What is life?

My last post elicited several interesting critical comments. The supposition behind these comments was that I didn't know much, or maybe anything, about the workings of the cell, and that if I would only educate myself by reading a little about it, all my questions would be answered. To this I would say, first, that I actually have read a bit about microbiology, and while I'm no expert, I probably have an educated layman's grasp of the subject. I do know, for instance, what a catalyst is, and I have no need to look it up (as one commenter helpfully recommended). But, second, the information supplied in books about microbiology does not address my questions at the level at which they were asked.

There is a great deal of valuable and fascinating data available to describe the biochemical processes constantly taking place within the cell. But as long as the discussion remains at the level of description, I'm afraid it will inevitably be somewhat superficial. As I said in one of my comments, it is like explaining the action of retrieving a file from a file cabinet by describing the muscular movements of the hand that opens the cabinet drawer and removes the document. While this explanation is correct as far as it goes, it doesn't go far enough -- because it omits the whole purpose that gives rise to the action in the first place. And of course it omits the intelligence, the consciousness, that makes the concept of purpose possible.

Looking through my books on biology, I found some interesting thoughts on this subject by molecular biologist Franklin M. Harold, in his book The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life (2001). In his opening chapter, Harold brings up a popular book on biology titled What Is Life?, written in 1944 by the famed quantum physicist Erwin Schroedinger. Harold goes on to say:

Schroedinger wrote at the beginning of an extraordinary era of biological science, a great eruption of knowledge that cast a brilliant light into the chemical and physical foundations of life.... By 1975, it was becoming a tedious but routine task to determine the primary structure of macromolecules.... The pathways by which the major biological molecules are produced and broken down had been worked out. Enzymes continued to challenge the chemical imagination, but how they ensure the high rate and precision of biochemical processes had in principle been clarified. In principle, though not yet in detail, biochemists had discovered how living organisms capture energy and harness it to the performance of work. But the single most spectacular accomplishment was the solution to ... the nature of the gene. It led quickly to the discovery of the principles that govern the replication, transmission and expression of genetic information....

Can we say then, that the riddle of life has been read -- or soon will be, pending only the clarification of a few outstanding details? Those who believe that the object of the quest is to discover the physical and chemical mechanisms that underlie universal biological processes may be inclined to nod assent. But anyone familiar with living creatures will protest that the compendium of molecules and mechanisms omits the very singularities that answer to one's intuitive sense of what "life" means. surely, a satisfying reading of Schroedinger's riddle should have something to say about cells.... And it should bear on the kind of observations with which biology has traditionally been concerned: morphology, structure serving function, goal-seeking behavior, reproduction, adaptation. It must, in short, take cognizance of organisms in all their complexity, uniqueness and diversity....

So, what is life? The question is as good as ever. Despite decades of spectacular advances, the essential nature of life continues to elude us. We know much and explain more, but one sometimes suspects that our capacity to explain has outstripped our understanding.

Near the end of the book, in Chapter 10, Harold returns to this distinction between explanation and understanding when he quotes another biologist, Erwin Chargaff:

Now one could say, at the risk of some superficiality, that there exist principally two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the world, to know nature; the others, far more frequent, wish to explain it. The first are searching for truth, often with the knowledge that they will not attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world.

Harold then proceeds:

Fifty years after Schroedinger wrote his little book, his challenge still hangs in the air. What is life? Having learned so much about molecules and mechanisms, structures and functions, physiology and ecology and ontology and phylogeny, why are we still at a loss for a satisfying answer?... The reason has much to do with the difference between explanation and understanding. We are quickly learning to explain the workings of the biological machinery and even how organisms came to be as we find them, but we have no persuasive answer to the question why life exists in the first place. Loren Eiseley, thirty years ago, was baffled by "the hunger of the elements to become life," and we are not much wiser today. There is nothing in the textbooks of physics and chemistry to forbid a world that teams with bacteria and butterflies, but there is also nothing that would lead one to expect the world to be of this nature. The crux of the matter is that living organisms cannot be rationally and systematically deduced from the principles that generally do account for the properties of inanimate matter....

The reason that many thoughtful persons continue to find life perplexing, even mysterious, is that sharp division between the organic and inorganic spheres. The distinction turns on those characteristics that are universally associated with entities we designate as living, but essentially absent from nonliving ones: intricate organization and purposeful behavior that unfold over time, both on the individual level and that of the total assemblage. Here yawns a great chasm that all biological scientists recognize, but many are deeply reluctant to acknowledge.

There is clearly something special about living things that has not declared itself from beneath our vast heap of knowledge, and that seems to stand outside the circle of light that contemporary research strives to enlarge. What we lack is an understanding of the principles that ultimately make living organisms living, and in their absence we cannot hope to integrate the phenomenon of life into the familiar framework of physical law. I am not here to advocate a veiled vitalism, nor to sneak in a creator by the back door. But I do insist that until we have forged rational links between the several domains of science, our understanding of life will remain incomplete and even superficial. Until that impasse is overcome, we cannot refute philosophers, skeptics, religious believers and mystics who suspect that science is sweeping out of sight the very mystery that it purports to elucidate.

This is a profoundly honest and meaningful statement. My only disagreement is that I am by no means sure that the mystics et al. can be refuted; indeed, I strongly suspect they are in the right and that some form of "vitalism" or "a creator" is really required to make sense of life at the deepest level. Of course, this need not take the form of some occult doctrine or complicated theological construct. It may be as simple -- and as fundamental -- as acknowledging that intelligence, consciousness, Mind, is the basis for all physical phenomena.

Comments

[Zerdini]

We are back to Consciousness again!

It reminded me to look up Schroedinger's Cat:

Schroedinger's cat

Schrödinger's cat is a famous illustration of the principle in quantum theory of superposition , proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. Schrödinger's cat serves to demonstrate the apparent conflict between what quantum theory tells us is true about the nature and behavior of matter on the microscopic level and what we observe to be true about the nature and behavior of matter on the macroscopic level.

Here's Schrödinger's (theoretical) experiment: We place a living cat into a steel chamber, along with a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. There is, in the chamber, a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. Since we cannot know, the cat is both dead and alive according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive). This situation is sometimes called quantum indeterminacy or the observer's paradox : the observation or measurement itself affects an outcome, so that the outcome as such does not exist unless the measurement is made. (That is, there is no single outcome unless it is observed.)

We know that superposition actually occurs at the subatomic level, because there are observable effects of interference, in which a single particle is demonstrated to be in multiple locations simultaneously. What that fact implies about the nature of reality on the observable level (cats, for example, as opposed to electrons) is one of the stickiest areas of quantum physics. Schrödinger himself is rumored to have said, later in life, that he wished he had never met that cat.

