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A Revolution in Evolution

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Comments

  • #122
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    recedite wrote: »
    I don't think epigenetics is a threat to the gene-centric view. It re-introduces the lamarckian concept that individuals may be able to alter the genetic heritage that they pass on to the next generation. It is significant that this genetic change could occur within the lifespan of one individual, depending on their actions, or reactions to the environment. It does not alter the concept that the "expression of the gene" ie. "the trait" is heritable and is selected through natural selection.
    But the next generation will still be formed from the genetic instructions in their inherited DNA, combined with the environmental factors acting on them. Business as usual.

    We agree on 2 out of 3, the concept of gene has undergone significant evolution, and Dobbs is an eejit:D.

    I don't believe epigenetic inheritance is a threat to Darwin's theory at all, which was broad enough to include literally any mechanism, but the gene centric model is a different kettle of fish. My main point is that the modern synthesis needs to be expanded to include epigenetic inheritance (changes to germline cells, so some epigenetic changes arising in parents due to environment are transferred to offspring). In addition, I'm highlighting that the very word epigenetics seems to be annoying some prominent evolutionary Biologists, as if the research was done at the Discovery Institute, which I find a bit odd.


  • #123
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    You've rumbled yourself nagirrac, pretty much from the start. I've quoted the places you've done it. And no, quoting more of the same posts doesn't change their contexts.

    It hopefully adds understanding Mark, the thing you seem to be spectacularly missing from my posts.

    Let me walk you once more through the scientific hypothesis. The scientific question is simply whether intelligence is evident in lower level organisms (a single cellular organism for example, the simplest we know of), and at least a tentative hypothesis for this. Basic intelligence is as I have now defined in at least 3 posts; communication, learning, retention, problem solving. I have linked to a research paper by a group in Japan that demonstrates how an amoeba responds to external stimuli, learns and remembers. For this to occur, there has to be processing of information going on within the cell (what you liken to squeezing a rubber ball). In reality, rather than simple Newtonian processes as you suggest, what we have been learning over the past two decades in molecular and cellular Biology is that these processes are complex and adaptive beyond our wildest dreams.

    That's the key difference between evolutionary Biology and molecular/cellular Biology, the latter is concerned with the biochemical mechanisms within cells, the former could care less about the mechanisms, they are concerned about how variable traits that emerge from these mechanisms are selected for and lead to phenotype changes over vast periods of time. The problem though is as molecular Biology evolves in its knowledge, it is becoming more apparent that there is nothing random about these cellular processes. That's the elephant in the room. That's why adaptive mutation does not contradict Darwin in the slightest, as Darwin had no idea what the underlying cellular mechanisms were at all. So the question remains, why is there so much resistance to adaptive mutation?

    Cairns published his results on lactose starvation experiments with E-Coli in the 1980s and claimed that the underlying cellular mechanism could provide "a mechanism for inheritance of acquired characteristics", 20 years before anyone accepted it was possible. Barry Hall, working in the 1990s, demonstrated that under selection pressure, mutations happened not just at a rate much faster than expected by random processes, but that only the genetic area under selection pressure mutated. He even found an instance where two necessary simultaneous mutations occurred, something he referred to as "the improbable stacked upon the highly unlikely".

    Intelligence, as we observe it in humans, cannot just emerge magically, and obviously I know you simply cannot believe that (my apologies, I have had the magic word thrown at me many times on here). However, the challenge for science is to uncover how such intelligence emerged. There have to be mechanisms that explain primitive intelligence ---> basic intelligence ---> human intelligence, so yes it is from simple to complex, at least in Biology. The evidence is supportive of the view that the human brain evolved to its current state as homo sapiens sapiens spread out across the globe, encountering countless environmental challenges along the way. But what is the brain other than a network of neurons, microprocessor type cells of varying function, connected in elaborate ways (the computer is the best analogy we have, even if there is no accurate analogy for a brain). Saying that intelligence arises from the interactions between neurons, is like saying that the processing a computer does is due to the etches on a PWA that link components.

    Taking into account the evidence available from all fields of Biology, the hypothesis that is the best fit by far with the evidence is that living organisms adapt to their changing environments, and pass on some of these adaptations to their offspring via epigenetic inheritance. The variations are beneficial as they are in response to selection pressure. Whether this is "directed" or not is speculative, so no need at all to postulate a God pulling the strings. It is called natural Genetic Engineering and is both supported fully by the evidence and perfectly compatible with Darwinian evolution. So, why is it so problematic?

    Moving from science to philosophy, the harder part. You have selected the default philosophy for an atheist, reductionist materialism, everything can be reduced down to molecules, then atoms, then quarks, then something something. Unfortunately like all other human ideas on these big questions, it is as full of holes as every other theory of reality that originated in human minds. At the end of the day we are left with our experiences of reality, and reality itself remains a mystery.


  • #124
    HansHolzel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 996 ✭✭✭HansHolzel


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Look who stopped by. Did you find any ghosts yet:D?

    You're mixing me up with someone else. I've never posted anything to do with ghosts.

    Another false start.


  • #125
    gaynorvader
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,630 ✭✭✭gaynorvader


    nagirrac wrote: »
    No, I am not, and it is dishonest for you to make that claim.. and inexcusable to bring God into the discussion when there has been no mention of God. {...}

    I don't think Mark Hamill brought God into the discussion to be fair. Unless I'm missing something, there doesn't even seem to be a sideways reference to Him.

