Re: Lamarck's Tree


"Robert Karl Stonjek" <rstonjek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dqn2hn$24p3$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> g:
>> I do not contest that Earth may be VIEWED as an organic entirety to which
>> may be assigned the loose characterization "living," despite its
> containing
>> abiotic factors along with biotic ones. It might be hard (if we could
> trace
>> back to them) all the particular uses that have been made of a single
> carbon
>> molecule. It might have been a part of a booger in Caesar's nose at one
>> time, a part of a diamond at some other, and a part of air at another.
> Thus
>> it can have been involved in biotic manifestations at one time and
>> abiotically at others.
>>
>
> RKS:
> Animals contain elements such as gold and other metals as well as
> non-living
> material such as hair, nails, cornea etc.
> There are very few places on Earth that are free of bacteria.
>
> g:
>> I doubt that every molecule of every heavy element at the center of the
>> earth has been used biotically in or on Earth, however. But here again,
> we
>> can stretch a bit and say that there are bits and pieces of things in,
> say,
>> a human body that may not have been altered in any way nor put to any
>> necessarily biotic use. When we eat celery, for example, we do not
> convert
>> the cellulose into anything else (as the symbionts in one of the stomachs
> of
>> a ruminant do); but we could very practically say that it is biotically
>> *utilized* as roughage.
>>
>> By a bit of stretching, we could likewise say that, since the heavy
> elements
>> create magnetism for Earth, which may prevent the stripping away of
> Earth's
>> atmosphere by diverting certain rays from the sun, serves the purpose of
>> enabling and perpetuating biotic things on Earth.
>>
>> But if we are going to stretch that far, we surrender our right to simply
>> elect to stop where it pleases us.
>>
>> We must go on, then, and include the sun. It produces something without
>> which biotic things are perpetuated and, hence, we have a *living solar
>> system*. And, by all means, we must not stop there, for our galaxy must
>> surely exist as a whole of which our sun is just a part and, hence, we
>> are
>> in a *living*
>> galaxy. And that galaxy is not distinguishable in nature or kind, so far
> as
>> we know, from all the rest of the stuff of the universe. So we are in a
>> *LIVING UNIVERSE*.
>>
>
> RKS:
> Without enetering into areas where only philsophy can go, it is not too
> much
> of a stretch to consider the Earth as living when there are clear
> contrasts
> with non-living planets that are accessible to investigation with regard
> to
> life. Indeed, theis has been a preoccupation in the space science of the
> last 20 years, particularly with regard to Mars.
>
> g:
>> So, we come to a point of saying that everything is just part of this
> living
>> universe.
>>
>> It is not exactly invalid as a way of viewing something.
>>
>> However, what such viewing does, by stretching the concept of "life" to
> the
>> point of including everything, have we done more than engage in a game of
>> classification extension?
>>
>> I am, most definitely, a "Gee whiz" kind of a guy. I can get all gushy
>> about what is "out there" as I stand on a mountain overlook on a clear,
>> moonless night, (and have done so on many occasions).
>>
>> But, also, I can engage in a mental game of visualizing what it must be
> like
>> to stretch a mosquito's *** to where it will fit over the top of a rain
>> barrel. And in an endomorphic reverie of excitement over that I can
> exclaim
>> tacitly:
>>
>> "GEE WHIZ !"
>>
>> Scientifically, in the next moment, cannot I also be justified in
> muttering,
>> "Like... so????????????"
>>
> RKS:
> There is a valid case for considering the composite of living things as in
> some way living also. The utility of this view is the possibility that
> the
> system of living things may also exist without living things (as I
> described
> previously) and that this system is essential for life as biologically
> defined to exist. Thus we look for the living or life-like environment as
> the precursory form, not the first micro-organism.
>
> According to James Lovelock (P.236 of 'Homage to Gaia', 2000), "NASA
> scientists now propose using my holistic atmospheric lie-detection method
> as
> the basis of their search for life on planets elsewhere in the galaxy,
> even
> though they reject its conclusions about the solar system." By
> considering
> the planet as a living thing you would expect to find a
> far-from-equilibrium
> mix in the atmosphere. The atmosphere of earth, for instance, is far from
> equilibrium (nitrogen and oxygen will combine over time to form nitrous
> oxide, which is what would happen of the atmosphere was placed in a sealed
> jar and left for long enough).
>
> If some metabolic-like process resulted in a far-from-equilibrium mix of
> gasses in the atmosphere of an otherwise dead planet, then we might
> speculate that, if the planet was young, there was a good chance that the
> conditions were right for life of some form to proceed. I think that a
> living environment starts on a somewhat smaller scale, say around a hot
> vent, and then pushes the atmosphere out of equilibrium AND makes
> conditions conducive for micro-organisms to develop within its own
> convection system. Thus life both dilates and contracts to new foci.
>
> In the case of the solar system there is only one living planet and no
> need
> to extend the life paradigm further.
>
> Kind Regards
> Robert Karl Stonjek

Robert,

With all due respect, NASA and others are very, very much still engaged in
the process of confirming that Earth has the ONLY life in our solar system.
I would not be surprised to learn -- if evidence were to point to it -- that
there are some signs of present or past life on Mars. Nor am I convinced
beyond any doubt that there cannot be, within the very sun itself, some
"beings" which -- if only we could take our arrogance there and examine what
is there -- exhibit SOME of the characteristics we humans so ARROGANTLY
choose to assign the meaning of "life" to.

I am not about to say you are right about Earth's being the only planet in
this solar system having life; nor am I about to conclude that you are wrong
in this GUESS. I AM inclined, however, to believe that your GUESS is as
good as mine, but remains a GUESS.

Guesses are GOOD things. In fact, the best guesses that ever have been come
up with may be titled in our arrogant human subjectivity as "hypotheses."
Oh, how those in science lower their voices and speak with reverence of good
old hypotheses. But let me offer you a hypothesis for consideration: We
humans know very little, guess very much, and insofar as what is knowable do
not, I suspect, know ***.

One thing that irks me is when people DEEM themselves to be wise and
far-seeing as to what reality consists of, and where it is headed... despite
our having a history of being enormously WRONG again, and again, and again,
and again, and again...

Every age of man seems to envision itself to have ARRIVED at an
understanding of things. And every age of man, SO FAR, appears not to have
been so accurate, after all.

When will there come an age which says, "Man has been wrong up to now, and
we are not any more likely to be RIGHT about anything than our
prede-guessers."

But... I did not finish expressing the thought. What I meant to get to,
with regard to us, and every past time of human arrogance, and every future
time of human arrogance, is that reality does not seem to give a rat's a--
what we humans think.

And, of all things arrogant, the thing most arrogant I can imagine is that
man not only guesses, and considers his guesses to be "fact" but, also,
bases upon his current guesses statements beginning with, "Therefore..."

Our therefores are never even as good as our guesses upon which we base
them.

Repeat... our therefores are never EVEN as good as our guesses upon which we
base them.

If we ASSUME that there is no other life in our solar system, while having
barely touched the surface of confirmation of that, and then...
audaciously... say, "Therefore..." we already are well on the way to
error as to any flimsy thing we might ludicrously base upon such a shaky
foundation.

My own personal conviction... based only upon what little I know of to base
it upon... is, "Let us not be
too hasty in developing any idols or icons on which to rely, when all we
have to build them out of is... guesswork."


g


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