The Purpose of Life, a biological perspective

[Whateverist]

For someone who doesn't come out of the sciences Phillip Ball's How Life Works: A User's Guide To The New Biology has done a great job of puling me in and along some pretty technical aspects of how life develops and persists. I'm finding the pay off as I cruise into Chapter 9: ‘Agency; How Life Gets Goals and Purposes’. From Kindle pages 333-34:

… Even if we can begin to glimpse some of the principles that create robustness instead of fragility, there’s something unsettling about the way a structure, a creature, so literally single-minded emerges from all those details. How can it be that these many steps all work together in synchrony to fashion an organism like us? Why, for example, should the process of protein folding to make an enzyme cooperate with the migration of cells, at scales many thousands of times bigger, to make a tissue? All these processes operate as if in thrall to some overall plan, with us as the goal. Biology looks uncannily teleological. That thought disturbs some biologists no end.

Yet their discomfort cannot be allowed to deter us from taking the question seriously—which means asking what all this intricacy and ingenuity of life’s mechanisms is for. It might sound like a dangerously mystical question, or at best metaphysical. But rather than simply dismissing it as such, the goal should be to shape the question into a useful, tractable, testable form. That’s to say, one of the big challenges for biology is to develop a rational, productive framework for understanding concepts such as agency, information, meaning, and purpose. These are not optional add- ons for the philosophically inclined, once we have solved all the minutiae of how life works at the microscopic scale. Rather, they sit at the core of life itself. Without that big picture, we risk ending up with the equivalent of a detailed description of everything about a complex machine’s operation except for an understanding of what it actually does. What, after all, is the point of knowing how life works if we don’t know what it is working toward?

It is interesting to think of how all these individual cells come together to form metazoan creatures like ourselves whose purposes are served by the cooperation of so many simpler organisms at lower levels. It makes me wonder at the source of values which we experience as what draws and calls to us -not as blind causes which drive us unwittingly from behind. Perhaps just as our metazoan purposes are not known for what they are by the individual cells which make us up, so there may be a higher order metazoan whose being is made possible by the activity of creatures like ourselves. Could this be the reason people everywhere have intuited a god in some form or other?

 

[Whateverist]

but who are you to tell us purpose of human life ? who are you ? how did you learned it ? is that any dream came to you all of sudden or you got any realization in the middle of nowhere ?

It isn't about me and what I think. I am merely passing on how the question of purpose and agency comes up naturally in the study of biology provided we have our minds open and are persistent in following all the information as far as it goes.

Who are you to demand of me or anyone else who I am to say what I choose to say? On whose authority do you attempt to serve as a gate keeper here?

 

[Whateverist]

Position relative to what? There are a lot of domains we fit into, don't you think? Unless you can be more specific I can't help you.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I am merely passing on how the question of purpose and agency comes up naturally in the study of biology provided we have our minds open and are persistent in following all the information as far as it goes.

Make sure that you keep your mind open and not jump to conclusions (credulity fallacy) just because "Biology looks uncannily teleological." It's not that atheists know that the theists are wrong. It's that they don't know that they are right, and so, reserve judgment.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Make sure that you keep your mind open and not jump to conclusions (credulity fallacy) just because "Biology looks uncannily teleological." It's not that atheists know that the theists are wrong. It's that they don't know that they are right, and so, reserve judgment.

I gave the OP an "Informative" frube because I thought it was that. I think that, even for science, if something really does seem teleological, there is good reason to at least try to understand why that might be.

(By the way, from my perspective, the answer to that question is because life has evolved precisely to survive, for no reason other than that is an essential part of what life is. That would indeed look teleological, without actually being so. But the question is still worth following up.)

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

yes, yes, very informative line it is spoken by op.


completely agree but this person is not coming from the sky, but his mother and father.

Completely irrelevant, in the context of the OP.

