News Flash Materialists Caught in Denial

[FZ+]

BTW, I thought that geologists no longer believed Earth's early atmosphere to resemble the mixture in Miller's flask.

Nope. In fact, it's even better. Analysis of early rocks show that the conditions in some areas were even more favourably moderate to life than had been thought, and amino acids have been found in environments as extreme as asteroid. Many things previously thought an impedance to abiogenesis have been found to be in fact aiding the process, at least in the beginning.

If we're trying to explain the existence of a brick house let's say, then generating amino acids is like showing that a certain mix of chemicals can harden into concrete.

You seemed to have missed this one:

Coacervates have been produced from the above listed molecules, though I don't know if they have been shown to be produced by naturally occurring processes as of yet. They are protobionts that are self-assembling membranous globes of proteins and lipids. They have selectively permeable membranes.

This is analogous to saying that the hardened concrete is found to naturally form into the shape of a house. Pretty significant, eh?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Fliption
I think the dedication to this theory is not based on these merits but rather is more because there is no other idea that science can entertain.

Good point, and one that I should acknowledge.

I think a lot, probably most, people involved in trying to demonstrate chemogenesis do so because they are dedicated to their work. It isn't motivated by denial of more promising approaches.

Yet I still think that dedication at the very least tends to make them be overly enthusiastic about what has been achieved, and minimize what isn't working. This shows up especially when communicating to the public. From textbooks to TV specials we hear the scientific hopeful say, "It is most likely that life began . . . [plug in your favorite chemogenesis explanation]"

 

[FZ+]

I think the dedication to this theory is not based on these merits but rather is more because there is no other idea that science can entertain.

I think that is misleading. It is more accurate to say that chemogenesis is the only theory we have at the moment. Science depends on theories.

Yet I still think that dedication at the very least tends to make them be overly enthusiastic about what has been achieved, and minimize what isn't working.

Is it realistic any other way?

Science's strength is not in eliminating this sort of bias, because in the real world, that cannot be removed. It's strength is instead in playing this bias off against each other - even as someone says x hypothesis is the best, someone else says y is better. This leads to competition amongst theories and hypotheses, and the best survive.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Another God
You need to know what separates life from non-living before sucha statement can make its full point. And when you try to define that term, you will probably come to realize that there is no difference between life and non life, and anyu distinction you make, is actually the creation of an arbitrary line, attempting to separate the things which are 'obviously alive' to those things which 'don't seem to be alive.'

AG, biology is not a subject with which I am needing to understand something so basic as the difference between living and non-living. So I cannot see your logic at all in saying ". . . there is no difference between life and non life, and any distinction you make, is actually the creation of an arbitrary line . . ." If you are correct, then why have a term "life" and why have a field known as biology? Why not just refer to it as chemistry and be done with it?

I have a few dozen books on various areas of biology, and not one single one of them is ready to say life is no different from non-life. Please refer me to the experts which say this is how we should look at life, and that the distinctions we make are "arbitrary."

A favorite definition of life of mine is taken from a little book by John Maynard Smith, and Eors Szathmary "The Origins of Life." It says, "[living is] . . . any population of entities possessing those properties that are needed if the population is to evolve by natural selection. That is, entities are alive if they have the properties of multiplication, variation, and heredity (or are descended from such entities . . . ). . . . Why should we regard these three particular properties as defining life? It is because they are necessary if a population is to evolve all the other charateristics that we associate with life."

So a burning fire, which might be cited as an example of metabolism, or a crystal, which might be cited as an example of growth (thank you anyway FZ), cannot included as "living."

As I said in my previous post, an analogy between the macro, and the sub-micro is POINTLESS, and as convincing=> neat as these analogies sound, they hold nothing. They are eye candy. The have no logical weight, they have no bearing on reality, and they don't make any point. Chemicals act in certain ways based on electronegativity. Car parts are heavy chunks of metal that do nothing which we don't make them do

.

All that misses the point. It doesn't matter about macro and submicro, at least to my point. I was talking about the way you are reasoning.

Originally posted by Another God See, for me to pull bits out of a car and make them work: I have to do just that: MAKE them work. But if you mix DNA strands, then they will base pair of their own accord. The difference should be more than apparent between these analogies.