[Kevin Hines]

Life is when chemistry and physics become biology.

That isn't my real answer, but I always loved that thought. This is another blog that I feel the need to comment about (can't you let a man sleep Mr. Prescott?! hehe). I'll get on it as soon as I get home much later tonight.

[drknow]

"I strongly suspect they are in the right and that some form of "vitalism" or "a creator" is really required to make sense of life at the deepest level."

Are you saying you think cells were engineered and then left to run themselves or that there is some paranormal/supernatural force organizing them as they do their thing? The latter is vitalism right?

The fact that cells are very complex seems to me to point towards the model where they run themselves. The more complex something is, with so many things happening in all the cells in all the organizms in the universe would be too complex for an intelligence to organize. Why wouldn't they be designed to run themselves? Why build an adding machnie where you have to pull the lever for every addition when you can build a computer and let a program run itself?

How do you think vitalism works anyway?

[Ben]

Sometimes “God of the Gaps", so often trotted out as a dismissive retort, can be a perfectly valid argument.

As science has analysed and described the universe this last century, it has revealed a number of staggering "gaps". Complexity has appeared at lower and lower levels - levels at which, according to naturalism/materialism, we ought to be finding simplicity, not complexity.

In biology, the idea that life could arise out of the bringing together of a few simple chemicals in primitive conditions is now acknowledged as a non-starter (eg it is now thought probable that thermophilic bacteria existed not long after the Earth was formed, not giving time for random processes to act on a proposed “chemical soup”). And as biologists have gained the ability to examine the macro-structure of the "simplest" cells, they've discovered that they're not simple at all. The most "primitive" organisms turn out to have almost as much complexity as the most "advanced" - contrary to the predictions of naturalism.

Physical life is an emergent property of the complex molecular biology of living cells. It is more than what could be predicted on the basis of the known principles of chemistry and biochemistry because living cells are capable of the endless process of metabolism and self-replication, and do not merely follow a one-way path of chemical reactions that lead directly to a final, low-energy state. In other words, life is a property that is simultaneously a product of the constituents and dynamics of the cell, but is nonetheless more than the sum of its parts.

As Matt Chait says, there is no intelligent biologist (as opposed to a presumed “dumb and unintelligent nature”) who can create a living cell by simply placing the necessary components inside of a bilipid membrane, stirring, then sitting back to watch his creation “go”. Somehow, the internal coordination of the cell must be initiated in a coherent manner.

The building blocks of life, the DNA code, turns out to be the most intricate and complicated code known to man; its origin is a total mystery to naturalism, because there is nothing intrinsic in the nature of amino acids that requires them to construct themselves into codes. The DNA code reveals deliberate, detailed, fine-tuned complexity. The complexity of life is not reducible to simplicity, but is fundamental to it.

This is a pattern being repeated over and over. (Quantum Physics is simple, anyone?) Naturalism/Materialism predicts that as we get "lower down", we will find more simplicity; in fact, as we get lower down, we discover fundamental complexity. There is an enormous reality gap between naturalism's/materialism’s possibilities, and the universe which actually exists. It is therefore perfectly valid to believe that the Universe is shot through with Intelligence.

[drknow]

"Of course, this need not take the form of some occult doctrine or complicated theological construct. It may be as simple -- and as fundamental -- as acknowledging that intelligence, consciousness, Mind, is the basis for all physical phenomena."

If matter is created by mind that does explains anything about how cellular machinery operates. We still have matter behaving as we observe it.

If you want to say that all matter is a product of mind and biological reactions are the same as any chemical reaction I don't care to express an opinion about that. My objection is that somehow biochemistry is different from chemistry.

For the intelligence theory to be substantially different from the chemical model of the cell you have to have some kind of forces that are attributable to intelligence that occur in biological reactions that do not occur in non-biological reactions.

Do you think enzymes are intelligent, they use esp to find their substrates and use pk to make them react?

How does this intelligence know the difference between a biological reaction and an ordinary chemical reaction?

[Cloud9]

drknow:
"Why build an adding machine where you have to pull the lever for every addition when you can build a computer and let a program run itself?"

Materialists have somehow convinced themselves that hardware produces software which produces intentions. Do you not see the major flaw in that? My brain has no needs, no wants, no desires. Those are found only in my mind, which daily directs my brain and body to take action as needed for the purposes of my mind. That's that.

There is no escaping the fact that our best current mental models of fine matter clearly indicate that the observer/mind is highly relevant to all that is observable. Not so new and not so uncommon after all... ancient wisdom of the East.

The worshippers of matter are monists who've made an inadequate choice for fundamental "stuff." Information informs mind, or it informs nothing at all.

It takes an incredible leap of imagination and some hypnotic faith to believe that dumb matter just accidentally happened to develop and expand a way to "know itself."

drknow:
“How does vitalism work?”

If (above), Mind is fundamental, then it works through choices. Those choices become more complex in hierarchical organisation.

At one level, the computers you mentioned make choices. They make only the choices they are programmed to make. They do this through logic applied to machine language. For example, a line of code might say; if A then 1, else 0. The processor checks the value of an input to see if it is A, which it will assign 1, else it assigns 0. Pretty simple really, but this ability came from a *mind *.

Atoms are mental constructs that make choices, eg an atom chooses the appropriate photon to knock its electron to a higher level.

At a higher level still, the cell… then in multicellular organisms, the whole organism makes choices, eg choices for personal survival or offspring survival. Then, beyond that, at the human level, higher ethical and moral choices become possible. So choices are embedded within choices. All apparent dualisms exist within a larger monism, which contains all features of all subsets. Yes, correlations can and do exist, because of the connections within a larger whole.

Though it’s true that many human choices are simple binary choices, overall Mind has purposes suited to the degree of mental complexity, which seems to correlate well with physical complexity. If we cannot draw some line at which mind/consciousness suddenly jumps from absent to present, we may infer that mind is somehow inherent in the larger system... and is allowed more or less physical expression/influence by more or less physical complexity/mechanisms.

And before you go into apoplexy, I naturally concur that our entire experience of physical life in the body is affected by the body. The brain is part of the body! Of course brain damage causes altered human experiences and expression, and brain death causes a complete detachment from the human body. Why? It no longer functions for mind to direct and receive feedback from. As to the nature of mind itself, it never ceases to be. It simply shifts focus and connections, endlessly.

