Covid - Will to Exist
I have a question. I have always wondered about it and now with Covid it came again on the surface of my mind.
Covid variations are nothing more than a desperate effort of the virus to survive. To continue Exist. Trying to "adopt" in its environment and "fight" its threats.
Every living creature despite how simple or complex is (from bacteria to humans) does exactly the same thing. Wants to keep existing. Survive. Evolution is absolutely connected to survival also. The main purpose of evolution is survival.
So let's not talk about complex creatures like humans and animals. Let's talk about the tiniest forms of life(bacteria, virus. etc) and here are the questions:
Why even these tiniest living things have that Will to keep on existing? I mean even in some kind of level shouldn't there be an information transmitted that urges the virus to transform as to keep existing? Why it chooses to go on existing and not just do anything at all? And just disappear? Not "fight" for its survival at all? That weird Will to Exist in everything alive where has its source?Where is that information of "keep existing" stored even in bacterias?
Covid variations are nothing more than a desperate effort of the virus to survive. To continue Exist. Trying to "adopt" in its environment and "fight" its threats.
Every living creature despite how simple or complex is (from bacteria to humans) does exactly the same thing. Wants to keep existing. Survive. Evolution is absolutely connected to survival also. The main purpose of evolution is survival.
So let's not talk about complex creatures like humans and animals. Let's talk about the tiniest forms of life(bacteria, virus. etc) and here are the questions:
Why even these tiniest living things have that Will to keep on existing? I mean even in some kind of level shouldn't there be an information transmitted that urges the virus to transform as to keep existing? Why it chooses to go on existing and not just do anything at all? And just disappear? Not "fight" for its survival at all? That weird Will to Exist in everything alive where has its source?Where is that information of "keep existing" stored even in bacterias?
Comments (96)
No will involved, just evolution by natural selection. Some strains of the virus are more resistant to the vaccines than others just by chance. Those resistant strains continue to spread and infect people. Other strains, that are not resistant, die out.
However, what's intriguing is if I were a virus, I would've done exactly what the virus is doing - mutate and increase the odds of my survival. It's as if the virus has a(n) (invisible) brain that's strategizing, thinking about what's its next best move. SETI is gonna have a tough time looking for intelligent aliens if even entities whose status as a living organism is in question (viruses) can simulate intelligence. Maybe viruses, in a certain sense, pass the Turing test.
Very interesting article. I always had the belief that viruses are alive indeed. As I see now it's an open issue. Though even from the article I was more convinced by the "alive argument". But gave me more doubts.
So these strains were there from the very beginning? Since "virus birth"?? And just some of them die and others survive? Haven't these strains developed afterwards as an effort from the virus to survive?
That's more or less the core of my question. Seems really weird to me indeed. Though it might be a biological scientific issue that I m not aware of
Just like a computer can win a chess game. No will needs apply.
I get what you mean but I don't use Will here with the typical philosophical meaning we give to it . I should have clarified it from the beginning.
I mostly mean something like Agent Smith said. Like a primal mechanism of making the virus "decide" to go on existing. To include the information as "to know what to do" as to keep existing. If that makes more sense.
Yeah but a computer is manufactured by a living creature. Humans. Virus is already alive. Though from the Hanover's article I see that many doubt that is alive from the very beginning.
It's common to use terminology like this as a shorthand or metaphor even among scientists, especially scientific communicators. But one shouldn't take the metaphor as then being literal.
Evolution of any species or virus is an optimisation procedure. There is a space to explore (RNA), a source of noise (genetic mutation), usually a mixing procedure (e.g. sexual reproduction), and a feedback from the environment that effectively ascribes a fitness to each individual.
It's a very passive, dumb procedure that you can simulate on a computer very easily* (at least for simple models) but one capable of incredible flexibility, resilience and complexity.
*In my first job after leaving academia, I wrote an algorithm that tracked mobile phones around supermarkets. This consisted of 1000 candidates each with a unique state akin to DNA (position, orientation, various device biases), a source of noise akin to mutation (small additions of pseudo random numbers added to state variables), a combination procedure akin to sexual reproduction (the next 1000 states drawn probabilistically from the probability distribution of the previous 1000), and environmental feedback akin to survival fitness (closeness of phone magnetometer and WiFi strength measurements to objective mappings) that would alter the probability of a candidate spawning offspring. The result looked like the candidate cloud had a purpose: it moved around the store very confidently after initial catastrophes killed most of the initial candidates, stopping wherever I had stopped, turning around when I had done... But it all came from about 500 lines of very straightforward Python code. Of course, we talked about the cloud pausing at the hot sauce shelf, moving on, then changing its mind and going back for that hot sauce... It's a good, metaphorical narrative technique. But really it was just state and noise exploring a particular state space and dying off when it didn't fit the environment any more.