I can't figure out if we are on the same planet. Why do you think it proves anything about chemogenesis if you take something life developed (DNA) and then show me how nicely it behaves organizationally? I am the one who is saying that is exactly what distinguishes the chemistry of life from normal chemistry -- its organizational elegance.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by FZ+
I think that is misleading. It is more accurate to say that chemogenesis is the only theory we have at the moment. Science depends on theories.


Is it realistic any other way?

Science's strength is not in eliminating this sort of bias, because in the real world, that cannot be removed. It's strength is instead in playing this bias off against each other - even as someone says x hypothesis is the best, someone else says y is better. This leads to competition amongst theories and hypotheses, and the best survive.

But look at all the assumptions you have in place. You assume science alone can answer this question, one way or another. What if it can't? You are talking about competition among theories, but you only mean empirical theories. Since you aren't even open to "any other way," what is the point of asking if any of them might be realistic?

 

[FZ+]

AG, biology is not a subject with which I am needing to understand something so basic as the difference between living and non-living. So I cannot see your logic at all in saying ". . . there is no difference between life and non life, and any distinction you make, is actually the creation of an arbitrary line . . ." If you are correct, then why have a term "life" and why have a field known as biology? Why not just refer to it as chemistry and be done with it?

Why not refer to it as maths and be done with it? Biological chemistry is the study of a very arbitaryly made set of chemistries that hold importance to us out of familiarity. Rather like we make a lot of organic chemistry - though carbon isn't magic, and its still chemistry, the great prevalence of carbon based compounds makes this a subject to study.

Please refer me to the experts which say this is how we should look at life, and that the distinctions we make are "arbitrary."

I don't think we need an argument by authority, do we? I'm sure you will find some if you look, but that is rather irrelevant.

A favorite definition of life of mine is taken from a little book by John Maynard Smith, and Eors Szathmary "The Origins of Life."

Yes. I have read an article of John Maynard Smith where he outlines his definition, and the reasoning with which he derived it. One of his first premises is that he cannot accept a definition system that allows fire or crystals to be alive. This sort of logic is rather arbitary...

And in the end, there are critical flaws as I have briefly outlined. His definition isn't scale dependent for one. Eg. he considers fire as unable to pass on characteristics to the next offspring fire, which is incorrect if you consider the impact the orginal fire has on the environment which allows it to pass on characteristics. He did not mention crystals, and I don't see how he can justify their exclusion.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Fliption
I think the dedication to this theory is not based on these merits but rather is more because there is no other idea that science can entertain.

I would actually accept that claim.

See, as I said in a post in the previous thread, the materialist assumption is the assumption of science. It is the primary assumption, and it is the assumption from which all that science has achieved flows. If you don't like that assumption, then deal with it. Go somewhere else and find your own ways of doing things: But until you show reason for the assumption to be dropped, science will continue using it because science is the first thing that Humanity has achieved that has produced anything at all progressive.

As such, chemogenesis is the most blatently obvious explanation of life available. With no evidence for God whatsoever, there is simply no other explanation available. We look at life, and there is nothing but chemicals. We look at the earth, teh atmosphere, water etc...ALL chemicals. Where else would life come from?

That is why Chemogenesis is accepted so readily. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be investigated. First thing to do, is to attempt to verify it. We need to be reasonably confident that it is reasonable. it is not until we are reasonably confident in it being true, that we can start to try to flasify it.

And that is what is happening. People are trying to simulate the conditions of early earth, people are hypothesising Clay origins, Crystal Origins, Hydrothermal vent origins...Trying experiments, looking at other planets...People are trying to prove this stuff. It isn't 'Just accepted' it is in the process of verification. But while it is in this process, it also happens to be accepted as the only possible explanation thus far.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
Good point, and one that I should acknowledge.

I think a lot, probably most, people involved in trying to demonstrate chemogenesis do so because they are dedicated to their work. It isn't motivated by denial of more promising approaches.

Not that not having an alternative theory can ever be a counter argument, and so I am not trying to use it as such, but this comment forces me to ask: What alternative promising approaches?