    As for cellular intelligence, I think it is hard to determine whether a single neuron holds intelligence, you'd have to isolate it and test it, but I doubt it would be able to do much problem solving as a single entity, much like a processor chip or a computer cannot have artificial intelligence by itself, it needs a program.

    I think a lot of the heated discussion in this thread has centered around the word 'intelligence' been thrown around without qualifiers. There are a huge variety of different intelligences, when it's taken alone it usually refers to human-like intelligence.


  • #126
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    nagirrac wrote: »
    It hopefully adds understanding Mark, the thing you seem to be spectacularly missing from my posts.

    I understand exactly what you are trying to do:
    nagirrac wrote: »
    The scientific question is simply whether intelligence is evident in lower level organisms
    ...
    Basic intelligence is as I have now defined in at least 3 posts;

    What did I say 20 odd posts ago:
    "The writer just picks some aspects of neurons and says they form a basic intelligence, basic intelligence being something he then defines as anything which has those characteristics. He is doing the exact same thing as you and is therefore as wrong as you are. "
    You were saying that cells are intelligent based on incredibly loose definition of intelligence. And then you quoted another guy doing exactly that. And look, you are still doing exactly that.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Intelligence, as we observe it in humans, cannot just emerge magically,

    Which is why no-one in this thread, besides you, have ever said this.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    But what is the brain other than a network of neurons,

    And what is a pool of water but a multitude of H2O maolecules. But a single molecule of H2O is not wet.
    A computer may need processors to work, but put together the components in a wrong order and it wont work.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Moving from science to philosophy, the harder part. You have selected the default philosophy for an atheist, reductionist materialism, everything can be reduced down to molecules, then atoms, then quarks, then something something. Unfortunately like all other human ideas on these big questions, it is as full of holes as every other theory of reality that originated in human minds. At the end of the day we are left with our experiences of reality, and reality itself remains a mystery.

    If I was interested in insincere pseudoscientific bull**** I would inflict the writing of Deepak Chopra on myself.
    I am not the reductionist, you are :rolleyes:. I am the one arguing that the configuration of a multitude of neurons, nearly on a macro scale, is what makes human level intelligence, more than the (relatively) basic data processing that the neurons do indiviudally. You are the one who is arguing that human level intelliegence can be reduced down to single neuron level.


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  • #127
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    HansHolzel wrote: »
    You're mixing me up with someone else. I've never posted anything to do with ghosts.

    Another false start.

    My humble apologies Hans, it was of course Hans Holzer who spent his life looking for ghosts. My bad.


  • #128
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    gaynorvader wrote: »
    I think a lot of the heated discussion in this thread has centered around the word 'intelligence' been thrown around without qualifiers. There are a huge variety of different intelligences, when it's taken alone it usually refers to human-like intelligence.

    Which is why I specifically defined the intelligence I was referring to, and the attributes it has. It is precisely the way Biologists and Neuroscientists talk about intelligence.


  • #129
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    If I was interested in insincere pseudoscientific bull**** I would inflict the writing of Deepak Chopra on myself. I am not the reductionist, you are :rolleyes:. I am the one arguing that the configuration of a multitude of neurons, nearly on a macro scale, is what makes human level intelligence, more than the (relatively) basic data processing that the neurons do indiviudally. You are the one who is arguing that human level intelliegence can be reduced down to single neuron level.

    Nice, the paragraph you selected for your attack is on philosophy, not science, but perhaps you can't tell the difference. I am not a reductionist, but perhaps you can't tell the difference from what you have posted above.

    There is one common theme is in all your responses Mark, not one single response to the actual topic, which is the cellular mechanisms behind evolution. That's what the thread is about, and it appears to be a subject you have nothing to say on. What is your opinion of adaptive versus random mutation? What is your opinion of Shapiro's natural Genetic Engineering?

    Lets try and continue with science rather than the Deepak fantasies.


  • #130
    gaynorvader
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,630 ✭✭✭gaynorvader


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Which is why I specifically defined the intelligence I was referring to, and the attributes it has. It is precisely the way Biologists and Neuroscientists talk about intelligence.

    In some places this is true, in others you did not. I think it would have been better if Mark had given you the benefit of the doubt and asked you to clarify what you meant in the instances where is was not defined, but I think he may have been feeling frustrated. (The best example I can think of off the top of my head without looking through the posts is "when did pond slime develop intelligence" {paraphrased})


  • #131
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    gaynorvader wrote: »
    In some places this is true, in others you did not. I think it would have been better if Mark had given you the benefit of the doubt and asked you to clarify what you meant in the instances where is was not defined, but I think he may have been feeling frustrated. (The best example I can think of off the top of my head without looking through the posts is "when did pond slime develop intelligence" {paraphrased})

    Fair point, I will be more careful in future to define my terms better.

    The study of the various attributes that we call intelligence demonstrated by various organisms is one of the most interesting and important in science imo. There is obviously the work in AI which has the goal of simulating human intelligence in a man made machine. The challenges associated with this are enormous as we simply have not understood the mechanisms involved in how these intelligence attributes emerge and function even in an amoeba let alone a human.