Incidentally, logic dictates that there can never be material evidence that mind cannot exist apart from material evidence ;-)

[drknow]

Cloud9,

I think you replied to my first post on this thread while I was writing my second. I think the second addresses the issues you bring up.

I'm not saying mind is a product of matter. I'm saying you have to explain why/how biochemistry is different from non biological chemistry. If it isn't, then the complexity of biology is not evidence for intelligence at work.

[Hope Rivers]

DrKnow, don't you think you should rename yourself DrIdontknow?

[Michael Prescott]

My objection is that somehow biochemistry is different from chemistry.

Will you grant that biochemical operations are orders of magnitude more complex than purely chemical operations? And that biochemical operations at least appear to be purposeful in a way that purely chemical operations do not?

To repeat part of the quote from Franklin Harold, with emphasis added:

"The distinction turns on those characteristics that are universally associated with entities we designate as living, but essentially absent from nonliving ones: intricate organization and purposeful behavior that unfold over time, both on the individual level and that of the total assemblage. Here yawns a great chasm that all biological scientists recognize, but many are deeply reluctant to acknowledge."

[Cloud9]

Drknow:
“..you have to explain why/how biochemistry is different from non biological chemistry. If it isn't, then the complexity of biology is not evidence for intelligence at work.”

You don’t see DNA as a complex molecule with a complex function? DNA does not replicate except when in a living cell.

So far as multicellular life is concerned, it is different at the level of organisation. The complexity is in the synchronization of processes which keep the organism intact and functioning as an integral unit: a single being.

[drknow]

"intricate organization and purposeful behavior that unfold over time, both on the individual level and that of the total assemblage"

The use of the word "purposeful" implies an a priori belief intelligence is involved. In the context of cellular activity saying that it is purposeful and that purpose indicates inteligence is involved is circular reasoning. You are first assuming what you are trying to prove.

It is complex no doubt, but how do you know it is purposeful? How do you measure purpose? You have to ask the intelligence, "did you do that on purpose?".

Snowflakes form beautiful crystaline patterns, grow and merge to form snow banks and then later melt or form glaciers grind out geological features. Is this purposeful?

I really don't see what complexity has to do with it. That is the basis of my objection. Biological reactions can be explained by what we know about atoms even though they are complex. Generally I'm not a big fan of occam's razor if if there was ever a place for it, it seems to me that this would be a good place to apply it.

I think it would illuminating if you explained how you think intelligence is involved at the cellular level and how that intelligence effects cellular events.

Does God consciously monitor and control every molecule? I don't see how we can have free will if God controls us down to the level of the molecule. I don't find it compelling to think that any intelligent being would want to spend his time controlling every molecule in every cell in every organizism in the universe.

Is a cell intelligent? When a cell devides does the new cell get a new intelligence? Intelligent beings have to learn. Is there a school for cells where they learn to grow and metabolize? Unless the intelligence has to learn how can you say it is intelligence.

Maybe a cell is a machine made out of non-self aware bits of consciousness and matter derives from consciousness but that is just another type of machine and all your objections to the biological machine would apply to this view as well.

[drknow]

"You don’t see DNA as a complex molecule with a complex function? DNA does not replicate except when in a living cell."

DNA can be replicated in test tube using enzymes extracted from cells. The same is true for RNA transcription, and protein synthesis.

[drknow]

"Maybe a cell is a machine made out of non-self aware bits of consciousness and matter derives from consciousness but that is just another type of machine and all your objections to the biological machine would apply to this view as well."

There seems to be two schools of thought among believers in the paranormal. The "mainstream" parapsychologists think consciousness and psi can be explained by matter for example consciousness is derived from the brain and psi from quantum mechanical effects like entanglement.

Other people (lots of commenters here) believe that mind is some kind of pure thing that has nothing in common with matter yet can some now bring matter into being and control it, while mind itself is irreducible, incomprehensible and unknowable. Maybe Godels theorem proves this.

I prefer a third hypothesis. Consciousness and psi are evidence that we don't understand everything about the universe but that we can potentially understand them if we probe scientifically. Mind/consciousness/intelligence is not irreducible, it can be understood through reductionism but we just are not there yet.

[Michael Prescott]

DNA can be replicated in test tube using enzymes extracted from cells.

My understanding is that only fragments of DNA have been replicated in a test tube, using the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) method. As this article states, "A fragment of DNA that accounted for one part in three million in the original sample now fills the whole test tube."

While replicating one part of three million is impressive, it's not the same as replicating the entire DNA molecule.

It should be noted, as well, that the test tube must be repeatedly subjected to severe temperature changes in order to get the replication to occur. In other words, extreme methods are necessary to force the replication; it doesn't happen automatically.

Is a cell intelligent?

Probably. It adapts creatively to changing conditions in its environment.

Does God consciously monitor and control every molecule?

God is immanent, as well as transcendent.

I don't see how we can have free will if God controls us down to the level of the molecule.

The distinction between "God" and "us" is misleading. We are all part of God, and God is part of us.

Namaste. :-)

[Cloud9]

OK drknow!
DNA does not replicate *to any purpose* outside of a cell. The scientist substitutes himself for a small part of the natural process, by using his intelligence to assemble the same ingredients as used by the natural process.

One of my hobbies is winemaking. I put the yeast in with the must. Sometimes, my wife is grateful for the finished product. I am grateful for the wisdom of the yeast.

[Michael H]

I am by no means sure that the mystics et al. can be refuted; indeed, I strongly suspect they are in the right and that some form of "vitalism" or "a creator" is really required to make sense of life at the deepest level. Of course, this need not take the form of some occult doctrine or complicated theological construct. It may be as simple -- and as fundamental -- as acknowledging that intelligence, consciousness, Mind, is the basis for all physical phenomena.

Exactly, MP.

These last two threads remind me of the ontological question presented by the matter/mind/math triangle addressed in a physics paper linked from Ulrich Mohrhoff’s site, http://thisquantumworld.com/ht/index.php>This Quantum World. Mohrhoff introduces the paper and the lack of consensus as follows:

Both the diversity of opinion and the lack of wide support jump out of a recent article in which Piet Hut, Mark Alford, and Max Tegmark discuss the famous matter — mind — mathematics triangle. (Matter appears to produce mind, mind appears to be the creator of mathematics, and mathematics appears to be the foundation of matter.)

For Tegmark, matter is essentially mathematics, and mind is the "feel" of information being processed. For Alford, mathematics is a creation of the human mind. For Hut, matter, mind, and mathematics co-emerge from a source beyond the three M's.