The appearance of will and purpose and design in evolution is the same. It's a foot in the door to understanding the mechanics through metaphor, especially in large state spaces and complex environments that are otherwise difficult to grasp. But at heart it's just dumb numbers doing dumb things according to statistics and feedback mechanisms.
So in general, if I got it right, your point is that as everything, viruses variants are just an automatical mechanical procedure and includes no transmission of any kind of information as to go on existing?Right?
No, state is an example of information, reproduction an example of transmission. But none of that requires a will. Your computer does this well enough without a will of its own. (In before, "But computers only do as we tell them, which is will!": Most computer users are oblivious to how information is stored and transmitted but can still operate them fine. They are not "willing" messages around circuits, and yet that happens.)
Variations in the virus strains develop as the result of random genetic mutations which take place on a continuous basis. Some mutations have no significant effect, some have negative consequences for the organism, and some have a positive effect.
This may very well be the best discussion ever proposed in the history of reality.
It will probably be deleted soon.
Quoting dimosthenis9
A star has a life cycle that not only creates and destroys entire galaxies but apparently (allegedly) creates what we call life itself. So how can we not talk about all understandings of what life and energy is. Just because you can't detect the thoughts or understand or decode them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Why you think it will be deleted?
Quoting Outlander
Sorry I didn't get what you mean. I just wanted to focus on tiny forms of life as viruses and bacteria and its way of keep existing. Can you clarify it?
Why but these random genetic mutations seem to serve the purpose of existence. Right? I mean why to serve that purpose from the very beginning? I think your point is that it doesn't serve any purpose at all. It just happens right? I can't disagree .Not having a real argument against it.
But if you see it in large scale and not individually, the purpose of the variations of let's say the general "population of Covid viruses" (same with humankind genes) seems to be to keep staying alive. The purpose of this evolution procedure is to keep existing. Keep living. Seems to me like a "force" pushing towards there.
Of course the most possible scenario is to be wrong but my mind could never fully be convinced by that random thing of evolution. Though it might be the truth indeed.
Some genetic strains survive and some don't, which leads to changes in the species, i.e. evolution. Changes in the population of organisms over time are the effect of the process, not the purpose. Evolution has no drive, direction, purpose, or force.
Well no it is not will. But still I could never accept these comparisons with computers. Computers are children of the human mind. An alive creature and its mind manufactured them. But computers aren't alive.
I got what you mean and the analogy you use here. But though there are many similarities sometimes I can't accept them working exactly the same.
Yeah I figured it out you believed so. And told you I have no argument to bring against that. It might be the case indeed.
That's true indeed?DNA tries to "kill itself"? Is it scientific proven or you use it as a metaphor? It's not ironic question . I'm just curious, I was never aware of such thing.
No. It's not true. It doesn't even mean anything.
Yep, the question then is what is intelligence? It can't be acting in ways to maximize returns, minimize losses - even unthinking nature does that without the aid of a single neuron.
Is it, mirable dictu, that what we call stupidity - inefficiency, poor business skills so to speak - is true intelligence?
Seems like it, no? What has a brilliant bloke done which nature, mindless chance, hasn't already/is in the process of perfected/perfecting? It's the idiot's work that stands out as unique (enough to define intelligence, assuming a brain is part of that definition).
There's a (good) reason why people believe in Intelligent Design (ID).
:chin:
No, it is ironic parody. DNA has no aim, no feelings no awareness and makes no effort to achieve anything. But it is entirely natural for the human mind to treat the world as animated. It is just part of the way understanding works in a highly social species. So one tends to find that the volcano god is angry when the volcano erupts, and the river god is bountiful when it irrigates the fields, and the sea god is angry when the storm arises. The DNA god trying to make clever monkeys or whatever, is the continuation of this social minded understanding of nature.
People talk about 'the virus trying to survive and adapt' but if you care to put any virus under the microscope and watch it, you will see that it does exactly nothing. It just sits there until it falls apart. but one thinks of covid as a single united being that is an enemy of the people, and scheming to evade the tactics of humanity, in the same way as one thinks of a hurricane as some kind of malevolent entity, rather than the momentary random swirl of atmosphere that it is is. This 'convenient'.
