Evidence of Common Descent (LOTS, across the sciences)

[ReinyDays]

So (back to thread topic) my suggestion is that "common descent" extends a lot farther back than we ordinarily think.

You can imagine two forces at work - one which creates entanglements, and another which destroys them (or modifies them in some way). The destructive force is what we call "zero point energy", for instance the thermal behavior that persists at 0 degrees K in "empty" space (which by the way, is relativistic - the faster you travel the more of it you see).

As far as we know, ZPE is "random" - but no one's really been able to look across 20 orders of magnitude. According to the quantum theory it responds to "fields", which behave somewhat like membranes. The most important thing about membranes is their boundary conditions (think, how they're attached, and to what). Under the proper conditions, a perturbation at one point will cause an equal and opposite reaction somewhere else - which if we couldn't see both events we might call "random". We can also note in passing that biological membranes carefully control their deformations. Like this:

Mechanisms of membrane deformation - PubMed

Membrane traffic requires the generation of high-curvature lipid-bound transport carriers represented by tubules and vesicles. The mechanisms through which membranes are deformed has gained much recent attention. A major advance has been the demonstration that direct interactions between...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

One must consider that biological "descent" can be traced back at least as far as the creation of carbon atoms, which is only a few million years after the Big Bang.

Why is it useful to consider rocks as life ... we have a very strict definition of "organic", any molecule that contains carbon except carbon dioxide ... all other species are inorganic ... including the silicon dioxide that makes up your rock ...

Does a rock exhibit inheritable traits? ... if we dig up a quartz crystal, have we killed her? ... so there;'s one definition of life that's useful, something is alive if we can kill it ... try to kill a rock and you'll just make more rocks ...

We can only approach ZPE as we approach 0 K ... our system become discontinuous at 0 K ... our universe is 3 K ... thus what we do in the lab comes at a cost to the rest of the universe ... with interest ... [shrugs shoulders] ... my understanding of the Third Law of Thermodynamics is very weak, it doesn't come up much in irradiated systems ... what value does Boltzmann's constant have a 0 K? ...

From Wikipedia: "It is impossible by any procedure, no matter how idealized, to reduce the temperature of any closed system to zero temperature in a finite number of finite operations." and "Mathematically, the absolute entropy of any system at zero temperature is the natural log of the number of ground states times the Boltzmann constant kB = 1.38 × 10^−23 J K^−1." , because ln 1 = 0 for hydrogen, right? ...

 

[abu afak]

The universe existing with matter and being hardwired for life and intelligence is so implausible that it could have only been intentional.

The Universe is what it is.
There is no "Hard-wiring for life." (Dishonestly and baselessly implying Intelligence).
The universe just in infinite degree a Vacuum sparsely spotted with uninhabitable stars and other lifeLess debris.
Chaotic. Stars exploding, galaxies colliding. (as we will with Andromeda).

999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% uninhabitable.
We only know of one place with life as far as we can see/discern.
"Hardwire" that you deluded clown.
`

 

[ding]

The Universe is what it is.
There is no "Hard-wiring for life." (Dishonestly and baselessly implying Intelligence).
The universe just in infinite degree a Vacuum sparsely spotted with uninhabitable stars and other lifeLess debris.
Chaotic. Stars exploding, galaxies colliding. (as we will with Andromeda).

999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% uninhabitable.
We only know of one place with life as far as we can see/discern.
"Hardwire" that you deluded clown.
`

There have been 5 stages of evolution of space and time; cosmic evolution, stellar evolution, chemical evolution, biological evolution and evolution of consciousness.

In his book, "The Phenomenon of Man" Pierre Teilhard de Chardin describes evolution as a process that leads to increasing complexity, culminating in a Christ consciousness. He limited his observations to biological evolution but the same observation can be made about all stages of the evolution of space and time. The complexification of matter increased until it naturally and logically made the leap to the next stage. The last and final stage of evolution of space and time is consciousness. So it seems logical that consciousness would also increase in complexity until it to made the leap to the next stage which Chardin describes as Christ consciousness.