The http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0510/0510188v2.pdf>linked piece (PDF) introduces the problem, and the varying approaches:

We discuss the nature of reality in the ontological context of Penrose’s math-matter-mind triangle. The triangle suggests the circularity of the widespread view that math arises from the mind, the mind arises out of matter, and that matter can be explained in terms of math. Non-physicists should be wary of any claim that modern physics leads us to any particular resolution of this circularity, since even the sample of three theoretical physicists writing this paper hold three divergent views. Some physicists believe that current physics has already found the basic framework for a complete description of reality, and only has to fill in the details. Others suspect that no single framework, from physics or other sources, will ever capture reality. Yet others guess that reality might be approached arbitrarily closely by some form of future physics, but probably based on completely different frameworks. We will designate these three approaches as the fundamentalist, secular and mystic views of the world, as seen by practicing physicists. We present and contrast each of these views, which arguably form broad categories capturing most if not all interpretations of physics. We argue that this diversity in the physics community is more useful than an ontological monoculture, since it motivates physicists to tackle unsolved problems with a wide variety of approaches.

The balance of the paper explores the three views at some depth. Hut’s introduction to the mystic view encapsulates where I suspect we are heading, eventually:

I take a mystic view of science. I expect science to metamorphose into something so different that it is literally inconceivable for us.

The reason I like the word ‘mystic’ is that the future science I envision will be so different from current science, and the role of elements such as math and experiments will be so different from what they are now, that we have not the foggiest idea of what these will look like. The structures of a future science will remain a mystery, and the only thing we can be pretty sure of is that our current lines of reason will be seen to be naive and superficial, compared with the newer and deeper insights.

So let me be clear: the word ‘mystic’ for me points to a form of probing into mysteries, as it was meant in Medieval times. Note that mystics were very keen to try to show structure and to enumerate parts of that structure – the term ‘mystic’ just happened to get a bad rap later on, and is now unjustifiably associated with attempts to confuse and muddle a situation.

I not only agree with Hut, but as I posted in the previous thread, I think that the key to the wide acceptance of Hut’s mystic view of science will come about as a consequence of insights in the fields of philosophy and psychology which have already been articulated, not as a consequence of new discoveries in the hard sciences. Peter Kingsley argues that our current lines of reason are naïve and superficial, resulting from the loss of the western wisdom tradition that preceded Plato and Aristotle. The school of Health Realization in psychology suggests that anyone can familiarize themselves with an understanding of three simple psychological principles that are working in concert to create everyone’s experience of life moment-to-moment. They are each suggesting that the nature of reality cannot be known through investigation of any physical (or superphysical) phenomena, because, as MP suggests above, “intelligence, consciousness, Mind, is the basis for all physical phenomena.”

This suggestion is met with tremendous resistance at the moment. I suspect this is because it is widely assumed to be anti-intellectual on the one hand, and anti-faith on the other. It is not anti-intellectual or anti-faith, though understanding it does require a different use of the mind than we are accustomed to. Once one understands the different use of the mind for themselves, they discover that they still have an intellect and they still have faith, though their understanding of each is permanently altered. As Hut writes, the term mystic has received a bad rap. Mysticism does not mean abandoning the search for structure or knowledge, or abandoning reason and science. Sri Aurobindo is an example of a mystic who was dedicated to understanding structure and knowledge, Teilhard de Chardin was another. Every genuine mystic in history has realized One mind as the foundation of existence, and anyone who has done so realizes that a Mind that gives rise to the entire cosmos is not easily understood or explained.

Confusing things further is that all of the mystical attempts to explain it have led to the occult doctrines and complicated theological constructs that MP also mentioned, and accepting any of these as absolute can also lead someone away from realizing it for themselves. Whether someone believes something, or rejects something, either choice will prevent someone from knowing. Knowing is a matter of looking beyond all beliefs, which is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. To know involves admitting that we know nothing, and precious few are willing to abandon the ego to that extent.

I am hopeful that a deep appreciation for the mystical approach to ontology will return to humanity, though I often wonder if it will arrive without severe global consequences resulting from the collective rejection of mysticism over the centuries. At some point it will be widely understood that the mystics have always been attempting to describe the real. It’s an understanding that can’t arrive soon enough.

[Pete]

The post heading is "What is Life?"

Life is what we won't have the quality of in 8 years time:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/01/climatechange.carbonemissions

Academic claptrap.

drknow, I don't know what you mean by "mainstream parasychologists, but I think most pararsychologists see psi as strong evidence against reductionism. Most parasychologists would endorse NDE research, past life memory research, etc. too. And we don't just rely on parapsychology as evidence that the mind is irreducible, but on all sorts of paranormal phenomena.

[drknow]

"I don't know what you mean by "mainstream parasychologists"

Specifically I was thinking of the author of "Entangled Minds" who speculated in that book that microtubules or ion channels are involved quantum entanglement and that has something to do with psi. It seems to me if you are going to try to explain how psi works by means of brain structures that implies you believe consciousness and psi arise from matter.

[Leo MacDonald]

Not really look at Dr.Stuart Hameroff and Physicist Roger Penrose theory that the information leaks out into space which is stored in the microtubles. According to the theory orch it gets entangled creating a dreamlike afterlife.

[drknow]

"Most parasychologists would endorse NDE research, past life memory research, etc. too."

In my opinion the only evidence that suggests mind is independent of matter (as we currently understand matter) is the evidence for survival after death.

To me, the rest of the paranormal evidence just shows there are things in the universe that physicists haven't discovered yet.

I really don't follow the arguments that reductionism can't explain consciousness. It seems to me we just haven't found the right paticles or waves or whatever it is. It seems to me those arguing against reductionism are discouraged because we don't have the right pieces now so they assume we'll never be able to do it.

Why do you think consciousness can't be explained or understood by reductionism?

My thinking on this is highly influenced by the book, "The Unobstructed Universe" by Stewart White (who wrote down information coming from a medium).

The way things work, as explained in that book is that the ultimate reality is consciousness, form is an attribute of consciousness, consciousness is a frequency, differences in frequency define different levels of evolution of consciousness (stone vs tree vs human). Their physics explains that essence of motion is frequency (motion includes movement through space and developmental processes biological growth), the essence of time is receptivity, the essence of space conductivity. The imagery reminds me of a radio receiver receiving frequencies conducted through space. Something exists once it is recieved in time and this results in the conservation of matter and energy. Physical matter is a result of the "arrestment" of frequency.

It leaves many questions unanswered but also says that all laws of nature are detectable by us in the physical plane.

I can't say how it really explains anything currently unknown or allows for predictions. I've been puzzling over it for a while. I've been trying to find similarities in modern physics and have worked my way through "entangled minds", "the holographic universe" and I am now wading through Bohm's "Wholeness and the Implicate Order".

