The materialist neo-Darwinian conception of nature rejects this Lamarckian kind of inheritance or evolution, while Darwin did adhere to the latter , by also trying to explain it ...

P.S.: Living organisms are wholes inside of wholes inside of wholes ,all the way down to sub-atoms that are wholes inside of atoms as wholes , atoms that are wholes inside of molecules as wholes , all the way up to organs as wholes inside of living organims as wholes = the whole is more than the sum of its parts= materialist reductionism is false = one cannot explain the whole via its parts ,or via its smallest parts ,no way  .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Try to explain ... music

music can emerge from cellular automata ... http://www.earslap.com/projectslab/otomata  [requires Adobe flash , press play]

Don't be silly : living organisms are no machines : see above also .

[RD]

Try to explain ... music

music can emerge from cellular automata ... http://www.earslap.com/projectslab/otomata  [requires Adobe flash , press play]

Don't be silly : living organisms are no machines : see above also .

The music via that cellular-automaton isn't a symphony* , but is a proof-of-concept that automata can produce music which at times would be indistinguishable from music created by a human, i.e. cellular-automata mechanism within the human can explain the music they create without any need for anything out-with the material world.

[ * more varied than some Philip Glass compositions though [] ]

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Try to explain ... music

music can emerge from cellular automata ... http://www.earslap.com/projectslab/otomata  [requires Adobe flash , press play]

Don't be silly : living organisms are no machines : see above also .

The music via that cellular-automaton isn't a symphony* , but is a proof-of-concept that automata can produce music which at times would be indistinguishable from music created by a human, i.e. cellular-automata mechanism within the human can explain the music they create without any need for anything out-with the material world.

[ * more varied than some Philip Glass compositions though [] ]

[/quote]

Once again, that machine analogy or metaphor regarding life is just a materialist mechanical belief assumption, no empirical fact .

[RD]

Once again, that machine analogy or metaphor regarding life is just a materialist mechanical belief assumption, no empirical fact .

That the music generated by cellular-automata can be indistinguishable from human-generated music , (analogous to a Turing test), is empirical evidence that a cellular-automata mechanism within the human brain is sufficient to explain human-generated music, so no additional non-material explanation is required.

[Kryptid]

Yet again, you fail to directly address the question. This suggests to me that either:

(1) You cannot directly answer the question and therefore don't know what you are talking about.
(2) You won't directly answer the question because you realize that if you do then you will begin the process of pinning yourself into a corner that will become increasingly difficult to debate your way out of.

You can prove both of these assumptions wrong, however, if you choose to directly answer my question(s) once and for all. Go ahead then. Prove me wrong:

Is there a requirement for some immaterial explanation in order to explain how this peptide molecule replicates that the laws of chemistry alone cannot explain? If so, which aspect of the replication process requires it and how exactly does the immaterial supply these needs?

I've got a strong suspicion that you will fail to directly answer this yet again and instead will post some generalized statement about how materialism is wrong as a red herring. Materialism being wrong is beside the point, as I am asking a question only about one particular phenomenon. Even if the mechanism behind this peptide replication is entirely physical, that would not rule out the concept of the immaterial as a whole.

I do find it interesting that you say "there might be some sort of formative or other unknown to science non-physical foms of causation". Might? Sounds like you have doubt. Do you have doubt that this peptide replication requires an immaterial explanation?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Yet again, you fail to directly address the question. This suggests to me that either:

(1) You cannot directly answer the question and therefore don't know what you are talking about.
(2) You won't directly answer the question because you realize that if you do then you will begin the process of pinning yourself into a corner that will become increasingly difficult to debate your way out of.

You can prove both of these assumptions wrong, however, if you choose to directly answer my question(s) once and for all. Go ahead then. Prove me wrong:

Is there a requirement for some immaterial explanation in order to explain how this peptide molecule replicates that the laws of chemistry alone cannot explain? If so, which aspect of the replication process requires it and how exactly does the immaterial supply these needs?

I've got a strong suspicion that you will fail to directly answer this yet again and instead will post some generalized statement about how materialism is wrong as a red herring. Materialism being wrong is beside the point, as I am asking a question only about one particular phenomenon. Even if the mechanism behind this peptide replication is entirely physical, that would not rule out the concept of the immaterial as a whole.

