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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Feb 17, 2012 - 07:15pm PT
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The only possible alternative is simply to keep to the immediate experience that consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing...
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In Zen the notion is that the "plural" and the "one" are the same, exactly, and that while they can be known, they are fundamentally ungraspable (nonquantifiable).
Or something like that. You have to have a terrific capacity for paradoxes to really get jiggy with this and take the time to painstakingly work out the language with sufficient precision that it makes some little sense. I just dash sh#t off.
And Dr. Thompson, let's talk about that real estate real soon now.
JL
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Feb 17, 2012 - 07:40pm PT
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Yo, Craig:
What do you make of this one statement from the great link Ed provided:
". . . that there is only one thing and that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing..."
What is your sense of what that "one thing" is, being a realist and all.
Curious,
JL
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Feb 17, 2012 - 09:13pm PT
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I don't really have to worry about the mechanisms of evolution.
I see evolution all of the time. When you drill a 10,000 foot deep well, and go from the Cretaceous to the Cambrian, you see a LOT of fossils when you look at a bag of samples taken every ten feet.
I have also done a lot of field geology, which is done at the surface. It is also blatantly obvious. No way around it. I specialize in depositional environments of sedimentary rocks, and their stratigraphy. I, nor anyone else, has found evidence of a worldwide great flood. Sea level does rise and fall, but not that much.
Hey, when somebody finds a human skull in an Ordovician rock, I will take notice. Since outcrops have been scoured for the really important fossils, the invertebrates, for who knows how long, it is pretty well figured out. Vertebrate paleontology is far more sparse.
So I look at empirical evidence of evolution. It is so damn blatant that you have to put on a blindfold to dismiss it.
The Earth is also very old. Very old. I can spit out billions of years, but sit and think about how many centuries are in a billion years.
As for the start of life on Earth, it seemed to happen pretty quickly after things had settled down.
My next door neighbor is a famous evolution scientist. One evening I asked him, "If life is so easy to start, has it seen multiple genesis's over time?"
His reply was no. There is a universal genome that all life shares.
The genetics part is over my head, but I find that interesting.
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WBraun
climber
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Feb 17, 2012 - 09:49pm PT
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man creating life in the Lab
Life is already there, you can't create life, it's already there.
Maybe in ones fertile mind, Dr Frankenstein .....
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Feb 17, 2012 - 10:00pm PT
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The basic idea is... insofar as one is comfortable with such things and processes as....
 synthesis of dna from nucleotides,
synthesis of phospholipid membranes
synthesis of viruses (phages)
primitive replicators and their evolution
genetic code (or coding) from dna to mrna to amino acid to proteins
cell organelles, cellular machinery and their evolution
glycolysis, kreb cycle, electron transport chain, photosynthesis, etc.
signal transduction, etc.
genetics, genetic regulation, incl its evolution
... it's not such a crazy step afterall (from nonlife to life, or from inanimate matter to animate matter) that some people would have unaware people believe is inconceivable - inconceivable by all except those nutty science types. ;)
.....
Obviously what's hard for the average primitive 21st century joe to wrap his mind around - no doubt made more difficult by the loads of tradition he's inherited from religions and their theologies - is that... (1) life is animated matter... (2) humans are one of things H atoms do after 15 billion years of evolution...
And of course this is made all the harder still by the bulk of humanity which - if we're going to be candid- has never had a physics, chemistry or biology course let alone strings of them. (Or let alone analytical bioengineering courses which we can hope humanity of the future is going to have in greater supply.)
Where there is life in an info age, there is hope.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Feb 18, 2012 - 01:42am PT
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My next door neighbor is a famous evolution scientist. One evening I asked him, "If life is so easy to start, has it seen multiple genesis's over time?"
His reply was no. There is a universal genome that all life shares.
This is certainly true on earth and this unity of life is something my students find fascinating and helpful to understanding evolution.
