Imagination and Causality in Quantum Physics

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Christian,

To tell the truth, I have always been uncomfortable with the Objectivist restriction of volition to conceptual beings. I see animals make choices all the time. I gave an example once in another discussion that caused a new dimension to be added to the practice of hairsplitting. (I even think the term "non-volitional evaluation" came up...)

Doggie is half asleep. You have a tasty tidbit and call doggie's name. "Look here, Doggie! Here, boy!" His ears perk up. He raises his head and looks real interested for a moment. He sniffs the air while staring intently at the morsel. His tail thumps a bit. But ultimately he yawns and lays his head back down to go to sleep.

I say doggie exercised volition and made a value judgment (sleep was more important than food at that moment - but both were evaluated).

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Yes, "where" in that case does refer to a non-existing place, which is nevertheless where the pain is experienced as being; it is not experienced as located in the brain. I think you're confusing the cause of the experience and the experience itself -- and I expect we could go round on this ten more times, twenty more times, and still be stuck "where" we are.

It is in fact just a question of semantics. As I already mentioned in an earlier post, the word "experience" is here ambiguous. In the sentence "where is the pain experienced" you interpret this as "in what place does the person think the pain is" (this formulation is a bit clumsy, but I can't find a better one without falling back on the ambiguous "experience"), while my interpretation is "where in the body are things happening (at the level of cells and molecules) that are the immediate cause of the sensation of pain". What an enormous waste of time are philosophical discussions when the terms that are used are not clearly defined! Velmans apparently doesn't understand that he's conflating two quite different meanings of the word "experience" and thinks that he's therefore saying something new. It reminds me of Feynman's story that I mentioned in an earlier post, where he relates how thanks to a simple question he asked it turned out that in a group of philosophers there wasn't any agreement about the meaning of the term "essential object", while they had already been discussing it all the time! It was typical for Feynman: he asked what someone meant by that term, something that apparently nobody had done before.

[Dragonfly]

I certainly won't rule out the possibility. Like Sherlock Holmes I'm not theorizing in the absence of data.

Sure you do. You rule out life and consciousness as a primaries.

Michael, I think it's no use to continue this discussion, we just don't speak the same language. For me calling things as "life" and "consciousness" primaries is devoid of any meaning. I could as well call the weather, the earth, magnetism or quarks primaries, I just have no use for such foggy notions, I can't do anything with them. I'm afraid my worst fears about philosophy are confirmed.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

Not so fast. Let me get a handle on something that I simply cannot imagine. If reduction, which has to be a "primary" to you since it is all inclusive in everything you have mentioned so far, optimally goes down to one fundamental "stuff," then were do the derivative structures come from? What causes so many of them to occur?

That's the foggy part in reductionism for me.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Micahel,

Re your questions about bodily experiences for which a person could have no memory:

I've read a few accounts by persons who were born either with distorted or with partly missing limbs who say that in their dreams (it wasn't specified whether in all of their dreams or only some of them) their body image is whole. I haven't myself known any people with such infirmities well enough to directly question them about their sense of their bodies in their dreams.

There have been times when I have had the experience in visions of possessing bodily features which I don't possess, most often wings. I wouldn't, however, confuse these experiences with actual possession of wings, since there's much missing in kinesthetic and other detail. The experience is vague and shadowy.

My expectation is that the experience of phantom-limb pain also has a vagueness and shadowyness, that it's missing a lot of detail. For instance, suppose that you have a small cut on the tip of a real first finger, a paper cut, or a cut from a can lid. You can get sensations from that cut in many ways besides just the sharp feeling of pain. You have the kinesthetic sense of the whereabouts of the finger in relation to the entire hand and arm; you can waggle the finger, suck on the finger, touch your thumb to the place where the cut is, for instance. The pain increases if you push the cut area against an object and you're likely to pull back, etc. I'd expect that this full gestalt of sensation is missing with phantom-limb pain. Unfortunately, in accounts I've read of the phenomenon, none of the sources has bothered to probe such particulars. Possibly my neurologist has had phantom-limb-pain suffers and has bothered to probe for specifics. I'll try to remember to ask him at my next appointment.

