BS: Blowing My Mind

Subject: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 02:25 PM

We consist of a collection of atoms which have been arranged in such a way thar they enquire into the nature of existence itself.

Why?

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 02:27 PM

Why not?

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Amos
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 02:29 PM

Atoms do not enquire, SPBC.

They may pose a puzzle to enquiring minds, though. The general answer at present is that it is the nature of simple elements in combination to evolve complex systems whenever they exceed a certain order of number of transactions among them. Even very simple rules will yield highly complex new behaviours when the number (which depends on the rules and elements) is reached. If you combine this principle of emerging complexities with the fundamentals of Darwinian selection and survival it makes a fairly coherent answer to your question.

If you are more inclined to spiritual answers, the answer is because we chose that path, more or less.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Rapparee
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 02:41 PM

Because that's why I made all of you that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 02:51 PM

I think the starting point lies with the fact that DNA can replicate, and that leads to a question why should this collection of molecules care less if it can replicate or not, and why only one nuclied chain does this.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: pdq
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 02:54 PM

Because God said so.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 02:55 PM

So many of those collections of atoms are "enquiring into the nature of existence" before they learn about tautology & redundancy & equivocation...and several other concepts.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Amos
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 03:18 PM

The mechanism of individual molecules includes selective lock-and key combining with only those molecules with which they both can and must match links. If you understand electron shells and how they are filled, it will make sense. In other words it is just physics that they combine as they do. Now, as to how that complex mechanism grew from mishmashes of elements in a problematic sea, that's a more complex question.

It is also the case that this explanation ignores any function of intentionality from those who are actually living the forms so contrived. There may be a great deal more to this part than meets the eye.

Bill D, they also have to learn about condescension. Fie on you, sir!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: gnu
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 03:31 PM

Yeah! There it is! It's obvious. right?

You gonna pass that around or what?

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Amos
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 03:47 PM

Not me, bro. I never share with dubious characters, and you sound pretty dubious right now... :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: gnu
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 04:13 PM

Doobie doobie don't?

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 04:28 PM

Sometimes it's wiser just to know that something is a certain way rather than to set about trying to determine why it is that way.

To know THAT it is that way is usually all that's really necessary. After all, why does an apple taste good? Why??? WHO CARES? It just does taste good, so go ahead and eat it.

Ever been around a little kid who does this endless "why" thing?

****

"What are you doin', mister?"

"I'm fixing my car."

"Why are you doin' that?"

"Because it won't run right if I don't fix it."

"Why won't it run right?"

"Because the timing belt is broken."

"Why did it break?"

"I don't KNOW why it broke!"

"Why not?"

And so on......... Got any idea how annoying that can get after awhile? And how little it actually achieves?

*****

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Paul Burke
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:16 PM

It's an illusion. You only THINK you feel.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Bettynh
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:16 PM

When my kids were little, they had another standard question for me. (Maybe "why" got too many "I don't knows")

What do tigers eat?
What do elephants eat?
What do cars eat?
What do rocks eat?
What do stars eat?

And on and on and on. Sometimes I still wonder what stars eat.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: gnu
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:24 PM

Carly SimonÉ

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: gnu
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:25 PM

É = question mark... my keyboard keeps going strange.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:32 PM

There was a faith healer of Deal.
Who said, "Although pain isn't real,
   When I sit on a pin,
   And it punctures my skin,
I dislike what I fancy I feel."

there... condescension and elucidation in one tight package.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:33 PM

LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 07:28 PM

LH: I was that little kid. I excelled in it. I can do that anytime I like. BUT- I also like meeting little kids who do that, with one exception:

when I'm working on my car.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 07:56 PM

My atoms ceased to give two shits awhile back and are now simply happy to be here................


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Joe_F
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 09:57 PM

Out of the cradle onto the dry land
here it is standing
atoms with consciousness
matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea
wonders at wondering
I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe.

    -- R. P. Feynman

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 05:40 AM

What stars 'eat' is an easy one.. Hydrogen

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: SharonA
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 06:03 AM

The original question seems to be:

Why are our atoms arranged in such a way that we ask why they are?

In other words, why are we "wired" to ask why?

I don't think that the answers given here so far have really answered the "why" question but have detailed "how".

The simplistic answer to "why", given here by Bill D, is that the arrangement was designed by a superior sentient being, but we are then left to question why such a being would be sentient when it does not have the same basic design (brain cells, neurons, etc.) that its sentient creations do. The reason I call "God made it so" the simplistic answer is that it's the answer people give when they really don't want to explore the causes of things in a reasoning way.