We have also found amino acids on meteors, indicating that the building blocks of life are circulating throughout our solar system and perhaps all of our galaxy (my understanding anyway).
But what about other galaxies? I personally would expect there to be life based on other fundamentals in other galaxies. Not that we'll know in my lifetime, but interesting to speculate about anyway.
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Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
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Feb 18, 2012 - 02:38am PT
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I have no problem with Evolution. It's real. It happens.
There are many examples we can see in our own short life-time here on Earth. Microorganisms like bacteria etc., mutate and change all the time. Disease pathogens become resistant to treatment all the time. They are changing and becoming more resilient. Evolution at work. And this can happen in fairly short amounts of time.
However, please show me how organic molecules (non-living building blocks), wherever they are found, even on meteorites, how do these non-living organic molecules first form tissue, then an organ, then a system of organs to produce the first simplest living single celled organism?
My good friend, once climbing partner, and my first Bio professor in college always said this truth, "The simplest single celled living organism is far more complex than the largest non-living system or phenomenon."
How exactly did the first non-living building block organic molecules do all of that? How exactly did that happen? How did the first non-living matter become life?
Hey, once life is already here it isn't difficult to see how life begets life. And how the mechanics of Evolution can work from that point on.
How did life exactly first begin from a strict evolutionary point of view, without any deity or other spiritual or faith based method and causation?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Theistic evolution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution
Ed Hartouni said . . .
Feb 17, 2012 - 01:32pm PT
Klimmer, we don't know yet, it is the subject of much research.
some of this can be found in the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Certainly we can approach it as a science question, and pursue an answer in that domain. As I have said many times before, science knows when it gets things wrong...
Standby...
I knew the answer before I asked it.
Dr. Ed gives the most honest answer. "WE DON'T KNOW YET."
We haven't synthesized life yet "from the ground up" as mentioned above. We do not know how non-living organic molecules all on their own got together and formed the first membranes/tissue, and how these structures all on their own got together and formed the first formed organelles, and how these structures all on their own first got together and formed the very first living single celled microbial organism, with all the said requirements to fulfill our definition for life.
Yes, admit it. At this point science knows a great deal about the theory of Evolution (do we have it all right, probably not), but we don't know the answer to abiogenesis. That is the crux. At this point in time we think that yes, it must of somehow happened. Somehow non-living matter became living and it did it all on its own without any deity or intelligence doing it. That is the hypothesis. However, we do not know how this has happened. It is not an easy matter. It is an unbelievably complex matter. We do not know yet.
Admit it. Sometimes science is faith based.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 18, 2012 - 03:03am PT
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but we don't know the answer to abiogenesis.
correct that we don't know the answer, but we know a lot about this...
further, this becomes the crux only after we know about evolution, since evolution naturally sets up the issue of the origin of life.
we can still work towards the answer. Newton hypothesized that gravity was due to some force which acted at a distance between bodies. He didn't know what transmitted the force over that distance, and he famously punted: hypothesis non fingo. Yet we know now how gravity is transmitted... it was not a question of faith so much as an unfolding understanding of the world.
The origin of life has yet to be conclusively figured out, but we're still working on it... what wonderful times.
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Feb 18, 2012 - 12:10pm PT
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You guys are making this a philosophy matter. It isn't.
The fossil record is as real and blatant as the blue sky.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 18, 2012 - 12:48pm PT
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BASE104
the fossil record is an observation that provides a constraint to the various explanations of how it got there... it doesn't "prove" anything, though any "theory" that discusses the distribution of species in time and space must demonstrate consistency with the fossil record in order to be considered viable.
that's not a philosophical matter, it's a science matter.
Darwin's initial discussion took place during a time when there was a lot less known about the fossil record. His hypothesis of "gradualism," that evolutionary changes take place over a long time was challenged by the detailed study of the fossil record, greatly expanded. In 1971 Gould presented his work on the Paleozic trilobites and started to try to understand the implication of the time distribution of these fossils. This resulted in the ideas of punctuated equilibrium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_evolution); .
