Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 12:23am PT
|
I think what Schrödinger was getting at was that the physical properties of physical systems, like life, may have a "fundamental" explanation in terms of "statistical laws" which we have not yet derived. His argument is very persuasive, and essentially rests with the lack of success in applying known principles to explaining life.
The lack of a single definition of life is really the key to the lack of understanding of what life is...
I certainly think that there is a physical explanation, but I don't think we understand enough yet to explain it... the solution may well be very strange to us.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 12:25am PT
|
And it is an insult to the science to say that life is a "result of completely random processes"
Dude, chill - everything about our galactic cluster is the result of a random number generator - ditto factors driving global mutation rates...
|
|
StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 12:53am PT
|
So what is a "god"? Is He/She/It some grand puppet master with an ant farm introducing change for the hell of it to see what happens?
Manipulating 7 billion entities to what purpose? Some grand design we are incapable of understanding?
Some passion play to eventually lead us to liberation and satori? Life is painful and joyous. Every day is a wonder, or a trial. You have to be there and dive in to know which one it will be.
The point at which "life" reaches conception still alludes us. The purpose of that life is a source of continuing debate and pursuit. This is a good thing. It spurs us on. The end of life is a source of dread for some. Why? Because of the what we are leaving behind or what is ahead? If there is a conception, there must be an anti-conception.
Science offers a path to understanding the mechanics, but not the reason why. Or is purpose only a human construct because we can't deal with the here and now and the transience of existence?
There is physical evolution and experiential evolution. Physical evolution is a fact. There is a well documented series of observations that confirm it.
Experiential and spiritual evolution is more ephemeral and should be left to a different kind of understanding. I don't understand why some people believe the scientific method is the only way to understand everything. You have to use the right tool for any job. I don't believe the joy that comes from a good climb, a great ride or great surf session is all about the organization of matter. I could be wrong.
Anyway, the mechanics are now in place and the evolution of life is in motion. It is important to understand this as part of a general understanding of how we got here. The journey will continue.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 01:28am PT
|
...but not the reason why
Why does there need to be a reason? Is there a reason why inhabited planets are annihilated by asteroid hits, their suns running out of gas, or the neighborhood supernova going off.
|
|
Jonnnyyyzzz
Trad climber
San Diego,CA
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 03:36am PT
|
So this video seems to go through and address all the questions being asked in this thread. I think its a must see for all of you involved in the debate going on here and will help spur it along. The animated workings of the cell near he end is really cool.[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
Jonnnyyyzzz
Trad climber
San Diego,CA
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 03:41am PT
|
Follow that video with this one. Could the Earth have purpose in the universe and the plot really starts to thicken. [Click to View YouTube Video] This video is pretty cool. Lets hear what everyone thinks of these two videos.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 05:05am PT
|
The combination of 'irreducible complexity' and the 'anthropic principle' doesn't really make a stronger case for either one no matter how the Discovery Institute attempts to deploy them in support ID. If anything, the development of ever more sophisticated creationist tactics over the last 100 years by itself almost stands as a resolute tribute to evolution (not to mention a quick glance in the yellow pages under 'Churches' goes a long way in supporting speciation).
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 12:17pm PT
|
Schrödinger is a mathmaticial in so many ways so we can expect him to "explain" life in those terms, using the system he knew best. And a materialist will quite naturally look to physical explanations.
But there are some interesting paradoxes at play here.
Any viable biological explanation of "life" will insist that DNA and the earlier RNA (amongst others) are the "software of life," without which, matter does not organize in this (bullfrog) or that (Marlow's hat) way. This raises the question about where did said RNA/DNA come from. Perhaps it is in the nature of movement and existence that matter will form up into life simply through seemingly random statistical possibilities. And yet this randomness is itself a deep study insofar as folks are trying to plot the ways it unfolds in order to predict the next "random" move - meaning randomness itself is predictably random.
Gotta work . . .
JL
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 12:32pm PT
|
I've never seen even a remotely satisfying answer arise from religious study - not one. I certainly don't accept the creation story from a tiny society of desert camel jockeys from 4000 years ago,
Well this certainly sounds like you don't accept Santorum's official, time-honored theology then - as embraced by umpteen million Christians everywhere for explaining, for instance, the evils, or the nature of evil, in the world. Perhaps you bought into a "phony theology" like Obama. That would be, well, outlandish, in the eyes of many god-fearing Americans, you know, e.g., those Santorum supporters; and this would mean of course were you ever to have any political ambitions as a concerned American citizen you'd have little or no electability - so beware - any "phony" theologies are nonstarters in the eyes of millions.