But for example with vaccinations when you "fight" the virus. It responds right? Some variations have much more resistance to vaccines. Trying to "fight back" and keep existing. Doesn't it change as to keep existing?
If it did nothing at all why not just fall apart from the first place? Doesn't that response indicates something? Maybe it doesn't but I don't know I find it weird.
But the idea of humans fighting nature is always problematic, and often misleading, if not dangerous. At the same time, if you fall in the river, maybe don't just 'go with the flow'.
Ok got your point.
And I can argue all day against comparison to the evolution of virus DNA, or any other competence without comprehension.
Quoting dimosthenis9
So are you saying that a virus genetically designed in a lab has no will but an identical virus naturally evolved does?
Quoting dimosthenis9
I also don't accept that computers have a will: I introduced them as an example of something with no will that can optimise. Saying "but they're designed" or "they're not alive" isn't a response. No one is willing the particular transmission of a particular message at a particular time. The underlying mechanics are opaque to most. No will involved, and yet it optimises.
Viruses are subject to natural selection. Our own multi-faceted will to live could be, at least in part, a product of the same thing.
Viruses designed naturally or in a lab are both something alive (well it's an open issue if they are but let's assume yes). Computers aren't the same for sure and for sure nothing to do with life itself.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Well as I told you I understood the analogy you used but still for me is a response indeed. They do are designed by humans and they aren't alive indeed. So this can never be a convincing argument for me. Not of course that this makes the opposite (that virus has will) true.
Could you elaborate it a little more? Not sure I realized where you stand on that.
So apparently you didn't buy my explanation of evolution by natural selection. If you want to buy into some sort of story about the struggling virus fighting against our attempts to kill it, there's not much more I can say.
So:
Quoting dimosthenis9
is irrelevant? I'm inclined to agree.
So earlier we established that it isn't the living (or life-modifying) individual that demonstrates will, but the RNA over many generations. Is RNA more alive than a computer? Is a the source code of a computer program more alive than a computer?
Quoting dimosthenis9
Well this is a bit of a dodgy argument, isn't it? In the case of a man-made virus which you want to argue has a will, you held the fact that it's man-made irrelevant to the question of it having a will, only that it's alive (even though it isn't). Yet in the case of a computer which you wish to argue has no will, the fact that it's man-made is relevant. I feel the problem here is that taste rather than logic dictates your arguments, leading to contradictions.
This is essentially the central dogma of biology. But it's a dogma. Who says it's true? Information can flow in two directions. From DNA to the organism, or from the organism to DNA. It's a pretty weird image of us hanging on the imperative lines of selfish genes willing to procreate only. You can just as well say that DNA is the altruistic follower of us. Giving us a means for existence. The organism needs proteins, the DNA provides. DNA stays alive through the generations, but does this show a will to survive? It are rather the the organisms that show a will, and pass this will on to a next generation, and this can only be done by means of DNA. Why should DNA wanna survive? To prolongate itself? That sounds circulary. The reason to live is to propagate life? The reason to live is spawning new life, or propagate genes or memes? Dunno, that robs them of value somehow. I want my memes to occupy as many as minds as possible. It can be a consequence, just as redirecting half of you genes to your children is a consequence, but to say this is the ground for what happens is circular. It is making the consequences the cause, the will, as you want. Genes are passed to the new generation, so it must be their will to replicate. If proteins came on the scene first, in the primordial soup of amino acids, and if these protein structures, this first life, had the "will" to pass life on, for the sake of life (so not to pass on genes or memes but to live, in which case the reason or meaning of life is life itself), then DNA can be seen as an aid. Altruistic, selfish, or better, neutral, You can label it anyway you want. Labeling it selfish is stupid, as this implicates the effect being the cause. Calling it altruistic is just as stupid, but it seems closer to reality. DNA offers its means to store information about proteins and the organism uses this property. DNA doesn't truly offer though, nor does it truly order a body which it has constructed blindly to ensure its continuation. That's why I don't understand why modern sticks to this language, which gives a false sense of reality.
The dogma hasn't been proven. Organisms might be able to influence DNA as well as the other way round.