As to persons blind from birth experiencing flashes of light, I've read that this can happen depending on how much of the optical nerve is intact. Light flashes from pressure against the eyeball (if the person has a fully formed eyeball) or from the orbital bones being struck could still occur if there's enough of the optic nerve.

A question I've long meant to explore is what the dreams of congenitally blind persons are like. I've occasionally read that the dreams of such persons are comprised of kinesthetic and sound imagery, but, again, the accounts have been frustratingly skimpy.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Of course both [brain and finger] are needed [for the experience of pain], but you should distinguish between the question where the pain itself (physically the place where the physiological structure generates the feeling) occurs and the question where we experience the pain, in the sense (unfortunately the word "experience" is ambiguous here): where we think that the pain is. No one disputes that we think that the pain is in the finger, but the sensation is generated in the brain. No connection between finger and brain: no pain, but a false signal in the brain can generate pain, even if there is no finger at all.

In the first part of that -- in which you write "where the pain itself (physically the place where the physiological structure generates the feeling) occurs" -- you're clearly using the word "pain" in a sense analogous to saying that the "sound" in the tree-falling-in-the-forest query is there because the air perturbations are there whether anyone is present to hear them or not. I.e., you're referring to neurologic activity, not to experience. But then you go on to say that the person just "thinks" the experience is experienced as being where it is experienced, as if the experience is not what it is but is somehow different from what it is.

But by that logic, so is every other sensory experience somehow different from what it is. If the actual experience of an experience of pain is to be considered an "illusion," you've logically committed yourself to the claim that so is all the rest of our sensory experience, that our entire experience of even having a body is "really" IN the brain and is somehow "projected." Sure gives "projection" an awful lot to do and requires a terrific amount of explaining as to just how "projection" works and how that arose evolutionarily. Do creatures which don't yet have proper brains have no bodily sense at all, for instance?

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

Wings? I always knew you were an Angel in disguise! Did you watch over Dragonfly as he slept?

Seriously, what you wrote is fascinating. I look forward to learning about it.

I do want to emphasize a point, however. Pain is something that can be remembered and is remembered. Memory is involved in people having feelings in members they have lost. Axiomatically, let's say, "memory exists."

(It can even be provoked by the mind. Think of the painful symptoms of psychosomatic ills and even things like making blood appear in hands and feet in the extremely religious.)

Like always in these kinds of discussions, there is always more than one reason for something, yet people seem to get stuck on trying to make it one reason only. I try to resist this as I used to do it a lot, and I always oversimplified.

Oversimplification is one of the major problems I see in how Objectivism is understood and practiced. I have reacted a bit "off" with Dragonfly because I was surprised to see it from a scientific view. Yet I see that this is accepted in a whole body of literature.

Back to Paul's lenses...

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

YIKES!!

I see that there are a whole "ton" of posts past the ones I responded to above (and I still haven't caught up to some of the others past my own 131).

Can only sit here for a little while at a time, guys.

Christian, of course I'm going to have to study with a fine-tooth comb each detail of what you wrote explicating me. But on first reading, it looks good. Although I wouldn't say that "testing" goes all the way back to the very start of life. I place it at the start of animalian life. However, interestingly, our friend Dennett (teasing you) has said some stuff about the origins of "interests" which I see as connecting to my own views and as filling in between life-origins and testing origins. (He might have apoplexy at the uses I'm seeing for his leads.)

ES

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Edited September 23, 2006 by Ellen Stuttle

[reason.on]

Christian, of course I'm going to have to study with a fine-tooth comb each detail of what you wrote explicating me. But on first reading, it looks good. Although I wouldn't say that "testing" goes all the way back to the very start of life. I place it at the start of animalian life. However, interstingly, our friend Dennett (teasing you) has said some stuff about the origins of "interests" which I see as connecting to my own views filling in between life-origins and testing origins. (He might have apoplexy at the uses I'm seeing for his leads.)

As I've been mulling over what I wrote, I suspected that I might have drawn that line too far...(to "life"), but certainly, as you point out, it is an interesting boundary to consider, that is the placing of the brackets, "how you cut up the cow", so to speak, and really more importantly to think about, where ever it makes the most sense to draw that line, what are the criteria for drawing it, and what is it that is on BOTH sides of the line.

