is life really generating order or is it just our false narrative perspective?

lol
to be fair, i think a post eluding to the menu has been made a few posts back.
im fairly sure i saw a glint of a smirk at the god reference.
i might well be wrong though. i often am(everyone needs a hobby)

 

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I personally don't believe there is something more! Thoughts are only chemical reactions and nothing more. Its difficult for us to see it, for the same reason that the fish will be the last animals to discover and understand water. Our perception range is limited due to the fact that the brain is a tool that enables us to perceive the world in a limited scale that is needed for our survival. It is highly driven by insticts and deep wishes, and with one way or another it helps us to survive and reproduce, playing the game of nature at the end of the day!!

Seems that you are closer than me to pull the god (or magic) card...

I agree! Nice point! But just because everyone is doing this doesn't mean its right or it shouldn't be questioned. If you remove that definition of order, then biology merges to chemistry. Their difference becomes only a matter of our specific perspective. And if you think of it deeply, biology if studied in detail is like studying chemistry. However, people tend to consider that biology is something distinct or different, but that difference is super elusive. Its this order that you said.
I personally don't see why biology and chemistry are anything different. And removing order from the picture, not only is very attractive, but makes perfect sense if you think of it a bit deeper.

 

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do you think geneticists are holding back to prevent conservatives from playing the crazy-panic-3-headed-baby-is-eating-your-baby card ?

 

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I do not follow why you are making a big deal out of "order". At the most basic level, the whole of science is about uncovering, classifying and modelling the order in nature. Order in that sense is implicit in the whole discipline and cannot be removed from it, so I presume that cannot be what you mean.

You seem to focus on biology. Most of biology does not involve thinking about "order" as such. Biochemists will, like all chemists, rely on chemical thermodynamics, which involves entropy as a term in determining free energy (ΔG = ΔH -TΔS, etc.). And entropy is a concept related to statistical order and disorder, in a specifically defined way (S=k lnW). But that is not the same as being preoccupied with "order" as an explicit subject of study.

There is one area in which order is effectively studied in biology and that is in the application of information theory to biology. This can be controversial but is generally seen as helpful for constructing theories of how genetic information develops.

But none of these ideas is subjective or observer-dependent, as you seem to be suggesting.

 

Thank god for that

Although this post seems to refute the claim you don't believe there is something more

The brain is restricted to perceive stuff, via the nervous system, in the world which is real

Brain is not equipped to detect stuff which does not exist

In fact I do not know of any equipment which is

Both of which DO NOT EXIST

As CONCEPTS (thoughts in the brain yes) but I have already mentioned thoughts do not exist

CONCEPTS are non detectable, are unable to be measured, have no weight (mass), non height, no length, no breadth, no anything

Nobody has seen instincts or deep wishes

But carry on, I am waiting for the meal to arrive

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I'm not sure why we are talking about disorder or entropy. Most of the entropy in the Universe is related to black holes. Most of the Universe that we inhabit is pretty ordered by comparison.

Sure our thoughts are just chemical reactions and electric impulses. That's all there is but it's enough as that is reality.

The meal that hasn't been served yet would appear to be an argument that chemical reactions and electric impulses aren't enough to explain our world and therefore God is the missing ingredient.

This is a meal that isn't needed. Why do all scientific topics either end in woo or in God (same thing)?
Are there any actual mainstream scientific topics in the scientific sub-forums?

 

Yes, there are. And often a thread with a silly start to it will involve some real science in the responses, from which various amongst us learn something.

 

And often the real motivation was religious or pseudo-science in nature and not about the sub-forum in which the discussion is taking place. You can potentially learn something in any forum. We could talk about how to cook a meal in a religion forum and we might learn something but it wouldn't be religious in nature.

 

being 100% pro artistic expression i would not wish to impede the process if it were just a throw away comment at the noise of life(read religious dogma etc).

 

So what is your point?

