@GenesForLife:

franko wrote:About the term "life" maby later, these explanations are good.

Just a bit about terms and cognition (epistemology?). It is clear to me that people sometimes take same words for different things. And, to be honest, it marvels me that we understand eachother so well (considering my, not quite flaming youth, and considering that balcan of ours, which had never been considered as a nest of some great culture )

I do not think that terms "creationism" or "intelligent design" must consider god. I take them bound to what man takes for creating, intelligence or design. I take it thatway, let's say, arbitrary, well - because I like to take it thatway. And I would like to say few things about what I take as "creation", if you don't mind.

I also use term "faith", but it is not the old term, bounded to religion. I use it to mark first level of cognition (epistemology?), like presumptions, not yet confirmed, which I try to gather in some bigger picture, and than I say "let's say that it is so", or "let's presume", or, when i am more certain, I say "I believe that it is so". So, very often when I say "believe" it is as far as possible from any dogma. For me, it is a first step in constructing of some new model of mine.

Another one:

franko wrote:I have two more questions, from the set of those I take for more significant. One is -life. What is it, in fact? The second is about term "create".



Something about creation.
I think that different progresses, different developments, are based on two things:
1. gradual improvings - I would call that evolution;
2. leaps - I would call them creations.

To "make a man out of dast" is, of course, I take for unreasonable, but, the idea of different creations which would be brusquely, with a leap, surprising and pretty fast - that might be possible, IMO.

This kind of thoughts occured in me during different events. These are some of them, and if someone is interested, I could explain a bit more:
- Once I realised that I am making leaps development in one sport;
- by leaps development, I became a carpenter (amateur carpenter, but still, a carpenter)
- machines are developing tnat way, we are getting to new knoledges thatway;
- the history of mankind is full of leaps developments;

So I figured that is a some kind of law, sometimes obvious, sometimes not. That fostered me to comprehend evolutin in the simmilar way, and that leaps do not seem strane to me, just opposite.

That kind of thinking brought me to another question:
In the moment of a leap, does something necessarily goes down? (damn, I am sooo not sure about this translation )
Evolution always has that cleavage, some population which separates, one part stayes the same, and the other, let's say, goes on. I choosed to say "goes on", though, I could say just "outshines".

My conclusion would be this:
Gradual development - different things are developed within one unit.
That development brings to possibility for "the leap" which, basicly, stands on arrangement of elements.
In that leap, something makes fast progress, and something else stops, or even vanishes.
Separated population "overgrows" previous one, so it can be possible that they are not even competing.

I really do not know how to traslate "law" differently. In our language, we use "law". Maybe "regularity" would be better word?

sanja wrote:@GenesForLife:

franko wrote:About the term "life" maby later, these explanations are good.

Just a bit about terms and cognition (epistemology?). It is clear to me that people sometimes take same words for different things. And, to be honest, it marvels me that we understand eachother so well (considering my, not quite flaming youth, and considering that balcan of ours, which had never been considered as a nest of some great culture )

I do not think that terms "creationism" or "intelligent design" must consider god. I take them bound to what man takes for creating, intelligence or design. I take it thatway, let's say, arbitrary, well - because I like to take it thatway. And I would like to say few things about what I take as "creation", if you don't mind.

I also use term "faith", but it is not the old term, bounded to religion. I use it to mark first level of cognition (epistemology?), like presumptions, not yet confirmed, which I try to gather in some bigger picture, and than I say "let's say that it is so", or "let's presume", or, when i am more certain, I say "I believe that it is so". So, very often when I say "believe" it is as far as possible from any dogma. For me, it is a first step in constructing of some new model of mine.

Most people use them in them differently, so unless you specifically define terms before you use them and make sure that is clearly stated it is going to be a risky strategy and could lead to you being misconstrued.

sanja wrote:Another one:

franko wrote:I have two more questions, from the set of those I take for more significant. One is -life. What is it, in fact? The second is about term "create".

Life is basically chemistry writ large, self replicating, metabolising, and mutable. For a classical treatise on the subject I would recommend Schrodinger's "What Is Life" which includes a physical treatment of life.

Something about creation.

I think that different progresses, different developments, are based on two things:
1. gradual improvings - I would call that evolution;
2. leaps - I would call them creations.

Evolution does not distinguish between the two, since genetic/genomic changes still account for phenotypic changes regardless of the extent of change, I will attempt to provide links to some of the other posts I have made in this forum showing how small genetic changes can have dramatic effects. The point to be noted there is that there is no implied or real correspondence between the scale of mutation and the expected phenotypic change.

In other words, Occam's Razor would have you dump the distinction.

