I Wonder Why This Number Is Rising So...
Politics1 min ago
Self-Replicating Molecules.
How did certain chemicals combine to produce the first self-replicating molecules?
Answers
We don't know. Writings on the subject are still full of the words 'possibly' and 'perhaps'.
17:56 Wed 13th Nov 2013
SIQ; Of your questions I think a and b. have been well answered, as for c. //take your PC for example. Just bits of plastic, metal and silicon etc., but when put together here we are chatting.//
Yes, but any intercommunication is not between your computer and my computer, it is between your mind[i and my [i]mind] .
Yes, but any intercommunication is not between your computer and my computer, it is between your mind[i and my [i]mind] .
Dear Khandro,
Ty very much for you reponse which I appreciate, given your understandable tiredness after a hectic week.
I am not going to keep haggling with you, rather to identify the points on which we friends can simply agree to differ as is necessary in many debates.
You say (a) and (b) have already been answered.
However (a) was not a question.
It was my argument for my order of importance which was different from yours but I supplied real-life evidence for my order (the frog spawn model) whereas you have not provided any hard evidence.
Do I take it that your statement was a mere brush-off of my order and evidence and retaining your order as superior?
If you say "yes", O.K., no offence to either party and we agree to differ as civilised debaters.
Re my question (b) if you have the time and patience to re-read it perhaps you can indicate to me where it has "already" been answered".
I'd like to pursue Gestalt here further. But for now I'll just say that you have criticised my analogy only, not Gestalt itself, and repeated you belief in the "mind".
Constructive finale to this post:
Actually I would prefer to use the term "the mind" as a substitute for "conciousness/thinking". Sadly you prefer both or all 3 as separate entities I suppose.
I would never swallow it, but, in Your Order, if you put "spirit" or "soul" before conciousness and link it to your last, "living being" you would complete a circle and name it "The Khandro Cycle".. Always more beautiful to have a complete cycle than a list which is open to the question(s) "what comes before priority first and after priority last?".
See, I don't just knock what I don't agree with - if I can help my "opponent's" idea.
Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
Ty very much for you reponse which I appreciate, given your understandable tiredness after a hectic week.
I am not going to keep haggling with you, rather to identify the points on which we friends can simply agree to differ as is necessary in many debates.
You say (a) and (b) have already been answered.
However (a) was not a question.
It was my argument for my order of importance which was different from yours but I supplied real-life evidence for my order (the frog spawn model) whereas you have not provided any hard evidence.
Do I take it that your statement was a mere brush-off of my order and evidence and retaining your order as superior?
If you say "yes", O.K., no offence to either party and we agree to differ as civilised debaters.
Re my question (b) if you have the time and patience to re-read it perhaps you can indicate to me where it has "already" been answered".
I'd like to pursue Gestalt here further. But for now I'll just say that you have criticised my analogy only, not Gestalt itself, and repeated you belief in the "mind".
Constructive finale to this post:
Actually I would prefer to use the term "the mind" as a substitute for "conciousness/thinking". Sadly you prefer both or all 3 as separate entities I suppose.
I would never swallow it, but, in Your Order, if you put "spirit" or "soul" before conciousness and link it to your last, "living being" you would complete a circle and name it "The Khandro Cycle".. Always more beautiful to have a complete cycle than a list which is open to the question(s) "what comes before priority first and after priority last?".
See, I don't just knock what I don't agree with - if I can help my "opponent's" idea.
Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
Dear jomifl,
O.K., I've stopped laughing and will fax you my trouser's dry-cleaning bill.
Seriously, please, please help me understand your statement by answering the following:
(a) If life is "a wave" from where does it originate and what is the wave's length? Or another way what is the stimulus which generates the wave?
(b) In what substance does the "wave" exist? Sure electromagnetic waves can exist and travel in a vacuum but you are not talking about electromagnetic waves.
(c) What is the nature of the matter which is passing through your
life-wave? If you say the human body, then you are saying that the body is lifeless, as you have already used "life" in your wave definition.
Regarding Khandro's obvious statement that I am not the same person as I was years ago - I am not sure what point he was making - but readily accept his statement. Age degradation and some repairs?
Yup! But there if more. The very elements of which our molecules consist are swapping with identical ones from the environment continually. Evidence? Inject radioactive C14 into the body and it will swap with
non-radioactive C12 in proteins, nucleic acids etc.but it's harmless in low doses because of it's very low beta-particle emissions. Similarly radioactive phosphorus but that is dangerous, building into the bones and emitting very high energy beta particles and potentially carcinogenic.
Anyway I am MAINLY the same person as years ago via major structure, memory, character, learned facts and fallacies (!) and forgetting lots (just as I used to forget as a teenager).
Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
O.K., I've stopped laughing and will fax you my trouser's dry-cleaning bill.
Seriously, please, please help me understand your statement by answering the following:
(a) If life is "a wave" from where does it originate and what is the wave's length? Or another way what is the stimulus which generates the wave?
(b) In what substance does the "wave" exist? Sure electromagnetic waves can exist and travel in a vacuum but you are not talking about electromagnetic waves.
(c) What is the nature of the matter which is passing through your
life-wave? If you say the human body, then you are saying that the body is lifeless, as you have already used "life" in your wave definition.
Regarding Khandro's obvious statement that I am not the same person as I was years ago - I am not sure what point he was making - but readily accept his statement. Age degradation and some repairs?
Yup! But there if more. The very elements of which our molecules consist are swapping with identical ones from the environment continually. Evidence? Inject radioactive C14 into the body and it will swap with
non-radioactive C12 in proteins, nucleic acids etc.but it's harmless in low doses because of it's very low beta-particle emissions. Similarly radioactive phosphorus but that is dangerous, building into the bones and emitting very high energy beta particles and potentially carcinogenic.
Anyway I am MAINLY the same person as years ago via major structure, memory, character, learned facts and fallacies (!) and forgetting lots (just as I used to forget as a teenager).
Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
Dear Hypo,
Thank you for taking the time to answer my ignorance-based questions. O.K. what about a Mobious Strip of zero width? Is that "string theory"? Only rhetorical light-heartedness!
Love your chortle about the "singularity" playing havoc with astrophysics. Good! It's mostly baloney including the Big Bang theory - I think Brian Cox is just an apologist for all the rubbish and a poor one at that! He talks about unproven or wild speculations as facts! Latest desperate theory - "dark matter" - that story in both cock AND bull, lol.
Sorry jim.
Oops yet another diversion from the thread, whatever that is now!
SIQ.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my ignorance-based questions. O.K. what about a Mobious Strip of zero width? Is that "string theory"? Only rhetorical light-heartedness!
Love your chortle about the "singularity" playing havoc with astrophysics. Good! It's mostly baloney including the Big Bang theory - I think Brian Cox is just an apologist for all the rubbish and a poor one at that! He talks about unproven or wild speculations as facts! Latest desperate theory - "dark matter" - that story in both cock AND bull, lol.
Sorry jim.
Oops yet another diversion from the thread, whatever that is now!
SIQ.
SIQ; //If life is "a wave" from where does it originate and what is the wave's length?//
"Wave" is an incomplete way of trying to describe the "Tao", which in itself is also an incomplete way of describing reality. 'The Tao is that from which one cannot deviate; that from which one can deviate is not the Tao'.
You may imagine you are outside of it and capable of following it or not, but this very imagination is within the flow, there is no other way.
The original post was in the domain of 'Science', but there is no such free-standing entity as science.
"Wave" is an incomplete way of trying to describe the "Tao", which in itself is also an incomplete way of describing reality. 'The Tao is that from which one cannot deviate; that from which one can deviate is not the Tao'.
You may imagine you are outside of it and capable of following it or not, but this very imagination is within the flow, there is no other way.
The original post was in the domain of 'Science', but there is no such free-standing entity as science.
Khandro, //there is no such free-standing entity as science.//
What do you mean?
One thing I find curious. It would be easy to assume that the process works, for want of a better word, mechanically, as it does for the rest of the body, but thoughts are individual and extraordinarily diverse. We can say that an ‘idea’ is produced by electrical impulses within the brain, but if my idea is produced by exactly the same process as your idea, why is mine different to yours?
What do you mean?
One thing I find curious. It would be easy to assume that the process works, for want of a better word, mechanically, as it does for the rest of the body, but thoughts are individual and extraordinarily diverse. We can say that an ‘idea’ is produced by electrical impulses within the brain, but if my idea is produced by exactly the same process as your idea, why is mine different to yours?
naomi; What I am trying to say here is that science does not exist outside of ourselves, we are not observers of nature, but participants within it, we are "Like a sword that cuts but cannot cut itself". By watching the nucleus we change its behaviour, and in trying to understand the workings of the brain we have no other instrument for doing so than the brain itself.
The reason our ideas (thankfully) differ is because we are different, we are not an assemblage of identical parts like a motor car, you are distinctly you because you are made of 'you', like a tree isn't MADE of wood; it IS wood.
The reason our ideas (thankfully) differ is because we are different, we are not an assemblage of identical parts like a motor car, you are distinctly you because you are made of 'you', like a tree isn't MADE of wood; it IS wood.
Khandro, please stop creating unnecessary "mini-debates" by saying things like "there is no free-standing entity as science". Of course not - this is a creation of mankind's brain.