As far as I'm concerned I come here to teach and learn science and I do not mind very much what the motives were for the start of a particular thread, so long as some interesting science ensues. (One of my favourite examples was Timojin's about the Flood, which resulted in some highly interesting stuff about the rate of flooding of the Persian Gulf after the last ice age and even salt "volcanoes" in the Zagros mountains, neither of which I had previously known anything about.) We may yet get some science out of this one too.

Though if Arfa shows up and starting delving into information theory in a serious way, I'll soon be left behind.

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That's exactly my thoughts. Biology does not study order as such.
I am just so tired and annoyed of the way people (and even serious scientists) all the time abuse the terms negentropy, order or organization in order to define biological systems or to differentiate biology from chemistry. These are all imaginary concepts (didn't arise from true scientific experiments). As such, they constantly feed pseudo-scientific debates, because they probably don't even exist. For instance creationists try to fill the obvious gap between simple thermodynamics and spontaneous extreme self-organization with divine intervention.

 

What obvious gap would this be? Thermodynamics applies to everything, so even "extreme self-organisation" will obey its laws. Where's the "gap"?

Also, can you provide an example of these people who talk about order or organisation to distinguish biology from chemistry? I don't think I have come across this. My understanding is that the usual distinction is that biology is concerned with systems that are alive.

 

In that case, I guess you agree that order, organization or negentropy in biology are largely pseudo-scientific concepts.
And that those who embrace them are fishing in the same pond as the creationists

 

No more than in physics or chemistry or any other science.

What pond that may be is a bit mysterious, but we are given clues.
First clue:

That's a new one.
Entropy, disorder, and disorganization are - presumably - acceptable. But "negentropy", order, and organization, are "imaginary concepts".
Second clue:

The rest of the world understands that there is no such gap.

And that's my guess for the "pond" referred to above - that gap.

 

You clearly understand my point and are disagreeing with it.

 

Life doesn't act randomly. It reproduces, making random matter into ordered matter, simple elements into complex molecules, metal ores into functional machines. It plainly creates local order out of disorder.

 

Still sitting at the table here

Table set

No entree - no meal - no dessert - no coffee and almost time to go home

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wait! don't go just yet! we are gonna serve some lobster pasta. We will serve some champagne as well

I seriously doubt it

How do you define order or functional machines? Isn't this too anthropocentric?
Also, life doesn't eat simple elements and make complex molecules. Living beings eat...other living beings, that are made by also complex macro-molecules. Nearly half of the reactions are anabolic and half are catabolic. To just pick the anabolic ones and say that we have a local increase in order wherever they happen is wrong, because you are ignoring the rest of the system by cherry picking parts that cannot be separated from the rest of the system.

 

WRONG

People, in the main, eat dead stuff. Said dead stuff contains ingredients which your body can use

Body breaks down to stuff to small enough bits. Small enough to move around the body to where needed

Essentially down to simple elements and reassemble them back into complex forms used by the body

Swollow a nail. It will be broken to tiny bits most of which will finish up in the pancreas. There some bits with be put into red blood cells

Red blood cells passing through the lungs will use the iron to pick up oxygen

Red blood cells going around the body will come across other cells with a lower oxygen content

A deal is done and the red blood cell gives oxygen to the cell which needs it, and picks up rubbish from the cell, carbon dioxide

That is a PROCESS and enables the cell to grow and copy itself

NONE OF THE CHEMICALS ARE IN AND OF THEMSELVES ARE ALIVE

REPEAT

NONE OF THE CHEMICALS ARE IN AND OF THEMSELVES ARE ALIVE

Life is the PROCESS in which they are engaged

Don't confuse the PROCESS with the INGREDIENTS

Since each cell undergoes Anabolic and Catabolic reactions you can define a human as being a collection of living cells, of which, some group together to make specialist systems, which work in a collective arrangement to make up a body

Can I have my lobster (un pastarised) now please and champagne please?

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