I do find it interesting that you say "there might be some sort of formative or other unknown to science non-physical foms of causation". Might? Sounds like you have doubt. Do you have doubt that this peptide replication requires an immaterial explanation?

That seems to require no non-physical forms of causation, not because it does not , but simply because mechanistic science under materialism thinks that physics and chemistry alone are all what there is to reality, including to DNA,including the mind  ....

How does DNA give rise to morphogenesis then ? why does it behave the way it does ,as if it had some pre-planned 'agenda " : note that materialists say that DNA is just software , just a progrm : that's a form of vitalism those materialists have been "fighting " against  by metaphorically giving DNA a mechanical "soul " of the vitalists  ,by introducing their own teleological vitalism into life ,by seeing life as just hardware programmed by software .....while not being able to explain how that sentient living "hardware or software " came into being , in the first place to begin with .

Not to mention the kind of epigenetics that has been proving the traditional Lamarckian inheritance of environmental acquired characteristics physiologically ,by switching on or off certain genes ,to be true ,in total contrast with the neo-darwinian "scientific world view " that used to attribute inheritance only to genes ' sequences , neo-darwinism that does reject that darwinian and lamarckian view of evolution via environmental acquired characteristics or traits habits : what about the psychological and mental implications of or adaptations to the environment such as the impacts of   past tragic events , wars , famine , holocaust ...that might also be passed on to the next generations as well, and beyond ...non-physically or non-genetically , since psychological and mental adaptations to the environment are irreducible to the physical .

DNA or any other molecules for that matter are just wholes inside of wholes inside of wholes ......: sub-atoms  as whole "organisms "  inside of atoms as whole "organisms " , inside of molecules as whole "organisms " , inside of organs as whole "organisms " , inside of organisms as wholes = the whole is not the sum of its parts , is more than just that, and one cannot explain the whole just via its parts ,as reductionist materialism has been doing  .

So, science must start looking for non-physical or mental forms of causation out there that might be or  rather must be then underlying the laws of physics themselves ,since reality is not just material or physical, and hence even DNA is not , even physics and chemistry are thus not just that .

Quantum physics , for example , has been talking in terms of fields such as the electro-magnetic fields and others ,without being able yet to say much about the nature of those fields ,or about the nature of electricity and magnetism at their ultimate bottom ,  has been talking in terms of waves and mass in relation to  particles  , without being able yet to say what the nature of those waves or energy are ....or as a certain scientist once said " matter is not made of matter " ,so to speak .

Even just physics and chemistry might turn out to be not just that thus , at its ultimate bottom .


In short :
Science must undergo a major and revolutionary shift of meta-paradigm ,not just a paradigm shift , as to include the possible non-physical forms of causation out there , that must be underlying the laws of physics themselves .( I said might , just because science has not yet been able to find just that , thanks to materialism, but i am relatively  sure that there are non-physical or mental forms of causation at bottom,since reality is not just material or physical , and since the mental or non-physical that's irreducible to the physical ,is way more fundamental than matter can ever be  . )

Before saying anything about the mental, let modern physics tell us first what matter is ,at its ultimate bottom .

That might sound just generalization talk to you ,but it is not , if you only would try to think about just that then : nothing is what it appears to be ,as science has been teaching us ,so, science might be able to reveal some more fundamental forms of nature at its ultimate bottom in he future , who knows ?

To say already that "everything = nothing " is just physics and chemistry ,while ignoring the other  more fundamental side of reality , and without knowing what the nature of matter itself might be , is simply...dogmatic ignorance , the latter science is all about dispelling .

What are  "physics and chemistry" at their ultimate bottom then , before speaking of the more fundamental side of reality : the mental or non-physical .

[Kryptid]

I'm not asking whether or not peptide replication "seems" to not require an immaterial explanation. I'm asking if you as an individual believe that it does or not. Do you believe it does or do you believe it does not?

The argument that DNA seems to have some agenda sounds like a parallel to the typical creationist-type argument about design. That is, if something looks designed, then it must be designed. Saying that something has an agenda implies that it has some ability to think and plan. How a molecule can think and plan is beyond me.

[alancalverd]

Humanity as a whole , during all its history , including science that's just a human activity , have been breaking their teeth and much more in relation to the hard problem of consciousness for so long now up to this present date 

And until someone defines it, nobody will ever explain it, because you cannot "explain" a meaningless noise. But nobody dares to define it because that would spoil the mystery!