If you look way-back, I have clearly defined science simply as a method of exploring ourselves & our environment.but it includes constant review by others (it emdodies self criticism and hence embodies constructive change).
We are all scientists - even you!
A baby learns about its environment by testing things and learning by experiment! Chimpanzees, cats and dogs use the basis of the scientific method without giving it a name.
Why are you making such obvious statements and justifying them with "clever" reasoning when there is nothing to debate?
So the roundabout still keeps on turning ...round..and round...heading nowhere except for spewing out repetition and unsubstantiated statements and particularly weird ancient philosophies from people who thought emotions were the product of a pump - the heart.
SIQ.
If you look way-back, I have clearly defined science simply as a method of exploring ourselves & our environment.but it includes constant review by others (it emdodies self criticism and hence embodies constructive change).
We are all scientists - even you!
A baby learns about its environment by testing things and learning by experiment! Chimpanzees, cats and dogs use the basis of the scientific method without giving it a name.
Why are you making such obvious statements and justifying them with "clever" reasoning when there is nothing to debate?
So the roundabout still keeps on turning ...round..and round...heading nowhere except for spewing out repetition and unsubstantiated statements and particularly weird ancient philosophies from people who thought emotions were the product of a pump - the heart.
SIQ.
solvitquick; //Why are you making such obvious statements and justifying them with "clever" reasoning...//
Because I was asked to do so by naomi in her last post just above.
As you are so above it all, why bother reading posts, let alone writing such fatuous ones as your last, and as you have penchant for German words you don't understand, you won't mind if I refer to you as being a bit of a 'Klugscheisser'.
Because I was asked to do so by naomi in her last post just above.
As you are so above it all, why bother reading posts, let alone writing such fatuous ones as your last, and as you have penchant for German words you don't understand, you won't mind if I refer to you as being a bit of a 'Klugscheisser'.
Dear Khandro,
Lol, nope Khandro I do not object to your calling me ein Klugscheisser (cleanest translation folks: smart-@rse). I've been called worse.
I'm English but a Germanophile - I was once engaged to a German girl long ago.
Hope you will take this in the light-hearted spirit in which I write it:
When your supreme being created your mouth he ruined a great @rse.
Friendly end to banter I hope,
Genuine Kind Regards from,
Der AB Klugscheisser.
Lol, nope Khandro I do not object to your calling me ein Klugscheisser (cleanest translation folks: smart-@rse). I've been called worse.
I'm English but a Germanophile - I was once engaged to a German girl long ago.
Hope you will take this in the light-hearted spirit in which I write it:
When your supreme being created your mouth he ruined a great @rse.
Friendly end to banter I hope,
Genuine Kind Regards from,
Der AB Klugscheisser.
Dear Naomi,
Why are your ideas different from Khandro's or mine for that matter, given their same material construction.
Please let me respond to your question although we all know this area is a minefield with no current answer.
First, our brains are not constructed the same although their components are the same..
Picture your own brain as a complex neural network of signals passing around in response to external stimuli from the senses - sight, hearing etc.
In extremis, you are facing a life-threatening situation (a hairy motoring threat) and must you must react to survive. You have evolved the neural network to deal with this: "the thinkng process". Via this process you react and survive (maybe). As there is no supreme being to save or destroy you, all that you can rely on is your brain. The latter also stimulates hormonal unconcious secretions to help your response e.g. adrenaline.
We do not understand how this thinking works, just consisting of a series of "simple" nerve cells. That is why I wasted my time mentioning Gestalt to Khandro earlier i.e. The thinking process is greater than the sum of its' "simple" neural parts.
No it's not the answer but I suspect it involves the above points i.e. something to "think" about.
There, by reading this you have received an external stimulus and are generating ideas!
On a simpler note for both of us, re the difference between your idea and Khandro's. Surely this derives from differences in genetic make-up, nurture and experience. I am proposing that your neural network started fundementally & uniquely different from mine and Khandro's from your embryonic stage and actually changes it's growth and linkages as your age and experiences (held in memory) develp. This is true of all of our body parts - I'm not female am I? Our eye colour probably differs etc. So why not our brain networks and their development?
My dentist, a bit of a polymath, told me that the brain keeps growing to the age of 30 or more.
Any bits of use Naomi?
With Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
Why are your ideas different from Khandro's or mine for that matter, given their same material construction.
Please let me respond to your question although we all know this area is a minefield with no current answer.
First, our brains are not constructed the same although their components are the same..
Picture your own brain as a complex neural network of signals passing around in response to external stimuli from the senses - sight, hearing etc.
In extremis, you are facing a life-threatening situation (a hairy motoring threat) and must you must react to survive. You have evolved the neural network to deal with this: "the thinkng process". Via this process you react and survive (maybe). As there is no supreme being to save or destroy you, all that you can rely on is your brain. The latter also stimulates hormonal unconcious secretions to help your response e.g. adrenaline.