    The whole premise of this thread is that all biological life adapts to its changing environment (natural Genetic Engineering) and the underlying cellular mechanisms involved in producing variations are adaptive rather than random. Not that random mechanisms do not exist, they clearly do, but there are cellular mechanisms to error correct for most deleterious mutations.

    The rule of parsimony in science is to go with the simple hypothesis rather than the complex one, in other words go with the weight of evidence in front of us, rather than making up something more complex. The evidence has always suggested that organisms adapt to their environments, rather than simply waiting for some random event to produce a variation that is beneficial. We see this in front of our own eyes in the developmental changes in terms of phenotypic variation. "Inheritance due to acquired characteristics" was thrown out of Darwin's theory in 1890 when the term Neo-Darwinism was first coined to distinguish it from Darwinism. Except there was no evidence whatsoever that acquired characteristics could not make their way into the germ line, but a few scientists at the time decided it couldn't happen and it stuck.


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  • #132
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Nice, the paragraph you selected for your attack is on philosophy, not science, but perhaps you can't tell the difference. I am not a reductionist, but perhaps you can't tell the difference from what you have posted above.

    There is one common theme is in all your responses Mark, not one single response to the actual topic, which is the cellular mechanisms behind evolution. That's what the thread is about, and it appears to be a subject you have nothing to say on. What is your opinion of adaptive versus random mutation? What is your opinion of Shapiro's natural Genetic Engineering?

    Lets try and continue with science rather than the Deepak fantasies.

    He says with no hint of irony, as he ignores the 4 other parts of his post I separately responded to, not to mention all the previous posts he largely ignored :rolleyes:.
    You do realise that this a written discussion right? The bits of my posts that you ignore don't disappear from the record because you don't respond to them.


  • #133
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    gaynorvader wrote: »
    I think it would have been better if Mark had given you the benefit of the doubt and asked you to clarify what you meant in the instances where is was not defined, but I think he may have been feeling frustrated.

    I'm not actually frustrated though. This sort of thing can be frustrating, if someone starts off innocently asking a leading question or making a very general correlation, and then when agreement is had pouncing on everyone with a massive non-sequitor to prove some supernatural/psuedo-scientific point, falling back on the agreement as justification (ignoring the following qualifying posts debunking them).
    But nagirrac did it backwards, he started with the nonsense and then backtracked into trying to get people to agree with a loose generalisation despite it being obvious what was coming. I've already described here how he did it wrong (last paragraph).

    Its not frustrating, its just laughable.


  • #134
    HansHolzel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 996 ✭✭✭HansHolzel


    When I get time I'll read over this thread but teleology is not cool and never taught the human race anything.


  • #135
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    But nagirrac did it backwards, he started with the nonsense and then backtracked into trying to get people to agree with a loose generalisation despite it being obvious what was coming. I've already described here how he did it wrong (last paragraph).
    Its not frustrating, its just laughable.

    What is laughable is your characterization of the subject matter as "nonsense". When words like "nonsense" and "pseudo-science" get thrown around, its generally a sign a poster has nothing to add to the discussion, .

    Never, as in not once, did I state that a cell has consciousness. However, for your benefit, let me restate once again, the hypothesis of natural Genetic Engineering in the now fading hope that you may want to discuss the topic at hand rather than indulge in mud slinging. If you are interested in the topic, then give us your opinion, and back up your opinion with evidence.

    You are of course free to call Shapiro's hypothesis whatever you like, but in general I find that people who attack well published, peer reviewed, senior scientists who know their field backwards, using words like "pseudoscience" and "nonsense" are motivated by something other than science. It is the same irrationality that certain evolutionary Biologists use when they refer to anyone who disagrees with any aspect of evolutionary theory as "creationists". Frankly it is embarrassing to see such vitriol from scientists, when normally one expects to see it in Amazon book reviews by morons.

    I did not come up with the natural Genetic Engineering hypothesis, but I am here to present it for discussion. You may think it's "nonsense", but I think that says more about you than those who find it has merit.

    The central assumption of modern evolutionary theory is that variation arises from random mutation (and random drift) of genes, and if the variation is beneficial, the variation spreads though a population. The word random refers to the value of the mutation to the organism, so beneficial, neutral, or deleterious mutations have the same "chance" of occurring. The Neo-Darwinist assumption was established in the early part of the 20th century to refute the possibility of "inheritance of acquired characteristics" which was part of Darwin's theory.

    I assume you accept the first assumption or you would not be calling Shapiro's work "nonsense". Can you provide the evidence, as in experimental evidence, to demonstrate that variations that improve fitness are based on "random" mutations? Please do so if you are taking that side of the argument, and I will take the adaptive side of the argument. The fact that acquired characteristics can be inherited is now well established so need to argue about that one.

    Adaptive mutation was first proposed by Cairns in the 1980s. The research was done on the FC-40 strain of E-Coli which cannot process Lactose (its gene for processing Lactose is switched off). What was found was that in an environment where only lactose was available as a nutrient, the E-Coli mutated rapidly to switch on the Lac gene. Furthermore this change in gene expression was shown to be hereditary and passed on to succeeding generations. Cairns' work was highly controversial as it challenged both assumptions of "random" and "inheritance of acquired characteristics". Although alternative explanations have been proposed for what is observed, Cairns work has been repeated since by several others (Hall, Foster).