 

[FZ+]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
But look at all the assumptions you have in place. You assume science alone can answer this question, one way or another. What if it can't? You are talking about competition among theories, but you only mean empirical theories. Since you aren't even open to "any other way," what is the point of asking if any of them might be realistic?

If science can't, the whole thing falls to a matter of personal opinions (or revelations that are indistinguishible from opinions) and we don't get anywhere. I would believe X, you would believe Y, and it's all useless since if it isn't a theory, there is no way to criticize factually any of these ideals. It then becomes undecidable.

Whether that is any different from the current situation is left for the thoughts of the reader. Without empirics, you will never get agreement. Without agreement, it is all pointless.

 

[FZ+]

You are talking about competition among theories, but you only mean empirical theories. Since you aren't even open to "any other way," what is the point of asking if any of them might be realistic?

Food for thought:

We were just arguing about whether life has an empirical (non-arbitary) basis at all. Why did you insist that life did, if you did not believe that an empirical approach is the best way?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Njorl
This is just patently false. There have been many experiments verifying many of the individual steps of the abiotic generation of life. The complete process is not entirely understood, but the work progresses well. It has been experimentally under way for only 50 years.

1950's Miller and Urey perform experiment verifying Oparin-Haldene theory. They approximate pre-biotic conditions and form all 20 amino acids and other organic molecules (including sugars, lipids and ATP) from simple abundent chemicals.

Recently Fox et al demonstrated formation of polymers from simple organic molecules. The "Primordial soup" formed from the above experiment was applied to clay, and concentrated via evaporation. Spontaneous creation of polymers occurred. These processes formed proteins, polypeptides, more complex lipds, and nucleic acids.

Coacervates have been produced from the above listed molecules, though I don't know if they have been shown to be produced by naturally occurring processes as of yet. They are protobionts that are self-assembling membranous globes of proteins and lipids. They have selectively permeable membranes. When they take in a large enough supply of organic material, the split into two globes, and continue reproduction. They have differing "success" rates dependent upon their chemical composition. More successful compositions outproduce less successful variants, seizing all the best chemicals for themselves.

Baahhhhhh humbug! I know about all of it, and none of it gets going, and keeps going. Yours is just short of a straw man argument. I am not claiming chemistry can't be stimulated into a fairly long chain of organizing steps! What I say is that you cannot get that process to keep going on its own. No matter how long your feed it energy, at some point it gets merely repetitive. Will you admit it, or are you going to deny that?

The chemogenesis theory requires progressive change, not repetitive change, in order to explain how chemistry became evolutive.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by FZ+
Nope. In fact, it's even better. Analysis of early rocks show that the conditions in some areas were even more favourably moderate to life than had been thought, and amino acids have been found in environments as extreme as asteroid. Many things previously thought an impedance to abiogenesis have been found to be in fact aiding the process, at least in the beginning.

Ok then someone's literature is wrong. It could be mine.

This is analogous to saying that the hardened concrete is found to naturally form into the shape of a house. Pretty significant, eh?

Sounds like you got it all figured out. So what's all the fuss about? Why is it that nothing I read make such light of it as gets made on this forum?

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
Please refer me to the experts which say this is how we should look at life, and that the distinctions we make are "arbitrary."

A favorite definition of life of mine is taken from a little book by John Maynard Smith, and Eors Szathmary "The Origins of Life." It says, "[living is] . . . any population of entities possessing those properties that are needed if the population is to evolve by natural selection. That is, entities are alive if they have the properties of multiplication, variation, and heredity (or are descended from such entities . . . ). . . . Why should we regard these three particular properties as defining life? It is because they are necessary if a population is to evolve all the other charateristics that we associate with life."

So a burning fire, which might be cited as an example of metabolism, or a crystal, which might be cited as an example of growth (thank you anyway FZ), cannot included as "living."