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

I'm not asking whether or not peptide replication "seems" to not require an immaterial explanation. I'm asking if you as an individual believe that it does or not. Do you believe it does or do you believe it does not?

The argument that DNA seems to have some agenda sounds like a parallel to the typical creationist-type argument about design. That is, if something looks designed, then it must be designed. Saying that something has an agenda implies that it has some ability to think and plan. How a molecule can think and plan is beyond me.

I think you should try to reread what i said : i cannot be more clearer than that .

I said also that materialists who do try to refute that unproved vitalism, end up becoming  vitalists themselves their own materialist way thus , by attributing "souls or vital mysterious forces " to DNA , metaphorically speaking then, by saying that DNA is a program that does shape living organisms ,as if DNA is somehow conscious, even though they say that 'selfish genes " are just a metaphor : materialists end up introducing materialist vitalist teleological mysteries to DNA as some sort of 'software " , as some sort of an architect of life , programming living organisms as some sort of "hardware ". without being able to tell us  how that presumed DNA program came into being ,or how it can account for morphogenesis .....let alone for how come that even rice does have more than 38 000 genes , while humans do have just 23 000 genes , even some plants do have more genes than we have : not to mention that our alleged closest "relatives " the chimps do share more than 99% DNA material with us : DNA alone cannot account for our forms and complexity thus ...in comparison with those of our alleged closest "relatives , or with those of other species ...
Homeobox genes, for example, are identical in us , in fruitflies and in other species as well, but they cannot account for our totally different foms and complexity in comparison with those of fruitflies ...
Morphogenesis , inheritance ...are not just a matter of DNA thus : we are not just DNA or biology .
We are not just physics and chemistry .
Nobody knows yet even what matter exactly is , what physics and chemistry are in fact ,on top of all that and more .
Our mental side is more fundamental than matter can ever be in fact , the mental that gets reduced to just physics and chemistry by the false materialist mainstream "scientific world view " which tries to explain "everything " = nothing ,just in terms of physics and chemistry , whatever the latter might be .

[RD]

... how come that even rice does have more than 38 000 genes , while humans do have just 23 000 genes ...

You must have missed my post on non-coding DNA , aka "Junk DNA" ...
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=48746.msg424943#msg424943

[Kryptid]

In that case, I will assume that you do believe that an immaterial mechanism is responsible for peptide replication.

However, you never explained which step or what aspect of peptide replication required something immaterial in order to explain it. I do therefore conclude that you either cannot answer the question directly or won't because doing so will have adverse consequences for you.

Saying that materialists attribute souls or mysterious vital forces to DNA is a straw-man argument because they don't believe in souls or mysterious vital forces in the first place. Modern science does not attribute everything about humanity to DNA anyway. Epigenetics and the nurture aspect of "nature vs. nurture" play important roles as well.

Let's see if you can answer this: what is it about the immaterial world that allows it to fill in roles that the material world alone cannot? What properties of the immaterial allow it to explain life?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

... how come that even rice does have more than 38 000 genes , while humans do have just 23 000 genes ...

You must have missed my post on non-coding DNA , aka "Junk DNA" ...
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=48746.msg424943#msg424943

[/quote]

Come on : that's no serious answer to my question :
How come we are way  too  different ,obviously, qua form and complexity ....from rice ,and yet the latter has a lot more genes than we have ?

DNA alone is not what "defines " us thus = we are not just biology,DNA,  or physics and chemistry alone .

Our alleged closest "relatives " with  which we do share more than 99% DNA material should not be way different from us ,if DNA biology or chemistry and physics are all what there is to us ,or to life in general .

Even the founder of the human genome project said once , after scientists finished  the mapping of both the human and the chimps ' genomes that :
"...that does not explain why we are so different ..." .

[RD]

Come on : that's no serious answer to my question :
How come we are way  too  different ,obviously, qua form and complexity ....from rice ,and yet the latter has a lot more genes than we have ?

Yes it is a serious and accurate answer to your question as to why some plants have a larger genome than humans.
 Less than 2% of human DNA is coding , maybe you can find out how much of that coding DNA we have in common with chimps, (it's definitely less than "99%").

To be fair chimps are mentally superior to humans at some things ...