RCR

[Dragonfly]

I am not aware of any theories which propose, directly or indirectly, that a moving electric charge IN a wire (generally, I believe, conceived of as moving, charged subatomic particles) is metaphysically identical to the consequential electromagnetic field, which is distributed AROUND the wire. As Velmans points out, the two are not in the same place, therefore can not be the same thing--ontologically speaking.

This is not a valid criterion. There is no single place for the current, it can be found at an infinite number of places along the wire. We don't say that the current in A is not the same as the current in B (where A and B are two positions along the wire) while they are not at the same place. The reason is that we consider the current as an indivisible phenomenon over the whole (single) wire, the current in B is necessarily the same current as the current in A. But the same relation holds for the magnetic field generated by that current, it is an indivisible part of that current, that may be studied separately, but that cannot be removed from the current. If the term ontological is to have any meaning, it should mean that current and magnetic field are one and the same phenomenon, even if we may distinguish different parts. The same for a magnet: we may consider the north pole of a magnet separately, but it never goes without a south pole, so the north pole and the south pole are ontologically one single phenomenon (a magnet), it's impossible to separate them.

That things interact and have relationships between themselves and their backgrounds, does not necessitate that things or their relationships--which are a part of a system-whole--are metaphysically identical to one and another. For example, the smoke from a cigarrette is not the same as the cigarette itself. Further, would you suggest that red blood cells are identical with the circulatory framework? Would you suggest that the heart and the lungs are identical because their precise functions are inseparable parts of the body whole? Or that water and the human body are the same thing?

You can remove the red blood cells from the circulatory framework. You can remove the heart (and even replace it in vivo) and the lungs. You can remove the water from a human body. So while these parts need to be together for a good functioning of the thing they belong to, they are certainly not inseparable from it, so they're not metaphysically one and the same thing, only parts that together can get things done. But the examples of currents and magnets are essentially different. Here it is impossible to remove respectively the magnetic fields and the magnetic poles from them. That seems to me a damn good criterion to consider them ontologically as one single phenomenon. Or ontology is just metaphysical bullshit, that's of course also a possibility.

[Dragonfly]

Not so fast. Let me get a handle on something that I simply cannot imagine. If reduction, which has to be a "primary" to you since it is all inclusive in everything you have mentioned so far, optimally goes down to one fundamental "stuff," then were do the derivative structures come from? What causes so many of them to occur?

That's the foggy part in reductionism for me.

There's nothing foggy about it. We know how quarks and leptons behave, how quarks form hadrons, in particular baryons, and how these with electrons form atoms. We can calculate which combinations of baryons and electrons are stable and what the properties of these are, how these can combine (the science of chemistry), and why one specific combination (the carbon atom) has unique properties that enables it to combine (together with other elements) to a staggering amount of different molecules. We also understand why carbon has those properties, and how its derivatives form the building blocks of living beings, and how these can evolve in the course of billions of years from relatively simple structures to enormously complex systems (the science of biology). If you want more details, consult a physics library, a chemistry library and a biology library. Foggy? Come on! If you don't believe me, study the field. There are no shortcuts.

[Dragonfly]

But by that logic, so is every other sensory experience somehow different from what it is. If the actual experience of an experience of pain is to be considered an "illusion," you've logically committed yourself to the claim that so is all the rest of our sensory experience, that our entire experience of even having a body is "really" IN the brain and is somehow "projected." Sure gives "projection" an awful lot to do and requires a terrific amount of explaining as to just how "projection" works and how that arose evolutionarily. Do creatures which don't yet have proper brains have no bodily sense at all, for instance?

If we look at the moon, is our experience on the moon or in our brain? Our perception is that the moon is "there" and not in our brain, but the perception itself as a physiological phenomenon is in the brain and not somewhere between the rocks in Mare Crisium. We may project our perception onto the outer world, but it's all a process in our brain. Just drink a bit too much and you'll see two moons, but that doesn't mean that there are really two moons, only that our brain is not functioning optimally. Further I don't think that for example a worm has any "bodily sense", its reactions are probably fully automatic. On the other hand there is little doubt that Vertebrates do have a bodily sense. Between the worms and the Vertebrates there is of course a whole range of possibilities of animals with more or less "bodily sense".

