Edtharan

No. And that is my point. When you look at life and non life ther is no real distinction between them. The only comparison is that degree of emergent behaviour, and this is not a good guide as many traditionaly nonliving systems also have high degrees of emergent behaviour. You are essentially building a strawman here (or something like it). Just by taking 1 criteria and saying that this criteria is aplicable to other system does not invalidate my point. It is a bit like saying that becaue dimond is made from carbon and organic chemicals are made of carbon then dimond is an orcanic chemical. One of my criteria is that of "self catalizing". A storm system seems to fullfill a lot of the other categories, but it fails this one. Storms do not create other storms. Storms are created by an imbalance in the atmosphere (due to humidity, pressure, temperature, etc). Elen Vital (i'm not too sure on the spelling" roughly means life force. It make no reference to a creator or lack there of. It is used in reference to an unknown "something" that makes ordenary matter be alive. Wheather this is a spirit, some unknown or undetectable field or substanceis what it refers to. It was used to be used by alchemists, but the modern useage of the word has changes to mean that of an unknown agent that causes life. It is not ment as a derogitory term here, but just to stand in for the myriad of posibilities that could be the unknown cause of life. I supposed that if you wanted to think that way that my use of complexity and emergent behaviour could be seen as an elen vital. On the surface, but from all the definitions of life I have heard it seems the best fit. It may be a sterile description, but it does not mean that I think life is not special or amazing. As far as we know, the only place in the universe that contains life is our small chunk of rock that is wizzing around a super heated ball of plasma (the sun ). If we go just a few just 100 kilometers life as we know it is completely imposable. The universe is either too hot or too cold to suport life. We are lucky.

These are responses in themselves to asymetric warfare.

This problem only occures if one thinks of life as something special, somthing that exists beyond the physical. I do not believe there is an "elan vital", a living force that seperates life from non life. Living entities are essentially a (very) complex chemical reaction. It is the complexity and emergent properties and behaviours od the "living" system that are important. The important properties of the system are that it maintains it's system integerety, self catalizing, growth, transfers energy through it internal systerm (the source of metabolism) to do work, organisation and disequilibrium with it's suroundings.

If you kill off a lot of plants they will rot and give off CO2 (also if you burn them). If a plant decays in the right environemtn then this can be different. The organisms that would normaly break downthe plant material are not there and so the plant will not release CO2. This carbon get sequested underground as coal (oil usualy comes from single celled organisms like algae AFAIK). We have been buring these carbon sinks and releasing them as CO2 (and other polutants). This process is what is changeing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Replanting the forests will not fix the CO2 problem as those trees can only soak up a tiny portion of the CO2 released. They will soak it up for a short period of time as they are growing, but as they mature and die (and the forest around them) they will turn into carbon emmitters and re-release that carbon that they accumulated over thier life span. This can be as short as 5 years or up to 50 years (as an estimate). Not enough to stop the effect of us buring the carbon in the coal and oil reserves. To soak up the carbon released from the coal and oil reserves we would end up having to plant more trees than there were before we started using coal and oil. It is this reason that plants can not be used as a solution to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. It might help reduce the impact over the short term, but in the longer term (greater than 20 years) it will fail as a solution. We can use it to buy us more time to get the technology together to combat the CO2, but only a few years. Ironically, plastic makes a good carbon soak, as it will lock up the carbon used in it (most plastics are made from oil) in a very stable state. The problem with plastic is that it has other pollutant effects on the environment. Other materials could also work. Certain types of concrete can be a carbon sink, but ther is problems with this too. We would need to pave very large areas with concrete to have any effect. One soultion useing trees is to grow forests, cut them down and burry the resulting wood deep underground and thereby making future coal reserves and replaceing the CO2 that we have extracted from coal and oil. The problems with this is it would have to be done on a massive scale, and that would incure a gret expense. No solution is perfect, and all have soome form of draw back. That is what make this kind of debate difficult. We can state the problem, but when it comes to a soulution there is the problem of "Not in my backyard" and the sheer cost of what it would take. The only answer to these conserns is that if we do nothing the the problem will be in your backyard and what is the cost of doing nothing. there are a lot of sticky tape solutions, but they will only give us a bit more time to get things sorted and come up with an acceptable solution that we all can agree on.