    One problem is trying to establish adaptive mutation is that an underlying mechanism was lacking to explain such rapid gene expression changes and the hereditary nature of these changes. "Random" mutation was nice and simple, "something" caused a change in sequence in a DNA strand (a copying error let's say) during reproduction, and the change was inherited. Over billions of years and many billions of mutations, an early amoeba like organism evolved into a human. Epigenetics changes the landscape because it provides a mechanism whereby gene expression is changed in an organism in response to it's environment, and this change is inherited. So, rather than the organism being a slave to its "randomly mutating" genes, the organism uses its genes, and all of its cellular processes, to adapt to its environment. Simples.

    I can provide all the research papers you would like to back up these claims with evidence. Look forward to your claims for "random" mutations leading to advantageous variation, backed up by evidence of course.


  • #136
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Just to add a broader comment on adaptive mutation. Adaptive Mutation and natural Genetic Engineering have absolutely nothing to do with Intelligent Design or Creationism. They are scientific hypotheses, as in science that is supported by the evidence, and can be tested against predictions and falsified.

    Adaptive mutation and epigenetics do not suggest anything regarding "design" or "final causes". They simply demonstrate that organisms under environmental pressure can adapt via various cellular mechanisms, leading to (i) survival, (ii) new features due to changes in gene expression, leading to (iii) improved fitness. An alternative evolutionary pathway is all, nothing to be scared of.


  • #137
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,473 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    HansHolzel wrote: »
    [...] teleology is not cool and never taught the human race anything.
    Indeedy - it seems hard for many people to abandon the assumption of "purpose", however they wish to define and acquire it.


  • #138
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Never, as in not once, did I state that a cell has consciousness

    Ahem:
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Any living cell, regardless of the organism it is part of, is an incredibly intelligent, purpose driven entity

    "Purpose", without consciousness is merely output.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    You are of course free to call Shapiro's hypothesis...

    Argument from authority, nagirrac, really? Really?
    I did not come up with the natural Genetic Engineering hypothesis, but I am here to present it for discussion. You may think it's "nonsense", but I think that says more about you than those who find it has merit.

    And again, another example of something supposedly presented for discussion, but actually presented to be unquestionably accepted.

    The rest of your post is junk, you imagining arguments on my behalf and placing them contrary to some authority figure who you hide behind. I am not arguing against anyone else nagirrac. I am arguing against you and only you. It would be nice if you would stop lying about what I am saying (anytime I've referenced your claims, I've quoted the exact sentence I'm talking about) and if you would stop running and hiding behind some grown up when you are contradicted.


  • #139
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    The rest of your post is junk, you imagining arguments on my behalf and placing them contrary to some authority figure who you hide behind. I am not arguing against anyone else nagirrac. I am arguing against you and only you. It would be nice if you would stop lying about what I am saying (anytime I've referenced your claims, I've quoted the exact sentence I'm talking about) and if you would stop running and hiding behind some grown up when you are contradicted.

    As I expected, no attempt whatsoever to engage in the subject matter. Boring predictable at this point from you Mark.

    The subject matter is Shapiro's scientific hypothesis, as I made clear from the first post on the thread. You want to launch the "appeal to authority" card now?, a sure sign of a beaten docket. You are the one running away as you clearly have zero familiarity with the subject matter to engage in discussion.


  • #140
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    nagirrac wrote: »
    As I expected, no attempt whatsoever to engage in the subject matter. Boring predictable at this point from you Mark.

    The subject matter is Shapiro's scientific hypothesis, as I made clear from the first post on the thread. You want to launch the "appeal to authority" card now?, a sure sign of a beaten docket. You are the one running away as you clearly have zero familiarity with the subject matter to engage in discussion.

    No attempt, except where I pointed out that purpose without consciousness is just output. Not to mention all my previously ignored points, like macro-level properties are not wholly defined by micro-level properties, which pretty much debunk your entire argument. And it is your argument, you are the one here defending it, it doesn't matter where you picked it up from so you can stop referencing the guy and being snide if anyone deigns to disagree with him, as if he is some unquestionable authority.


    Oh and looking back at the first post again, I see you said:
    nagirrac wrote: »
    The conclusions of Shapiro's work is that all organisms are sentient
    And yet only recently you said:
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Never, as in not once, did I state that a cell has consciousness.

    Do you think the internet disappears when you shut-off internet explorer or something? The evidence is still here when you log back on. Yet again, you have rumbled yourself, nagirrac.


  • #141
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    Do you think the internet disappears when you shut-off internet explorer or something? The evidence is still here when you log back on. Yet again, you have rumbled yourself, nagirrac.

    Can you provide an address where I can send a dictionary of scientific terms?

    The following is how modern scientists, not 18th century scientists, define the words you are confusing:

    Consciousness: self awareness i.e. the waking state of being aware of oneself. Do you really think I would suggest a cell is consciously self aware, or any organisms other than humans and apparently from recent research apes, elephants, and dolphins? Next you'll be accusing me I said amoebas display cognitive reasoning and abstract thought.

    Sentience: Ability to feel (derived from "to sense", get it?). An organism can be sentient without being self aware, and nobody in their right mind would suggest something is self aware without having some evidence of such. For example we know that animals are sentient because they can feel pain. Are they also self aware? You seem to think so, can you back this up? Do you have a dog? Is it sentient? Hopefully yes is the answer. Is it also self aware because it is sentient?