We do not understand how this thinking works, just consisting of a series of "simple" nerve cells. That is why I wasted my time mentioning Gestalt to Khandro earlier i.e. The thinking process is greater than the sum of its' "simple" neural parts.
No it's not the answer but I suspect it involves the above points i.e. something to "think" about.
There, by reading this you have received an external stimulus and are generating ideas!
On a simpler note for both of us, re the difference between your idea and Khandro's. Surely this derives from differences in genetic make-up, nurture and experience. I am proposing that your neural network started fundementally & uniquely different from mine and Khandro's from your embryonic stage and actually changes it's growth and linkages as your age and experiences (held in memory) develp. This is true of all of our body parts - I'm not female am I? Our eye colour probably differs etc. So why not our brain networks and their development?
My dentist, a bit of a polymath, told me that the brain keeps growing to the age of 30 or more.
Any bits of use Naomi?
With Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
SIQ, //we all know this area is a minefield with no current answer……Any bits of use Naomi?//
Thank you. That’s very useful – exactly what I’m trying to demonstrate. Science cannot answer my question – but having said that, neither can anyone else. Whilst I think it’s a great mistake to attribute the unknown to the unknown, it’s equally a mistake to quote the source of ‘thought’ and expect that to be accepted as an answer. It isn’t.
Khandro, //What I am trying to say here is that science does not exist outside of ourselves, we are not observers of nature, but participants within it//
I disagree. Our position as participants doesn’t preclude observation.
Thank you. That’s very useful – exactly what I’m trying to demonstrate. Science cannot answer my question – but having said that, neither can anyone else. Whilst I think it’s a great mistake to attribute the unknown to the unknown, it’s equally a mistake to quote the source of ‘thought’ and expect that to be accepted as an answer. It isn’t.
Khandro, //What I am trying to say here is that science does not exist outside of ourselves, we are not observers of nature, but participants within it//
I disagree. Our position as participants doesn’t preclude observation.
naomi; "Our position as participants doesn’t preclude observation." Of course not, but we must acknowledge that we are a part of that observational process, a bit like Bertrand Russell's paradox; http://
Dear Naomi,
Thank you so much for your generous reply. I am so pleased to have gotten back to communication with a rational debater rather then trying to field ancient and/or hypothetical quotes from "pure" philosophers.
I had begun to look at the exit door marked "unsubscribe" but you have helped my own determined resolve to stick in here to what I hope will be a friendly rather than bitter end - if ever that comes. Obviously the only feasible end will come by letting our dear Khandro have the last word.
He is the Alpha and the Omega in this thread (or perhaps I mean pile of shreds).
With Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
Thank you so much for your generous reply. I am so pleased to have gotten back to communication with a rational debater rather then trying to field ancient and/or hypothetical quotes from "pure" philosophers.
I had begun to look at the exit door marked "unsubscribe" but you have helped my own determined resolve to stick in here to what I hope will be a friendly rather than bitter end - if ever that comes. Obviously the only feasible end will come by letting our dear Khandro have the last word.
He is the Alpha and the Omega in this thread (or perhaps I mean pile of shreds).
With Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
Dear Khandro,
Re your last reply to Naomi.
Bertrand Russell paradox! I've already dealt with that in my definition of science (process of trying to understand ourselves and environment by observation and testing). And particularly my reference to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle the basis of which is that the observer interferes with the process being observed (at the subatomic level only).
No philosophy there just science.
Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
Re your last reply to Naomi.
Bertrand Russell paradox! I've already dealt with that in my definition of science (process of trying to understand ourselves and environment by observation and testing). And particularly my reference to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle the basis of which is that the observer interferes with the process being observed (at the subatomic level only).
No philosophy there just science.
Kindest Regards,
SIQ.
SIQ -- what's all this about the Big Bang Theory being Baloney, or Dark matter while we're at it? The BBT works ridiculously well in explaining, for example, the observed Temperature of the Universe, while the fact that Dark Matter exists is just a reflection of what we know already -- that Science isn't finished yet.
solvitquick; //my reference to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle the basis of which is that the observer interferes with the process being observed (at the subatomic level only).
No philosophy there just science.// !!!!!!?????
Are you unaware that Werner Heisenberg was a physicist AND a philosopher? his most famous publication being his seminal work; "Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science".
You seem capable of taking 'Klugscheiss' to ever new levels!
No philosophy there just science.// !!!!!!?????
Are you unaware that Werner Heisenberg was a physicist AND a philosopher? his most famous publication being his seminal work; "Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science".
You seem capable of taking 'Klugscheiss' to ever new levels!
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