In many species, only a small fraction of the total sequence of the genome encodes protein. For example, only about 1.5% of the human genome consists of protein-coding exons, with over 50% of human DNA consisting of non-coding repetitive sequences

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA#Genes_and_genomes

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

In that case, I will assume that you do believe that an immaterial mechanism is responsible for peptide replication.

I am just logically assuming that there might be some more fundamental forms of causation underlying the laws of physics themselves , since the mental that's irreducible to the physical is more fundamental than matter can ever be , while we still do not know yet what the nature of the latter might be exactly either .

However, you never explained which step or what aspect of peptide replication required something immaterial in order to explain it. I do therefore conclude that you either cannot answer the question directly or won't because doing so will have adverse consequences for you.

See above .
As long as science will remain materialistic , it will only continue trying to explain "everything " = nothing , just in terms of physics and chemistry , while reality or nature are not just material or physical ,are not just physics and chemistry .

Saying that materialists attribute souls or mysterious vital forces to DNA is a straw-man argument because they don't believe in souls or mysterious vital forces in the first place.

I said that the materialist teleological vitalism is just a metaphor: materialism just ends up becoming vitalist teleological , in the materialist sense thus .
Reread what i said then .

Modern science does not attribute everything about humanity to DNA anyway. Epigenetics and the nurture aspect of "nature vs. nurture" play important roles as well.

Modern science does try to explain "everything " = nothing just in terms of physics and chemistry ,thanks to materialism , by assuming that reality or nature is exclusively material or physical.

Let's see if you can answer this: what is it about the immaterial world that allows it to fill in roles that the material world alone cannot? What properties of the immaterial allow it to explain life?

Life is , per definition, sentient and alive living : no physics and chemistry can account for the immaterial nature  or for the immaterial side  of life or for the immaterial consciousness ...

How can sentient alive living life 'rise or emerge " from just  organic physics and chemistry , let  alone from dead inorganic matter ? physics and chemistry cannot account for that .

We should be behaving like zombies machines ,if we were just physics and chemistry , that's 1 of the "reasons " why mechanistic materialist science does reduce life and consciousness to just physics and chemistry in fact , thanks to materialism = that fits perfectly into the false materialist world view .

Even if we are  just physics and chemistry , that's still cannot account for sentient life .

There must be more to physics and chemistry themselves than just what we perceive them to be thus .

Materialists cannot therefore afford to see consciousness as an immaterial process, obviously , otherwise ,they would be no materialists haha .
Science has nothing to do about all that : that's 1 of the reasons why science must be liberated from materialism .

I would even add that even dead inanimate inorganic matter itself is not just matter = has an immaterial side= alive and sentient  ,the same goes for animals of course , plants ,and the rest .

Quantum physics are on their way to revolutionize completely our view of what matter is ,modern physics has already been doing just that , by superseding materialism itself ....in the process .

(To complicate matters thus for you , i would say that even organic and non-organic matter are alive living and sentient their own degrees of consciousness and life: that's another totally different set of relative degrees of sentient life  at the level of matter , at the level of both organic and inorganic matter , : earth is alive and sentient , so are the stars , the sun and planets , mountains seas oceans ....bacteria ,viruses,plants ,animals  ....their own degrees of sentient life that cannot match that of man ,not even remotely close thus : man is unique in that regard .That's 1 of the reasons why i said that we still do not know what even matter exactly is, what physics an chemistry exactly are : they might turn out to be totally different from what we perceive them to be .)

Physics and chemistry alone are just one side of reality, and hence just one single side of life that's way less fundamental than the mental side of nature or of life that's irreducible to the physical or to the material .
So, physics and chemistry alone ,as we perceive them to be at least , cannot account for life fully , let alone its origins evolution or emergence , even  if scientists would be able to discover how life did "emerge " from the dead matter , even if scientists would make "artificial life " : they would still have to use the already existing "building blocks " of life ...

So, reality,life,  or nature the universe cannot be just material or physical or biological , including evolution that cannot be just biological ....

The above are no scientific statements , in the materialist sense at least .

Who knows what science will be discovering concerning all the above , when science will be liberated from materialism thus .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

RD:

Birds do fly via their natural wings , we do not , not via natural wings at least haha
Does that mean they are superior to us in that regard ?
Many animals ,social insects ....do see a lots of what we cannot see ...