1. The universe began as a soup of subatomic particles and radiation and naturally and logically complexified into hydrogen and helium. This is what is called the cosmic stage of the evolution of space and time.
2. Hydrogen and helium then naturally and logically complexified into structures like stars and galaxies. This is what is called the stellar stage of the evolution of space and time.
3. From the life cycle of galaxies and stars all of the other elements and compounds were naturally and logically formed. This is what is called the chemical stage of the evolution of space and time.
4. As chemical evolution naturally and logically complexified the leap to biological life was made. This is what is called the biological stage of the evolution of space and time.
5. As life logically and naturally evolved and complexified the leap to consciousness was made. This is what is called the conscious stage of of the evolution of space and time.

So we can see that each successive stage of the evolution of space and time complexified until it made the leap to the next stage. And it did so naturally and logically. So Chardin's assumption that consciousness will make the leap to a Christ consciousness is logical because it presumes that consciousness will evolve and complexify and make the leap to the next level because every other stage of the evolution of space and time did so too before it.

 

[abu afak]

There have been 5 stages of evolution of space and time; cosmic evolution, stellar evolution, chemical evolution, biological evolution and evolution of consciousness.

In his book, "The Phenomenon of Man" Pierre Teilhard de Chardin describes evolution as a process that leads to increasing complexity, culminating in a Christ consciousness. He limited his observations to biological evolution but the same observation can be made about all stages of the evolution of space and time. The complexification of matter increased until it naturally and logically made the leap to the next stage. The last and final stage of evolution of space and time is consciousness. So it seems logical that consciousness would also increase in complexity until it to made the leap to the next stage which Chardin describes as Christ consciousness.

1. The universe began as a soup of subatomic particles and radiation and naturally and logically complexified into hydrogen and helium. This is what is called the cosmic stage of the evolution of space and time.
2. Hydrogen and helium then naturally and logically complexified into structures like stars and galaxies. This is what is called the stellar stage of the evolution of space and time.
3. From the life cycle of galaxies and stars all of the other elements and compounds were naturally and logically formed. This is what is called the chemical stage of the evolution of space and time.
4. As chemical evolution naturally and logically complexified the leap to biological life was made. This is what is called the biological stage of the evolution of space and time.
5. As life logically and naturally evolved and complexified the leap to consciousness was made. This is what is called the conscious stage of of the evolution of space and time.

So we can see that each successive stage of the evolution of space and time complexified until it made the leap to the next stage. And it did so naturally and logically. So Chardin's assumption that consciousness will make the leap to a Christ consciousness is logical because it presumes that consciousness will evolve and complexify and make the leap to the next level because every other stage of the evolution of space and time did so too ..

So there was No "hard wiring," there was a ***** Big Bang/Explosion.
With life taking Billions of years to 'Evolve' from dead matter.... so far Only here we know about.
Our neighboring planets and near stars have no life (Centauri, etc), nor in any far ones.
That's not "Hard wiring" that's infinite amount of chances interactions on a pile of inanimate junk in an astronomically larger empty Universe. Not a "Hard wired" one.

And you are now arguing against a god, and for Abiogenesis/life-from-no-life naturally and Evolution. No god needed. With no guarantee life would common/"hard wire" throughout it.
Your Theologically confused author a Darwinian (see Wiki) contradicting your voodoo position. As seen here and in the RELIGION section where you spout scripture.
You duplicitous mental case.
`

 

[ding]

So there was No "hard wiring," there was a ***** Big Bang/Explosion.
With life taking Billions of years to 'Evolve' from dead matter.... so far Only here we know about.
Our neighboring planets and near stars have no life (Centauri, etc), noir in any far ones.
That's not "Hard wiring" that's infinite amount of chances interactions on a pile of inanimate junk in an astrnomically larger empty Universe. Not a "Hard wired" one.

And you are now arguing against a god, and for abiogenesis and Evolution. With no guarantee life would common/hard wired throughout.
Your author a Darwinian (see Wiki) contradicting your position.
`

The universe popped into existence being hardwired to produce intelligence. SETI understands this.

 

[abu afak]

The universe popped into existence being hardwired to produce intelligence. SETI understands this.

We don't know about how the universe started and whether it was hard-wired or a one 1-in-a-quadrillion accident.
Zero backing.
You have also, again, admitted life evolved from non-living chemicals. ABIOGENESIS. An Anti-creationist position.