Let me quote some Douglas Adams, because he expresses himself so much better than I ever could:

We all know, when presented with any particular entity, whether it’s a bit of mould from the fridge or whatever; we instinctively know when something is an example of life and when it isn’t. But it turns out to be tremendously hard exactly to define it. I remember once, a long time ago, needing a definition of life for a speech I was giving. Assuming there was a simple one and looking around the Internet, I was astonished at how diverse the definitions were and how very, very detailed each one had to be in order to include ‘this’ but not include ‘that’. If you think about it, a collection that includes a fruit fly and Richard Dawkins and the Great Barrier Reef is an awkward set of objects to try and compare. When we try and figure out what the rules are that we are looking for, trying to find a rule that’s self-evidently true, that turns out to be very, very hard.
...
So, in the end, in the absence of an intentional creator, you cannot say what life is, because it simply depends on what set of definitions you include in your overall definition. Without a god, life is only a matter of opinion.

http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/index.html
And that is basically what I think of it too. You pick and choose your definition based on what you already preconcievedly think life is, just like everyone else. Why can't fire be alive? Seriously, give me one good reason why fire isn't alive, which doesn't come from your preconceived ideal of what is and isn't alive, and which doesn't come from some arbitrarily made up definition of life which necessarily fits in with your preconcieved ideas.

I am not targetting you: This is just a fact of defining life. The only thing we have which separates living from non-living, is the human assumption that there is a difference. There is no evidence that there is a difference yet, but that's an accepted assumption that everyone is happy to leave unquestioned. (even if they want to base questions on it like: Where did this life thing come from?) Oh the irony.

All that misses the point. It doesn't matter about macro and submicro, at least to my point. I was talking about the way you are reasoning.

But the reasoning is appropriate to the medium. As such, the analogy is meaningless. Of course my reasoning doesn't apply to cars: Cars are different. Inherently.

I can't figure out if we are on the same planet. Why do you think it proves anything about chemogenesis if you take something life developed (DNA) and then show me how nicely it behaves organizationally? I am the one who is saying that is exactly what distinguishes the chemistry of life from normal chemistry -- its organizational elegance.

BUT DNA IS NORMAL chemistry. Completely normal. The fact that it has a role in life is irrelevant to the molecules behaving chemically.

 

[Another God]

Life from http://library.thinkquest.org/C003763/index.php?page=origin06&tqskip1=1&tqtime=1125 :
All life ...Are Composed of Cells
...Require Energy
...Reproduce
...Display Heredity
...Respond to the Environment
...Maintain Homeostasis
...Evolve and Adapt

It is different from the Smith definition, so how do we decide which one is more right?

There is no way. Without God, life is only a matter of opinion.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by FZ+
If science can't, the whole thing falls to a matter of personal opinions (or revelations that are indistinguishible from opinions) and we don't get anywhere. I would believe X, you would believe Y, and it's all useless since if it isn't a theory, there is no way to criticize factually any of these ideals. It then becomes undecidable.

Whether that is any different from the current situation is left for the thoughts of the reader. Without empirics, you will never get agreement. Without agreement, it is all pointless.

This is where our personal experiences make us believe different things. If you'd grown up in the desert, and never heard of how life can be on Hawaii, and if I tried to convince you tropical living is possible you'd have no experience by which to judge my statements.

From what you say, you are dependent on others' agreement to decide what is true. You know, I am not waiting for you or anyone else to agree with me about certain things. If it is to decide somthing which applies to everyone, ok.

But what about those things which only I can know? Like I asked earlier, how can you know if I love my wife? And really, why should I care if you know that? Clearly there is an inner knowing which does not reveal its veracity through objective methods.

Now let's take that a little further. What if there is an entirely subjective sort of expertise, which has wholly different standards for knowing than those of external knowing disciplines such as empiricism? Maybe people as long ago as 3000 years discovered things through that subjective method, but because you only accept objectively acquired knowledge as true, you reject anything which isn't that way

So here we sit, you judging everything there is by your objective standards, even things to which it doesn't apply. If any aspect of reality has come about in some way which can only be understood through that subjective discipline . . . well, forget about it because we can't talk and we can't share.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by FZ+
One of his first premises is that he cannot accept a definition system that allows fire or crystals to be alive. This sort of logic is rather arbitary...

And in the end, there are critical flaws as I have briefly outlined. His definition isn't scale dependent for one. Eg. he considers fire as unable to pass on characteristics to the next offspring fire, which is incorrect if you consider the impact the orginal fire has on the environment which allows it to pass on characteristics. He did not mention crystals, and I don't see how he can justify their exclusion.