[Paul Mawdsley]

Dragonfly is right! In posts # 185 - # 187, he is right. I think you will find his perspective completely consistent. No matter how much you know in your own mind, and in your bones, that he must be missing something, he is right. You will not find a flaw in his physics. He is well trained in a thoroughly explored methodology and has consistently applied this methodology to integrate the evidence of his subject matter. Beyond this, he is just a damned intelligent fellow. You will not find inconsistencies in his perspective of the physical world. Even if it was exposed that he had made an error in judgement, he would find a consistent way of maintaining his worldview with a reinterpretation from the perspective of modern physics. This is not because he is deceptively manipulating the facts. It is because the facts interpreted through the language and principles of modern physics will always return the perspective that has evolved in modern physics.

This reminds me, again, of the Einstein/Bohr debates-- at least in spirit. Bohr's perspective won-out because it was completely internally consistent. Einstein's genius was not able to expose one inconsistency that could not be repaired within the principles and evolving worldview of the Copenhagen interpretation. I think the same is true of Dragonfly's perspective because he shares the principles and worldview of the Copenhagen interpretation and has extended this perspective into other areas of thought beyond physics.

Since Dragonfly's error is not in his physics, you will never expose his error with discussions about physics. The inconsistencies lie outside of his physics. His error is epistemological, as was Bohr's. Einstein tried to fight the same battle in the theater of modern physics and lost. We will do no better. I'm just not sure Dragonfly would be willing to question the epistemology behind the methods of modern physics. I'm not sure he would be willing to try to switch lenses.

But the examples of currents and magnets are essentially different. Here it is impossible to remove respectively the magnetic fields and the magnetic poles from them. That seems to me a damn good criterion to consider them ontologically as one single phenomenon. Or ontology is just metaphysical bullshit, that's of course also a possibility.

While it is "impossible to remove respectively the magnetic fields and the magnetic poles from [currents and magnets]", it is only impossible to reduce these to ontologically more basic units if we assume that our ontology must start with what can be observed, measured, and quantified. Why should we assume that our reality must begin with observable and measurable entities? Why should we assume our method of observation, measurement, and quantification works all the way down to the base of reality? What if there is a deeper reality underlying what we can observe, underlying the quantum limit? Why should we assume other methods of identification and reasoning cannot shed some light on reality? Internal consistency does not make an idea, or a system of ideas, true. If the system arrived at through consistent reasoning in one methodology conflicts with the system arrived at through consistent reasoning in another methodology, perhaps it is time to step outside of both methodologies and evaluate them against the evidence.

Paul

Edited September 24, 2006 by Paul Mawdsley

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

There's nothing foggy about it. We know how quarks and leptons behave, how quarks form hadrons, in particular baryons, and how these with electrons form atoms. We can calculate which combinations of baryons and electrons are stable and what the properties of these are, how these can combine (the science of chemistry), and why one specific combination (the carbon atom) has unique properties that enables it to combine (together with other elements) to a staggering amount of different molecules. We also understand why carbon has those properties, and how its derivatives form the building blocks of living beings, and how these can evolve in the course of billions of years from relatively simple structures to enormously complex systems (the science of biology). If you want more details, consult a physics library, a chemistry library and a biology library. Foggy? Come on! If you don't believe me, study the field. There are no shortcuts.

Shortcuts? Saying that it is either this explanation or a shortcut is a false dichotomy - and anyway it did not even deal with my question, which was why so many large structures? Where do they come from, if everything is ultimately going to boil down to one substance?

Once you can fabricate an actual living organism this way, putting together quarks and leptons so forth, I will be more open to the argument for eliminating life as an existent. Until then, your proposition about life is nothing but speculation.

Life exists. I deal with it every day. That ain't no shortcut and it is not sappy emotionalism. It is perception.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Shortcuts? Saying that it is either this explanation or a shortcut is a false dichotomy - and anyway it did not even deal with my question, which was why so many large structures? Where do they come from, if everything is ultimately going to boil down to one substance?