Well yeah it is.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Even if the virus is man made it is a living thing. For example when scientists cloned the sheep Dolly or if they ever achieve to clone a human wouldn't these be living creatures also? Would they be the same with computers only because they were human made? For me not at all.
All these don't make my thesis of a "will to exist" true or prove anything. Of course not. I just explain you why I can never fully accept arguments that involve computer comparisons with living organisms and how they behave.
Your explanation seem to be the dominate one. And sounds truly the most possible one. I started that thread not cause I m sure that every living creature (even tiniest ones like viruses) have a will to exist.I could never be sure of such thing or have any "evidence" in favor of it.
But i was always fascinated how everything which comes to life (even trees) struggle to survive as if they had a will to go on existing. At least that's how it seemed to my eyes.
I wanted to see if anyone else found that possible or had the same thoughts. Or even had an scientific paradox that could be used as an argument in favor of that.
From the responses I see, no one does (at least here).
So yes, something inside me wishes a force of life in everything to exist.And not everything to be a random thing.
But I m logical enough to realize that this might not be the case at all. The fact that I would want such Will to exist, doesn't make it true also. And your arguments, as others too, for sure sound more convincing than mine.
Well now we're in a realm where words don't really mean anything. Is it your belief that all organic molecules are themselves alive?
Quoting dimosthenis9
Therefore being man-made is irrelevant to being alive. And yet:
Quoting dimosthenis9
is somehow relevant. This is incoherent thinking.
No it isn't. Not everything man made is the same. Again, a clone is the same with computers? I can't understand why you find that so weird.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Not all. But RNA is. As DNA.
If we ever discovered in another planet a virus. Wouldn't that be considered as indication of life existence? Some form of life? Or at least the possibility of it? I think it would be considered a great discovery.
I don't find it weird, I find it incoherent. If being man-made precludes will, it should do so whether alive or not. If it does not, it never should. Changing one's values to fit different desired conclusions is just weak argumentation.
Quoting dimosthenis9
RNA is alive. Yeah okay. :yikes: We're a long way from science, Toto.
No it doesn't precludes will. Where did I mention that? Each case is different. I just pointed out that computers as, let's say, cars are human made things. Does that mean that could never be human made creatures instead of things?What exactly is incoherent here?
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Same with changing other's words too.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
RNA is a part of a cell which plays crucial role as DNA also. You find that it isn't alive?That it doesn't carry a form of life inside it?
Every part of me isn't alive also? My liver isn't alive also? Science says that DNA and RNA aren't alive?
You certainly stated its artificiality as a counterargument. If you're backtracking on that, good.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Oh, not just me. In fact you're the only person I've ever met who thinks viruses are alive.
Natural selection is like a filter, but is a filter responsible for generating what goes through it? Why should there be anything for natural selection to select?
Quoting frank
And what thing might that be?
I don't think viruses are alive, but I do wonder if they could exist outside a biological ecosystem. In any case, I think the OP makes a fair point - there's nothing analogous to the way living organisms can maintain themselves while continuing to replicate in the non-organic domain. I don't however see anything about 'desparation' or effort or trying against all odds on behalf of a virus. The virus is just doing what all living things do, which is surviving and replicating. I think that exemplifies something very near in meaning to what Schopenhauer means by 'will'.
Random mutations lead to a change the genetic makeup of some organisms. Most of these changes lead either to no significant change in the organism itself or changes that do not increase or decrease the ability of the organism to survive in a particular environment. Some do increase or decrease that ability. Mutations that lead to improvements in survivability can be passed on to offspring.
I stated that computers are human made no living things and can't be compared to living organizations. Simple as that. You insist on something that I never mentioned. Anyway.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Check Hanover's article then to see that it is an open issue(that surprised me cause I thought that it was not even debatable, but seems it is).
And for sure there are many scientists who think viruses alive.In fact from the search that I did seems that the majority of scientists believe that. I ensure you I m not the only one.
https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/what-is-life/article/are-viruses-alive-what-is-life.html
Are you asking where the mutations come from? As I noted, they are random. I think some are spontaneous and some are caused by radiation and other factors. I'm stepping a bit beyond my level of knowledge here.
I decided to look it up on the web. The source I looked at says that most mutations are thought to be caused by spontaneous errors when DNA is copied.
If that's not what you're asking, I don't see how I didn't address the question.
These questions are into the core of that thread in fact. Why should there be anything for natural selection to select from the first place?