And this point is exactly what I was trying to make in my posts. Sorry that it becomes a little repetitive, but I am posting as I read them.
Gee, you go to sleep for a few hours and wake up 2 pages behind the thread!

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Another God
I would actually accept that claim.

See, as I said in a post in the previous thread, the materialist assumption is the assumption of science. It is the primary assumption, and it is the assumption from which all that science has achieved flows. If you don't like that assumption, then deal with it. Go somewhere else and find your own ways of doing things: But until you show reason for the assumption to be dropped, science will continue using it because science is the first thing that Humanity has achieved that has produced anything at all progressive.

I would like to re-iterate my point from another thread. I agree with Tom when he says that science does NOT assume materialism. It can be practiced in the matrix as well.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Another God

There is no way. Without God, life is only a matter of opinion.

If this is true then exactly what is it that you think this theory of chemogenesis is trying to explain? How do you know what you are attempting to explain if you cannot define it?

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
Now let's take that a little further. What if there is an entirely subjective sort of expertise, which has wholly different standards for knowing than those of external knowing disciplines such as empiricism? Maybe people as long ago as 3000 years discovered things through that subjective method, but because you only accept objectively acquired knowledge as true, you reject anything which isn't that way

So here we sit, you judging everything there is by your objective standards, even things to which it doesn't apply. If any aspect of reality has come about in some way which can only be understood through that subjective discipline . . . well, forget about it because we can't talk and we can't share.

I think the interesting thing is, as true as it may be that there are subjective forms of inquiry or whatever it is that you mean, the objective method is beyond doubt applicable...and the process of this inquiry has shown us that our subjective is firmly attached to our physical brains. Objective research has also been able to trick people into believing/feeling/experiencing certain things by manipulating their physical brain. The mind can be split into multiple personalities. 'Religious experiences' can be made to be felt by electrical prodding. Blind spots can be made to appear in the visual field. People can be 'blind' and yet able to catch objects thrown at them. People can be made to find anything funny by having an area of their brain excited. People can lose their long term memory. People can lose their ability to form short term memories. People can be made to be unpleasant all of the time by losing an area of their brain. A woman recently suffered a stroke and woke up with a british accent (she is from the US, and has never been to UK).

The Point: You change the brain: The mind follows. The mind = The brain. You can do as much subjective stuff as you want, but if you let one of us objectivists come in and manipulate your brainm we'll be able to change your mind, whether you like it or not

Empirical research is the only trustworthy form of research. The brain isn't perfect.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Another God
BUT DNA IS NORMAL chemistry. Completely normal. The fact that it has a role in life is irrelevant to the molecules behaving chemically. [/B]

[b(]

Again . . . (the planet thing).

Agreed, DNA is 100% built through normal chemistry. I've never denied it, I don't doubt it . . . for the record, I do NOT believe in anything supernatural (in case you think that is where I am coming from).

The kind of self organizing behavior needed for chemistry to achieve it all by its lonesome . . .that is has never been observed.
Is it that difficult to see my concern? Chemistry does not "keep going." It will for awhile, but then it turns repetitive -- every time. You have absolutely nothing more than that as evidence because every single instance of non-living self organization is precisely so.

But for now I'd settle for something less spectacular than perpetual progressive organization. If you say you can coax chemistry, from raw materials, into forming DNA, please give me that demonstration. I eagerly await!

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Fliption
If this is true then exactly what is it that you think this theory of chemogenesis is trying to explain? How do you know what you are attempting to explain if you cannot define it?

I am explaining the complexity of the stuff around me. The stuff, which for the moment, I am more than happy to call life.

Just as I am typing on a 'computer', which is sitting on a 'table' etc, we need names to help us communicate. But this 'table' is nothing but wood, which is nothing but carbon etc. And this table also happens to be a 'door' bolted to my wall in a horizontal position. but people don't call it a door, because it isn't functioning as a door atm. In another life it may have . Names are arbitrary things made up by humans.

You know what we mean by life, but that doesn't stop life being nothing more than a chemical reaction, just like fire, The ozone layer, and the internal combustion engine.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I do NOT believe in anything supernatural (in case you think that is where I am coming from).

never crossed my mind

Chemistry does not "keep going." It will for awhile, but then it turns repetitive -- every time. You have absolutely nothing more than that as evidence because every single instance of non-living self organization is precisely so.

