I make observations and interpret what I see from my own personal perspective and world view. If I am, a creationist, a physicalist, a vitalist, a specialist, religious, atheist or whatever, my explanations will be fashioned accordingly to some extent. Some subjects are more contentious than others, and some people can take a more objective stance than others. The metaphors used in biology frequently demonstrate how life is thought of in mechanistic terms.
Many people may be surprised with the results of a survey discussed in the article, “First worldwide survey of religion and science: No, not all scientists are atheists”
Should the personal beliefs of scientists matter?
I watched the following video, “The Inner Life of the Cell” by Harvard and HHMI narrated by Carol Tydell, a lecturer in physiology. I noted how her descriptions of the cellular components and processes swung between anthropomorphism and a mechanistic viewpoint. (Incidentally, “component” originally used to mean one person within a group, now it more often than not refers to a part of a machine.) I would have preferred if some of the terminology used by Dr Tydell had been rephrased.
According to Tydell, the molecular components are depicted “entirely accurately”. I can assume that the depiction is as accurate as they can make it, but I would add that it’s relatively static and a very much simplified representation of the workings of a living cell.
When she talks about dynein complexes, mitochondria and ribosomes she likes to use terms such as, ‘these guys’ and ‘fellows’. While she may be anthropomorphizing at least she is referring to them as living beings. But she takes if further. Listening to Tydell it sounds like the cell is full of self-conscious, decision making entities with integral goals an desires. I don’t see any of these complexes showing sign of having consciousness on this level.
And at the other extreme, regarding those molecular complexes that are doing something, she says, “We don’t consider them to be alive. They are just proteins”. Would she also say, “Those things that build their mounds in Africa, Australia and South America, we don’t consider them to be alive. They are just termites.”?
She refers to proteins moving like some kind of dinosaur or some kind of machine. Which is it? Are they living or are they dead matter?
I consider protein that is active within organisms to be living substance, not dead matter.
Of all the pieces I’ve listened to or read on the subject of biology, quite a few of them are extremely mechanistic. Dr Tydell is much more even-handed here. Metaphysical naturalism is quite often the order of the day in areas where methodological naturalism is called for.
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make.
I could look at a thermometer, and say:
* The mercury level is near the 65 mark.
Or I could say:
* The temperature is 65 degrees.
The first of those is more mechanical and the second is more intepretive. But even the first involves some interpretation.
Roughly speaking, syntax is mechanical while semantics is interpretational. But language without semantics isn’t very useful. So we really cannot avoid interpretation.
I win?
And why would we want to avoid interpretation? Without interpretation there would be no science. And science is an exclusively human affair.
We have been observing the shadows cast by the sun ever since we have had eyes to see. But it took the ancient Greek, Eratosthenes to compare shadows, interpret the difference, and from this conclude that the earth was shaped like a sphere and estimate its circumference.
In reaching some sort of consensus, our modern creation stories of the universe and of life consist of many assumptions and interpretations. Rather than making a point, I am hoping that this will stimulate discussion on our personal interpretations which we can argue over in a more cordial way than is usually the case. I live in hope. 🙂
Depends on what game you were playing. 🙂
I’m not able to interpret the point you’re trying to make. Sure, brute facts are rarely sufficient to draw meaningful conclusions. But the essence of science is that those conclusions must be testable. In general, it turns out that the eventual consensus conclusion includes more facts than were initially available, and discards facts not relevant. I take the position that reality is what it is, and to the extent that our understanding of it differs, our understanding is to some degree incorrect. We live inside our interpretation of reality, but that doesn’t mean reality is what we think it is. Assumptions and interpretations are a starting point, not an ending point.
This was discussed at length previously over many pages where we touched on dyneins, moth pheromones, quantum information, vitalism, Taq polymerase, urea and crystals. And now, four years later, you have forgotten all about it and repeat exactly the same story at us. Oh well.
Don’t forget to pride yourself on having “stimulated your thinking”.
I didn’t mention brute facts, I was discussing observations as in sense impressions.