You are of course just another God of the Gaps clown whose position should be "We don't know yet" instead of spouting Scripture in the Religion/god section where you post the opposite of above.

You Must LIE, obfuscate, and contradict yourself to try and resolve your cognitive dissonance/mental illness.
`

EDIT.
Note the non-answer Below from Outed and Caught Kweationst Kook and AGW denier Ding.
He is a mess of superstitious contradicting voodoo beliefs.
See his posts in the Religion section.
`

 

[ding]

We don't know about how the universe started and whether it was hard-wired or a one 1-in-a-quadrillion accident.
Zero backing.
You have also, again, admitted life evolved from non-living chemicals. ABIOGENESIS. An Anti-creationist position

You are of course just another God of the Gaps clown whose position should be "We don't know yet" instead of spouting Scripture in the Religion/god section where you post the opposite of above.

You Must LIE and obfuscate to try and resolve your cognitive dissonance/mental illness.
`

I know the universe popping into existence being hardwired to produce intelligence scares you.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

There is a corn cob lying in my backyard.

It turns out, the universe was designed to produce a corncob lying in my backyard, and the rest is just incidental.

 

[Grumblenuts]

we have a very strict definition of "organic", any molecule that contains carbon except carbon dioxide ... all other species are inorganic ...

Not quite.

25.1: Organic Chemistry

chem.libretexts.org

 

[scruffy]

For the sake of argument where's the link for living rocks?

Come on now, expand your mind a little.

Here is a very interesting rock. It's a special kind of rock, it's a magnetic rock. Ferromagnetism.

Now, for the purposes of illustration, in this particular rock, we're going to look at the magnetic dipole moments of the atoms that make up the rock.

We're going to make a couple of simplifications, just so we can do easy math. (Nothing more complicated than matrices and pictures of surfaces). Thr simplifications are, we're going to say the spin is either up or down, and we're going to imagine that the atoms are arranged in a lattice. So we have binary atoms with equal spacing between them. That's simple enough, and it's still in the ballpark in terms of reality.

So in this rock, physically, it turns out that spins that agree, have a lower energy than spins that disagree. Physically, there is "coupling" between the spins. It's a basic "non-local" property of the universe (you can even see it by putting two pendulums next to each other, they tend to synchronize), and magnetism is only one example.

The "system" (the rock) will tend to the lowest energy. And, the "amount" of agreement between any two neighbors is the strength of the coupling constant. So now we can do statistical mechanics on this, because we have a formula for the total energy, and the math is real easy because we have a symmetric matrix of coupling constants. When we do this, we discover that this system is actually a computational engine! It can solve very complex optimization problems much, much faster than humans can. And, by placing this rock in an external magnetic field, the energy surface as well as the system trajectory can be both programmed and read out.

You asked for a link. This model was developed by the physicist Ernst Ising, it's named after him.

Ising model - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But the story isn't over yet. If you're a student of AI and neural networks, you will know that this model is the foundation for one of the most important neural network papers written by the physicist John Hopfield in the early 80's. Turns out, Hopfield's math is identical to Ising's math. This rock we're talking about, does the same thing a neural network does. The same thing our brains do.

Hopfield network - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And, there have been interesting variations like the Boltzmann machine, which mimics the effect of heat on the system (or any other external field).

Boltzmann machine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What happens is, the system geometry creates an energy "surface", and if you map that into phase space the trajectory becomes a ball rolling down the surface. The ball seeks the lowest energy, it will always end up in a minimum, the ball will roll down the hill into the valley. Kind of like this:

This is what a Boltzmann machine sounds like after a little training:



Pretty amazing for a rock, ain't it?

 

[ReinyDays]

Come on now, expand your mind a little.

Here is a very interesting rock. It's a special kind of rock, it's a magnetic rock. Ferromagnetism.

Now, for the purposes of illustration, in this particular rock, we're going to look at the magnetic dipole moments of the atoms that make up the rock.

We're going to make a couple of simplifications, just so we can do easy math. (Nothing more complicated than matrices and pictures of surfaces). Thr simplifications are, we're going to say the spin is either up or down, and we're going to imagine that the atoms are arranged in a lattice. So we have binary atoms with equal spacing between them. That's simple enough, and it's still in the ballpark in terms of reality.