The idea is this

[1] Both morphology and physiology are controlled by genes
[2] This happens through interactions of genes and gene products (Proteins, ncRNA et cetera)
[3] The process of mutation can act on all genes (hence no distinction)
[4] Gene mutations cause phenotypic changes,which fall under the remit of [1]
[5] Phenotypes are subject to selection and since fitness is relative mutant phenes lead to differential survival or may have no impact, in which case they are said to be neutral.

To "make a man out of dast" is, of course, I take for unreasonable, but, the idea of different creations which would be brusquely, with a leap, surprising and pretty fast - that might be possible, IMO.

No distinctions required here inasmuch as the causal processes are concerned, firstly, since the processes of mutation are evidentially supported and parsimonious and this covers both possibilities, secondly, fast evolution would still operate within the evolutionary paradigm, so a distinction would be superfluous to requirements.

Just to give you an idea, mutations can go from point mutations, where just one nucleotide is altered, to whole genome duplications, where whole genomes are duplicated (doubling of the material available for further mutation and evolution)
In between there are processes such as gene duplication and supernumerary chromosome formation and transposon activity which all have varying extents of genomic change, which of course doesn't say anything about the extent of phenotypic change at all.

This kind of thoughts occured in me during different events. These are some of them, and if someone is interested, I could explain a bit more:
- Once I realised that I am making leaps development in one sport;
- by leaps development, I became a carpenter (amateur carpenter, but still, a carpenter)
- machines are developing tnat way, we are getting to new knoledges thatway;
- the history of mankind is full of leaps developments;

So I figured that is a some kind of law, sometimes obvious, sometimes not. That fostered me to comprehend evolutin in the simmilar way, and that leaps do not seem strane to me, just opposite.

Opposite? Not sure that is correct, it is part of what is evolutionarily possible, of course.

That kind of thinking brought me to another question:
In the moment of a leap, does something necessarily goes down? (damn, I am sooo not sure about this translation )

You've lost me there, Sanja.

But if he's asking when speciation should occur if there can be any drawback I can foresee one thing, increased chances of inbreeding which may allow the expression of deleterious recessive alleles, being something of a selective disadvantage, but Susu or someone should be able to expound evolutionary dynamics much better than I can, I'm a biochemist/biotechnologist and not a full time evolutionary biologist.

Evolution always has that cleavage, some population which separates, one part stayes the same, and the other, let's say, goes on. I choosed to say "goes on", though, I could say just "outshines".

My conclusion would be this:
Gradual development - different things are developed within one unit.
That development brings to possibility for "the leap" which, basicly, stands on arrangement of elements.
In that leap, something makes fast progress, and something else stops, or even vanishes.
Separated population "overgrows" previous one, so it can be possible that they are not even competing.

No, it does not "always" have that cleavage.

Speciation is one of the things that happens due to evolutionary processes, but it isn't an inevitable consequence as long as interfertility is maintained. It also appears you aren't very clear about how selection works, it works by eliminating mutations that reduce survival, this is called purifying selection. There will also always be competition because organisms produce more offspring than is sustainable, among other things, the work of Malthuus (sp) is especially relevant here, just as it was when Darwin came up with his magnum opus "On the Origin of Species..."

Regarding your conclusion, all I have to say is that while that is one of the ways evolution can progress in, it isn't the way in which it inevitably does, this is because one of the central elements underlying basis of evolution, aka mutation, is stochastic, or random, in a scientific sense.

I really do not know how to traslate "law" differently. In our language, we use "law". Maybe "regularity" would be better word?

Certainly better than law.

sanja wrote:

2. I do not need a god at the start, what I wonder is this:
If I, finaly, descover the world in it's entirety, if I find out that everything in it is pretty good connected, so that every part depends of other parts, and if I descover clear laws that guide every single part of that entirety - will I be in danger to call that entirety - god?

Let's make science a religion then. Because the discovery of the whole universe is the ultimate god of science.

But on a serious note, I think that your ability to agree or not with your statement depend mainly on your definition of a god. For me, a god need to be somewhat conscious. He also need to be outside of the universe. I see him as some sort of computer programmer that make a video game of some sort. What you describe would most likely be the codes (laws) of his creation. Nothing else...

If we were to discover everything, it would then give us the tool to track god by his action on the universe. It would clearly show if whether a god exist or not. We're already doing it to some degree with the knowledge we have, and we see nothing. That's mostly why I'm an atheist. What's the point of believing in a god that hasn't shown any sign of life.

It's my opinion though. Once you step outside religious belief, the definition of god become really personal.

Franko said:


Thanky you, all.

We are positioned very distant in our ways of thinking, and it seems to me that distance increases with every new entry.
So, I think I better give up fast.
I will get back if I learn language.
Or if I figure how to stick to strictly one subject.

Thank you one more time.

You are most welcome, Franko. Please do keep educating yourself and you may begin to see where the consensus comes from.
And you, Sanja, for translating.