Not sure how the big bang is tested.
I don’t think anybody has complete understanding. Our understanding need not be incorrect, it might just be incomplete.
You are so right about reality. It might not align with what we think it is.
Same way as anything people cannot manipulate directly. Cosmologists (or paleontologists, etc.) construct a conceptual model. This is useful, because then you can say “IF this model is correct, we should be able to observe X”, and then look for X. As technology improves, our observations get better. Eventually, they get good enough so that we can say fairly definitively that X is or is not as predicted.
So based on a model, what radiation should we find, and where should we look for it? I’m sure there are quite a few observations we’re capable of making (or will be, with the next generation of instruments, itself directed by what prior observations suggest might exist). And we see what’s expected (test of model passes), or fail to see it (model may be wrong), or see something entirely unexpected (model needs expansion). These are tests.
I honestly don’t seem to remember any arguments that would change my mind about proteins being living substance. Perhaps some give and take is in order. 🙂 You are welcome to point me towards specific arguments stating where I went wrong, or re-submit them here if you wish.
I’m not sure what you’ve got against calling active proteins living substance? What would you say is the difference between protein that is active within a cell and protein in cooked meat?
That would seem futile, if your past performance is any guide: you will just forget the whole conversation ever happened and regurgitate the same rubbish four years later.
The concept “living substance” seems to make no sense. As covered previously, the proteins in cooked meat are partially denatured. This is usually, but not always (also covered previously) an irreversible process.
You tell me, is a sample of pure alpha-galactosidase protein, freeze-dried into a desiccated powder, “living substance”?
I suspect you don’t remember any opposing arguments whatsoever. This is a symptom of a closed mind.
Agreed, but you seem to think this applies to me. Perhaps it is time to start seeking the problem somewhat closer to home?
Asked and answered, Charlie. Click the link in my previous comment, forward to comment page 8 and start reading the thread. You will run into it eventually.
I feel like I am firing a lot of negative comments at you lately and you seem to have similar sentiments, given your wish that we argue in a more cordial way. But it really is pointless to go over all the same arguments again if you do not take criticisms seriously. At least try to understand the objections that are raised, even if you do not agree with them. Otherwise, you will just forget them instantly and will be posting an identical OP in a few years time. You cannot grow intellectually if you will not allow your current beliefs to be challenged.
That sounds very reasonable. Of course observation is limited in that it cannot reach all the way back to the very beginning of the big bang. I see that Hugh Ross, Christian apologist at “Reasons to Believe”, thinks that the big bang theory is the best cosmological argument for the existence of God. He reasons that if space and time had a beginning then there must have been a cause and this cause he attributed to the God of the Bible. And from the beginning it appears to be very finely tuned to produce physical life.
I agree that technological development produces more detailed observations. This brings up further questions in need of answers. Why is the universe so flat? Why does the universe have such an even temperature throughout, the so called horizon problem? These are amongst the questions that theorists are trying to answer. Proposals such as the multiverse and inflation theory are the consequence of trying to find solutions to the problems. But these solutions bring problems of their own. How do they test for a multiverse?
I am currently watching to an interview in which Dr Brian Keating talks to Neil Turok who is deeply involved in this field. It’s a very long talk and I don’t have the time to watch it in one sitting but I’ll get through it eventually.
Much of what humans consider to be rubbish is life sustaining sustenance for bacteria. Please don’t give up 🙂
Yes. Living but dormant. Freezing can result in death, but this isn’t always the case. We know that many eggs and seeds can be frozen and still remain viable. Wood frogs in Alaska are masters of the art of tissue freezing.
I don’t mind doing that. It’s certainly a good idea to revisit what was said in the past. I’ll let you know if I find any glaring errors I might have made. I’ll start here and work forwards, and then if I think it worthwhile I’ll look at our posts prior to page 8.
I’m sure there will be a few things I will regret having said, or at least wish I had said differently. Hindsight is a great thing.