Some might say :"It's just the way it is. Simple ". But I don't know. Though it might be true indeed my mind could never fully " digest" it.
Well not that these questions mean that there is a "will to exist" indeed, but I don't know also if these questions are so easily answered from randomness.
No. The question was 'Why should there be anything for natural selection to select?'
The issue is, the natural sciences assume that nature already exists.
This doesn’t answer the questions posed in the OP, but instead addresses these premises to the questions posed: I know that self-preservation as narrative is in many a way nearly integral to the subject of evolution, but evolution is far more complex than this. As unpleasant a topic as it is for most of us, death (namely, the death of self) is a requisite aspect of evolution. No death, no evolution of life. Period. As far as the will to survive or exist on behalf of all living things, this is directly contradicted by things such as apoptosis (programed cell death or “cellular suicide” as it's called by some) – which is requisite for the health of any multicellular organism. One could then view the death of multicellular organisms within their own species as serving the same function as the apoptosis of individual cells within a multicellular organism, and so forth.
I grant that there is a will to [something] in respect to the process of evolution, but, given the aforementioned, it can’t be a will to survive/exist [for clarity: as a selfhood-endowed being/entity]
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Though I doubt this will be much of a contender, I’ll add to the mix of ideas as regards possible answers: my own presumption is that evolution in some way works with the will to “be/become conformant to objective reality - both metaphysical and physical”. Those changes (mutations, etc.) or properties that deviate the being/entity (e.g., species) from objective reality to a sufficient extent tend to cause the being/entity to cease to be. Those changes or properties that conform the being/entity to objective reality to a sufficient extent tend to cause the being/entity to continue remaining - albeit, often in changed form. Mere poetics as is, but I like it: shares certain attributes with "truth being a conformity with that which is real". Again, I acknowledge the mystical-ish poeticism to much of this. But in the absence of something more logically cogent given what I previously mentioned about evolution, I’m biased toward maintaining this point of view. This for whatever it might be worth.
Your thoughts, as Wayfarer's doubts too, seem like an oasis for me at this thread.
I thought "wtf not even one finds it weird that evolution's work and its way with the (let's name them random) genetic combinations seems to have a "purpose" for existence? Or even a will to conform in the objective reality as you mention?!".
Of course our opinion can't be supported by any scientific arguments but come on I don't accept to be so easily rejected by randomness!
At the end why are there so many possible combinations in genes as natural selection to occur??
Could it be possible that all these "DNA errors" that cause mutations, as T Clark described them, to serve a purpose of survival? A purpose for the organism to go on living through that "error procedure"? Even death as you say seems necessary for life.
Why to be possible so many combinations in genes from the first place and not just one or two let's say?!
Anyway your post was uplifting for me I have to admit.
Exactly! And assume also that it works in a certain way.
But "Why?" is the big question for me. Why evolution to work in that way from the very beginning??We take that procedure for granted(and that's right indeed) but that procedure, maybe, it serves a purpose and it's not only randomness.
I’m glad you found my take to be of interest, though I am a bit surprised. :smile: As far as support by scientific arguments, it does to my mind speak well enough for what evolutionary adaptation is: in short, a conformity to objectivity. But I get you, it’s not a scientific explanation. Agreed.
Since you’re attracted to such ideas of purpose in evolution, here’s two thinkers I’ve come across who hold similar enough views:
Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin#Teachings
If one take’s Teilhard’s “Omega Point” to be one and the same with ultimate reality, and ultimate reality to be synonymous with “metaphysically objective reality”, one can then find parallels between evolution’s will to “be/become conformant to (both metaphysical and physical) objective reality” with what Teilhard writes about evolution as process toward the Omega Point as ultimate reality. He spoke to a Christian audience; in so doing he expressed this as a teleological process toward union with the Godhead.
As a compliment to this, there’s C.S. Peirce, who upheld the notion of agapism or “evolutionary love”:
Quoting https://philosophyisnotaluxury.com/2011/12/evolutionary-love/
Putting some interpretive spin on this: One can interpret what Peirce expresses as agapism being the purpose of evolution. If agape/love is evolution's telos/goal, then with a little stretch of the imagination: where one entertains what some religious folk affirm that G-d = Love and understands this absolute love to be ultimate reality … then one again can begin to accommodate the perspective wherein absolute love, which might also be interpreted as absolute good, is the ultimate reality which serves as "goal" for evolution's processes.