One aspect of the holographic paradigm, and in quantum physics that seems to agree is that ultimately all things are waves.

Links to "the unobstructed universe" and some related books can be found here:

http://www.spiritwritings.com/library.html

The book is also interesting in that it describes some of the difficulties in communicating through mediums. The medium can't have too many opinions on the subject or their mind will color the information. So you can't have a scientist be the medium. The spirit communicating to the medium needs to have a similar "vibration" ie mind set or personality, so the spirit can't be a scientist either. The scientist spirits have to communicate through this communicating spirit. Then it gets written down by Mr. White who is a novelist not a scientist. So while very thought provoking the book is not very satisfactory as a scientific treatise.

[Michael H]

Why do you think consciousness can't be explained or understood by reductionism?

Speaking solely for myself, and as concisely as I can put it, I think it will eventually be widely understood that consciousness or "mind" is the ground of being. Consequently, reductionism will never be a able to explain consciousness by focusing on the the nature of any objective phenomena, because all objective phenomena is a manifestation of consciousness, not the other way around.

Understanding consciousness requires looking in the other direction. The question the scientists need to ask themselves is: what is the true nature of this subjective consciousness I'm using to investigate objective reality? Understanding one's own consciousness requires that one use their mind differently; one needs to learn to observe the observer. Those that do so will eventually discover that 'what is being investigated' and 'what is doing the investigation' are just different aspects of the same thing: the One fundamental reality.

[william]

“The way things work, as explained in that book is that the ultimate reality is consciousness, form is an attribute of consciousness, consciousness is a frequency, differences in frequency define different levels of evolution of consciousness”

This statement cross validates very well with the reading I have done on this subject. I suspect some day we humans will be able to tap into and maybe even measure and possibly duplicate this frequency to better facilitate healing in physical and mental health.

Findlay’s book on the edge of the etheric also supports this statement quoted above. The only word I would add is the word vibration. Consciousness not only is a frequency but apparently this frequency has the attributes of vibration.

Once during a dream (visitation?) I was allowed to experience this vibration of another entity and it was out of this world breathtaking to say the least. Experiencing a loving and compassionate “spirit’s” vibratory energy field is an awesome experience.

[drknow]

Let me anticipate a question...

Q. If you believe matter might be an attrribute of consciousness, how can you say that a cell isn't conscious?

A. I never said a cell is not conscious. I said that cellular biochemistry occurs automatically because of the properties of atoms and molecules and is not fundamentally different from non biological chemistry.

I am conscious but I don't consciously digest food. I have a physical body that does things automatically with out requiring my attention. Maybe a cell is just like that.

Maybe atoms are primarily consciousness before they become physical but that doesn't mean they form molecules because they love each other. They still interact as atoms because of physical laws not because of innate purposes or desires.

Maybe love is really is electrical attraction, maybe quantum wave functions are consciousness, but that is not sufficient to distinguish biochemistry from other types of chemical reactions.

[william]

“Those that do so will eventually discover that 'what is being investigated' and 'what is doing the investigation' are just different aspects of the same thing: the One fundamental reality.”

What is interesting to me is that even if one discovers this One fundamental reality this person is still interested in maintaining their individual identity. I have gone around and around with what I call the advaita types that claim they don’t exist but sign their given names at the end of their comments.

One “advaita type” even writes books on how to be successful and sells those books. What am I missing here if they claim they don’t exist why do they do book signings using their given human name. Why not sign them God if they don’t think they exist.

Many get down right hostile when I suggest they are very attached to their perceived identity as a person. Who is getting hostile the One fundamental reality or the perceived personal identity?

From my point of view it is one thing to state intellectually we don’t exist as a separate entity but quite another to live out that reality.

[Michael H]

What is interesting to me is that even if one discovers this One fundamental reality this person is still interested in maintaining their individual identity.

Of course they still have an individual identity. The change is in their perception of the self. “I am this” becomes “I am that”, but “that” still contains “this”. It’s an expansion of identity. I don't think that anyone can possibly stop identifying with their individual identity on some level, William, at least while here on earth. Meister Eckhart saw himself as Meister Eckhart, but his understanding of who Meister Eckhart was changed dramatically: "The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me."

Nearly identical statements have been made by mystics throughout history, and are common in NDE testimony today. To claim that because the statement is expressed by an individual invalidates the statement is just intellectualizing. It's an attempt to understand them through the use of intellectual 'reason', while truly understanding them involves sharing their perspective, or level of consciousness, which involves a different use of the mind than intellectualizing. It’s impossible to ‘think our way’ to the mystical understanding of reality.

If you've encountered 'advaita types' who claim they don’t exist as a separate entity, either they don’t know what they’re talking about, or you are misinterpreting them. If they get hostile when you challenge their statements, my best guess is that they haven't yet fully realized what they speak of, and those people do exist. Anyone who has realized it would be more likely to be amused, though I suppose that could be perceived as hostile.

In any case, this is not the point of my earlier post. There is a lot of talk about ‘consciousness as the ground of being’ today. It does seem to me that most people who hear that statement automatically begin to look externally for objective evidence to support it, and one can find such support in the physical sciences, mystical testimony, NDE testimony, medium communications, psi research and on and on and on. Anyone might eventually reach the point where they believe that consciousness is the ground of being by doing so. There are much worse things to choose to believe.

When I wrote that it would “eventually be widely understood that consciousness or "mind" is the ground of being”, though, I am speaking of a level of acceptance that will result from many people experiencing subjective realization on an individual basis. It will be agreed upon, with no need for discussion. The only way that can come about is for more people to know it, and the only way anyone can actually know it is through investigating the aspect of consciousness they are most accustomed to: their own.

[Kevin Hines]

//, I strongly suspect they are in the right and that some form of "vitalism" or "a creator" is really required to make sense of life at the deepest level.//

I wonder, why a creator and not creators? I find it odd that one would assume only one creator when the idea of two or more creators is equally as implausible.

The question comes down to, how do you define life?

It is the mind?
Single-celled organisms do not have a mind, intelligence, or consciousness. And yet are considered life and required for life.
Is life something that reproduces, metabolizes and ages?
A star could apply to this definition perfectly, but of course we don’t consider a star as a living thing.

How do we define a planet? We decided what counts as a planet and this goes the same with life. Viruses are not considered life and yet they have DNA, they evolve, and they reproduce.

So I ask you, why does life require a "creator" but galaxies and stars do not?

[Michael Prescott]

So I ask you, why does life require a "creator" but galaxies and stars do not?