I’m trying to figure out why the world best experts, some of whom claim to be on this bloody blog, would inject themselves with experimental jabs dispite clear evidence from clinical trials more people died in jab cohort vs placebo. Can you explain that?
Cite the evidence or cease making unfounded allegations.
Having had five anti-Covid-19 vaccinations, I can personally confirm the vaccines are not fatal.
No I can’t explain it. Without knowing the details and seeing the available evidence for myself, how could I possibly begin to explain it?
Maybe you could get the evidence together and start a new thread or even resurrect one of the old threads on vaccinations?
I have found a reply you gave here. You wrote:
That didn’t get us very far, so let me ask a follow-up question. Do you agree that cells, cytoplasm, proteins and tissues are either living or the products of life, and they aren’t known to have originated from any other source?
Easily. Because, unlike this guy, they can actually read and understand the literature, so they know that when BNT162b2 got its EUA in December 2020, the patients in the placebo arm were offered the real jab, and almost all of them took it (that was, after all, their goal when they signed up…). So your “placebo” cohort doesn’t have any patients in it any more… hence the low death rate “after unblinding”.
It’s a little sad that J-Mac, who professes such deep knowledge of medical practice, failed to spot this. Oh well.
Yes, cells are living entities and cytoplasm, proteins and tissues are known to be part of living beings.
No, I do not agree that they aren’t known to have originated from any other source, because we can make synthetic proteins. This was discussed as well: organic molecules can be artificially synthesized from inorganic starting materials demonstrating that there is no fundamental distinction between organic and inorganic chemistry. This is a finding from the beginning of the 19th century. I should warn you that biochemistry has advanced a little since then.
That’s a start. 🙂
I did read our discussion about urea starting here. Do you agree that urea is neither cell, nor cytoplasm, nor protein, nor tissue?
Both you and DNA_Jock have directed me to the Wikepedia entry on urea where they give details of the “artificially synthesis” of urea from inorganic compounds. Under normal circumstances urea is produced by processes within living organisms. Under artificial conditions urea is produced by processes set up by humans in labs. Regarding both urea and proteins (synthetic or natural), life in some form is required for their production (either naturally by organisms in general, or artificially by humans). In light of this, your response of “no” makes little sense.
At no time have I thought that the chemicals within life are any different to inorganic chemicals. My argument is that the difference lies in form, not in substance. In life the dynamic arrangement of chemical substances can be attributed to field-like forces which act on them. Why would the compounds and elements within organic nature need any special attributes over and above those present in inorganic nature? They already have the properties required. Water with its properties of a solvent and its ability to float as ice, makes life possible. Carbon as the basis of polypeptides allows for the construction of endless, huge, complex molecules used in living systems. The reactive properties of oxygen which is used in energy production. Those are a few examples of chemical suitability.
The potential is there in the chemistry, all that is missing is the organizing principles.to coordinate the living processes. There is a reason behind the fact that living beings are called organisms.
I think the point is that there are no artificial conditions. Under identical conditions, identical molecules behave identically. If they did not, scientific prediction, hypothesis proposing and testing, would be impossible.
How intelligent is your designer?
Goethe from “Aphorisms on Nature”:
From a Goethean perspective, even the most artificial endeavour is the work of Nature. We are in, and part of, Nature. So our work is Her work.
Consistent but never identical. Sarah Rochelle waxes lyrical on Heraclitus:
The production of urea within organisms is a complex cycle, it cannot be compared to a couple of billiard balls banging together. See the simplified representation below. Exactitude has to give way to probability. Tracing linear causality is fine for mechanics, but it doesn’t get us very far in biology.
What is the collective intelligence of a colony of soldier ants, or a colony of mound building termites? I would say it’s very high.
I used the word “molecules’, Charlie. Heraclitus’ river contains water molecules. All water molecules in the river are identical. At the molecular level, you can’t help but step into the same river.
Very high, compared to what? Innate behaviour patterns in individual ants or termites do not need to be very complex to produce collectively complex outcomes (for some meanings of the word “complex”).