I did tell you that standing on one leg. First, I didn't say that it ultimately boils down to one substance, there are a few dozen elementary particles, although only a few of them occur in ordinary matter. I gave a few hints how these particles combine to form atoms and molecules, and how we can explain the special character of the carbon atom, which makes biological structures possible and how evolution has generated these structures. If I had to explain this all even in superficial detail I'd need to write a whole book. Therefore I referred you to the libraries, you should do your homework, instead of asking the impossible of me. That is what I meant with "there are no shortcuts", you have to study the field if you want to say something sensible about it. How can you know that something is speculation if you haven't studied the subject even in the most superficial way? And your question is annoyingly vague: what do you mean by "so many large structures"? Are you talking about galaxies or living beings? And what is the problem with "many"? Is one "large structure" (whatever you mean by that) more probable than many different "large structures"? If so, why?

Once you can fabricate an actual living organism this way, putting together quarks and leptons so forth, I will be more open to the argument for eliminating life as an existent. Until then, your proposition about life is nothing but speculation.

I'm really disappointed that you come up with such a bad argument, it's worthy of a randroid or a creationist, but not of you. If we can't put together quarks and leptons to fabricate a sun, does that imply that we don't know what the sun is and what happens inside it? How dare you talk about speculation if you haven't the foggiest notion of what science tells us about life? Is that any different from Rand telling us that the philosophy of physics is corrupt?

Life exists. I deal with it every day. That ain't no shortcut and it is not sappy emotionalism. It is perception.

Where did I deny that life exists? I think this is hopeless. You continually ignore and/or misrepresent my arguments and ask me to do impossible things like explaining things that need a booklength post. I really don't see the use of continuing this discussion, we just don't speak the same language.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

Here's an example of the problem in your own words:

... how we can explain the special character of the carbon atom, which makes biological structures possible...

This may make "biological structures" possible, i.e., be a condition for life to exist, but it does not infuse those carbon atoms with life. Once you are able to show that "bottom up" causality, that life comes from there, I will be able to accept your dismissal of other theories. Until then, I prefer to go with my own perceptions and examination of information from other sources.

I really don't want to get personal, but since you keep doing it, here goes. When you finally get near considering this issue, really considering it, you then suddenly and impatiently blurt out a large barrage of technical information that does not deal with it at all and request that I digest an entire library to be able to talk about it. You can "how dare you?" and grump and complain all day, but you still are not able to come up with the life emergence connection from the bottom up. I suspect that this is what makes you grumpy. But being grumpy will not make the issue go away.

This even leads you to make gross errors of interpretation from not reading correctly (and you certainly do have the intelligence not to make these mistakes). For instance, I used the phrase "life as an existent," followed almost immediately by "life exists." Obviously I was stating "life exists as an existent," because stylistically, redundancy gets tedious. But off you go sometimes in a grumpy mood and get all hell-bent on making accusations of Randroid and creationist and supernatural and whatnot.

In this frame of mind, you asked, "Where did I deny that life exists?" What a question! As if I said you denied life exists in general, which of course you never did and I never claimed you did. So let us by all means be redundant. As you can see, I meant "life exists as an existent" as opposed to "life exists only as a result of subparticle interaction," meaning that it might not necessarily emerge from there. This happens to be the crux of our disagreement, which is not from the last 5 minutes, it goes back a bit further, and it was right there in front of you.

I suggest you calm down and read more carefully before coming out with things like: "You continually ignore and/or misrepresent my arguments..."

We have already been over this, but let me remind you of something again. We agreed once that we could disagree on issues and still be friends. So why not show a bit more good will - at least read correctly what I write - and cut the insults? We may even exchange some useful information and some awfully good vibes, even if we don't convince each other.

Michael

[Mikee]

Michael,

I think Dragonfly has done a very good job of explaining the origins of life "from the bottom up". When you say "infuse those carbon atoms with life" I have no idea what you are talking about but it sounds an awful lot like something supernatural. Life began and evolved over millions of years due to perfectly natural physical laws. If conciousness and self awareness were something other than a perfectly natural phenomenon why would life have had to achieve the extraordinary complexity that we see in the human mind? An achievement that took hundreds of millions of years. It is this complexity, trillions upon trillions of cells, each with trillions upon trillons of complex molecules but each and every one following the natural laws of physics that your life and your body is. The laws of evolution orchestrated this. To wish for some other explanation other than purely natural ones I think takes away from the wonder of it all, it certainly doesn't add to it. I am firmly on Dragonfly's side of this issue.