So in this rock, physically, it turns out that spins that agree, have a lower energy than spins that disagree. Physically, there is "coupling" between the spins. It's a basic "non-local" property of the universe (you can even see it by putting two pendulums next to each other, they tend to synchronize), and magnetism is only one example.

The "system" (the rock) will tend to the lowest energy. And, the "amount" of agreement between any two neighbors is the strength of the coupling constant. So now we can do statistical mechanics on this, because we have a formula for the total energy, and the math is real easy because we have a symmetric matrix of coupling constants. When we do this, we discover that this system is actually a computational engine! It can solve very complex optimization problems much, much faster than humans can. And, by placing this rock in an external magnetic field, the energy surface as well as the system trajectory can be both programmed and read out.

You asked for a link. This model was developed by the physicist Ernst Ising, it's named after him.

Ising model - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But the story isn't over yet. If you're a student of AI and neural networks, you will know that this model is the foundation for one of the most important neural network papers written by the physicist John Hopfield in the early 80's. Turns out, Hopfield's math is identical to Ising's math. This rock we're talking about, does the same thing a neural network does. The same thing our brains do.

Hopfield network - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And, there have been interesting variations like the Boltzmann machine, which mimics the effect of heat on the system (or any other external field).

Boltzmann machine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What happens is, the system geometry creates an energy "surface", and if you map that into phase space the trajectory becomes a ball rolling down the surface. The ball seeks the lowest energy, it will always end up in a minimum, the ball will roll down the hill into the valley. Kind of like this:

View attachment 963504

This is what a Boltzmann machine sounds like after a little training:



Pretty amazing for a rock, ain't it?

Well ... The Scuff has me on ignore ... so no one quote me please ... he doesn't want any intelligent responses ... especially ones with mathematics ...

Living rocks smacks of Gaia Hypothesis .. the Earth and universe are conscience beings ... I'd say this belongs in the Conspiracy Theory forum except that forum deserves better from me ... is there a KooKy Stupid forum yet? ... we'll need it after this November's election ...

 

[ding]

Come on now, expand your mind a little.

Here is a very interesting rock. It's a special kind of rock, it's a magnetic rock. Ferromagnetism.

Now, for the purposes of illustration, in this particular rock, we're going to look at the magnetic dipole moments of the atoms that make up the rock.

We're going to make a couple of simplifications, just so we can do easy math. (Nothing more complicated than matrices and pictures of surfaces). Thr simplifications are, we're going to say the spin is either up or down, and we're going to imagine that the atoms are arranged in a lattice. So we have binary atoms with equal spacing between them. That's simple enough, and it's still in the ballpark in terms of reality.

So in this rock, physically, it turns out that spins that agree, have a lower energy than spins that disagree. Physically, there is "coupling" between the spins. It's a basic "non-local" property of the universe (you can even see it by putting two pendulums next to each other, they tend to synchronize), and magnetism is only one example.

The "system" (the rock) will tend to the lowest energy. And, the "amount" of agreement between any two neighbors is the strength of the coupling constant. So now we can do statistical mechanics on this, because we have a formula for the total energy, and the math is real easy because we have a symmetric matrix of coupling constants. When we do this, we discover that this system is actually a computational engine! It can solve very complex optimization problems much, much faster than humans can. And, by placing this rock in an external magnetic field, the energy surface as well as the system trajectory can be both programmed and read out.

You asked for a link. This model was developed by the physicist Ernst Ising, it's named after him.

Ising model - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But the story isn't over yet. If you're a student of AI and neural networks, you will know that this model is the foundation for one of the most important neural network papers written by the physicist John Hopfield in the early 80's. Turns out, Hopfield's math is identical to Ising's math. This rock we're talking about, does the same thing a neural network does. The same thing our brains do.

Hopfield network - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And, there have been interesting variations like the Boltzmann machine, which mimics the effect of heat on the system (or any other external field).

Boltzmann machine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What happens is, the system geometry creates an energy "surface", and if you map that into phase space the trajectory becomes a ball rolling down the surface. The ball seeks the lowest energy, it will always end up in a minimum, the ball will roll down the hill into the valley. Kind of like this:

View attachment 963504

This is what a Boltzmann machine sounds like after a little training:



Pretty amazing for a rock, ain't it?