Plants are not endless C02 soaks. Plants also release a lot of CO2 over it's life time. At best a forrest should have a neutral CO2 input/output. As a forest matures it will have decaying plants that relesae the CO2 that is stored over it's life time. Also animals will live in the forest and are CO2 emmiters (from eating the plants). Infact at night plants use op oxygen and emit CO2. Because of this forrests are not an endless carbon sink. The may help to smooth out the peaks and troughs in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, but they will not sove the problem of too much carbon in the long run.

True. The science is just models, not reality. But, if a model produces identical results then this model has a high degree of fidelity, and if the results are identical then what is there to say that the orginism that is simulated is not alive? If you look at a system as a process then this is not true. If I can replicate the relationship between input and output of a system with other components that would not the process be comparable? Take for instance two different computers using different harware (eg Macintosh and IBM compatable). These two computer CPUs have very different architecture and are incompatable (ie software designed for one will not work on the other). Howeve, there can be written software that will allow programs written for one to be run on the other. This software is called an emulator. Furthermore, softwre written for one computer can have the exact samfe functionallity (the input and output of the proccesses are identical) by using the components of the hardware in a different wat, but to the user it would appear to be an identical piece of software. Also I dispute the fact that computer circuits are absolutly deterministic. There was an experiment in evolutionay algorithms that use a programmabe logic array. This is a device that it's internal conections to logic gates is configurable from outside the chip. The experiment was to evolve a solution t to a basic electronic enginering problem of having an input of 2 different alternating signals and have the device produce one of 2 steady state signals depending on the input signal. They use a crossbreeding method (mixed the algorithms from 2 different successfull algorithms randomly) to generate the new algorithm for the programmable logic array. The result of this experiment was a device that no engineer could have designed. It used far less logic gates in the chip than any human could have designed. Also it appeared to contain locgic gates that were not connected to the main circuits. It was discovered that some of these unconnected circuits were not nessesary for the operation of the device, however a few of them were important and if they were not included in the device then it would stop working. This kind of emergant behaviour is not predictable, and so is not deterministic. A computer program that evolves on a computer may "discover" as yet unknown exploit in computer hardware that it can use. This kind of exploit is used today be virus writers to over write memory outside of it's allocated excecution space (although this is a fairly logical exploit but there could be others that are not known about). Also there might be exploits that occure due to different computers comunicating between each other. These exploits occure because of emergant properties of the systmes that they inhabit and are not predicatable or deterministic (but their behaviour once known may be). The amount and complexity of data and processes that go on in a computer or the networks that it is connected to is an imence source of nondeterministic potential.

Why? If you wrote down a list of processes that occure in a bateria and I wrote a program that could relpicate all of the. then what is to say that the program dose not have as much claim to be alive as the bateria. Admittedly bateria are fairly complex organisms in their own right, and simpler organisms exist, but some people may be able to argue that those simpler entities do not qualify fully as life, most (afaik: all) people would clasify a bateria as a living organism, that is why I chose that for the example. What is so special about chemicals? If you want to get inot quantum mechanics as an explainatiomn of life, then how does one (on a chemical basis) determine what is alive. A group of atoms in no set pattern would have quantum physic applied to it, the same as if one ha those atoms assembled into a living organism. What it looks like when you closely examine living systems is that they are system; processes that occure and they don't seem to be dependant on the constituants to a great degree. What they are made from can dictate the structure nessesary, but that structure can be widely different between organisms and some structures seem to be nessesary. If we look at what is nessesary (DNA for instance) and look at what it does, it appears that the kinds of processes that DNA is involved with can be replicated on computers. Each individual component (that has been identified so far) seens to be able to be replicated accurately on computers. All that we seem to be lacking is the processing power to do this in real time. There does not seem to be a fine dividing line between Alive and Not Alive. It is a continuum. There is no "Elan Vital" that make something alive.

Would a bacteria have a soul? Would you considder a bacteria to be alive? The OP was not about consious machines, but machines (and/or software) that would be recognisable be alive, even in the most primative sense of virus and bateria. AFAIK super computers exist now that can simulate a simple virus internally down to the molecular level. It is not as fast as in the real world. Could you considder simulation to be alive? But would this even be nessesary? If we had a system that could fulfill as many items in a list of what would think would define a living organism than could we not considder that system to be alive? Each iutem in the list must also be justifiable and testable for living organisms (thus you must be able to at least demonstrate that it does exist in living organisms).

