Not true. (At least not if I remember correctly.) From what I recall, once the initial embryo cell has divided to the point where seven cells exist, one may be removed and the rest can still devlope into a human being. If more are removed, the cells will not develop further.
Uhm, no...
1st division: 2 cells
2nd division: 4 cells
3rd division:8 cells
3th division: 16 cells
At which point the cells start to differentiate and you can not split the morula anymore to create multiple embryos.
Diogenes wrote: The Value of a human being is based entirely on the pattern (or code) that it employees to manipulate the matter into the form and function of a sapient entity.
The essence of a human is that pattern which forms, not that which it is formed from.
Nicely said!
I'm not sure that the complexity and capability of the program doesn't invite something more (a soal?) to take up residence, but it may not need to.
I have often pondered that if souls exist, then they must be formed from pieces of the mother and fathers soul.
Strangely enough, I do have a theory for a possible science based notion of "soul." It has to do with the fact that our em patterns are unique to our individuality. I'd love to get into it, but I'm pressed for time. I've got to go for the moment, but i'll be back later.
happyjack27 wrote:i would argue that religion does not inform of as to values, either. i certainly hope not. our conscience and our compassion does that.
I'm sorry but that's just an argument from ignorance. Do a little study in cultural anthropology and you'll see cultures esteem such wildly varying and contradictory values as to make your argument laughable. Truly, the stories about head hunters and human sacrifice. . .they're all true.
Conversely, the opposite is true--all religions pass on the values they espouse, be it the selfless giving of the humble monk, or the self-interested abuse of all around found in the Satanist. (The whole of the law is, do what thou will.) Values come to us through culture, from religion. That doesn't mean our apprehension of values is something forced upon us. We're free to consider and reject as we like. That doesn't change the fact that Western Civilization is what it is, because of Judaism and Christianity.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
Diogenes wrote:
Really? Seems pretty obvious to me. I'm seeing Scientists constantly writing how this series of genes code for that series of proteins, and how the DNA contains entire sets of on/off switches governing gene expression.
A Human being is a computer program written in quadrinary molecular interactions with a complex/composite Fractal algorithm overview.
no no no. there is much in the analogy that is false. not the elast of which is overemphasis on dna and likewise underemphasis on the environment and entropic processes. life, far from being digital is strongly nonlinear. and contrary to popular belief, not as self-contained as we would like to believe. certainly not auto-pietic. it's essentially a dissipative structure. also the information theoretic arguments of dna as compression are wholly misguided. most of the information, on a bit-per-bit bases, does not come from the quarternary coding of dna. but ratehr the chmicals present, the structure of intermolecular forces, the stored energy in the glucose, etc. (ultimately from the sun). very little of it is actually from the dna. (try putting the dna in a cup of water and see what happens) the dna only encodes a few macroscopic growth and form parameters for the surrounding molecules. and of that it is quite far from compressed. 99% of it is junk. and the remaining 1% is highly redundant.
etc. etc.
You mean it is a highly efficient encryption algorithm!
no i mean neither is it efficient nor encryption (or cormpression) nor an algorithm.
[qutoe]
Not being digital, and being non-linear is no reason to denounce it as a computer program. Analog computers were developed first, and they encompass both of these criticisms.
[/quote]
yes it is. no they don't. also, i'm talking about a whole 'nother dimension of non-linearity. apples and oranges here.
As for the "Junk" DNA. They are now saying that that "Junk" is not so unimportant as they had long believed.
well that much i guessed when they first called it junk. but still most of it is junk. an entropic complexity argument will tell you that much. (basically that there's nothing really limiting it's length - the energy limiting factor is very weak while the search space preference factor is strong, so mathemetically it's entropically favored to grow well past its minimally encoding length)
happyjack27 wrote:i would argue that religion does not inform of as to values, either. i certainly hope not. our conscience and our compassion does that.
I'm sorry but that's just an argument from ignorance. Do a little study in cultural anthropology and you'll see cultures esteem such wildly varying and contradictory values as to make your argument laughable. Truly, the stories about head hunters and human sacrifice. . .they're all true.
Conversely, the opposite is true--all religions pass on the values they espouse, be it the selfless giving of the humble monk, or the self-interested abuse of all around found in the Satanist. (The whole of the law is, do what thou will.) Values come to us through culture, from religion. That doesn't mean our apprehension of values is something forced upon us. We're free to consider and reject as we like. That doesn't change the fact that Western Civilization is what it is, because of Judaism and Christianity.
i'm more than happy to lose to someone who makes solid and informed arguments.
KitemanSA wrote:Ok, you and I will just have to disagree about this. Slavery was SUPPORTED by religion for more than a millenium and it was the religious mainstream that were amongst the last to give up on it. It was the "cults" that were against slavery.