Lots of questions to be addressed in such perspectives (with or without my interpretations of them), and clearly they will fall under the category of mysticism for most. But if you are interested in further exploring such notions regarding evolution’s purpose, these two thinkers’ perspectives might be of help. (Sorry, didn't have the time to find better references for them.)
Sorry. I don't get it.
Thanks for introducing me to these thinkers. Never heard of them before as to be honest.
From a quick read that I did in both of them I found more interesting the Omega point view of Teilhard. Not that I got convinced really, as to be honest, since he attempts somehow to connect evolution's purpose with God as I understood. But he expresses some interesting ideas and issues that I was troubled about.
At least both of them consider that evolution has a purpose indeed. It doesn't say much of course from scientific point of view or providing any real evidence. But in a personal level is good to see that my thoughts and questions about evolution are bothering other thinkers too. Your contribution to the OP is much appreciated.
Bold claim alert. Please back this up. The article you cite is a debate between a person saying that viruses don't adhere to the definition of the word "life" and another person who agrees but thinks the word should be redefined to include viruses. From the latter:
Nonetheless we have a definition of life which includes the independent ability to replicate, which viruses do not have. I asked you about whether viruses are alive or not, not whether we should redefine what we mean by "life".
Then we can move onto you backing up your claim that RNA, an acid, itself is alive.
Quoting dimosthenis9
In response counter to an argument that computers can optimise like evolution does. I.e. it was a counterargument. If you're abandoning it, fine (and good).
There are many more that believe viruses are form of life.
If not then what are they?Dead? Again if we ever find a virus in Mars or another planet wouldn't that be indication of life??
Sorry but I m not backing up on it. I surely consider viruses alive indeed.Even though Hannover's article is a counterargument, I still consider the arguments from the "alive part of view" much stronger.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
And I answered you already.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
As to finish with that. My initial post was that :
Quoting dimosthenis9
and after that :
. Quoting dimosthenis9
Where exactly i stated that the only reason that I find possible viruses to have some kind of will is not to be humanly manufactured???
I just mention "an alive creature and its mind manufactured them. But computers aren't alive.".
Does that mean to you that I support that everything that humanity created or will create in the future can't be alive or have will?!
If you get that meaning from that then I can't do anything about that.
Sorry but I will never admit something that I never meant or posted just cause you want it. Believe me I would have no problem at all to admit it if I did.
Better let's drop it. We will never agree on that as it seems.
Quoting dimosthenis9
If you, @Wayfarer, @javra, and Teilhard want to turn evolution into a hugs and kisses spiritual love fest where rocks are conscious and everyone will eventually join with God, knock yourselves out. You guys just want to pick and choose those aspects of science that jibe with your magic-realistic world view and reject those that don't. That's intellectually lazy at best, intellectually dishonest at worst.
Chill we don't want to turn evolution into anything. We just share common questions, doubts and ideas about matters that still haven't definite answers.
None of us are dogmatic about it (as you seem to be) and we all mention that our views can't be supported scientifically. We just share common curiosity. That's all.
Who even mentioned that we agree with Teilhard?? Javra just introduced me to him as something interesting and somehow relevant with my OP, not that he agreed with him. So what exactly are you talking about here??
I don't see any problem at all on that, as to use such heavy characterizations as lazy and dishonest.
By the way you repost my response but I don't see any answers to my questions.And you know why? Cause you don't even know. And no one does. Yet at least.
You just say "cause that's how it is". Well excuse us but we are a little more curious about it. We ask why? That's all. Don't crucify us for that "Sin".
You picked on me, so I'll ask of you: how is "the process of evolution selects for that which is most conformant to objectivity via variations" intellectually lazy or dishonest. You mean to say evolution doesn't do that?
Quoting dimosthenis9
I used those words because I think it is intellectually lazy at least to accept science when it reinforces your fantasies and reject it when it doesn't.
Quoting dimosthenis9
T Clark didn't describe them as just DNA errors, he described them as random DNA errors. Random, in this case, means they don't have any particular direction or goal. Again, you use what supports your vague vision and ignore what doesn't.
Quoting dimosthenis9
What questions do you mean? Do you mean "At the end why are there so many possible combinations in genes as natural selection to occur?" If you're asking me how DNA based life developed from from non-living material, there are theories about how that happened, although they are not as well established as the theory of evolution by natural selection. That's irrelevant to the present discussion. How life began is a different question than how evolution works. Darwin was explicit about that in "Origin of Species."