For those unfamiliar with the production of the waste product urea within the body, here is a brief outline as I have composed it after looking on the web:
The amino acid Alanine within muscles combines with Alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG) to form Pyruvate and the amino acid Glutamate, driven by the enzyme Alanine aminotransferase (ALT). The Glutamate is transported to the liver via the blood.
In a two-step process, the enzyme Glutamate dehydrogenase (GLDH, GDH) takes NADP+ and reduces it to NADPH, at the same time oxydysing the Glutamate. Ammonia (NH3), which is very toxic, gets taken out of the Glutamate. A build up of Ammonia can cause cerebral edema. In the second step water is added to the Glutamate which generates Alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG). The Ammonia can gain a proton which converts it into Ammonium (NH4+). It can circulate round the body and end up in the mitochondria of the liver. Here it combines with 2 bicarbonates (HCO3-) in the presence of ATP and driven by the enzyme Carbamoyl phosphate synthetase I (CPS1), it produces the intermediary metabolite Carbamoyl phosphate (CH2NO5P2−).
Essential amino acid Ornathine combines with the Carbommoyathine phosphate converting it to Citrulline (C6H13N3O3). Ornathine transcarbamoylase enzyme (OTC) catalyses this step.
There is a shuttle which pushes the amino acid Malete into the mitochondria and also pushes Asparate out of the mitochondria. The Asparate then combines with the Citrulline to form Argininosuccinate driven by the enzyme Argininosuccinate synthase (ASS). Another enzyme removes Fumerate from the Argininosuccinate which converts it to Arginine. The enzyme controlling this is called Agenosuccinase. A further step converts the Arginine back into Ornithine (completing the urea cycle) during which the enzyme Arginase extracts urea which then gets transported to the kidneys via the blood to be urinated out as a nitrogenous waste product.
Simple as that. Although there is much more going on that I’ve missed out.
I wonder if the vitalists who believed that the urea produced by the organism must have some special quality also believed that the CO2 exhaled had some quality that differentiated it from other sources?
But can it ever be said that two molecules experience identical conditions? Do you think that two molecules can occupy the same space at the same time?
One other thought. Can our arguments have any meaning at the molecular level?
Their specific intelligence seems to be very high compared to the intelligence of any individual organism on the planet including any human.
Try this first. All water molecules are identical under any kind of scientific measurement. All electrons are identical, all protons. At the sub-atomic, atomic and molecular scale, there is no way to keep track of individual particles.
Only in situations such as apply when the Large Hadron Collider is in operation and maybe not then.
Not sure that they have much meaning at the macro scale. 😉
I’m not sure where the collective intelligence of an ant colony or termite mound resides. Where do you suggest it can be found?
I suppose it’s no true
Scotsmanproduct of life.Under that definition, vinyl records, stainless steel toilet brushes and plastic lego figures are “products of life”. I propose that it is your words that make little sense.
and
The problem, as you are well aware, is in demonstrating the existence of those “field-like forces” and “organizing principles” that supposedly operate exclusively in living substance. You haven’t shown they exist. You just typed a lot of stuff that made you feel good, pasted a chunk of irrelevant stuff about urea and cited some poetry. It’s lovely poetry mind you, but I don’t think it really convinced people.
CharlieM,
BTW. What exactly were you trying to accomplish by spamming us with the chunk of mangled biochemistry and the complicated-looking-graph? Are you channeling Sal?
Each water molecule will have its own individual history, the path it has travelled; when it existed in water vapour, liquid or steam; when it first formed out of its constituent elements.
Your answer would appear to be yes, but possibly no.
“Where” implies space and intelligence does not have a spatial quality. The effects of this intelligence can be found in various spaces their structures occupy.
I am simply trying to reach an agreement that urea is known to be created from two sources and both of them involve life.
Of course they are products of life. Would you expect to see such things popping up on any planet where there is no signs of life?
You remember the biologist, Michael Levin who is doing a lot of research into biological fields? The work he is inspiring is a step in the right direction.