    Ability to feel means exactly what it says, able to sense the environment, touch, smell, sight, sounds, and respond to signals from the environment. It is what humans do millions of times per second, without being aware of 99% of it.

    To equate my actual claim that "organisms exhibits sentience" to "cells are conscious" (a claim I have never made) is simply nonsense, and again an indication that you have no clue whatsoever of the subject matter I am discussing. The words sentience and consciousness were confused by 18th century scientists and philosophers when we knew virtually nothing about the nervous system and how it functioned.

    Any chance you want to discuss recent developments in evolutionary theory, or do you just want to continue to argue over words you don't appear to know the meaning of?


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  • #142
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    nagirrac wrote: »
    To equate my actual claim that "organisms exhibits sentience" to "cells are conscious" (a claim I have never made) is simply nonsense, and again an indication that you have no clue whatsoever of the subject matter I am discussing.

    From wikipedia:
    "Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.[1][2] It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind"

    You can't have sentience without some sort of consciousness. Otherwise what is doing the sensing?
    And I have had dogs and i have seen them go unconscious.


  • #143
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    From wikipedia:
    "Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.[1][2] It has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind"

    You can't have sentience without some sort of consciousness. Otherwise what is doing the sensing?
    And I have had dogs and i have seen them go unconscious.

    Wiki is a good starting point, and I use it myself, but it is only as good as whoever wrote the entry. All the above definition tell us is that "consciousness" can mean different things to different people depending on the context used.

    The problem with these terms we are struggling with, is that they all originated as descriptors for human attributes, at a time when everything "below" a human was regarded as a machine (Descartes' automata). We now know this is rubbish, and everything we see in human biology evolved from simpler versions of the same thing earlier in biological history.

    Of course you can have sentience without consciousness. An amoeba will move towards chemicals in its environment that are beneficial to it, and move away from chemicals that are harmful to it. I don't think anyone would claim an amoeba is aware or conscious. As you move up the chain from unicellular organisms, sensory abilities get more and more sophisticated, and higher complexity sentience emerges. To try and understand how these complex behaviors emerge, we have to study both the individual organism, the cellular processes within the organism, and the group behavior of organisms. To try and understand something like a 20ft termite mound with air shafts to regulate temperature, you have to look at the structure itself, the individual termites, the different cells of the termites, and the cellular processes within the different cells.

    Living organisms have an extraordinary array of ways of sensing their environments, many of which humans don't utilize to the degree another organism might. We mainly think of sense in terms of sight, sound, taste, smell and touch, but to many organisms minute changes in pH, composition of thousands of different chemicals, air flow, etc. are how they sense. In reality these are basic or even primitive forms of our senses, but optimized for the individual organism in a specific environment. Elephants can tell if an approaching elephant that they cannot see yet is familiar or not using seismic signals from the cells on their feet. There are species of fish that use electrical discharge to navigate and hunt, similar to the way bats use sound, and when they encounter other fish of their species they change the frequency of the discharge to avoid jamming. Even though this is a remarkable sensory ability, we wouldn't say they are conscious.

    Getting back to amoeba, which beings me back to the original topic of evolutionary mechanisms. There is a species of amoeba that turn into a slug like organism when their food supply runs out. They coalesce into a multi-cellular organism that moves around its environment in search of food. They also develop a fruiting body which produces spores, so develop a completely new method of reproduction (for them). This demonstrates the potential that even the simplest unicellular organism has to utilize its DNA and other cellular structures to (i) survive under duress, (ii) change its phenotype to respond to changing environment, and (iii) reproduce, including changing its reproductive mechanism entirely.

    If we introduce the heretical word of "purpose" into this specific topic, the "purpose" of all living organisms is to survive, develop, and reproduce.


  • #144
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Wiki is a good starting point,

    thefreedictionary.com    : 1. The quality or state of being sentient; consciousness.
    merriam-webster.com: 1. responsive to or conscious of sense impressions <sentient beings>, 2. aware
    dictionary.reference.com: 1. the state or quality of being sentient; awareness

    If you do weaken the definition of sentience in order to include cells reacting to conditions, then you have definitions like:

    thefreedictionary.com    : 2. Feeling as distinguished from perception or thought.
    dictionary.reference.com: 2. sense perception not involving intelligence

    which purposefully omit the notion of intelligence.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    The problem with these terms we are struggling with, is that they all originated as descriptors for human attributes,

    I made this point already, more than once. Both you and the guy you quoted a few pages ago announce some observations in neurons, loosely define intelligence as anything which exhibits those observations and then declare neurons as intelligent. Words like awareness, intelligence, sentience and consciousness are all ambiguous and emotive. Electron pairs repel each other, are they aware of each other? Are they sentient? Or are they merely entities of energy and/or matter acting under physical constraints?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    If we introduce the heretical word of "purpose" into this specific topic, the "purpose" of all living organisms is to survive, develop, and reproduce.

    Purpose implies that something is giving it that purpose, with an end result desired.


  • #145
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    Words like awareness, intelligence, sentience and consciousness are all ambiguous and emotive. Electron pairs repel each other, are they aware of each other? Are they sentient? Or are they merely entities of energy and/or matter acting under physical constraints?