Fact is, DNA is set up the way it is. It's set up in such a way that it allows evolution to proceed. Darwin's theory had nothing to say about DNA. DNA wasn't even discovered until almost 100 years after he first wrote about evolution. Darwin didn't even know anything specific about genetics. Mendel's work wasn't published until about forty years after Origin of Species.
I don't even know what that means. The quote below is the type I am finding fault with.
Quoting javra
Ooh, the horror, the horror.
So in the end, it's all just part of life.
Where exactly did it happen? At our post exchange I mentioned many times that your arguments are the scientific one and I have no scientific counterarguments. Where did I project with the way that evolution works as you described? We just wonder why to work that way?? And why is there something as natural selection to choose from the first place (that was Wayfarer's question). And if evolution serves a purpose indeed. That's all.
Quoting T Clark
That random word that you so proudly declare that I forgot in purpose changes NOTHING at all to my meaning. I just wonder if that random errors as you mention have a purpose .Better now? You are so sure that they don't have. How are you so sure?? Science reached there as you to sound so absolutely sure about it?
Quoting T Clark
And evolution is set up as to allow life to proceed.
Quoting T Clark
No it isn't irrelevant at all. That's the core of it in fact. And that's what you miss. Evolution's purpose is life. Either you like it or not.
What I wonder from the very beginning of this thread is, if there is a force of life that makes evolution work that way as to serve it or if that happens totally randomly indeed.
Well I can smell a metaphor here but I'm not sure that I understood the underlying meaning. And what's your thoughts on that (I guess it addressed to "if virus are alive" question right?). If you could clarify it.
Ah, well that then explains things well enough for me. The sentence you're addressing is, after all, the summation of the longer passage you just quoted. I'll simplify my questions:
Q: Is evolution randomness devoid of any selective forces?
If you answer "yes" I'll not so humbly disagree with such an ignorant stance. If you answer "no" then:
Q: Do these selective forces select for that which is most accordant to what is objectively real?
If you have no idea of what "accordance (in the sense of "agreement; harmony; conformity; compliance")" is or else of what "objective reality" is, do let me know. But I might not be of great help in explaining.
But to however illustrate, just as a human who presumes he can fly and thereby jumps off a tall building dies and is thus selected against by evolution for not being accordant with objective reality, so too will a species whose manners of life are discordant to the ever changing, objectively real ecosystem(s) it inhabits be selected against by evolution - be it the dodo bird, or any other of innumerable species that have become extinct.
Considering that comprehension of what I've written occurs, where is the intellectual laziness or dishonesty in this, um, perspective lets call it?
BTW, if you queasiness has to do with "metaphysical objectivity", I can of course understand the relativist's pov. Still, I did mention both physical and metaphysical objectivity as the telos/purpose of evolution. Moreover I blatantly disagree with the relativist - which would embark us on a different course of enquiry. For instance, if no metaphysical objectivity, then are all metaphysical laws/principles of thought fully relative and thereby subjective - such that the law of identity differs from individual to individual?
Quoting javra
Mutations are the random factor in evolution. These sometimes lead to changes in the organism which have a differential impact on it's survivability in a particular environment. If by "most accordant to what is objectively real" you mean "survivable in a particular environment," then we are probably on the same page, although your way of saying it is vague and likely to lead to misunderstanding.
Quoting javra
As I noted, your explanation, as expressed in the post I am responding to, is close to agreement with existing science. But you've said more in previous posts:
Quoting javra
Quoting javra
This is where my accusation comes in - you use science when it fits with your worldview and ignore it when it doesn't.
And pray tell, where does [s]scientism and/or physicalism[/s] any empirical science contradict my propositions?
Or maybe objectivity is not a good?
Is that how it works? You don't have to show how you're contention might be true, I have to prove that it's wrong?
Yeah you do. Since you accused us of dishonesty and laziness. We didn't say anything at all about your view.
Do we grant the virus will and life? In both cases, the question is ultimately definitional.
:up:
Not interested. We can leave it at that.
And what's your opinion? Is it alive or not according to you?
Ok
I've stated my case several times. I don't feel like doing it again.
You stated your statement (repeatedly at that) and provide no cogent justification for it. In a world of relativism I don't know, but in the world I inhabit, that is intellectually lazy or dishonest.
With an article that I think you didn't read. The pro argument isn't saying viruses are alive according to current definition of life.