 

[Quintessence]

This part of the quote here really caught me off:

That’s to say, one of the big challenges for biology is to develop a rational, productive framework for understanding concepts such as agency, information, meaning, and purpose.

No. No it is not. This falls well outside the auspices of the sciences. It is a very good example of what @Debater Slayer was talking about in a recent thread here - The Extension of Science Beyond Its Scope - actually. The sciences - biological sciences or otherwise - do not deal with teleological questions of meaning or purpose. That's philosophy and religion.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

what is irrevelant ? biological prospective is we all came from our parents not from sky. so just explain how is it irrevelant ? explain it with your scientific facts. bring them.

Nothing in the OP suggests that "we come from the sky," or that every creature is not the offspring of its parents.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

if nothing is irrevelent than why are you trying to make show ? and do we control all these enzmes and so on within our body ? do we control pumping of blood ? do we even notice what is going on withing body ? so why are you bluffing ?

I can see your knowledge of science is at the usual level for those who rail against it, so I'm not going to bother anymore. I quit doing that with science deniers ages ago. Bye.

 

[Whateverist]

Make sure that you keep your mind open and not jump to conclusions (credulity fallacy) just because "Biology looks uncannily teleological." It's not that atheists know that the theists are wrong. It's that they don't know that they are right, and so, reserve judgment.

I’m quite experienced as an atheist but now I’m unlearning to see the world as nothing but matter in which our own internal perspective is suspect. Doesn’t mean I’m ripe for any old, off the rack god. But life clearly is animate and conscious .. some of it in the manner we are.

 

[Whateverist]

This part of the quote here really caught me off:



No. No it is not. This falls well outside the auspices of the sciences. It is a very good example of what @Debater Slayer was talking about in a recent thread here - The Extension of Science Beyond Its Scope - actually. The sciences - biological sciences or otherwise - do not deal with teleological questions of meaning or purpose. That's philosophy and religion.

If you don’t think agency, consciousness and intentionality arise biologically where do they come from? If they emerge from life why shouldn’t biology try to grapple with them?

 

[Quintessence]

If you don’t think agency, consciousness and intentionality arise biologically where do they come from? If they emerge from life why shouldn’t biology try to grapple with them?

Because certain kinds of questions (and answers) lie outside the scientific framework for understanding the world around us. What makes science science are certain philosophical assumptions that limit the kinds of questions it asks and the ways it can approach answers. It's not as if we don't have other ways of knowing to explore these other options - there is no need to extend sciences beyond their scope.

To give an example, one of the things I did research on was invasive species - novel introductions that displace native species in an ecosystem. If I had constructed a hypothesis to present to my professors and mentors at the time along the lines of "my hypothesis is that invasive species intentionally or purposefully displace native species in this ecosystem" I would have not been taken seriously as a young scientist, and rightly so. That's not a testable, measurable hypothesis. You cannot measure or assess intention or purpose empirically. You can absolutely however go "my hypothesis is that this invasive species when present in this ecosystem has this effect on this ecosystem." Intention and purpose do not - and should not - enter the picture of the investigation. If it does, you are no longer doing science.

 

[Whateverist]

Because certain kinds of questions (and answers) lie outside the scientific framework for understanding the world around us. What makes science science are certain philosophical assumptions that limit the kinds of questions it asks and the ways it can approach answers. It's not as if we don't have other ways of knowing to explore these other options - there is no need to extend sciences beyond their scope.

To give an example, one of the things I did research on was invasive species - novel introductions that displace native species in an ecosystem. If I had constructed a hypothesis to present to my professors and mentors at the time along the lines of "my hypothesis is that invasive species intentionally or purposefully displace native species in this ecosystem" I would have not been taken seriously as a young scientist, and rightly so. That's not a testable, measurable hypothesis. You cannot measure or assess intention or purpose empirically. You can absolutely however go "my hypothesis is that this invasive species when present in this ecosystem has this effect on this ecosystem." Intention and purpose do not - and should not - enter the picture of the investigation. If it does, you are no longer doing science.