Regards,

Mike E.

[Paul Mawdsley]

... how we can explain the special character of the carbon atom, which makes biological structures possible...

This may make "biological structures" possible, i.e., be a condition for life to exist, but it does not infuse those carbon atoms with life. Once you are able to show that "bottom up" causality, that life comes from there, I will be able to accept your dismissal of other theories. Until then, I prefer to go with my own perceptions and examination of information from other sources.

Michael,

From how I see things you have nailed the point of focus in understanding the nature of life, the basic building blocks of consciousness, and even the basic elements of volitional consciousness. How do inert carbon atoms generate the capacity for self-generated action? How does a control system for an organism (the central nervous system) initiate the actions of its own consciousness to cause the self generated action of the organism? And how does an organism with a central control system that has the complexity to generate alternative courses of action, held in stasis, initiate the action that is a choice of one of the alternatives?

Something more is needed than inert matter to initiate actions not necessitated by a chain of external and internal interactions of inert matter. What is this something? I have given the beginnings of the answer I have been working on with no response as to what its value or what its flaws might be. If, at the base of reality underlying the quantum limit, there is a fundamentally proactive substance that causes the quantum strangeness, the existence of inert matter, the physical reality described by special and general relativity, etc., then could the basic proactivity of living matter, of organisms, of consciousness, of volition not be the action of this proactive substance reintegrated with inert matter? What kind of entity would be formed if a substance that was fundamentally proactive but formed relatively unstable structures (the transient and structures of electromagnetic fields and currents that are dependent on the properties of the matter with which they are associated) integrated with a substance that formed very stable structures but was inert? You would get a new composite entity that is proactive with a stable structure. You would get life and the basic building blocks of organisms, consciousness, and volition.

This whole model of existence can be built from an image of an entity that is indivisible, occupies a volume of space through time, and has the single proactive property of always and only moving at the speed of light in straight lines (unless its freedom to do so is limited by the existence of other such entities). Well, this plus a massive amount of evidence about how reality behaves and can be described and a very precise and inclusive concept of causation to guide the building of one's models. Science has provided the evidence about how reality behaves and can be described. It is up to the artist in each of us to paint a moving picture of the physical behaviour of these fundamental particles. And it is up to the philosopher in each of us to precisely define a concept of causation that leaves no actions unaccounted for. It is only by working between these three epistemological lenses-- switching between them to cause reciprocal feedback loops of insight, that our perspective can evolve and we can come to glimpse the underlying nature of reality.

I do find it curious that no-one has asked about or commented on some of the things I have said regarding this. I figure, if I keep writing, sooner or later someone will either tell me that I am not making any sense or that they get it. Until then I will continue to play with and talk about my models in the comforts of my solipsism.

Paul

(Edit: I hope this also sheds some light on what Michael might be leading to with "infuse those carbon atoms with life." It does not necessarily imply anything supernatural. It simply implies something not inert.)

Edited September 25, 2006 by Paul Mawdsley

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mike,

Paul gets it. I am not talking about spooks, but then I have said that already over and over, since Dragonfly keeps repeating it.

Christian has posted some marvelous material from scientific sources that say the same thing I do in different words. Paul uses his own vocabulary, but says it. Ellen goes from a different angle, but says it. So why does this thing about supernatural keep coming up?

I am talking about an element of reality that is so far unaccounted for by science. Science can break life down once it exists. Science can modify it once it exists. Science can alter it genetically once it exists. Science cannot create it from nonliving matter like it can create so many other things. That science cannot do. And once life dies, science cannot revive it. Science needs life to exist already in order to work with it.

Maybe that hurts, but that is reality. I say deal with it if that is the fact. Saying "supernatural" over and over again in a sneering manner will not result in science creating life from inert matter or reviving the dead. And it will not stop people like me from looking with my own eyes, seeing, and then saying that it cannot do these things.