Quoting dimosthenis9
Okay, this is a bit like:
ME: What time is it?
YOU: Eight o'clock.
ME: Shit, I'm late! Hang on, the clock says 3!
YOU: I never said it was eight o'clock in this country.
I.e. there's no obvious distinction between being wrong and being tricky. I kinda have a feel for the answer though.
Quoting dimosthenis9
"Please back this up" means, in this context, "please provide evidence". Stupid English and it's ambiguities. If someone with a truck handed you some keys and said "Please back this up," it would mean what you thought I meant. :rofl:
He states that he finds them alive indeed even if the definition doesn't "cover" them. Simply as that.
You were so "shocked" by the argument that viruses are alive and answered you with the article that there are others who consider them alive also. Period. And now you play the definition card?
So now you have met at least two people that consider viruses alive. And if you see at the thread there are others too.
As to close it, since you found it so outrageous and so easily pronounced it non scientific.
AT BEST, if viruses are alive is still an open issue. And I was surprised of that I have to admit, since I was sure that everyone considered them alive before Hanover's article.
As I searched it more still I find the arguments in favor of viruses as alive much stronger than the opposite one. So yes I go on believing it.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
No it isn't. I made it as obvious as I could for you, providing you the initial posts also and now you accuse me of just being tricky.Only as not to admit that you misinterpreted it. I could call your tactic tricky then,since seems you do the same with the article that I provided you and the definition of life. Anyway as you wish.
That's also incoherent. "alive" is a word with a definition. What you're admitting here is that the definition of "alive" excludes viruses, but viruses are nonetheless "alive".
I've asked you twice to back up the false claim of a scientific consensus that viruses are alive, not according to what one guy thinks the definition should be, but what the definition is. I can see that you can't even cite one person without spiralling into incoherence so I won't ask again.
What you don't understand is that it isn't just "one guy" but many many more. You could easily figure it out if you do a little search over the internet. But you insist on thinking that it was just me and now that it is just me and "that guy".
If you want to play with definitions and "by the book", then with the typical existing definition of life, viruses meet some criteria of that definition but yes fail in others. That's why it's still an open issue.
By the way I answer all of your questions but you conveniently forget all mine. So for 3rd time. If you think viruses aren't alive then what are they? Dead??And if we ever discover a virus in another planet would that be considered an indication of life? Yes or no?
Gives a whole new meaning to the word "errors" doesn't it? I wish philosophy and other stuff humans do were like that - built not on correctness, but "mistakes"! By that token, Siddhartha, Moses, Mahavira, Jesus, Mohammad, Einstein, Marie Curie, every single human being that ever lived, lives, and will live - all were/are/will be boo-boos!
Life is One Big Mistake! :grin:
Surely does.
It's not even one guy atm. The above is what you've been asked to evidence. You're not doing that. From a scientist's standpoint, the claim of a scientific consensus that viruses are alive is pretty big news and needs basing in evidence. Your refusal or inability to do this speaks volumes.
So, viruses are alive! Naked. Without a naked body. In between the naked nudidity of the virus and the free naked human beauty, live dressed organisms like bacteria, unicellulars, insects, trees, plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, or mammals, fish, and crabs.
More says your refusal to answer my questions, though I keep answering all yours.
Again I tell you that if you want to go by the typical definition of life, viruses meet some criteria, fail in others.
The "evidence" that you ask, are already there.It's just that some don't consider them enough as to declare viruses alive, but others do. So i don't know what more you want me to tell you.To invent more abilities of viruses as proof? Well sorry, but I m not capable of doing that.
Their variations,their structure, their evolution progress and also their key role that they play in the general web of life of species etc are more than enough evidence for me (as for many others too) to consider them alive. You don't. So ok.
I drop it, cause it seems we keep recycling the same things all the time.
Viruses among others, play a key role in the chain of life in all species. Evolution takes place in them but also evolution uses them as to generate new life. So yeah they surely should be considered alive. Despite how "shocking" that might sound to some.
I wholeheartedly agree! It appears to be the primordial form that even survived to these days and a world of life without them (or bacteria, which have their own ribosomes, contrary to the virus) seems indeed impossible. Viruses are like some necessary ingredient for the whole spectrum of life (to which it belongs too). Without viruses, life would be sent to oblivion.
Exactly.
I think now I got your point .Just realized that the real question actually goes much much deeper.