We see each other as material objects because we are equipped with the appropriate senses, I know that I am also composed of fields which I do not perceive only because they are too subtle for my senses. These fields are present nonetheless.
The “chunk of mangled biochemistry” that I posted is much closer to your area of expertise than it is to mine. And I’m sure this also applies to other contributors here.
The processes involved in extracting urea and maintaining the correct chemical levels in my body has been in operation since I was conceived and countless chemical reactions are taking place as we speak.
I wrote that brief, somewhat inaccurate summary in the hope that those experts who are interested could lead us through the steps, correcting the errors, giving those of us who are less familiar with the chemistry and activities a better insight into the complexities involved in this specific area of our bodily functions.
You can just say, “What, the processes involved in urea extraction?! Piss off, that would be too too difficult!” 🙂
No it won’t because there is no way to tell one from another.
In other words, if I understand you correctly, water molecules have no history independent of the ability of humans to make distinctions. Is that part of your philosophy?
Well, you are wrong about that, so agreement will not be forthcoming.
No. Sub-atomic particles carry no information of their history. Atoms carry no information of their history. Molecules carry no information of their history. Whether humans exist or not, particles don’t change. All protons are identical, all electrons are identical, all neutrons are identical.
Not a question of philosophy; it’s a scientific fact.
Do you consider toilet brushes to be living substance, not dead matter?
If not, then why on earth did you use the phrase “products of life”, which apparently literally includes the kitchen sink?
Yes sure, but bio-electric patterns are patterns in the resting potential of cells. They do not correspond to the life forces you seek. So when are you going to demonstrate the existence of those “field-like forces” or “organizing principles” that supposedly operate exclusively in living substance? You haven’t shown they exist.
It seems you are right:
So I’ll amend my question.
Are we in agreement that that, at present on earth, urea is known to be created from two sources and both of them involve life?
Here we are discussing, what I consider to be a relatively simple compound, CO(NH2)2. (In the above quote they class urea as a “complex organic molecule” because it consists of eight molecules.) Now picture all those other far more complex interacting compounds and chemical arrangements that are fundamental to life, and are only found to be produced by living systems. It’s no wonder that the origin of life from basic non-living substances is a theory that has never been demonstrated. And it’s not for the want of trying.
Chemical bonds are being made and broken all the time. And it might be too small to measure but the mass of these “particles” does not remain constant. If the standard model is to be believed, reality is constructed from fields, not particles.
That’s a bold statement when talking about sub atomic “particles” at the quantum level.
Of course they have no living substance in them, although there may be bacteria living on them.
Because we are alive and we produce them. I don’t consider wood to be alive, even if it is the product of living trees.
Getting down to basics. In the standard model all particles are excitation of fields and the vacuum excitation value, the total energy value of these fields averages out to zero. But physical existence relies on there being a break in this symmetry. This is where Higgs comes in. The vacuum expectation value, the lowest energy state, of the Higgs field isn’t zero, it’s 246GeV (giga electronvolts). For matter to exist as known by us it must have mass. And massive particles can only form because of the vacuum energy of the Higgs field. Precise measurements of the values associated with fundamental particles says nothing about why they have those values.
Physical matter consists of the focal points of surrounding fields. It is my belief that living matter condenses out of surrounding dynamic fields in like manner to the way crystals condense out of solution. In this way the complexity of life does not just suddenly poof by magic out of dead chemicals. The complexity is already prefigured in the dynamic life field.
I believe this is a more parsimonious explanation than the reliance on so many serendipitous events coming into alignment which has allowed us to be here discussing this.
It’s still a fact that particles, atoms, molecules carry no historical information. I wouldn’t put any store by the idea that particles might be distinguished my mass variation? How do you think the mass of an atom is measured?
Hint.
The German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has a talk on YouTube, What’s Going Wrong in Particle Physics? (This is why I lost faith in science.). She seems to know what she is talking about, but I’m not sure how many people here would enjoy listening to it as her scepticism is running in the wrong direction.