However, if you propose a "theory" such as the universe was created 4,000 years ago, that explains the existence of the fossil record too, it was put there by the creator.
The existence of the fossil record is consistent with both "theories."
Now in the case of evolution, the existence and details of the fossil record is a consequence of the theory, where as in the creation theory it exists "by construction," which is to say, we state it to be without any further explanation. It is an "aesthetic" of science that we desire theories which have "the fewest parts" to explain the greatest number of observation, this evolution does. Creationism, on the other hand, basically explains nothing and actually predicts no new observations... it isn't a very useful means of understanding how the world works.
But on the matter of which theory is correct, the fossil record is silent.
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dindolino32
climber
omaha, ne
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Feb 18, 2012 - 01:25pm PT
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Teach it like this... Evolution is a theory... just like electricity and gravity. Teach the definition of a theory. THEN teach the true definition of evolution; change in population over time. Give an example of the Darwin's finches beaks changing over time. Tell the students that evolution has no religious implications for purpose of life. If you are in a rural area, talk about how the deer population is getting smaller (in actual size) (a typical deer went from 100lbs to 75lbs) because hunters are selectively killing the big ones. I read a news article a long time ago about this. Tell them that this is a perfect example of how populations change in an area, due to our selection. It really is only arguable if the definitions are unclear and you are arguing with someone that implies the monkey to human= evolution.
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dindolino32
climber
omaha, ne
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Feb 18, 2012 - 01:27pm PT
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Klimmer is an example of a person that doesn't know the definition of evolution. "Ground up" is not even a part of evolution. Evolution has no implications for the beginning of life. He should take your science class
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Feb 18, 2012 - 03:56pm PT
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Ed,
I am not that simple. I am just making a simple statement of fact.
Every method of dating of not only the ages of rocks, but also their paleomagnetic signature of where they were in latitutude, their direct correlations in seperate continents, is entirely consistent with a very old earth.
The fossil record is obvious.
Astronomy is also consistent with a vastly old universe.
To believe is to take something on faith. These are not matters of belief. This is empirical evidence.
The only reason that many people try to dismiss it is because it conflicts with many myths.
If the Earth is indeed 4000 years old, God has been playing a terrible hoax on us.
Right now I am in the middle of a big paleozoic petrophysics and stratigraphy group. Very old rocks. In my project there are Hindus and Christians and agnostics and atheists, and I don't even know most of the worker bees involved in the project. Every day I do subsurface cross sections using geophysical well logs, putting the story together. It is really fun. After a while, the story begins to emerge.
Not once does any creation myth come up. It is far too complicated to explain the deep past in a paragraph or chapter. I suppose that is why many geologists feel quite free to retain their religion in the face of a rock record that is more fantastic than almost anyone realizes.
No creation myth is vast enough to explain everything. All of the creation stories are just way too simplistic. That is why I think that either they were written by men, a long time ago, or God just made it simple so we don't get confused.
And all of the processes are actually pretty simple. It just takes a long time to do.
As for the beginning of life, I have a lot to do without worrying why or how. Their is an entire discipline dedicated to that. Unfortunately, nobody on the taco knows much about that. We all google up our arguments.
There are a lot of amazing minds here, but not enough to cover everything.
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Feb 18, 2012 - 04:11pm PT
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Some cool things. This one series of carbonate rocks that I am dissecting right now is pretty complicated.
When a bit drills an 8 inch hole in the ground, the samples you get back are pretty small. Usually about the size of a grain of rice. If you want to see the whole rock, you have to take a core, which is very expensive. You have to trip all of the pipe out and replace the normal bit with a diamond core bit and barrel. The bit looks kind of like a donut, and will cut a cylindrical core through the rock. It is a very slow process, so cores are actually pretty rare.