Ultimately, everything is a manifestation of God or what I usually call Cosmic Consciousness. Of course this includes stars and galaxies.

But it seems that stars and galaxies developed inevitably once the laws of nature were laid down and the cosmological constants were set, etc. In other words, given the initial conditions of the Big Bang, stars were inevitable, since the Big Bang produced a lot of hydrogen and helium, and gravity ensured that these elements would mass together.

On the other hand, I see nothing inevitable about life. Even the "simplest" protein consists of many amino acids in a precise sequence. There is no likelihood that these amino acids could come together by chance. Nor, in my view, is there any likelihood of DNA coding having developed by chance. And there was not much time for it to happen, anyway, since microbes appeared almost immediately after the primeval Earth started to cool.

(If you don't like the word "chance," substitute "self-organization." The point still holds, since there's no evidence that proteins or DNA molecules can spontaneously self-organize. They have never been observed to do so. Mix a bunch of amino acids together in a test tube, and they will not automatically combine into proteins.)

Franklin Harold's book The Way of the Cell, quoted in my post, includes an excellent chapter on the multiple difficulties that afflict any theory of abiogenesis. Robert Shapiro's book Origins, though slightly dated now, also contains a wealth of information on the seemingly insurmountable difficulties facing any origin-of-life hypothesis so far proposed.

I think the preponderance of evidence points to Intelligence or Mind as the source of both the universe as a whole and life forms in particular. Others disagree, relying on a kind of promissory materialism to explain everything ... someday. Neither position can be disproven, so it comes down to one's personal judgment. My best judgment is that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in materialistic philosophy.

Your mileage may vary. And that's fine. What a dull old world it would be if everyone marched in lockstep!

[william]

“Of course they still have an individual identity. The change is in their perception of the self. “I am this” becomes “I am that”, but “that” still contains “this”.”

Paradoxes again. My observation is that some of their comments have more to do with intellectualism than realization. My point was and is that to say one does not exist and all is an illusion borders on arrogance.

Now if one states they have a different perception of reality that is a different story or that they are able to observe this perceived self then that has a much different connotation then stating one does not exist. And I must admit one follower of adviata teachings I had dialog with on the Internet was a most humble and knowledgeable person and a delight to converse with.

My deeper point is that there is a long journey ahead of us living through many dimensions before we even begin to identify more with our godliness than our individual ego identity. As for many creators I lean towards the idea we are gods (co creators) in the making and one or several gods may be responsible for planet earth. I suspect that we are co creators with this dynamic force in the universe learning how to utilize its vitality and substance to create many perceived realities.

Our journey is one of on-going continuous improvement in love and intelligence. I believe at this time there is no stopping point until are identity is identical to that that is.

[Michael Prescott]

I hadn't read William's comment until after I put up my latest blog post. In an interesting coincidence (synchronicity?), his comment and my post make much the same point.

Especially this part: "... there is a long journey ahead of us living through many dimensions before we even begin to identify more with our godliness than our individual ego identity."

[Teri]

"Maybe love is really is electrical attraction, maybe quantum wave functions are consciousness, but that is not sufficient to distinguish biochemistry from other types of chemical reactions."

drknow:
Have you seen this, suggesting that what DNA can do is a long way from ordinary chemistry?
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/07/does-dna-have-t.html

[drknow]

Hi Teri,

"Have you seen this, suggesting that what DNA can do is a long way from ordinary chemistry?"

The article says:

“Amazingly, the forces responsible for the sequence recognition can reach across more than one nanometer of water separating the surfaces of the nearest neighbor DNA,”

One nanometer.

Do you think it's a paranormal phenomena?

There is something the scientists seem to find puzzling but that happens all the time in science. Investigating anomolous observations is one of the ways science makes progress. An unexplained observation alone doesn't prove it's paranormal.

[Teri]

Actually, drknow, I don't necessarily think of anything as "paranormal". To me, it's all one universe, waiting to be discovered.

But I was trying to prise you away from the idea that what DNA does is just plain ordinary chemistry. Clearly, I failed. You were looking for the weakest link in the article, and by heck, you found it.

Tell me when you create life in a test tube, won't you? I feel sure you're intelligent enough. Make it look like you. Then I can call it "Frankenstein".

[The Major]

That's true, Dr Know. An unexplained observation alone doesn't prove it's paranormal.

However, as you say, science makes progress so who's to say what is regarded as 'paranormal' won't be considered 'normal' tomorrow?

Personally, I don't believe the phenomena is paranormal. I believe it operates within the confines of nature. It's just something helps to move it along. That's my view anyway.

[Ben]

What Teri and the Major say about the paranormal is interesting. It recalls what Erwin Chargaff said (quoted by Michael P in his previous post):

there exist principally two types of scientists. The ones, and they are rare, wish to understand the world, to know nature; the others, far more frequent, wish to explain it. The first are searching for truth, often with the knowledge that they will not attain it; the second strive for plausibility, for the achievement of an intellectually consistent, and hence successful, view of the world.

Not quite sure if drknow is equating "paranormal" with what Dawkins calls "supernatural" or not (ie synonymous with "unprovable", or "stupid", or "beyond the scope of investigation").

[drknow]

"Not quite sure if drknow is equating "paranormal" with what Dawkins calls "supernatural" or not (ie synonymous with "unprovable", or "stupid", or "beyond the scope of investigation")."

I got tired of typing "differences in biological chemical reactions and non biological chemical reactions". So I tried find a short cut using "paranormal".

I agree 100% with the idea that some of what is called paranormal today will some day be understood by science and become part of normal.

Until that happpens it is convenient to use the word paranormal rather than writing everything (telepathy, pk, precognition, survival after death etc etc.) out over and over again.

Just because I believe that consciousness can be understood by reductionism does not mean I believe consciousness is derived from matter.

Just because I believe biochemistry is not qualitatively different from other chemistry (ie it is not paranormal), that does not mean I dispute that matter is derived from consciousness.

Just because I believe biochchemistry is not paranormal does not mean I rule out intelligent design.

[Zetetic_chick]

"Just because I believe that consciousness can be understood by reductionism does not mean I believe consciousness is derived from matter"

Hi Drknow, what do you mean by "reductionism"?

Some people think the idea that consciousness is derived of the brain is a reductionistic view, because the mind is "reduced" to the functioning of the brain. The complexity of mind is explained in terms of brain components and parts, it's reduced to them.

How can consciousness be explained by reductionism? Where is operating the "reduction" in that case?

[drknow]

By reductionism I mean that you can understand something by analyzing it's components, like understanding how a watch works by examining the gears and springs.