You're painting with an awfully broad brush but in general I agree. Doesn't matter. Those "cults" (as in small groups, not as in personality cults) got their values from their religion--chiefly through their understanding of the Bible, old and new testaments both. Our values about slavery, egalitarianism and secularism all come from Christ's teachings and how they have affected his followers for 2,000 years. He didn't teach against slavery. He taught what was the basis for us to discover that slavery is wrong.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
happyjack27 wrote:
Having it's own unique DNA is not what makes it a compressed human being. Every cell of the body contains the blueprint of the whole (Fractal) but only one cell contains the "execute" command. That is the Embryo.
no. it doesn't work like that.
It doesn't work that way? How does it work? Can we take an ordinary skin cell and implant it into a womb and form a person from it?
No, of course not.
I'm thinking that the cell which does this is a very special cell containing not just a copy of the blueprint, but the activated sequence for building it.
Diogenes wrote: A Human being is a computer program written in quadrinary molecular interactions with a complex/composite Fractal algorithm overview.
no no no. there is much in the analogy that is false. not the elast of which is overemphasis on dna and likewise underemphasis on the environment and entropic processes.
I can't be SURE, but I think that is what he meant by the "complex/composite fractal algorithm overview". Just saying...
GIThruster wrote: Fact is, without the positive historic influences of religion in western civilization, we would arguably still have slavery and the inequality of the sexes you find in the unsecularized nations of the Middle East.
Do you not see the fundamental contradiction in this statement? "If we weren't religious, we'd be like those religious places over there". Wha???
It's not a contradiction. Our beliefs about slavery and equality come from religion. There's no denying it. Western Civilization holds the values that have been supported over time in our secular society--primarily Judaism and Christianity. Without those values, there is no evidence we would have abolished slavery nor sought egalitarian relations between the sexes.
Just giving credit where it's due. Rousseau was correct. There is a proper place for religion. That does not mean it needs to be, nor should be institutionalized.
BTW, it is this same cultural heritage that has informed us about slavery and equality, that created the mere possibility of a secular society. If not for the influence of Christianity on Charlemagne, he would never have deeded the papal states to the Church and thereby laid the foundations of separation of church and state.
All secularists, and especially all atheists, have Christianity to thank, that they are able to function openly and without reprisals in our culture and certainly the same is not true of those cultures descended from Islam.
The Above is a theme I repeat often. China was civilized for thousands of years, yet never developed much further till the Europeans showed up in ships with guns. What made the barbarian hordes of Europe advance beyond the Thousands of years old Chinese culture?
Skipjack wrote:
Also, per definition a human being requires certain aspects that a pile of cells does not fullfill. The pile of cells offers the genetic makeup to turn into a human being, but theoretically you could probably do this with a couple of unfirtilized eggs as well (in the lab). Since unfertilized eggs are according to you not human, what would the outcome be then?
Also, this pile of cells by itself will not turn into a human being unless provided with the right environment (a womb, or maybe in the future an artificial womb even).
So the pile of cells by itself wont turn into a human being.
A Human being will turn into a dead human being without an environment sufficient in water heat and oxygen. The weakness of a life to exist outside it's proper environment does not make it "not a life."
if i may anticipate his response, i believe what he meant to elucidate was that life is not something like an "atom" where you can divide it up into tiny pieces and than in each of those tiny pieces is it's "seed" per se. at what level does it become not life? the molecule? the atom? is an atom alive or dead? (sort of like in the song "triangle man": "does he get wet or does water get him?). when we evaluate it this way we discover contradictions that tell us that the original premise is wrong. life is more like a "state of matter" than an "element". and as such, it's being what it is dependant on - nay, is inextricable from - its relation to its environment and it cannot be reduced to mere "atoms" or even "cells" or "bodies" for that matter. it is a dynamical configuration in the presence of an entropy gradient, like the convection cells of a boiling pot of water, not a "thing" vita.
This is an old philosophy question. When do dead atoms make a living thing? While I love to get into metaphysics, at the moment it is irrelevant to the point. It is not debatable that "living" creatures are made of "dead" atoms. Life itself points to a sort of reverse entropy in that a meaningless jumble of random components are spontaneously assembled into a structure of a higher level of order.
I believe there is something more going on here beyond a "strange attractor."
happyjack27 wrote:
erg- i correct myself. i jsut read what he wrote. i don't understand how what you wrote is at all relevant to the logical question he presented to you.
Rather than fisk everything he wrote, I responded to the point which I considered to be most salient. The old fallacy of viability = life.
Not true. (At least not if I remember correctly.) From what I recall, once the initial embryo cell has divided to the point where seven cells exist, one may be removed and the rest can still devlope into a human being. If more are removed, the cells will not develop further.
Uhm, no...
1st division: 2 cells
2nd division: 4 cells
3rd division:8 cells
3th division: 16 cells
At which point the cells start to differentiate and you can not split the morula anymore to create multiple embryos.
There is no 7 cell stage...
darn the internet for being so irritating to those of us who have to remember what we've learned!
Yeah, I thought that was peculiar when I wrote it, but that's what I recall seeing on the documentary which was discussing this issue.