Thanks for the push back. Here is some for you.

Are the questions which are beyond the remit of science out of reach for any other reason than our being able to formulate questions specific and testable enough for science to apply? Obviously I think it may be possible but for now all I can do is admit that cart is a bit before the horse but time will tell.

The dodge that science will answer eventually answer all questions -which I know to be untrue- isn’t what I’m relying on here. To me it is as clear that life forms and acts on intentions as it is that many see and hear. We mustn’t assume that such words as intention, purpose and meaning only ever can mean exactly what they do for our species.

 

[wellwisher]

For someone who doesn't come out of the sciences Phillip Ball's How Life Works: A User's Guide To The New Biology has done a great job of puling me in and along some pretty technical aspects of how life develops and persists. I'm finding the pay off as I cruise into Chapter 9: ‘Agency; How Life Gets Goals and Purposes’. From Kindle pages 333-34:



It is interesting to think of how all these individual cells come together to form metazoan creatures like ourselves whose purposes are served by the cooperation of so many simpler organisms at lower levels. It makes me wonder at the source of values which we experience as what draws and calls to us -not as blind causes which drive us unwittingly from behind. Perhaps just as our metazoan purposes are not known for what they are by the individual cells which make us up, so there may be a higher order metazoan whose being is made possible by the activity of creatures like ourselves. Could this be the reason people everywhere have intuited a god in some form or other?

The integration of life is done via the water. The water is the majority component within life and surrounds and touches everything within cells and all aspects of life.

Life; cells, is based on primary and secondary bonding forces. For example, The DNA is strung together with primary covalent bonds to form very long polymer chains. These long chains are very sturdy and are strong enough to maintain the long size of the DNA over along periods of time. Although the primary bonds are important for long term strength and viability, it is via the secondary bonding between base pairs where the important needs of life appear. These weaker secondary bonds allow for the DNA templates. Unlike the primary bonds which are not supposed to break, the weaker secondary bonds can form and break without harming the primary bonds, of the DNA. We can reuse the template again and again and the main backbone stays true.

The DNA double helix forms due to secondary bonding. And even when DNA packs with packing protein, all the way to condensed chromosomes, this is based on secondary bonding. Secondary bonding, by being weaker, can form and break more easily for the fluid changes needed to express life; reverse the packing, While the primary bonds maintain bulk polymer integrity and longevity.

In the case of the water, its many properties, are based on the secondary bonding force called hydrogen bonding. In the cell, hydrogen bonding is the dominate form of secondary bonding, and water has and forms the most of these. Each small water molecule can form four hydrogen bonds. Even within DNA, the base pairs form twice as many hydrogen bonds with water, as between the base pairs.

Due to the relative strength of this secondary bonding continuum of water, all else in the cell; organics, needs to adapt to the needs of the water, and by doing, so will self organize based on the needs of the water. This helps to integrate everything under one flag.

For example, after protein chains are translated on ribosomes, the water will induce the protein to fold and pack in the ways that minimize their surface tension in the water. There is sweet spots for each protein's final shape, based on the needs of water, thereby making each protein specific and very repeatable, since water also leads in the secondary bonding dance. Water is sort of like an army of ants, man handling proteins, minimizing their surface tension, throughout the cell. The water tucks and folds until it is perfect for water and by being so, the protein is also perfect for its own needs, as well as its role within the cell.

How this works, can be understood as due to the water and oil effect. You can demonstrate this at home with vinegar and olive oil salad dressing. You can shake the water and oil to randomize the mixture into an emulsion. If we leave it to settle, it will aways forms two layers, eventually. First tiny bubble will appear, then these little bubbles combine, until all the oil is one unified blob, floating above the water.