It's not about expanding my mind. It's about the simple facts of biology.

 

[ding]

There is a corn cob lying in my backyard.

It turns out, the universe was designed to produce a corncob lying in my backyard, and the rest is just incidental.

It's funny how this concept shakes the foundation of your worldview.

 

[scruffy]

It's not about expanding my mind. It's about the simple facts of biology.

And the earth is flat. And it's only 6000 years old. And there's little people in deeply buried caves beneath the surface. Yeah.

Why is it important for you to believe life is "special"?

That's a very arrogant assumption. Hey, look at me, I'm special.

You have to read carefully. And stop your mind when it leaps to conclusions.

God is either everything, or He is nothing. If He's everything, then He's in a rock too. Man may have been created in the image of God, but not a word is said about anything that's "not" created that way.

The biological "fact" is we have no idea what life really is. Not a clue. We only know a few observational details. One thing common to all life is information processing. One of the earliest evolutionary advances in biology is motility, which requires serious amounts of information processing. Once you study how microtubules work, you come to realize they're structural, they're like Legos. They self-organize in symmetric patterns of 9 or 13 fibers, and respond to local calcium concentrations to change their assembly patterns. There's nothing mysterious about them, they're very logical. Where the complexity comes in, is in the command and control. Microtubules are on the top right. Complexity is on the left.

 

[scruffy]

It's not about expanding my mind. It's about the simple facts of biology.

No. It's not about the basic facts of biology. It's about the basic facts of PHYSICS.

Look here - see those two things at right angles labeled "centrioles", just to the below right of the blue nucleus?

Those are microtubules. Exactly the same as the green microtubules at the upper right of the previous post.

But... these are short and squat, while the others are long and skinny. Why is that?

There's nothing special about one or the other, but the centrioles are always found at right angles. Why is that?

The answer in both cases, is physics. The combined energy is lower when the fat form is at right angles. Therefore, they always end up that way. It has nothing to do with DNA, information processing, or anything else. All the DNA does is make lots and lots of tubulin monomers, and they SELF ASSEMBLE into the required form, depending on the local calcium concentrations. Calcium is lower near the cell membrane because there are protein "pumps" that pump it out - therefore the tubulin prefers the long and skinny, because that's its minimal free energy in conditions of low calcium.

The point being, that life is physics. "Biology" is just a fancy term for complex physics. A great place to see this, is in the DNA repair mechanisms. Or for that matter, you could just understand how a ribosome works. It's physics, same thing as a pendulum or a heat bath or a confined gas or a particle in a box. "Life" takes advantage of the physics that's already happening, it doesn't introduce anything new. The same laws apply, and the same behaviors result.

All that's needed to create the complex looking structure in the previous post (called "cytoskeleton", which maintains the shape of the cell), is a single rule from the DNA, that says "make calcium pumps FIRST". After that, everything else happens automagically. Because of the physics.

Same for a centriole - turns out the pair is asymmetrical, there is a mother that forms first, and a daughter that forms at right angles to it. After that the pair organizes a bunch of proteins around itself (called the PCM), and that's how cell division happens. Again, physics. The PCM literally pulls the chromosomes apart, it causes them to unwind.

The physical difference in the microtubules, between the centriole and the cytoskeleton, is in the former case the tubulin organizes into 9 sets of three, whereas in the latter case it's one set of 13. The former is fat, it's 200 nm in diameter, whereas the latter is skinny, it's only 30-ish nm.

Legos. They go together in different ways, to build bigger structures. Command and control is very simple, one rule plus one sequence. And yet from this simple-enough PHYSICAL scenario comes rich biological behavior. Microtubules are also responsible for motility in cilia, and for ratcheting vesicles filled with neurotransmitter down the axon and into a synapse.