The strongest evolutionary pressure comes not from preditor (directly) but from other members of the same spiecies (or other animals that share the same niche). For example. As implied in the article in the OP, humans developed group behaviors as a defence against preditors. but a group that manages to avoid preditors (or even fight back against them) will eventually force others of its spiecies to become extinct as the group manages to have more members survive while the others loose more to the predators. The first group's genes will then propagate through the gene pool of that spiecies. This may initially look as though the spiecies is evolving to be more effective against the predator, but the predator is just the means that the "unfit" are selected out. It is the competition between the more social (for example) or less social groups where the evolution is taking place. Therefore we didn't evolve to escape predators, we evolved to be less succeptable to predators than other early homonids.

Humans are patern seeking. We will find patern in most things. As an example, next time you go for a walk, try looking for what appears to be a face in the bark of trees (or paterns on a wall). You will most likely find it, even though there was no face to be seen, and once you have seen it it will almost be imposable for you to not see it again - that is the strength of the patern seeing parts of our brain. Also start looking at events in your life for coincidences or near coincidence and they will crop up very often, simply because you are focusing on them (you are looking for them).

Posted by: gcol Good point. If viewed in this light, Google is not hypocratic (spelling?). It is ofcourse trying to maximise it's profits. If Google had just given the data to the US government then many of it's users would have boycoted it and its profits would have droped. If Google had refused to block certain sites in China then the Chinese govt would have blocked Google and they would not have any entrance into that market. What Google has done might seem initially hypcoratic, if looked at with the right persoective it is not. If Google had stated in the US case that they stood for freedom of all from govt interferance, then what they did with China would be hypocritical. But AFAIK they didn't make that statement.

What if someone wrote a virus that could have random mutations occure in its code each time it coppied it's self. This would make it act a bit more like a genetic code. However ther would need to be some method to "kill" off other viruses as wellas it's self because in an imortal population (death is imposable) no evolution can take place. Evolution occures because of the posability of death. And selection pressure is strongest amongst peers. This competition amongst peers means that there must be something that have to compete over (proccessor time, memory, avoidance of anti virus software, etc). These programs would evolve, die (get deleted), reproduce, comsume resources (memory and cpu time)... But would they be alive? I think so, as that list covers most definitions of "Alive". They don't excrete, unless you consider the junk that remains of the data on your hard drive.

It could be a mutation that was in the original geen pool of foxes used in the experiment. If it was a resesive gene then the inbreeding caused by the selections could have made this mutation more predominant. Also it could be a natural part of the fox genetics which is needed in a resesive fasion (much like the gene involved in sickle cell enimia/malaria resistance) and caused by the small gene pool to become more dominant.

Has any one told them that one of the 10 commandments is "Thou shalt not take the name og God in vain"? It seems like that Popoff was doing just that (although he probably though that he wasn't). The big question is: Why do people want to believe in these things? Why do people need these beliefes and when you can show that they are are being faked, they will just change their beliefs to something else?

I used to read at around 500 wpm, but using the metronome and taking notice that my vocal chords were moving and trying to break that habit, I managed to get my speed to over 700 wpm with equal comprehension (if I go faster then I start to loose comprehension as I am skimming). So from personal experence, I can say that speed reading is real and improvements can be made to almost anyone's reading speed while still retaining comprehension and not skimming. Some people skimm and call it speed reading but it is not true speed reading.

I can read at over 700 words per minute (without scanning). The best way to tech your self the corect eye movement is to use a metronome (or some other device that you can change the beat temo with and has an auditory tick). You aim to read a line in one tick of the metronome, and each time you sit down to read you speed it up a small bit. Eventually this will help you learn to get the eye movements right as you will need to move your eyes more smoothly from one side of the page to the other to keep in time with the metronome. Another aid is: that when we learnt to read we learnt the word by speaking them. We still carry on this habbit even if we don't make a sound. We still move our vocal chords and as this takes time it slows our reading down. If you can train your self to break this sub-vocalisation you can increase your reading speed by a lot. This is the hardest part of learning speed reading as you will have to first become consious of the fact that you are sub-vocalising and then attempt to break your self of this habbit. The metronome hint above can also help you do this as it will help you keep track of your progress.