In the early days before the first replicators; Abiogenesis, if organics polymers; protein, were present in the ocean water, the movement of the tides and waves would mix the water and oil, and as the tide goes out and the pools settle, organic blobs will start to separate from the water. Anything protein that is optimize to the water has no reason to change, while things that can be improved in water will be scrambled by the next tide, and settle, getting closer to optimization. The water and the water and oil effect is importance number one.

The 2nd important variable for life and evolution is the 2nd law, which says the entropy of the universe has to increase. Increasing entropy creates more complexity; advances evolution. Because of the water and oil effect and the dominance of the water, the organics are pushed toward lower entropy. An open protein chain, wiggling about like a worm has more entropy than a tightly packed protein; more freedom. The water and oil effect, causes entropic potential to form on the organics; lower entropy. This is often used for enzymatic potential. The hydrogen bonding of water is so dominant it adds potentials to the organics to satisfy its own needs.

The 3rd important thing is also connected to water. Water is one of the most stable molecules and has not changed since the first stars made water. Water besides being the dominate secondary bonding phase, is also like a stable bookend. It never really changes at the level of the primary bonds. It can react but can reverse back to H2O. The net result is as water packs the various organic polymers, the organics have to express all the entropic potential at the primary bonding level. Water is too stable to keep changing. Carbon is more adaptable. This why there is so much organic variety in life, while water stays the same. Water then packs that new advanced state of organics, adding entropic potential, and that now has the potential to evolved; subject to further changes, etc.

This is not exactly random since the inevitable nature of secondary bonding dominance takes away organic randomness but by so is also going against the second law, adds potential for change. The 2nd law has the final say; evolution, but water is still the main organizer, at each cycle of the see-saw, so it all that evolves fits in, and integrates via the water; QC check.

There is a fourth level of complexity. Water does not change at the level of primary bonds. It stays as H2O. However, the entropy potential that the water and oil effect creates, an be partially expressed through the secondary or hydrogen bonding of the water matrix. One example is the transfer of information; complexity through the hydrogen bonding network; such as finger printing the base pairs via the water.

 

[Whateverist]

For anyone who’d like to h

The integration of life is done via the water. The water is the majority component within life and surrounds and touches everything within cells and all aspects of life.

Life; cells, is based on primary and secondary bonding forces. For example, The DNA is strung together with primary covalent bonds to form very long polymer chains. These long chains are very sturdy and are strong enough to maintain the long size of the DNA over along periods of time. Although the primary bonds are important for long term strength and viability, it is via the secondary bonding between base pairs where the important needs of life appear. These weaker secondary bonds allow for the DNA templates. Unlike the primary bonds which are not supposed to break, the weaker secondary bonds can form and break without harming the primary bonds, of the DNA. We can reuse the template again and again and the main backbone stays true.

The DNA double helix forms due to secondary bonding. And even when DNA packs with packing protein, all the way to condensed chromosomes, this is based on secondary bonding. Secondary bonding, by being weaker, can form and break more easily for the fluid changes needed to express life; reverse the packing, While the primary bonds maintain bulk polymer integrity and longevity.

In the case of the water, its many properties, are based on the secondary bonding force called hydrogen bonding. In the cell, hydrogen bonding is the dominate form of secondary bonding, and water has and forms the most of these. Each small water molecule can form four hydrogen bonds. Even within DNA, the base pairs form twice as many hydrogen bonds with water, as between the base pairs.

Due to the relative strength of this secondary bonding continuum of water, all else in the cell; organics, needs to adapt to the needs of the water, and by doing, so will self organize based on the needs of the water. This helps to integrate everything under one flag.

For example, after protein chains are translated on ribosomes, the water will induce the protein to fold and pack in the ways that minimize their surface tension in the water. There is sweet spots for each protein's final shape, based on the needs of water, thereby making each protein specific and very repeatable, since water also leads in the secondary bonding dance. Water is sort of like an army of ants, man handling proteins, minimizing their surface tension, throughout the cell. The water tucks and folds until it is perfect for water and by being so, the protein is also perfect for its own needs, as well as its role within the cell.