But for now I'd settle for something less spectacular than perpetual progressive organization. If you say you can coax chemistry, from raw materials, into forming DNA, please give me that demonstration. I eagerly await!

But DNA is raw material...
It's just a polymerised form of nucleotides.

I don't know exactly how it goes 'repetitive', but assuming you mean that it just makes more and more of the same stuff, then maybe that is the first step (as I imagine it would be). you make tons and tons of the base units. The more units there are, the more likely the stuff is to polymerise. It is still unlikely (since there is a huge Energy of Activation to be overcome) but it will happen eventually. And then when things start randomly polymerising, and things depolymerise as is in the nature of a chemical system (equilibrium points and all that), you will randomly form catalysts which will affect the system.

blah blah blah. I'm sure you know all this. And this is pointless. I only think that Chemogenesis is a more than possible explanation of how it happened (in whatever form chemogenesis what's to take: Crystals, Thermal vents, RNA molecules, protein catalysis, whatever), and you think that it is an unlikely explanation that is given too much credit. Our opinions differ.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Fliption
I would like to re-iterate my point from another thread. I agree with Tom when he says that science does NOT assume materialism. It can be practiced in the matrix as well.

I don't know the thread, or what you mean by the matrix.

Oh THE matrix, got ya. Um, yeah, I agree with that aswell, but I am using the term materialism here as I assume everyone else is using it: What we see, accurately represents what affects us. By changing it, we actually change something.

Meh..whatever, I don't think it changes anything. Science does assume that by studyin what we see, we are studying something meaningful, but in the end, it hardly makes a difference.

I could go into my whole lot of thoughts on this topic, but this topic is hard enough as it is. I don't think we really have a disagreement here.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Another God
I am explaining the complexity of the stuff around me. The stuff, which for the moment, I am more than happy to call life.

Just as I am typing on a 'computer', which is sitting on a 'table' etc, we need names to help us communicate. But this 'table' is nothing but wood, which is nothing but carbon etc. And this table also happens to be a 'door' bolted to my wall in a horizontal position. but people don't call it a door, because it isn't functioning as a door atm. In another life it may have . Names are arbitrary things made up by humans.

You know what we mean by life, but that doesn't stop life being nothing more than a chemical reaction, just like fire, The ozone layer, and the internal combustion engine.

Using names like door, table, and computer in casual conversation is one thing. But if we're talking about a scientific field of study and a resulting theory (called chemogenesis) then I would think there is a working definition. Hmm maybe not.

My point is that whether something is considered life or not is not relevant. It hasn't stopped biology. The fact that you think there is no distinctive line and LWS does is simply the result of the main disagreement between you and LWS anyway. He is arguing that there are instances of "things" on planet Earth who's origin cannot be explained by understood principles. He has called this thing "life". You claim that no such thing exists. So it's only natural that you cannot see the disinction between life and non-life. The real issue is the main point I've seen LWS make several times: His statement that chemistry doesn't behave in this perpetual self organizing way IS his distinction of life from non-life. So you can't debate him on the existence of this behavior by claiming that there is no distinction called "life" to begin with.

So the trick is to stay focused on the real issue. Address whether you believe that chemistry at it's most basic level has been shown to behave in such a way that it could eventually generate a squirrel. Notice the definition of life is not relevant.

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by Another God
Meh..whatever, I don't think it changes anything. Science does assume that by studyin what we see, we are studying something meaningful, but in the end, it hardly makes a difference.

It is interesting the biases that seem to come out without people knowing it. Why do you assume that something is not "meaningful" if it isn't material?

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Another God
I think the interesting thing is, as true as it may be that there are subjective forms of inquiry or whatever it is that you mean, the objective method is beyond doubt applicable...and the process of this inquiry has shown us that our subjective is firmly attached to our physical brains. Objective research has also been able to trick people into believing/feeling/experiencing certain things by manipulating their physical brain. The mind can be split into multiple personalities. 'Religious experiences' can be made to be felt by electrical prodding. Blind spots can be made to appear in the visual field. People can be 'blind' and yet able to catch objects thrown at them. People can be made to find anything funny by having an area of their brain excited. People can lose their long term memory. People can lose their ability to form short term memories. People can be made to be unpleasant all of the time by losing an area of their brain. A woman recently suffered a stroke and woke up with a british accent (she is from the US, and has never been to UK).