Interestingly, we could not even ask the question about atom-arrangement if those before us had not already discovered the existence of atoms as a result of asking "why?" and exploring the causes of things in a reasonable way, instead of adopting the Dark-Age "don't question God" attitude.

So my answer to SPB-Cooperator's original question is: we don't know yet, but we should keep asking.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 08:21 PM

"PhysOrg.com) -- Life's ability to replicate itself is essential for evolution, yet even the simplest kind of replication requires a relatively complex system. So what kind of non-replicating system might have served as the predecessor of evolution, paving the way for life as we know it? The answer, according to a recent study, is a kind of "prelife" -- a chemical system that can lead to information and diversity, and that is capable of selection and mutation, but does not yet have the ability to self-replicate.

In their study, Hisashi Ohtsuki of the Japan Science and Technology Agency and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, along with Martin Nowak of Harvard University, have investigated how evolution might have first begun. As the researchers explain, the origin of life is a transition from chemistry to biology, and has been widely studied. Here, Ohtsuki and Nowak have presented a model where a purely chemical system (prelife) becomes more efficient (catalytic prelife) and then builds the sequences needed for replication, finally resulting in life. Their work is published in a recent issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.


"As you know, the ability of replication is critical for life," Ohtsuki told PhysOrg.com. "We can conceive several forms of life, such as prelife catalysts and replicators, as in our paper. We are interested in which form of life is most efficient and thus is selected in prelife (a soup of chemicals). The significance of our study is that we have mathematically shown for the first time that replicators, which have the ability to remain attached with a growing sequence, have a great advantage over the other forms of life. Replication is usually taken for granted in the study of evolution. We think that our result gives a justification of why replicators are so dominant."

In the scientists' model, prelife is made of two types of monomers (0 and 1) that randomly link together to form a polymer chain. By adding a 0 or a 1, longer chains are produced from shorter ones. The researchers created a simple tree of life based on this growth process, where either a 0 or a 1 is added to the end of the preceding chain to make a longer one. Though starting with just a single monomer, this tree of prelife has infinitely many lineages..."

From here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: GUEST,Black Belt Caterpillar Wrestler
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 07:45 AM

"Why are our atoms arranged in such a way that we ask why they are?"

Evolution!

We are descended from other groups of atoms that did the same thing and prospered.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: SharonA
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 10:28 AM

Yay! Now we're getting into the "why" of it! :-)

Now, pardon me while I get out of the way of the "why"... Gotta go work, or my evolutionized ass will be grass!

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 11:29 AM

Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker) also has a thorough treatment on this question.

Parts of the book can be read here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 05:43 AM

I would challenge tbe thought behind evolution, and ask if the nature of matter is to reach stable, enduraing states... Then carbon molecules by their nature are unstable, so maybe, on an atomic level, the pinnacle of evolution is the diamond.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 07:48 AM

Carefull, the football lovers will declare it's the Buckyball form and politicians will go for graphite as it is slippery!

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 08:06 AM

"The physical concepts of matter and rays correspond, to the metaphysical concepts of the thing and of movement; but whereas classical philosophy considered both as distinct, and the thing as ontologically real, modern science can not distinguish matter from rays: it is thus impossible to examine an immobile thing"

So unless we all get up from our computers and move around, I submit it is not possible for Mudcatters to adequately examine your statement as we are immobile things.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Ed T
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 08:08 AM

Oh, I forgot:)

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 10:42 AM

SBPC raises an interesting point. If the system is entropic, why would there be a growing degree of complex order in life forms?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 02:52 PM

For the same reason that Global Warming can be happening while YOU might be freezing yer butt off in a colder few weeks than 'normal'. And for similar reasons that we grow & develop until about age 18-19, then begin aging and our bodies gradually slowing.

Entropy only refers to the overall picture... local conditions vary.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 03:09 PM

I am composed of the matter which I created.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 03:14 PM

SHHHHHH, VT, you'll have them all raising a fuss!!

;>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 06:29 PM

Not only that but all of our atoms are replaced with different atoms over a seven year period...save for a scant few that reside deep within our teeth.

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 01:01 PM

No wonder I feel like shit warmed over all the time. some how I got the wrong replacement parts

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 02:01 PM

errr... I mean replacement particles

Subject: RE: BS: Blowing My Mind
From: heric
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 09:55 PM

I know not the how or why, but I do now believe the two or three purposes in life are: (1) to examine, (2) to report, and (3) to nurture the complexity (see, (2), supra.)