How this works, can be understood as due to the water and oil effect. You can demonstrate this at home with vinegar and olive oil salad dressing. You can shake the water and oil to randomize the mixture into an emulsion. If we leave it to settle, it will aways forms two layers, eventually. First tiny bubble will appear, then these little bubbles combine, until all the oil is one unified blob, floating above the water.

In the early days before the first replicators; Abiogenesis, if organics polymers; protein, were present in the ocean water, the movement of the tides and waves would mix the water and oil, and as the tide goes out and the pools settle, organic blobs will start to separate from the water. Anything protein that is optimize to the water has no reason to change, while things that can be improved in water will be scrambled by the next tide, and settle, getting closer to optimization. The water and the water and oil effect is importance number one.

The 2nd important variable for life and evolution is the 2nd law, which says the entropy of the universe has to increase. Increasing entropy creates more complexity; advances evolution. Because of the water and oil effect and the dominance of the water, the organics are pushed toward lower entropy. An open protein chain, wiggling about like a worm has more entropy than a tightly packed protein; more freedom. The water and oil effect, causes entropic potential to form on the organics; lower entropy. This is often used for enzymatic potential. The hydrogen bonding of water is so dominant it adds potentials to the organics to satisfy its own needs.

The 3rd important thing is also connected to water. Water is one of the most stable molecules and has not changed since the first stars made water. Water besides being the dominate secondary bonding phase, is also like a stable bookend. It never really changes at the level of the primary bonds. It can react but can reverse back to H2O. The net result is as water packs the various organic polymers, the organics have to express all the entropic potential at the primary bonding level. Water is too stable to keep changing. Carbon is more adaptable. This why there is so much organic variety in life, while water stays the same. Water then packs that new advanced state of organics, adding entropic potential, and that now has the potential to evolved; subject to further changes, etc.

This is not exactly random since the inevitable nature of secondary bonding dominance takes away organic randomness but by so is also going against the second law, adds potential for change. The 2nd law has the final say; evolution, but water is still the main organizer, at each cycle of the see-saw, so it all that evolves fits in, and integrates via the water; QC check.

There is a fourth level of complexity. Water does not change at the level of primary bonds. It stays as H2O. However, the entropy potential that the water and oil effect creates, an be partially expressed through the secondary or hydrogen bonding of the water matrix. One example is the transfer of information; complexity through the hydrogen bonding network; such as finger printing the base pairs via the water.

Thank you for taking the time to share so much more than I know about DNA and water. I know some but honestly it's not what gets me excited so much as the philsoophical implications. Between what you've written and what Ball has to say my eyes are spinning a bit. Reading his book has taxed my tolerance for following something that doesn't draw me intrinsically. Though it is nice to see I haven't lost it entirely. I think the New Biology he talks about in How Life Works is in part a response to the failure of the Genome Project to yield the cures and certainty that was promised. Nonetheless it has made the need to go deeper ever more clear.

It is coming onto my bed time here on the West Coast (and I am careful about my sleep in my old age). But I've shared this quote in a few places since reading it well before dawn this morning. A good online Christian friend has assured me she wants to know what light bulb has gone on for me even though I know from the past that anything that upsets her conventional Christian faith will be tough for her. Yet she always wants to know more. But the quote I extracted comes up in the second half of a conversation which is now available and I did give her the link.

This one is especially ambitious philosophically but it is clear that Ball wants to approach all the questions as far as possible with straight forward biological investigation. But the first half of the conversation gives more insight into the new Biology. Both are less than an hour in length if you or anyone else is interested. But I am in a bit of a hole in getting back to people on what they've written, including you, so it may take me a few days to get caught up. Being old with a wife who is still older and more frail is time consuming.