Does that mean they are superior to us in that regard ?

Via our imagination we can create whole universes though , real ,fictitious or illusory .


Chimps might be better in memory ....but , they cannot match our intellect as a whole , our imagination, creativity ....not even remotely close thus .

How can you explain all that just via physics and chemistry then ?
The whole is not the sum of its parts .

What kindda "reasoning " is this ?

If we are just physics and chemistry interacting with the material environment ....then, that should be enough to explain why we are so different from other species and plants = that does not , obviously .

[Kryptid]

I am just logically assuming that there might be some more fundamental forms of causation underlying the laws of physics themselves

Again with the "might", I see. Using "might" implies a lack of conviction. So you are not convinced that peptide replication requires an immaterial explanation?

See above .

Your above explanation did not address the issue. You did not say which aspect of the replication needed something immaterial. Only now you seem to lack conviction that it needs anything immaterial at all by saying the word "might". If peptide replication only "might" require an immaterial explanation, then replication of living cells also only "might" require an immaterial explanation.

Life is , per definition, sentient and alive living : no physics and chemistry can account for the immaterial nature  or for the immaterial side  of life or for the immaterial consciousness ...

Argument from incredulity: "We don't know how physics and chemistry can generate life or consciousness, therefore they can't."

Argument from ignorance: "We don't know how physics and chemistry can generate life or consciousness, therefore something immaterial does."

The bulk of your arguments are based solely on "common sense" observations. The problem with this is that common sense has been wrong many times in the past:

-The Earth is obviously flat.
-The Sun obviously revolves around the Earth.
-Objects obviously require constant force in order to maintain their motion.
-Heavy objects obviously fall faster than light ones.
-Matter and energy are obviously two completely different things.
-Time is obviously a universal constant.
-Objects can obviously only exist in one place at a time.

Each and every one of these common sense observations has been proven wrong. Evidence from common sense arguments alone are therefore weak. If you want something more compelling, you must provide evidence that is more objective in nature. However, since you say that you cannot define the immaterial, then you automatically forfeit your ability to present objective evidence.

Consider that two models of reality: Materialism (everything that exists has some origin in the material world) and Immaterialism (some things that exist do not have an origin in the material world). That assumes that immaterialism is word, of course. Idealism might be the better term. The lack of an ability for materialism to prove itself would not automatically make immaterialism right. The lack of immaterialism to prove itself would not automatically prove materialism right. My point is that neither side should focus on the lack of proof of the opposition so much as they should try to prove their own premises correct. If neither side can do this, all this would mean is that the total explanation for reality remains unknown.

In order for you to prove immaterialism/idealism correct, you do not proceed by pointing to a lack of evidence for materialism. You proceed by providing proof that immaterialism is correct. So far, the only "proof" you have provided has been in the form of common sense arguments. Since I have demonstrated why common sense arguments are weak, you need to provide something more concrete in order to present your arguments as compelling.

How can sentient alive living life 'rise or emerge " from just  organic physics and chemistry , let  alone from dead inorganic matter ? physics and chemistry cannot account for that .

Can you prove that physics and chemistry cannot account for life, or is this just another "common sense" argument?

Birds do fly via their natural wings , we do not , not via natural wings at least haha
Does that mean they are superior to us in that regard ?

Superior to humans when it comes to flying? Yes, as humans can't fly at all naturally. Being superior in one way does not mean being superior in all ways.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Folks :

I do suggest that we all should move back ,or restrict ourselves to the consciousness thread , in order to discuss these highly fascinating issues ,simply because almost all of these issues and more can be be brought back to the hard problem of consciousness ,the latter that's THE key to understanding ourselves and this universe within and without, instead of "fragmenting " our energies and time on multiple threads  .

[alancalverd]

Chimps might be better in memory ....but , they cannot match our intellect as a whole , our imagination, creativity ....not even remotely close thus .

Until I see a chimpanzee, or indeed any other animal, worshipping a god, or killing another member of its species for not worshipping the same god, I shall continue to regard human beings as the least intelligent, rational or moral species of all. Creativity, however you measure it, is a very minor virtue in comparison with these. 

[Kryptid]

Just thought I'd leave this here, you know, for purposes of reference. 

http://corkskeptics.org/2011/05/03/the-common-sense-fallacy/