American politics are the window to the American soul. Like what you see?
a tiny society of desert camel jockeys
Amazing to think that all of Christendom let alone the Islamic world was sourced from their imaginings, otherwise storytelling, eh? Welcome to the information age. Like what you see? and hear and feel?
This is the truest age of becoming.
Growing pains. Embrace them.
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 12:54pm PT
|
In teaching evolution, the time question and the randomness factor are the two sticking points. I find it pretty easy to get beyond time issues as mentioned previously. What's much harder to grasp, first of all, and accept secondly, is randomness.
As always, people see more clearly when humans aren't involved. Talking about pepper moths and how neither dark nor light were more deserving to live, there were simply lucky and unlucky moths, depending on which phase of the light to dark cycle one is looking at gets the point across if it is ever going to be grasped.
However, many students never can get past the idea that moths even, somehow will themselves to change. Those that do, confront the bigger issue, of how this relates to human life and what is the point of it all if survival depends on genetic luck.
I always tell them that for purpose and meaning, they have to go to religion or philosophy.
Of course those religions and philosophies that figure out how to integrate human meaning with an understanding of the natural world will be the ones that survive, and the others will eventually die out.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 01:19pm PT
|
The anthropic principle is endlessly, if tautologically interesting, just not particularly revealing...
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 01:19pm PT
|
I always tell them that for purpose and meaning, they have to go to religion or philosophy.
I know, it's hard to imagine anything besides "religion" or "philosophy" eh? I mean, what other organizing principle - leading on to a different discipline or different framework and a different language - could there be? hmm...
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 01:20pm PT
|
...for purpose and meaning.
Again, why is either purpose or meaning required...?
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 01:25pm PT
|
I have no purpose or meaning in my life.
I just aimlessly walk around and drool ......
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 01:28pm PT
|
re: meaning and purpose
There's the question of meaning and purpose at some ultimate cosmic level (that traditional theists, e.g., like to contemplate) and there's the question of it at the human day to day level.
It all depends in what context and what level you have in mind.
Certainly as needy, goal-seeking creatures we have to be concerned with meaning and purpose in our everyday lives.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 01:32pm PT
|
At the ultimate cosmic level there's no purpose or meaning.
The sun mysteriously now rises at noon from the west.
Tomorrow it rises from the North, and so on .....
From it's big hangover after reading these retarded mental speculations.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 01:34pm PT
|
They are one and the same.
I disagree. Certainly not in my world. (Oh I did edit my comment above.) And certainly not as I used the expression.
There's the question of meaning and purpose at some ultimate cosmic level (that traditional theists, e.g., like to contemplate) and there's the question of it at the human day to day level.
Not the same.
By "cosmic" I meant from the perspective of the cosmos (or from the perspective of nature or the universe).
However, I do agree that the issues were talking about can be quite shocking as one changes worldviews (from the traditional theistic to the one that's being revealed by science).
I expect no ultimate meaning or purpose to come my way out of this universe at some point in the future.
Yet I create meaning and purpose in my day to day operations as I pursue plans and goals that I've created for myself. Climbing (my adventures in climbing) is a fine example.
You can create meaning. You can live on purpose. Even in an ultimately pointless nature or universe.
-Which is certainly a life principle that is underplayed (to say the least) in traditional theology and its attitudes and practices. Time to shift gears into a higher consciousness - that's the challenge in this upcoming century, I would say.
Now is everybody expected to adapt. No. That's evolution, isn't it. Don't shoot the messenger.
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 02:03pm PT
|
Don't kill god, replace her.
Haha, already have.
In my life, it's not (no longer) Lord Jesus but Lord Vitarius.
Or, it's not Jehovah but Vitarius. As needed.
Vitarius is either (1) the personification of nature; or (2) the personification of those "higher powers" that "control" our fate. It's really that simple. Most of us are already familiar with this "personification of nature" in the form of "Mother Nature" and use it already. Vitarius is just another designation is all. A fine modern substitute when needed to distinguish among humanity's many (superstitious) god concepts.
 The power of Vitarius gets my respect - for example, when I'm deep in the wilderness above a 200' raging waterfall and thinking about wading in. ;)
It was Vitarius (aka Mother Nature) who decided I should be born human not canine or leporine or cercopith, I had no say in the matter.
Personification has its place in human understanding. As a literary device. As a cognitive tool. As metaphor, etc..
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 02:08pm PT
|
It's impossible to kill God.
The minute one tries that person takes the "Imitator Position"
Imitates God.
Study all history and even that fruit guy and you'll easily see .....
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2012 - 02:09pm PT
|
Creating your own meaning is certainly the opportunity...
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!