 

[wellwisher]

I can approach life from another more philosophical way. We live in space-time, where space and time act together and by doing so set physical limits that are defined by the laws of Physics. Photons have connected wavelength and frequency and act a waves; material expressions of connected space and time. Space-time requires sequential action and only being able to be at one place at a time.

Say we were to separate space-time into its two variables, not connected; independent space and independent time. Photons could not exist since we would wavelength and frequency, but each would remain separate. To form energy we would need for the independent space and independent time to merge and bind. Now energy and waves appear; Big Bang from what appears formless and void.

Life and consciousness are unique in that they exist within both space-time and independent space and independent time; limited and limitless. For example, the human imagination can think things that can defy the laws of Physics, like flying to the sun by flapping your arms. This is not possible in space-time, but it is still possible to imagine, even if it is not a possible option in space-time. It is more like independent space and time having a brief kiss; virtual kiss in the imagination, but not firmly connected like in space-time. If uses memory of the things in reality; arms and sun, but arranged in ways that are not possible in reality, but can be virtual tested within the imagination and compared to Physics.

In terms of Evolution, humans can use their minds to make synthetic things that did not or would not appear by natural laws in space-time. An iPhone would never spontaneously appear on earth growing on trees. It is composed of processed things from space-time, but its invention and assembly came from the imaginary place where space and time are not exactly connected, or else it would already be part of space-time. The purpose of life and natural change is to make more use of independent space and time within space-time; civilization. Now we can ever alter the DNA in ways that are not natural to he DNA. But once this manifests in reality; lab, we have added to space-time.

Theoretically, a realm where space and time can act independently, has no limitations. It defines infinite complexity or infinite entropy. In this model, that realm of independent space and time is the source of entropy or 2nd law, that is impacting the universe in space-time. This place of infinite options, can cause natural change and even add inspiration that adds new man made things to space-time.

In my first analysis of life and water, entropy is one of the four main driving forces. Separated space and time, will increase entropy, allowing life to get more complex; evolve, with consciousness adding even more complexity via its more consciousness connection. Life is like a bridge to the realm of infinite complexity. Today we are on that bridge in the middle somewhere. In the case of biological life, water and hydrogen bonding offer a physics bridge between the two realms; informational bridge via the quantum level of protons and electrons.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states;

Formulated by the German physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the uncertainty principle states that we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron, with perfect accuracy; the more we nail down the particle's position, the less we know about its speed and vice versa.

This is proof that independent space and independent time exists. If we only had space-time, position in space should imply momentum, not act like each variable has a mind of its own and is acting independent. The electron and proton of hydrogen bonds has this uncertainty advantages of independent space and time. This makes it much easier for water to integrate billions of cells and also allow us to think outside the box.

 

[Whateverist]

I can approach life from another more philosophical way. We live in space-time, where space and time act together and by doing so set physical limits that are defined by the laws of Physics.

This is interesting as a way to frame life as if from the outside, as though we could see how we fit with every thing else. But that is very different from life as it is lived. Our actual experience probably cannot be adequately represented by any such 'view from no where'. And yet biology is actively looking to ask better, more meaningful questions which are still testable. I find it encouraging as I'm more interested in embodied perspectives.

Most of the details of science do not draw my attention. I have no interest (nor realistic hope) of understanding everything but trying to understand our selves and our place in the world is fascinating to me.

 

[wellwisher]

If you wish to look from the inside, the human brain has two centers of consciousness; inner self and the ego. The inner self is to common to all animal consciousness and is connected to the behavior software in the DNA of each species. The inner self contains firmware that are called the archetypes of the collective unconscious that defines the innate behavior patterns underlying the consciousness of each species. This makes the lion, dog, monkey or shark identifiable by its behavior. The personality firmware; software of the inner self, defines each animal as a unique conscious species. In the case of humans, these firmware define our collective human nature and natural human instincts and propensities common to all humans.