So from the logs and sample descriptions of old wells, we know that this is almost all chert. Chert is what you would call flint. So we already know the porosity and permeability and lithology. We just need to see the picture, and a core is kind of like a roadcut.
Normal drill cuttings are good enough for any decent wellsite geologist to be able to tell exactly what strata they are drilling in, but sometimes you need a really good snapshot.
Anyway, a few weeks ago we cut a core in an area on the fringes of my work area, but of equivalent age to what I was working 150 miles away. I came in late and 8 of us piled into a car in the pouring rain to go look at the core over at the petrophysics building. Most of them had already looked at it, but they were all stoked and wanted to show me.
It was really cool. Totally changed how we looked at that rock. I would tell you, but unfortunately, we don't get to publish very often.
I will say that anyone who had said dogmatically that it was Noah's great flood that we were looking at would have probably been fired by the team leader who is an extremely religious christian. It wasn't a flood deposit.
It wasn't anything earth shattering, but it was very cool to see what was going on at that point in time. We were the first people to see this. Ever.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 18, 2012 - 04:14pm PT
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on Wikipedia and arguments...
I use it because it is generally a convenient reference, I do read the article first to make sure it jibes with my understanding, but it is far more accessible and less intimidating than saying something like: "read Schrödinger's What Is Life?" while it is on my bookshelf, I doubt you would find it on the bookshelf of your local library... and for some reason, Wikipedia appears a less intimidating alternative to doing the work of digging through the literature.
Where I do link to references to the literature, I doubt that many actually read those articles...
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Feb 18, 2012 - 04:33pm PT
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Yeah, I know where you are coming from Ed, but I find no room for philosophy when it comes to the fantastic history of the Earth and the Universe.
There is just so much to unravel, and as I said above, most of the processes are not that earth shattering. They just take a lot of time.
As to spiritual significance, I can't see anything like that. Every now and then something will make my jaw drop, though.
Like that core. We were the first human beings to look at that rock at that geographical place. It is like opening a present or something. Very exciting.
Actually, I Google the crap out of stuff, and Wiki is pretty darn good.
I see a reference to a paper and go Google it up. You know how that goes. One paper leads to another and you read your way through an exciting path.
The thing that most people don't see is the arm waving "what if" kind of discussions. They go on all of the time. There is this super mind guy that just popped into my office yesterday and started asking me questions that I couldn't answer. Then I got him to explain what he was after, and it ended up in this two hour long session going from office to office.
It was a very interesting idea. It had absolutely no relevance to finding oil, but it was fun. He said, "Hey smart guy, what does blah have to do with blah, and what is the correct definition of this blah that I just dug up in a buried paper."
He needed to go grab the closest person to start bouncing ideas around with so that he could coherently develop his idea. We went from this rock in this area to this rock in that area and were pondering all sorts of goofy stuff.
That is fun. That is how things get done.
And looking at that core, and what an unexpected setting it represented, was cool. We were the first human beings to look at it.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Feb 18, 2012 - 04:59pm PT
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In reference to Dr. Frankenstein "creating" life, one CalTec prof Dr. Baltimore said:
“He has not created life, only mimicked it."
Sort of like a computer mimicking consciousness, mistaking data processing for "mind."
Like I said, those certain that "life" will soon be created in a lab, or conscience in a computer, back channel me about some pretty attractive land deals I have worked up.
JL
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Feb 18, 2012 - 05:19pm PT
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I don't understand how you can be so permanently pessimistic about some topics, JL.
If you were born in 1850 and were transported to the present, you would feel pretty out of place and amazed. Both good and bad.
The thing about evolution that bothers me, is that with modern medicine and food production, the human race is really no longer constrained by the simple rule of natural selection.
That is why anyone can reproduce, and does at an alarming rate. There are now more than 6 billion people on the planet. When I was born, it was 3 billion.
For a really funny send up on that fact, go watch the movie "Idiocracy."
Anyway, I am proud to come from a tree shrew.
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