A purpose. I maintain that there is no external purpose for existance (including the existance of the universe). The only purpose that can exist for your life is the one you create for your self. I suppose another word that can be used is "Choose", as we can choose to take on another's reson for existance.

There is no absolute morals or ethics. These are entilerly the construct of humans. But why did we invent such things? Morals and ethics lay down some ground rules about how we wish to be treated by others. As a communal set of rules these become the basis for a stable group (society). It is this reson that we invented morals and ethics, so we could exist in large social groups. Ethics and morals are nothing more than an agreed upon set or rules and guidelines that if we, and others, follow them, then we can live together in large groups and be treated the way we wish to be treated.

Why must a purpose be that which drives us? I for one derive my motivation from curiosity. There is no other purpose other than what I make up internally. Not "find", "create" is a better word. Find implies that a purpose exists indapendant of ones self. "Create" is much more of a personal/self defined thing.

The thread How to live forever got me thinking. If we developed the technology to live for ever, or just be able to reconstruct a human being from the ground up (maybe using nano tech), what would life be like? If you could "save" you curent body and have it later be reproduced if anything happened to the curent one, would the threat of death still exist? Would a duplicate (rahter than a clone, this would be an atomic resolution replicant of you) have their own rights, or would there be laws that make creating a duplicate of a living person illegal (though it would still occure - knowing humans)? What would this mean for space travel (we could save a copy of an astronaught and send them to a different star system and have them reproduced at the destination)? Also what technologies might exist (or need to exist) that would allow this kind of world?

technically this would be murder, as the new body will have developed it's own personality and therefore be its own person. An equivalent proposition is that you have an identical twin and you are dieing. If you could transfer your brain into their body you might live, but they would have to die to do this. The ethics of treating people like this asside, it would not give everyone in the world immortallity. At best it could only give immortality to 1/2 the world as the other half is just there to be a new body for the first half of the population. A better solution is to develop the ability to grow organs and cells for implantation in vats and then just use these to replace the ones that have worn out. Brain cells could be replaced in small batches, giving them time to intergrate into the curent brain. If these organs and cells could be grown from adult stem cells then there would be less ethical objection to it, as there is not cloneing (and harvesting), no terminating of fetuses, etc. they are your cells from your body, which would also greatly reduce the risk of rejection of the transplants. I also think that life suport systems that can be used to sustain almost any patient until these vat grown replacements are ready will also be needed, incases of major organ failure or major trauma. Eventually we could survive almost anything, solong as the brain remains intact and you are able to get to a hospital in time to save at least that much.

The ability to have a "dimmer" switch for various sensations, that can also enhance them too. The eqivalent of a mobile phone that directly stimulates the auditory system as well as being able to "speak without makeing a sound (sub vocalisation), so no more anoying mobile phone users in the movies and such. The ability to regrow parts of our bodies like salamanders and some other creatures can do.

It seems that it is more a reaction to the imagery in the article that turns people off. The process its self is better than the alternative: Inexperenced people slaughtering their own animals, which due to their inexperence the animals suffer extreme pain and take a long time to die. The process described in the article makes it more acceptable in my oppinion because the suffering of the animals are minimised (what ever the reason). Also take into account what happens to animals in the wild that get preyed upon, first they must make a mad dash for thier lives, and suffer bites and clawings as they are brought down. Then most preditors will not be able to just kill them. They must first be strangled to death, usually by their own blood as the preditor bites into their tracea, which can take several minutes. All in all prety grusome. What goes on in the slaughter house is quick, and painless compared to what could and does go on. the kind of imagery protrayed in the article does not put me off fat foor (or meat in general), but what does put me off, is how the animals are treated before hand (battery hens for eggs, or hormone and antibiotic fed animals for example).

I was wondering (for no reson other than sheer curiosity ), what function do finger nails and toe nails have in humans, and what would happen if we didn't have them (eg lost due to an accident)? Would the loss of our finger nails effect our dexterity? WOuld the loss of our toe nails effect our walking? What other effects might the loss of either our toe or finger nails have? Just out of curiosity...

I get a similar reaction when eating certain fruits. Could this be a related thing?