The ego, on the other hand, is unique to humans and evolved more recently and appears to have consolidated with the rise of civilization. The ego is more based on learned external knowledge, whereas the inner self is based in innate knowledge engrained in our DNA from evolution. A baby is mostly an inner self with their ego developing later as they learn from the world around them; rules, laws, ideas, copying, etc.

One home experiment one can do to experience the inner self is to arrange to have someone scare you when you are not prepared. They need to wait to catch you off guard. What typically happens is, the quicker animal reflexes from the inner self will act before the ego, causing the ego to jump, scream, swing at the air or something that is embarrassing to the ego. It happens too fast for the ego to censor, and pretend self control, which can make it funny as the ego scrambles. The inner self, via its DNA connection, uses the main frame part of the brain, while ego is more like a terminal that is stand alone, but is also connected to the main frame through the unconscious mind. The inner self can see what we see but also faster and more subtle subliminal data, that may be below the conscious threshold of the ego.

One of the purposes of life is for ego to learn to make more use of the inner self, since it has more access to the full brain and has the potential to reveal higher human potential. From my own work in Psychology and home experiments exploring the collective unconscious, the ego has the capacity to create a conscious rapport with the inner self. In many ways, the world's religions are about setting the stage to make this possible. Eastern religions tend to do this in a more practical way, such as Yoga that can slow the heart to nearly stop. This requires getting past the failsafes between the ego and inner self. Western religions use a more symbolic approach which can also work.

The debate between Evolution and Creation is due to lack of awareness of the inner self. Adam of Genesis is actually a symbol of the rise of the human ego, therefore it not exactly about the rise of human DNA. The humans before the ego, who only had an inner self, are more like pre-humans, since they were closer to natural animal humans with only an inner self; paradise. It was the rise of the ego, from human DNA, that the Bible calls the rise of the first modern man. The rise of the ego is more in line with the Bible time frame of 10,000 to 6000 years ago. The loss of paradise was the repression of the inner self and the rise the ego. The ego is orientated by external knowledge, which caused a loss of the inner knowledge of the inner self. All religions in their own ways describe paths back to the inner self via their visions of paradise or enlightenment.

Based on my research, the ego appeared when the human brain, due to learned knowledge, exceeded its genetic program. Something more that the inner self starts to appear; secondary center or ego emerges. It is similar to what science fiction expect from the eventual rise of intelligent computers, where the AI is able not exceed its the base program and even make changes. In the case of humans a secondary appears that has will and choice, beyond just the natural program of the DNA and inner self. This was connected to learn knowledge beyond instinct. Science and technology allow humans to control the natural environment, thereby disconnecting from our natural instincts needed for the natural environment. Most people are not even aware the inner self exists, but reconnecting to the inner self is the future of human evolution, since it has many useful features that can update the ego and help human feel connected and whole again; return to Paradise.

 

[Whateverist]

Because certain kinds of questions (and answers) lie outside the scientific framework for understanding the world around us. What makes science science are certain philosophical assumptions that limit the kinds of questions it asks and the ways it can approach answers. It's not as if we don't have other ways of knowing to explore these other options - there is no need to extend sciences beyond their scop

Just read another passage in How Life Works which speaks to this point of what is the remit of science. I don't mean to be hounding you about this but address it to you because it so seems to apply to what you have written and because I'd like the opportunity to sound others out about agency and other qualities that are usually left out of science. I've bolded the parts that most speak to me.