So fine, you say 16, my recollection says 7, either way the point is the same. There is something special about the cells in the early stages of dividing.
So, dumb question. How do the cells know when to start differentiating? Is this happening according to some sort of plan that the too dumb to think cells are following?
There is also another argument for why Europe advanced beyond China: internal conflict and competition.
Every time it almost fell apart, the Chinese empire succeeded in restoring itself. However, the Roman Empire fell apart irrevocably. The fractured mess of successor states were then driven to improve themselves economically, militarily and technologically in order to survive against each other.
This didn't start immediately. It first becomes visible with the northern Italian city states around the 13th century, as the rudiments of capitalism get going.
Then it spreads to France and England. Eventually it spreads to all the others, tied up with the rise of nationalism.
Yet another argument is that the Black Death in the 14th century created such a shortage of workers that feudalism died. Regional overlords were came to be willing to accept worker mobility from one area to another.
Interestingly, an echo of this theory has been applied to the 6th century, where it is argued that that earlier iteration of the Black Death also created a worker shortage, and therefore was the final necessary catalyst to putting an end to slavery.
These circumstances undermined the alliance between the Church and local secular powerbrokers, and so created the conditions where Protestantism could emerge. Yet another bunch of people (Max Weber et al.) have argued that it was the Protestant work ethic and outlook on life (as opposed to a generic non-denominational one Christian one) that allowed for continuing acceleration of technological advances.
I've thrown down a soup of a few theories above, but I think it's fair to argue that without the disruptive influences that those theories discuss, Christianity may well have just become another theocracy fused with a worldly imperial government.
Last edited by CaptainBeowulf on Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
So, dumb question. How do the cells know when to start differentiating? Is this happening according to some sort of plan that the too dumb to think cells are following?
Its all in the programming.
Anyway, you can divide this morula as many times as you want and you will get many morulas that can all develop into fully grown individuals.
So the matter is not quite as simple as you were putting it. These cells are not a human being, they can be many human beings too.
happyjack27 wrote:
no no no. there is much in the analogy that is false. not the elast of which is overemphasis on dna and likewise underemphasis on the environment and entropic processes. life, far from being digital is strongly nonlinear. and contrary to popular belief, not as self-contained as we would like to believe. certainly not auto-pietic. it's essentially a dissipative structure. also the information theoretic arguments of dna as compression are wholly misguided. most of the information, on a bit-per-bit bases, does not come from the quarternary coding of dna. but ratehr the chmicals present, the structure of intermolecular forces, the stored energy in the glucose, etc. (ultimately from the sun). very little of it is actually from the dna. (try putting the dna in a cup of water and see what happens) the dna only encodes a few macroscopic growth and form parameters for the surrounding molecules. and of that it is quite far from compressed. 99% of it is junk. and the remaining 1% is highly redundant.
etc. etc.
You mean it is a highly efficient encryption algorithm!
no i mean neither is it efficient nor encryption (or cormpression) nor an algorithm.
Whether it meets some one's technical standard or definition, it still serves as a very good analogy for what is occurring. If anything, what is going on with biological decompression is far more advanced than is ordinary data compression techniques. It is a program that runs in matter, as opposed to memory.
Not being digital, and being non-linear is no reason to denounce it as a computer program. Analog computers were developed first, and they encompass both of these criticisms.
yes it is. no they don't. also, i'm talking about a whole 'nother dimension of non-linearity. apples and oranges here.
Yes, it was a really shaggy dog!
As for the "Junk" DNA. They are now saying that that "Junk" is not so unimportant as they had long believed.
well that much i guessed when they first called it junk. but still most of it is junk. an entropic complexity argument will tell you that much. (basically that there's nothing really limiting it's length - the energy limiting factor is very weak while the search space preference factor is strong, so mathemetically it's entropically favored to grow well past its minimally encoding length)
I understand this is the case in some species they've discovered. If I recall properly, the barley mold is an example of an enormous DNA with very few actual genes in it.
I would think that higher level creatures would become evolutionarily unfit to survive were this to happen to them, and therein probably lies your limiting factor.
It doesn't work that way? How does it work? Can we take an ordinary skin cell and implant it into a womb and form a person from it?
No, of course not.
actually, yes we could. in principle, at least. that's kind of what i was getting at. the genes are all there it's just a matter of activation. and we've actually made considerable progress on that front.
I'm thinking that the cell which does this is a very special cell containing not just a copy of the blueprint, but the activated sequence for building it.
"activitated sequence" is kind of a misleading phrase. there is nothing about the sequence that is different in any way. it's the chain of events and circumstances surrounding the sequence that really make it what we call "activated". phase information, if you will. nothing at all endemic to the sequence itself, save the minor role it plays in contributing to the dynamics of the whole system. which, after all, is present regardless of the "phase" of the system, e.g. whether or not certain "parts" are "activated" from our perspective.
as i think someone alluded to before, everything is already there, it's just a matter of flipping a few switches. (easier said than done, of course)