So if science needs life to exist already in order to work with it, then life is either (1) a reaction of inert matter that is not understood yet, or (2) an existent in its own right that is not understood yet. The point in common between them is that both deal with a possibility that is not understood yet. Only some elements of life's physical components are understood, and there are classifications of what organisms does or did exist, of course, with biological mapping.

Yet a certain type of scientist insists on saying - as fact - that life as an existent in its own right does not exit. Life is only a result of inert matter making "structures." I ask why? No answer so far. Lots of noise but no answer. Lots of technical stuff with big words but no answer. Lots of sneering about supernatural, etc., but no answer.

I am against someone saying he understands what he doesn't and trying to impose this through intimidation. That reminds me of the behavior of Randriods with Objectivism. What is wrong with saying we don't know yet? What is wrong with saying let's pursue both angles until we do know?

What's the deal with the intimidation thing, anyway?

Does science really need intimidation when it has no answer? And if there is an answer, well... what is it? Why doesn't anything work so far - in reality?

I'm sorry, but I will not accept that denial on faith. That is precisely what is being demanded and I just won't do it. I use reason for thinking.

Michael

[Mikee]

Michael,

"I am talking about an element of reality that is so far unaccounted for by science. Science can break life down once it exists. Science can modify it once it exists. Science can alter it genetically once it exists. Science cannot create it from nonliving matter like it can create so many other things. That science cannot do. And once life dies, science cannot revive it. Science needs life to exist already in order to work with it."

What is impossible for science to do one day is a routine accomplishment the next. It doesn't mean that that thing was not well understood before it could be done, just that the technology had not been developed sufficiently yet.

Even the simplest life forms are extraordinarily complex. Larger life forms, such as ourselves, are composed of billions upon billions of specialized cells living in a symbiotic relationship to each other in this universe unto themselves called our bodies. Each individual cell performs all of the functions of a life form, taking in food and oxygen across the barrier membrane called the cell wall, transferring waste across the cell wall into the intracellular fluids, reproducing by dividing. Each cell also has specialized functions that contribute to survival of the aggregate whole. These cells communicate with each other via complex chemical and electrical signals still not completely understood. Science presently is totally incapable of performing the millions of functions performed every second, naturally, by the cells in even a small life form. But basically, how it all works is understood. There are details that are still a little foggy, but only because it’s all so complicated. There is nothing mysterious going on except a level of complexity that boggles the mind. You cannot think of “carbon molecules” as being “infused with life”. You have to begin understanding life at the cellular level.

“What's the deal with the intimidation thing, anyway?”

I think Dragonfly is simply saying, “If you’re so interested in life, study the life sciences”. Which means being grounded in physics and chemistry as well. That is reality, and shouldn’t be so intimidating.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mike,

But basically, how it all works is understood.

I hear you say that, and you gave a wonderful description of what life is - ahem... once it exists.

Do you really understand how inanimate molecules emerge into a living cell at the smallest level? Or do you only understand how they work in a living cell once it exists? There's a big difference. You said:

There are details that are still a little foggy, but only because it’s all so complicated.

Then the explanation of how life springs from inanimate "complicated" things should at least be communicable. And the most complicated things in science are easily communicable in simple language. I will give you a very oversimplified example:

"Molecule X attaches itself to Molecule Y and this joins with Subparticle A which reacts against Subparticle B. Before this moment, there was no life. After this happened, life started."

That shouldn't be so complicated.

(btw - The intimidation was not from suggesting study. It was from accusing "supernatural" over and over again with rudeness. Science does not really need that kind of argument.)

Michael

[Paul Mawdsley]

...basically, how it all works is understood.

Except for the principle that allows inert matter--matter that only moves when a force acts upon it-- to produce self-generated motion.

I was about to write more about how skipping from the level of carbon molecules to the cellular level without accounting for the fact that there is a fundamental difference in the principle of motion is where the problem lies. However, the Dragonfly inside me won't let me endorse this. Electromagnetic phenomena will solve this problem.

To a physicist, electromagnetism is a given, an observation that can be measured and quantified. Electromagnetic forces are what cause cells to form and maintains their structure. The issue is with philosophical principles and imagination. The philosopher in me asks: in principle, how can we account for electromagnetic phenomena (and life) if the universe is built from inert particles? The artist in me asks: how can I visualize entities, who's natures and actions are defined by Newton's laws of motion, generating the electromagnetic phenomena and give rise to entities with self-generated motion.