Biology is sometimes criticized for indulging too much "agential thinking" (albeit also sometimes for permitting too little). We have seen already how genes and proteins are granted metaphorical agency, for example, and how evolution is spoken of as if it has goals and "desires". Some feel that such language should be banished from the life sciences entirely—for example, that nonhuman organisms should not be anthropomorphized as entities with inner worlds, but treated as though they are automata programmed to respond to stimuli in certain ways. That, I think, would be a mistake, not just because we now have good reason to see cognitive continuity between humans and other species, but because denying biology any agency denies its very nature. “Because of the widespread mechanistic distrust concerning the notion of purposiveness,” says theoretical biologist Johannes Jaeger, “we do not possess the conceptual and mathematical tools required to appropriately incorporate true organismic agency into models of evolutionary dynamics. This is why we’d rather pretend the phenomenon does not exist, rather than taking it seriously.” Pretending agency doesn’t exist is asking for trouble. The reason why agential metaphors keep popping up in biology is that agency is a real property—in fact it might be considered the defining feature of life itself. “What makes a creature alive,” says philosopher Annie Crawford, “is its teleological process: a material form [we might better say a material pattern] animated by the striving of a unique being to become and remain itself.” But because we do not understand agency, we do not know where to locate it. So we are inclined to invoke it in an ad hoc way to describe what we see, sometimes attributing it where it does not belong (in genes and genomes, say). We can do better than that.

 

[wellwisher]

Just read another passage in How Life Works which speaks to this point of what is the remit of science. I don't mean to be hounding you about this but address it to you because it so seems to apply to what you have written and because I'd like the opportunity to sound others out about agency and other qualities that are usually left out of science. I've bolded the parts that most speak to me.

The biological sciences are too dice and cards; statistical black box. This approach precludes the common sense needed to address and discuss ordering and agency, since you cannot see these in the darkness of the black box. This current method is rooted on the whims of the gods, not called gods, but odds. Their agency occurs in a black box. Beyond this, is the unknown and empirical.

The most important molecule of life is water. Nothing in a cell, down to all enzymes, will work if we remove the water. If we add other solvents, nothing works properly and there is no life. If you then add the water back everything works and life returns. Yet water is not given this central importance, due to the black box and the blindness that this approach creates. This observation that does not fit in the black box because is like an on-off switch; odds of 1 or 0 seem too deterministic and not dicey enough.

The DNA will not work without water. Test this in the lab. Try to falsify this on-off claim? The DNA double helix, in life, has a double helix of water, with this water forming twice as many hydrogens bonds, with the bases of DNA, then the base pairs do with each other. That should be important, yet text books still do not show the water, that is critical to the function of the DNA, thereby stalling students at ignorance and blind black box devotion to only empirical. Water is part of that unknown agency.

Part of what makes water important to life, is water helps to fluidize, what would otherwise be solid materials. The DNA, if dehydrated is a crystalline solid. Add water and it becomes more fluid. The liquid state is unique and has it own paradoxical physics that it can impart to the DNA and all the other cellular components; dehydrated protein are solids.

The gaseous state of matter can exert pressure, but not tension. The pressure is base on the gas molecules hitting off each other and the container. The balloon does not breath in and out, due to pressure and tension, but just outward; pressure. Solids can exhibit pressure and tension; push and pull, but not both at the same time and achieve a steady state. If we pull and push a car, it will move or rotate.

Liquids are an odd duck in that they can show pressure and tension and reach steady state, yet not cancel. A glass of water open to the air will feel the atmospheric pressure and also the surface tension with the air, with both in effect, yet not canceling. When we mix the double helix of water with the DNA double helix, DNA becomes not only become more fluidized ,but the liquid paradox now partially applies to a solid. The DNA alone, as shown in textbooks, cannot do these extra needed things.

Water is unique to the universe. If we freeze water into perfect crystal and chill to absolute zero, it, like other perfect solid crystals should have zero entropy. Yet solid water bucks the trend of other materials and displays a positive entropy as a perfect crystal. The reason this is so, is connected to the nature of hydrogen bonds. Hydrogen bonds are both polar and partially covalent at the same time. This fluctuation occurs even at absolute zero. The crystal stays perfect but the bonds internally fluctuate. It is this restlessness of the hydrogen bonds of water, even at absolute zero, that becomes amplified in life. Water is a unique gas, liquid and solid state, with 70 anomalous properties that buck the trends found in other materials.