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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dolly wasn't "built." Rather, cloned, meaning you started with bio elements. To build Dolly, you'd need to start with raw, inorganic materials.
Have at it.
Interesting to ponder: If you were to try and "build" life, and wanted something to model, as an analogue, would you look at a machine, or to life itself.
So why do so many of us looking to understand mind, use a machine as an appropriate analogue?
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WBraun
climber
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All the materials are there to build.
The gross materialists do not have the actual life material itself.
It is controlled by higher power.
Put all materials on your lab table and nothing happens until life itself becomes involved.
Life always comes from life.
Matter itself has never ever produced life itself.
The gross materialists are always completely clueless to life itself .....
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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HFCS,
You really can't tell us, can you? You don't really know what he was talking about, do you?
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Zay
climber
Monterey, Ca
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Wbraun,
I finally understand what the f*#k you are talking about,
and its scary.
We are capable of creation, but we are better at destruction...
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Zay
climber
Monterey, Ca
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Question: if we manage to build a machine capable of sourcing its own power and then replication of progeny also able to source their own power and replicate - would you count this as "life?"
DMT,
I think if we did, we would become God,
Something we have no business being.
I think we COULD,
but SHOULD?
Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
-Dr. Malcom
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WBraun
climber
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Nobody can become God.
Nobody, its never been done nor will it ever be done!!
Those who are clueless have no clue to God himself..
The gross materialist mental speculators are always in poor fund of knowledge..
Always
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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DMT: if we manage to build a machine capable of sourcing its own power and then replication of progeny also able to source their own power and replicate - would you count this as "life?"
A good question.
I might. I would hope that I would not assume that all life looks like the life that I think I see in front of me. Every conceptual boundary presents illusory limits.
I guess I would turn it back to you with a follow-up question: would it matter, and if so, how so? Are you posing an intellectual puzzle, or would there be meaningful implications in knowing the answer? Would I treat all forms of life here and now differently? Would I treat machines with “more respect?” Would I now start to assimilate conceits about being an inchoate God? Would I look down at material reverently rather than up at consciousness proudly? I mean, I like the conversation because it gets me thinking and feeling in different ways about what I am and the world around me, but were it not for that, I would see the conversation as just another divertimento.
Be well.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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re: true and false
Principle: What happens in nature is true and is the judge of the validity of any theory about it.
That principle... the separation of the true from the false by experiment or experience... that principle and the resultant body of knowledge which is consistent with that principle... that is science.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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re: the heritages of Western civilization
"Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure - the adventure into the unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored; the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered; the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it - the humility of the intellect. The other great heritage is Christian ethics — the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual - the humility of the spirit.
These two heritages are logically, thoroughly consistent. But logic is not all; one needs one’s heart to follow an idea.
If people are going back to religion, what are they going back to? Is the modern church a place to give comfort to a man who doubts God - more, one who disbelieves in God? Is the modern church a place to give comfort and encouragement to the value of such doubts?
So far, have we not drawn strength and comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way which attacks the values of the other? Is this unavoidable?
How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of Western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is this not the central problem of our time?
I put it up to the panel for discussion."
The Relation of Science and Religion
Richard Feynman
“The Relation of Science and Religion” was originally published by the California Institute of Technology in Engineering and Science magazine.
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Action based on love, the kinship of all, the value of the individual, the humility of the spirit. Hmm, sounds pretty good.
:)
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Question: if we manage to build a machine capable of sourcing its own power and then replication of progeny also able to source their own power and replicate - would you count this as "life?"
I would.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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if we manage to build a machine capable of sourcing its own power and then replication of progeny also able to source their own power and replicate - would you count this as "life?"
I don't find anything practical about this question outside of pointing out that "life" is hard to define. People spend a lot of time worrying about whether humans will ever be able to build machines that are "alive" or "conscious" and I generally think that is about as useful as arguing how many angles can dance on the head of a pin.
But as an amusing argument over coffee, I could imagine a solar powered industrial robot that could go out and mine everything it needed to make an exact copy and that copy could make a copy. But once something went wrong with the copying that was it and it couldn't recover. That is not life.
I would say that for it to be alive it also needs to be able to evolve. But with sufficient technology, I don't see why humans couldn't make something that is every bit as alive as the carbon-based single cell organisms we are surrounded by.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Question: if we manage to build a machine capable of sourcing its own power and then replication of progeny also able to source their own power and replicate - would you count this as "life?"
No.
Life is carbon based.
Machines are non-organic instruments invented and used by advanced apes.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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In a woman's world...
In a woman's world "How to Train your Boyfriend" is a thing.
#howtotrainyourboyfriend
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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HFCS channeling Herr Dr. Feynman: . . . two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure - the adventure into the unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored; the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered; the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it - the humility of the intellect. The other great heritage is Christian ethics — the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual - the humility of the spirit.
Your understanding of the breadth of religions and contemplative traditions might be a bit thin. Christian ethics is one of a great many, and they are all pretty much different with many variegation. In some of the most radical contemplative traditions, "the practice" is simply opening your eyes and seeing what This is. That's it. There's really little more than that. That's the entire practice. If you do that, after a while, you will likely come to the conclusion that Everything *but Everything* IS THAT. Science, religion, love, hate, mathematics, anthropology, literary myths, psychology, climbing rock formations, microbiology, politics, quantum mechanics, yada yada. There is no thing or experience that is not "the practice." Start anywhere and dig till you find the bottom.
Feynman draws a distinction that seems a bit limited and narrow to me. He might have been bootstrapping onto a vogue topic.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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re: cure for HIV
"Many people including the president are cheering news of HIV cure in 2nd patient. You know what happened? SCIENCE. Science isn’t a goal, it’s a process of knowledge. And it applies to vaccines, climate change, and the wonder of understanding our universe and natural world." - Dan Rather
Well said, brah!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Here's a sleeper, not sure how I missed it.
I only found it through researching Julia Galef. For 2015, the production quality is awesome, and I think it presages the latest high quality symposia now going on that we've come to appreciate.
A Passion for Science and Reason...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://youtu.be/tBlJ3CrnkAA
Note the audience make-up. (At the end.) There's a lot of youth and multitude and excitement out there. A lot different from the old atheist meet-ups of last century, I'd say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Het_Denkgelag
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"Ask a physicist a question about anything other than physics and you get a high school level answer expressed with professorial smugness. They're insufferable. I cringe ever time I have to be in their company." -Diomedes22
lol
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Oh, my. Just got around to confirming (finally after about a week on my to-do list) that the now infamous Cardinal George Pell was indeed the religious leadership in Australia that debated Dawkins years ago for the latter's Unbelievers film.
What most of all stuck out for me at the time watching this public debate in Australia between Dawkins and Pell (film, Unbelievers) was how totally vacuous if not pathetic Pell's responses were on any reasonable rationality scale abiding modern standards in science edu, etc..
Check this out. Not posted from this latest news cycle but from back in 2014. Incredible...
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBNVwoii7og
Poetic justice, eh? lol
2019: Cardinal George Pell found guilty of abusing two choir boys.
Somewhere I'm going to have to find the time to watch Unbelievers again. I remember it had some good material fit for rehearsal / repeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD1QHO_AVZA
'Tis proof enough that you do not need religion to live a moral life.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Where One findS INSPERATIONIs where The meaning Needs NO Explanation
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