If thought is can be transmitted telepathically, I suppose there must be some "material" or "wave" maybe unknown to our science at present that comprises a thought and by which it can be transmitted. There must also be some mechanism of creating the wave etc.

I'm not saying I know this is possible, I'm saying I think it is an appropriate way to approach the problem.

[drknow]

This point about redutionism brings out a good way of explaining why I don't think vitalism is a compelling explanation of cellular activity.

The complexity of the cell might at first make one wonder how it can all work right without an intelligence to guide it.

But as I wrote previously it doesn't seem reasonable to me that a single intelligence would be involved in guiding all that complexity it would be boring and or overwhelming for a single conscious entity to do that.

The obvious alternative is to suppose the parts act autonomously. Maybe a cell is conscious, maybe organelles are conscious, maybe atoms are conscious.

However if you are going to assert the parts are atonomous and that there is a hierarchy of smaller and smaller parts with autonomous functions then when you get down to the lower levels the complexity diminishes and you don't need to invoke vitalism to explain the activity on that level.

The very reason one would suppose the parts should behave autonomously is the exact same reason that vitalism is not needed: When you break things down into simpler fuctions the complexity decreases at each level until you get to something simple which can easily be explained by mechanics.

Therefore it doesn't make sense to me to think cellular processes are guided by an overseer and the alternative: a hierarchy of autonomous parts is eaisly explained with a mechanical model and there is no need for vitalism because the basic building blocks of the machine (atoms) behave relatively simply in comparison to the final result of the machine (the cell).

This is not meant to be a proof, it is just an explanation of my manner of thinking.

[DMDuncan]

Yes, it always comes back around to consciousness because that's the only place where the nature of meaning itself can be found.

Reductionists are emergentists, where they admit such a thing as mind exists at all——and some reductionists do think they have solved the problem of consciousness by getting rid of mind entirely, by simply saying it does not exist——and emergentists have the enormous problem of explaining how consciousness can arise out of non conscious matter.

This is usually explained with what amounts to a very scientific sounding abracadabra...or appeals to future discoveries which do not make one's case in the here and now...

There is an awful lot of faith placed in reductionism with no evidence to back it up that cannot be used to argue the opposite.

"This is usually explained with what amounts to a very scientific sounding abracadabra...or appeals to future discoveries which do not make one's case in the here and now..."

Is reductionism evil? When the assumption of reductionism is used as misdirection to ignore or distract from evidence for the paranormal (such as evidence for the independence of mind over matter) then I agree it is being misused.

But, reductionism has been very useful in the past analyzing many scientific problems. This is the evidence to back up faith in it as a process.

When I read about the beliefs of the primacy of consciousness over matter and that atoms are consciousness and that consciousness is always evolving even beyond human consciousness - to me that sounds like atoms are conscious as well as people. It seems natural that if an atom is a bit of consciousness we can study consciousness in small bits, then larger bits and larger bits, until we get to humans and beyond. That sounds like reductionsim and it sounds to me like it reflects the underlying nature of consciousness.

I'm not saying this is an accomplished fact, I'm saying it is a reasonable approach.

How can you have faith that reductionism won't explain consciousness? What do you base your faith on?

[Kevin Hines]

//On the other hand, I see nothing inevitable about life. Even the "simplest" protein consists of many amino acids in a precise sequence. There is no likelihood that these amino acids could come together by chance//

The simple cells we see today have 3.9 billion years of evolution under their belt; so the complex systems we see today (although simple compared to macros) are the results of billions of years of tiny changes.

This is by no means chance, rather the opposite of chance. Cells produce many offspring in short periods of time and some of them may not have favorable advantages and some of them might. Of course we all know that those with favorable mutations over produce more offspring in an environment that can’t support them all. This means the most favorable mutations in the next generation are also able to reproduce more and so on.

Stars are very complex, they are able to produce new elements, produce planets, and produce more stars 9as well as black holes for which we barely understand). I find it odd that stars would not need a guiding hand and life does.

//Neither position can be disproven, so it comes down to one's personal judgment.//

I'm sorry, but you are very badly wrong in saying this. Your view is unfalsifiable (because it is based on something outside of evidence and science), but my "view" is based only on evidence. The evidence I presented to you on your other blog (the long educational one) shows that a guiding intelligence and Mind is not needed for basic cell functions. Chemistry is the "Mind" you are looking for, and it needs to be understood that biology is applied chemistry. So not only do you need to study microbiology, you need to look at biochemistry (or organic chemistry if you will).

I am rather surprised at some of you views and questions (though I must agree, that one should never stop questioning and I admire the fact that you are willing to question things). One can truly get caught up in question to make the supernatural real for them, for example;

How do oil and water know how to separate from each other? If it is all based on gravity and density then who created gravity? How are things attracted to each other? Is there a Mind to all matter that attracts itself to other matter in an invisible force of "hand"?

And of course it is very easy to see how one can look at very basic things in science and be lead to an unexplained answer. When someone comes to an unexplained answer they can do 1 of 2 things. They can cop-out and state that it MUST be supernatural/paranormal or it MUST be natural.. or they can do true science and state that it is unexplained at this moment. Of course not all of us or scientist so many will come up with their own solutions, however those of use in the field (or studying to be in the field in my case) are after the facts, not unfalsifiable claims.

[Michael Prescott]

Stars are very complex, they are able to produce new elements, produce planets, and produce more stars

But there is indisputably a vast qualitative difference between living organisms and inanimate objects like stars. A cell is not just a slightly more complicated crystal; it is a different order of being. (For one thing, it takes actions to preserve itself from destruction, which snowflakes do not.)

Regarding "simple" explanations for the origin of life - see Chapter 10 of Harold's book for a good introduction to the apparently insuperable problems facing any currently available theory of abiogenesis. Harold is a professor emeritus of biochemistry, and surely knows enough about the subject to have earned a hearing.

They can cop-out and state that it MUST be supernatural/paranormal

I'm not saying it must be supernatural, only that a non-materialist explanation seems more likely to me - partly because of arguments like Harold's and partly because of the apparent "fine-tuning" of the universe to make it receptive to life. These arguments, by the way, were enough to convince the foremost atheistic philosopher of our time, Antony Flew, to change his mind and become a deist.

I certainly recognize the value - even perhaps the necessity - of methodological materialism in the physical sciences. It's a mistake, however, to confuse methodology with ontology. Just because science plays by certain rules does not mean that reality plays by the same rules.