The Point: You change the brain: The mind follows. The mind = The brain. You can do as much subjective stuff as you want, but if you let one of us objectivists come in and manipulate your brainm we'll be able to change your mind, whether you like it or not

Empirical research is the only trustworthy form of research. The brain isn't perfect.

For the record, I have absolute faith in a properly applied objective method to reveal . . . external reality. It is its applicability to a specific aspect of the subjective realm that I doubt.

Regarding your points about the brain, it just means we and the brain are interdependent for now. Say soon after birth I were placed in a machine with a camera, and I became totally dependent on that camera to view reality (and the rest of the machine to move about). What I don't know is that video tapes can be fed into the system, replacing what I am viewing normally with something that does not reflect reality. I, of course, completely accept the new image since I can't even imagine it not being true.

Possilby the body is our machine,and the CSN our "camera," and in fact we are quite dependent on it to be here on planet Earth, in a human body. Our dependence starts at birth, and we know nothing other than how to depend on the human biological system for awareness, survival and happiness.

But there is a history of individuals who claim to have withdrawn from full dependence on the body. True, they a relatively rare, but still there are enough of them to study and observe certain common characteristics about this conscious phenomenon.

If you refuse to examine them, I say your understanding of human potetial and knowledge is incomplete. My studies have convinced me that there is something to it, and in fact what they experience might just help us to understand the nature of reality a little better.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Fliption
It is interesting the biases that seem to come out without people knowing it. Why do you assume that something is not "meaningful" if it isn't material?

It was a flippant dismissive comment which I said purely because I couldn't be bothered discussing it. Sorry.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by Fliption
The real issue is the main point I've seen LWS make several times: His statement that chemistry doesn't behave in this perpetual self organizing way IS his distinction of life from non-life. So you can't debate him on the existence of this behavior by claiming that there is no distinction called "life" to begin with.

So the trick is to stay focused on the real issue. Address whether you believe that chemistry at it's most basic level has been shown to behave in such a way. . . . Notice the definition of life is not relevant.

You've said it, the whole thing right there. Thank you!

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by LW Sleeth
But there is a history of individuals who claim to have withdrawn from full dependence on the body. True, they a relatively rare, but still there are enough of them to study and observe certain common characteristics about this conscious phenomenon.

If you refuse to examine them, I say your understanding of human potetial and knowledge is incomplete. My studies have convinced me that there is something to it, and in fact what they experience might just help us to understand the nature of reality a little better.

But the point is that people can be made, by external manipulations, to find a picture frame funny. The mind, no matter how 'withdrawn from the body' it seems, is just a brain doing brain stuff. While it may be interesting to study these people, there are infinitely many other things which are interesting to study, and for the moment my first goal is to immortalise my body so that I have enough time to study all these other things.

Until such time, your introspective thought guys will have to wait out on the fringes of my attention.

 

[Another God]

Originally posted by Fliption

So the trick is to stay focused on the real issue. Address whether you believe that chemistry at it's most basic level has been shown to behave in such a way that it could eventually generate a squirrel. Notice the definition of life is not relevant.

Good point. Focus on the new thing: Organisational:

And this brings me back to my real point: There is no organisation which isn't a manifestation of the simple chemical interactions. Things come together and move appart as they do. Things interact and catalyse as they do. Some things form stable bodies, somethings turn into stable molecules, something get stuck in an area which is of determined size, unable to move outside of that area. Thats all that is needed for stuff to happen, which may lead to a replicative process prone to evolution as it is known in the terms of biology.

I think there is a form of evolution that applies to the entire universe. A more basic mathematical interaction of proportions and probablities that describe the way stable things tend to numerate. This sort of evolution would be the descriptor of this early chemical soup, which as soon as the first flickers of replication came about, started to be described by the natural selection model: That which numerates fastest/best/most, will numerate.

there is no organisation required there. Just mathematical relations.