    They are certainly ambiguous and can be emotive in common usage. In the various fields of Life Science, such as Cellular Biology, Neuroscience, etc. they are used routinely. The only one's who find them emotive are those who want to get into an argument about God and religion.

    For some reason only known to yourself you are constantly making analogies between inert Newtonian physics and Cellular Biology. One of the hard lessons learned in Life Science is that you simply cannot do this, cellular processes for example can only be understood in the context of the cell. A living organism differs from a non-living entity (like a rock) in many ways, but the most significant is in how it handles information. All living organisms accumulate, process, store and share information. They do this in a bewildering array of ways, they do it internally in cells, between cells, between themselves, and with their environment. If we could truly work backwards and describe this in terms of "matter/energy acting under physical constraints", we would know how life emerged from inert matter, yet for all the work in abiogenesis this remains elusive.
    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    Purpose implies that something is giving it that purpose, with an end result desired.

    Yes, in my view nature is what gives it purpose. "Purpose" may simply be an inherent survival aspect of nature, just poorly understood by humans. Evolution can be viewed simply as nature finding better means of survival. The common objection to this idea is that purpose is a human construct, but the alternative of nature as a blind machine (and life by extension as a blind machine) is also a human construct.


  • #146
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    nagirrac wrote: »
    For some reason only known to yourself you are constantly making analogies between inert Newtonian physics and Cellular Biology. One of the hard lessons learned in Life Science is that you simply cannot do this, cellular processes for example can only be understood in the context of the cell. A living organism differs from a non-living entity (like a rock) in many ways, but the most significant is in how it handles information. All living organisms accumulate, process, store and share information. They do this in a bewildering array of ways, they do it internally in cells, between cells, between themselves, and with their environment. If we could truly work backwards and describe this in terms of "matter/energy acting under physical constraints", we would know how life emerged from inert matter, yet for all the work in abiogenesis this remains elusive.

    There is nothing fundamentally different between inert matter and living cells, besides the configuration of their structure. The difference between a life cell and dead cell can be as simple as supplying too much heat and you would have two configurations of exactly the same atomic or molecular make-up but one dead cell and one living.
    "Life" is not some magical process immune to Newtonian or quantum physics.
    If you think that cells are somehow not subject to Newtonian physics, do you think humans are not also, given that we are made up of cells?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Yes, in my view nature is what gives it purpose. "Purpose" may simply be an inherent survival aspect of nature, just poorly understood by humans. Evolution can be viewed simply as nature finding better means of survival. The common objection to this idea is that purpose is a human construct, but the alternative of nature as a blind machine (and life by extension as a blind machine) is also a human construct.

    You are now arguing that nature is conscious? Seriously?
    And to support that you are trying to redefine "purpose" and label the null hypothesis (Nature is a blind machine) as just another theory.


  • #147
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    There is nothing fundamentally different between inert matter and living cells, besides the configuration of their structure.

    Nothing fundamentally different, as in comprised of the same elements found in all of nature, but functionally one is living and the other non living. A good starting point I suppose is to define life. From a biological standpoint, life is "a complex system of organic molecules that demonstrate the properties of reproduction and organic evolution". So, without these two properties, you don't have life. Does a rock reproduce and evolve? How about your earlier rubber ball example, its made of organic molecules, does it reproduce and evolve?

    We can certainly destroy life, as in your example of supplying too much heat, but can we create life? The answer to that may seem yes, if we look at the work of Craig Venter and others who are working away diligently to make the first synthetic organism. How are they doing it? By copying exactly what nature has done, making synthetic copies of a DNA molecule and inserting them into existing cells and changing their phenotype, or genetic engineering. We are simply replicating what nature has done.

    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    "Life" is not some magical process immune to Newtonian or quantum physics. If you think that cells are somehow not subject to Newtonian physics, do you think humans are not also, given that we are made up of cells?

    Where did I say it was? I am simply saying we will not understand life by studying the individual atoms in cells, or employing 18th century physics. I agree, life is not a magical process, it is nature doing what it does, some of which we understand and some of which we don't. My point is not that cells and other products of nature are immune from natural laws, but that we will only understand life by understanding cellular processes as all life is cellular. In reality, we will only begin to understand life fully when we understand the genome fully, something we are still in the early stages of.
    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    You are now arguing that nature is conscious? Seriously?

    Must we go down this road again? Where did I say that nature was conscious? I simply said that the purpose of life is to survive, develop and reproduce, and this may represent a fundamental aspect of nature. Once again, an amoeba not alone survives, develops, and reproduces, but when its food supply runs out it changes into a multicellular organism that can move around its environment and search for food, and also modifies its reproductive mechanism. Is an amoeba conscious by any definition of conscious?
    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    And to support that you are trying to redefine "purpose" and label the null hypothesis (Nature is a blind machine) as just another theory.

    First of all, make your argument backed up by evidence why "nature is a blind machine" is the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis regarding the universe is that the universe we observe, even is we observe only part of it, is the only universe and has the attributes it has. The alternative is that the universe we observe is one of many universe, something for which there is about as much evidence for as flying teapots orbiting Mars. Attributing "blindness" to this universe is a claim that must be backed up with evidence.