Since physics starts with observation and proceeds with mathematical reasoning, there is no need to consider how entities who's behaviour is described by the concept of inertia can generate the proactive integrating behaviour of electromagnetic currents and fields. They just are. But intuition operates by visualizing entities acting and interacting according to some principle of causation. And philosophy operates by connecting chains of logical reasoning from basic principles. Both intuition and philosophy need to connect the dots where physics just doesn't care. Intuition and philosophy need to understand how proactive behaviour comes from inert particles. The answer is: it can't. So, when we look through the lens of physics, we assume that intuition and philosophy are impotent because they lead us to questions we cannot answer. There is another answer: the proactive behaviour observed in electromagnetic phenomena and the inert behaviour observed in inanimate matter both come from underlying proactive entities. Intuition and philosophy are not impotent. We just made a mistake.

Now the physicist in us says, "But I can't observe, measure, and quantify these underlying proactive entities." If our epistemology is larger than our physics' perspective, then we look to integrate our three lenses for the most inclusive understanding of existence. We find the other two lenses are able to develop rational insights into areas our physics' perspective cannot penetrate.

Paul

[Mikee]

To answer Paul first:

"Except for the principle that allows inert matter--matter that only moves when a force acts upon it-- to produce self-generated motion."

If you are referring to how the cell generates energy to perform its various functions that is well understood. There is a Wiki website: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cell_Biology

Read the parts under "energy supply" especially "Kreb's cycle" to get an idea of the complexity. How the cell produces energy, both aerobic and anerobically, has been well understood for decades. The cell produces its energy by a series of controlled chemical reactions. The "programming" of the cells is contained in the DNA and RNA. I've read a wonderful book called "Genome" by Matt Ridley within the last year.

http://www.amazon.com/Genome-Matt-Ridley/dp/0060932902

That describes some of the characteristics expressed by each individual gene. Some of the most insightful descriptions are when something goes wrong. For instance, an error in one gene produces persons who are normal in every way but are UNABLE to learn and use certain grammatical rules in their speech. They can be quite intelligent, but difficult to understand in their speech. The thing these people had in common was a mutation in a single gene. I wish I had the book to refer to now, but I had checked it out of the local library while doing jury duty late last year and had to give it back.

Michael,

The problem with science recreating the original lifeform that started the whole process of evolution is that it is not completely understood exactly what that original lifeform was. The origins of life happened billions of years ago. These primitive cells may have been "outcompeted" by later ones and not even exist on earth anymore. One possibility is that they may have come from space. Thus the excitement of studying the organic molecules present in the matter that falls from space and potentially present on other planets in our solar system. Organic molecules are present in large quantities throughout our galaxy and other galaxies. They can be detected by studying the "dark bands" present in light that has come through the dust bands present in nebula. What is true, in life on earth at least, is there is a common denominator. All life on earth, whether animal or vegetable, has a common genetic heritance. Science is in the process of following a trail billions of years old. I believe they are on the right trail. Life is, simply, a very complex series of controlled chemical reactions. Controlled by programs contained in our genes, put there by eons and eons of trial and error called evolution.

Disclaimer: I am not a biologist. Someone like Hong Zhang, for instance, could explain all of this MUCH better than I can.

[Paul Mawdsley]

To answer Paul first:

"Except for the principle that allows inert matter--matter that only moves when a force acts upon it-- to produce self-generated motion."

If you are referring to how the cell generates energy to perform its various functions that is well understood.

No, I wasn't. I was referring to the part where we go from Newton's laws of motion to self-generated action. How do we connect the dots?

Paul

[Mikee]

Paul,

"I was referring to the part where we go from Newton's laws of motion to self-generated action. How do we connect the dots?"

We connect the dots by understanding the complex controlled chemical reactions by which the cell produces the energy to perform its functions. And understanding that these reactions must continue in an unbroken chain to maintain the life of the cell. And that they HAVE continued in an unbroken chain of reactions, and cell divisions, since life first began. Perhaps the Newton's law we should be concentrating on is the one that says "an object in motion will remain in motion".