This is what the tubulin proteins actually look like:

 

[scruffy]

Note the part in the above pic, that says "colchicine site". Colchicine is a mutagen, it is well known to cause genetic abnormalities. Yet it doesn't affect the DNA at all. Just the microtubules. The abnormal microtubules cause the DNA to be pulled apart wrong, resulting in mutations. Specifically it prevents proper unwinding which results in polyploidy. Again, physics. The colchicine binding site prevents the tubulin from attaining the proper conformation (shape). From there, we get both monsters and unusual new life forms. Here for instance, are some lovely examples of colchicine mutated flowers:

 

[scruffy]

More physics - a paper from today:

DNA packaging by molecular motors: from bacteriophage to human chromosomes - Nature Reviews Genetics

In this Review, the authors summarize DNA packaging in bacteriophage, bacteria and eukaryotic cells. They describe the difficulties each system faces when packaging its DNA, outline the molecular motor components involved, and provide insights from new studies that reveal how DNA organization is...

www.nature.com

"Molecular motors".

Physics.

 

[scruffy]

Why is it useful to consider rocks as life ...

That's the best question so far.

Ding seems to think that life requires skin and bones. But what is that really? It's information, organized in "useful" ways - useful to the organism. If you look at the most basic most fundamental property of life, what would it be? My claim is it would be the opposite of entropy. Life accretes information unto itself. It does not dissipate, it does exactly the opposite. It grows/evolves/develops and reproduces (its own structure). How does it accomplish this? It uses information, which is held in a stable form.

Think for example, of a sequence of evolution. First there had to be regulation and nutrient intake, then motility, then ... leafing eventually to the capacity for planning and the capability of carrying out the plans. Those things, those milestones, are "attractors". Just like the energy surface in the previous post Once life begins, it will be just like the ball rolling down the hill it will always find a local minimum. It will always migrate towards the nearest attractor. What the particular animal looks like at that point, is largely irrelevant, what matters is it's cephalized and mobile and intelligent.

 

[ding]

Why is it important for you to believe life is "special"?

I've been arguing life is different. And it is. If you want to believe everything is living, good for you. I hope you write a technical paper and become famous. But until then...

 

[ReinyDays]

That's the best question so far.

Ding seems to think that life requires skin and bones. But what is that really? It's information, organized in "useful" ways - useful to the organism. If you look at the most basic most fundamental property of life, what would it be? My claim is it would be the opposite of entropy. Life accretes information unto itself. It does not dissipate, it does exactly the opposite. It grows/evolves/develops and reproduces (its own structure). How does it accomplish this? It uses information, which is held in a stable form.

Think for example, of a sequence of evolution. First there had to be regulation and nutrient intake, then motility, then ... leafing eventually to the capacity for planning and the capability of carrying out the plans. Those things, those milestones, are "attractors". Just like the energy surface in the previous post Once life begins, it will be just like the ball rolling down the hill it will always find a local minimum. It will always migrate towards the nearest attractor. What the particular animal looks like at that point, is largely irrelevant, what matters is it's cephalized and mobile and intelligent.

Right ... "My claim is [life] would be the opposite of entropy" ... this rejects rocks as being life as they occur as a result of entropy ... the silicon atom is only holding fast her inner ten electrons (1s2,2s2,2p6) ... and randomly loses the four outer electrons (3s2,3p2) to the ubiquitous oxygen in the environment ... in which form we see higher entropy, thus not life ... silicon dioxide ...

Both ding and I have noticed all your examples are from cellular life ... and that does require a cell membrane ... even viruses are quiescent outside living cells ... do you have any examples of this "opposite of entropy" outside a cell membrane structure? ... you know I'm an energy kind of guy, so I'm looking at the ADP/ATP energy transport methods as a working definition of life ... the actual agents of this "opposite of entropy" system ... as this allows for viruses and misfolded proteins ...

You seem to treat information as a material object ... I disagree ... it's strictly an artifact of imagination ... all the puma's eyes receive is light, it's in the puma's brain that the information of "delicious grouse" is generated ... it just photons, the information is strictly derived ...

You bring up evolution? ... how do rocks evolve? ... and are the rock's traits inheritable? ... perhaps to a small degree, but no where close to even the simplest cellular life form ... and important here as this simplest life form, blue-green algae, represents the halfway point of evolution ... every life form that existed before this halfway point is extinct and cannot live in this second half ... the Great Oxygen Crisis killed everything except the blue-green algae that was making the oxygen ... respiration had to evolve after ... and as near as I can figure, viruses evolved afterward as well ...