    Secondly, I am not redefining purpose:

    Purpose: "the reason for which something is done, or created, or for which something exists".

    The question is why does life, as we know it, exist?, Life defined as "a complex system of organic molecules that demonstrate the properties of reproduction and organic evolution". This can be answered simply as life is a survival mechanism of nature, and doesn't have to be conscious, no more than an amoeba is conscious.


  • #148
    Mark Hamill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,858 ✭✭✭Mark Hamill


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Where did I say it was?

    In your previous post:
    "For some reason only known to yourself you are constantly making analogies between inert Newtonian physics and Cellular Biology. One of the hard lessons learned in Life Science is that you simply cannot do this"
    Life is a (sometimes only relatively) macro-level phenomenon, so we would generally examine it in macro-level terms, but this does not mean that newtonian physics does not apply.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Must we go down this road again? Where did I say that nature was conscious? I simply said that the purpose of life is to survive, develop and reproduce, and this may represent a fundamental aspect of nature.

    Again, from your last post:
    Yes, in my view nature is what gives it purpose
    Purpose implies consciousness and end objective. Survival, development and reproduction are the outputs of an environment which can give rise to, and sustain, biological entities like us.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Once again, an amoeba not alone survives, develops, and reproduces, but when its food supply runs out it changes into a multicellular organism that can move around its environment and search for food, and also modifies its reproductive mechanism. Is an amoeba conscious by any definition of conscious?

    No.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    First of all, make your argument backed up by evidence why "nature is a blind machine" is the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis regarding the universe is that the universe we observe, even is we observe only part of it, is the only universe and has the attributes it has. The alternative is that the universe we observe is one of many universe, something for which there is about as much evidence for as flying teapots orbiting Mars. Attributing "blindness" to this universe is a claim that must be backed up with evidence.

    "Nature is a blind machine" requires the least amount of assumptions and arbitrary defining, therefore it is the null hypothesis.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Secondly, I am not redefining purpose:

    Purpose: "the reason for which something is done, or created, or for which something exists".

    This is the same nonsense as before.
    "Purpose" implies something giving purpose, something not just causing an effect, but causing an effect for a desired reason. Rain is the outcome of a weather system that, among other conditions, has enough water in the air to make drops. Rain is not the purpose of said weather system.
    You are still digging for the most generic definitions of normally human centred words (consciousness, sentience, purpose) in order to try and trick people into agreeing with a semantic argument.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    The question is why does life, as we know it, exist?,

    Because the right conditions allow for it.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    Life defined as "a complex system of organic molecules that demonstrate the properties of reproduction and organic evolution". This can be answered simply as life is a survival mechanism of nature, and doesn't have to be conscious, no more than an amoeba is conscious.

    Nature is just the turbulent chemical environment stuck to the outer layers of the earth, it doesn't have a defence mechanism any more than Mars' atmosphere does.


  • #149
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    nagirrac wrote: »
    For those who may get the impression I am being rude to nozzferrahtoo for not responding to him, nozz is on my ignore list, something I informed him over a week ago on the Christianity forum. I have only one personal rule when it comes to posting on online forums, regardless of their charter. I am never deliberately dishonest and never deliberately lie, and the only thing I expect is that posters respond in kind.

    Yet I made no such accusation at all. I merely suggested in one post that you appear to be a lay man in evolutionary science... something I stick by even now.... and when you got uppity about that and said you were not... I said I can only go by what I have observed. Which is true.

    Imagine for example someone on the sporting forums says over and over they are not "lay" in American Football. But they occasionally come out with a commend like "David Beckham is one of the best players". No matter how much they assert their credentials you simply have only one conclusion open to you.

    Similar is true here. You claim to know lots about the subject but some of the errors you make are akin to thinking David Beckham is one of the top players in American Football.

    If you want to construe that as an accusation of "lying" in order to dodge the points I have already made on this thread that DESIMATE the points you are trying to make... then so be it. But judging by the responses I have seen so far... the only one buying this is you.

    QUOTE=nagirrac;87830541]I stated before we explore intelligence we have to first define its attributes.[/QUOTE]

    Yes. Exactly. And the point that is making a mockery of this thread is simple: Evolution meets NONE of the attributes you laid out. At all. Even a little.

    Does that not therefore mean by your OWN definitions that any suggestion that Evolution is intelligent is therefore also a mockery?

    You went on to say that Evolution does not meet some or even MANY of those attributes. But in the post I made that you are running away from it appears that it does not meet ANY of them.

    QUOTE=nagirrac;87830541]Let's just focus on one for now, communication, and let's discuss neurons. How do you view the functions of a neuron? Do you think that neurons communicate with other neurons? Do they pass information on to other neurons? Is this an attribute of what we refer to as intelligence?[/QUOTE]

    Again no. Which was explained in the post you are pretending to ignore, and repasted in the post of the user who copy and pasted my post. They do not "communicate" with each other any more than a single bird in a flocking display "communicates" with any other. They merely make internal decisions based on the activity around them. They do this oblivious to the idea or concept of a "message" or even to the idea that there are other neurons around them.

    They merely operate on fixed inputs and outputs. It is just YOU that construes this as communication. And many lay people to biology do too because the whole system when viewed from the outside does very much look like a mass of intercommunication and design.

    But an illusion is all it is. No matter how convincing it is to you.