I know you think you don't have a worldview and are guided only by the facts. But everyone has a worldview; it's just a question of whether we're conscious of it, or unconscious of it. As a general rule, when we are young, we tend to assume that our worldview is the only possible right way of looking at things; as we mature, we learn to our chagrin that this isn't so.

Certainly that was true in my case. When I was twenty, I had all the answers. Now, in middle age, all I have are questions ...

[Michael Prescott]

For another look at the empirical and conceptual problems confronting abiogenesis theories, see this online paper by Paul Davies. (PDF file)

Davies states the obvious: "Life is more than just complex chemical reactions. The cell is also an information storing, processing and replicating system.... The problem of how meaningful or semantic information can emerge spontaneously from a collection of mindless molecules subject to blind and purposeless forces presents a deep conceptual challenge."

A much longer paper, by David Berlinski, also addresses this issue, mainly in its second half.

[Ben]

And in support of your point that we all have a worldview, Michael, Chapter 7 of philosopher David Ray Griffin's book "Unsnarling the World-Knot" (which I'm already devouring!) is very cogent about the underlying philosophical assumptions and why they have led to the failure this last half century to solve the 'hard problem' of consciousness. I just know you're going to read it.

[Michael H]

They can cop-out and state that it MUST be supernatural/paranormal or it MUST be natural.. or they can do true science and state that it is unexplained at this moment. Of course not all of us or scientist so many will come up with their own solutions, however those of use in the field (or studying to be in the field in my case) are after the facts, not unfalsifiable claims.

The assumption that MP and others here are claiming 'supernatural or paranormal' attributes for biological, chemical and physical processes is a flawed assumption, Kevin. The suggestion that consciousness or 'mind' is the foundational fabric of the material cosmos is not paranormal at all, nor does it negatively affect anyone's ability to conduct science. There are plenty of scientists who do suspect that a deeper level of organization or intelligence exists behind the physical cosmos. The physicist Ulrich Mohrhoff's open journal http://anti-matters.org/0/main.htm>Anti-Matters provides numerous detailed papers from diverse fields that raise serious questions about the ontological assumptions of materialism.

Mohrhoff and many other scientists would not agree with the assertion that their approach to science represented a "cop-out", or that they are advocating paranormal explanations. On the contrary, they would suggest that conducting science with any preconceived notions of metaphysical absolutes is not really science. Whether one approaches questions with the assumption that existence and consciousness arose accidentally from random collisions of dead matter, or the with the assumption that a Deity placed everything 'just so' in 4004 BC in order to deceive us . . . in either case, the research and the conclusions will be influenced by the individual's accepted metaphysics.

Genuine objectivity is much rarer than anyone imagines - there's a very strong likelihood that one will see what they want to see, and reach conclusions that dovetail with what they already believe. This has affected science for centuries, and it still goes on today. New Scientist released an article at the end of June about recent astronomical observations that appear to indicate a fractal organization to the universe on scales that are impossible given the accepted age of the universe. The mainstream response to this is encapsulated in the following sentence: "Many cosmologists find fault with their analysis, largely because a fractal matter distribution out to such huge scales undermines the standard model of cosmology."

This is especially revealing given an earlier statement in the same article: "Nearly all physicists agree that on relatively small scales the distribution is fractal-like: hundreds of billions of stars group together to form galaxies, galaxies clump together to form clusters, and clusters amass into superclusters."

When this is all considered in the context of astronomy professor Michael Disney's column in http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3716,y.2007,no.9,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx>American Scientist last fall, in which he explored the “ugly bandages” that have been applied to the Big Bang Theory over the decades and concluded that the Big Bang may prove to be nothing more than a “folktale constantly re-edited to fit inconvenient new observations”, one gets a sense of how powerful assumptions actually are.

The suggestion of a fractal organization of the universe on such massive scales struck me as particularly interesting, given that fractal patterns are regularly observed in biology. I happen to think that the material cosmos does arise from consciousness, and it doesn’t surprise me a bit to see evidence of patterns repeating from the scale of a nautilus shell up to galactic concentrations on a scale of 100 million light years across. Of course, I’m not immune to what I wrote earlier. I may very well be seeing what I want to see and reaching conclusions that dovetail with what I already believe.

On the other hand, I might be right.

[Michael H]

I forgot to link to the http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14200-galaxy-map-hints-at-fractal-universe.html?feedId=online-news_rss20>New Scientist article.

[Neelix]

Alan Garfinkel shows how slime molds on stagnant ponds exhibit self-organization which seems so prevalent in nature. This organism has two life phases. It first is a single-celled amoeba leading its own individual existence; however, when deprived of food it undergoes a radical transformation and organizes into a colony of thousands of cells. Each colony becomes one differentiated animal with a head, back and stalk. The body then becomes spores covered with hard cases. They break away, and the cases crack open liberating individual amoebas, completing the life cycle. The properties exhibited by the slime mold emphatically exceed the sum of its individual parts.

Not only does there appear to be a self-organizing force behind all living systems, but this same tendency is seen to exist within inorganic matter. Stars strive to become more complex with information as they manufacture higher atomic weight inorganic molecules. Atomic particles possess this same quality on a primitive level as they try to preserve themselves or regenerate after being perturbed. This tendency was present before the first living cell was formed. The atom recaptures its lost electrons, the crystal when traumatized restores its fractured shape, and the molecule discards excess energy forced upon it by random encounters.

Everything is, in a sense, alive.

[Michael H]

Not only does there appear to be a self-organizing force behind all living systems, but this same tendency is seen to exist within inorganic matter.

I couldn't agree more. It raises the question as to whether our very definition of 'life' is accurate, doesn't it?

[DMDuncan]

What I am saying, anonymous is that science lacks something basic that renders an eventual explanation of mind from a scientific methodology impossible.

Mind, consciousness, can only be understood from within itself. This is not the methodology of science. Science explains the things it can see or infer from what it can see. And although science may speak about what it can detect within the brain that relates to our consciousness, how drugs, for example, may affect our conscious states, this is not the same thing as talking about consciousness itself, or understanding consciousness itself which has an irreducibly subjective existence.

Understanding what is irreducibly subjective by what you can detect with your eyes and other senses is folly. You know what it means to be conscious by being conscious, not by studying sensible objects that relate to consciousness or affect it in an observable way. Some "observation" is purely subjective and there is no hope of getting better than that because that is the irreducible part of its reality. And I think this is part of the reason why many people have tried, unsuccessfully, to get rid of the problem by pretending there's no such thing as consciousness.

You cannot reduce consciousness to an explanation of physical processes which leave out the subjective quality of experience that, ironically, drives even all of science itself and which is not explicable as a consequence of things seen.