  • #150
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    In your previous post:
    "For some reason only known to yourself you are constantly making analogies between inert Newtonian physics and Cellular Biology. One of the hard lessons learned in Life Science is that you simply cannot do this"
    Life is a (sometimes only relatively) macro-level phenomenon, so we would generally examine it in macro-level terms, but this does not mean that newtonian physics does not apply.

    Once again, I am not saying living organisms are not subject to Newtonian physics. I am saying to try and understand the mechanisms of life, Newtonian physics is largely irrelevant. To demonstrate this for yourself, compare a living cell with a dead cell, and tell me how Newtonian physics can help you determine which one is alive and which one is dead. Even better, distinguish life from non-life for me in terms of Newtonian physics.
    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    Again, from your last post:
    Yes, in my view nature is what gives it purpose
    Purpose implies consciousness and end objective. Survival, development and reproduction are the outputs of an environment which can give rise to, and sustain, biological entities like us.

    Purpose does not imply consciousness, but I suspect we will not agree on this, so lets let it go.
    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    "Nature is a blind machine" requires the least amount of assumptions and arbitrary defining, therefore it is the null hypothesis.

    "Nature is a blind machine" is an claim that needs evidence, evidence you have failed to provide. The null hypothesis for the universe (equivalent to nature as I explain below) is that the universe we partially observe (4% of it), is the only universe there is. Trying to ascribe specific words like "blind" to something we can only observe 4% of needs backup. Even if you limit yourself to the 4%, to claim this subset of the universe is blind needs evidence.

    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    This is the same nonsense as before.

    It only appears nonsense to you because you do not understand it. I looked back over this thread and you have not written one syllable, word or phrase related to the thread topic. The topic is evolutionary Biology mechanisms, and how recent discoveries impact our understanding of evolution. You desperately want to turn the topic into a discussion of God, but it is not going to happen.
    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    Rain is the outcome of a weather system that, among other conditions, has enough water in the air to make drops. Rain is not the purpose of said weather system.

    There you go again with meaningless analogies. We are discussing living organisms and their mechanisms, rain is not living, nor rubber balls, nor rocks. I have already defined life for you, stick to the topic.
    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    You are still digging for the most generic definitions of normally human centred words (consciousness, sentience, purpose) in order to try and trick people into agreeing with a semantic argument.

    Nonsense. I am defining these terms as they are used in life science, which is a very specific definition, rather than the common usage definition. You are the one defining them in terms of 18th century science.

    Mark Hamill wrote: »
    Nature is just the turbulent chemical environment stuck to the outer layers of the earth, it doesn't have a defence mechanism any more than Mars' atmosphere does.

    Your worst example of confusion so far. From wiki, "Nature" is "the equivalent to the natural, physical or material world or universe. Nature refers to the phenomena of the physical world and life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmos". This may be part of the "talking past each other" problem, as if you define nature as the "chemical environment stuck to the outer layers of the earth", you are on a different page. I am referring to all of the natural world, and the laws of the natural world. The stuff around the surface of the earth is subject to all the laws of nature, just like anything else in the universe.

    We are going nowhere fast with this conversation due to your unwillingness to engage in the actual topic. If you have an interest in the topic, I await your input with interest, otherwise this conversation is getting old. Whether the universe (nature) has purpose or not is an open question, and one by the way that most scientists do not take a firm position on, except for those who are religious and answer yes, and strong atheists who answer no. If you do a bit of research on the topic you will find that scientists across the full spectrum of disciplines are agnostic on the question, and answer "perhaps" or "we don't know".


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  • #151
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,367 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Once again, I am not saying living organisms are not subject to Newtonian physics.

    Then what ARE you saying? Because as I said in the post above, which you have ignored once again, you have laid out your own chosen list of attributes for intelligence and you have not shown how evolution meets ANY SINGLE ONE of them.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    "Nature is a blind machine" is an claim that needs evidence

    But the claim "There is no single reason, much less from you, to view nature as anything BUT a blind machine" is not. And you have done nothing at all to negate such a claim. In fact by your own definition of intelligence you SUPPORT SUCH A CLAIM.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    the universe we partially observe (4% of it), is the only universe there is.

    If that is a claim that YOU want to make then great. But do not stick it in anyone elses mouth. Such a claim is not inherent, or even necessary/required, as part of anything I have seen on this thread so far.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    It only appears nonsense to you because you do not understand it. I looked back over this thread and you have not written one syllable, word or phrase related to the thread topic.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    We are going nowhere fast with this conversation due to your unwillingness to engage in the actual topic.

    Says the guy who made one completely off topic post, related to a thread on a completely different forum, designed only to explain away your complete and utter dodge of my post on this thread.

    I do not think you get to dodge my points, make completely off topic posts, and then act like you have pedestal enough to accuse others of being off topic. Especially others who have debunked your posts thus far as well as Hamill has.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    The topic is evolutionary Biology mechanisms, and how recent discoveries impact our understanding of evolution.

    Great. Then try and go on topic yourself. Because recent discoveries HAVE and CONTINUE to impact out understanding of evolution is many many many ways. Some of which I remain unconvinced of for years but now accept.

    But not one of those new or recent discoveries seems to impact YOUR understanding of evolution in any way by doing anything at all like... for example... supporting it.


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