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Author Topic:   Life - an Unequivicol Definition
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 209 of 374 (773559)
12-03-2015 8:05 PM
Reply to: Message 207 by AlphaOmegakid
12-03-2015 6:02 PM


Re: Black White or Grey?
And around and around he goes.
My statements are consistent and are not contradictory.
You just don't understand what a gradient is.
One end is white, the other end is black, and it is gray in between. But there are not lines dividing the whiteness from the grayness, nor the grayness from the blackness.
It is a smooth gradual transition from one color to the other.
Like, there is no edge to this spot:
But it is clearly white in the middle, and black at the edges. Still though, no line dividing white from black.
You've completely misunderstood what a gradient is and what I am analogizing with it. Have you studied derivatives?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 207 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-03-2015 6:02 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 211 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-04-2015 8:43 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 213 of 374 (773586)
12-04-2015 9:33 AM
Reply to: Message 211 by AlphaOmegakid
12-04-2015 8:43 AM


Re: Black White or Grey?
I didn't create the images, I just found them on the web.
So please stop burying yourself deeper and deeper trying to argue that there is no edge when you yourself,and in your own words recognize that there is.
My own words explicitly state that there is no edge between one color and the next and nothing I've written implied that there is.
The gradients analogize the lack of a line dividing chemistry and biology. Just like the there is a lack of a line dividing physics and chemistry.
As I tried to initially explain to you, biology is like a derivative of chemistry. It's just really really complex chemical reactions.
This concept exposes the uselessness of trying to define life in a way that sets a hard limit on where life stops and non-life begins.
You have refused to address this point and are demonstrating an inability to understand it.
Giving that you're just trolling anyways, I'll stop trying to help you understand it.
I know full well what a gradient is, but it is not I who misunderstands them.
If you understood what a gradient is, then you wouldn't say that there is a line between the white and the gray.
The fact that you talked about extending the white edge into infinity and said that the line between white and grey would be in the same spot proves that you've completely failed to understand the concept.
And the level of arrogance that you display can only come from deep seated childish ignorance.
You're simply not worth it.
Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 211 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-04-2015 8:43 AM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 215 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-04-2015 10:35 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 217 of 374 (773601)
12-04-2015 10:54 AM
Reply to: Message 215 by AlphaOmegakid
12-04-2015 10:35 AM


Re: Black White or Grey?
Cat Sci writes:
My own words explicitly state that there is no edge between one color and the next and nothing I've written implied that there is.
Cat Sci #2 mess 195 writes:
Wrong. Just like the with the gradient I posted, you can clearly see that one edge is white and the other edge is black . . the grey area in between.
This reply exposes that you are completely misunderstanding what a gradient is and how I am using it in my argument.
And stop lying about what I wrote. Here is the full Message 195:
quote:
Percy writes:
With something as complex as life you're not going to find clear lines of demarcation.
You can say this over and over again, but you haven't established this evidentially.
A virus is not clearly living nor clearly non-living.
It's in the grey area in between.
In fact, your own words refute this by saying certain things are "obviously alive" and certain things are "obviously non-living". By doing that you have drawn an "obvious" line somewhere within your mind. You haven't said where that line exists, but it obviously is "obvious" to you.
Wrong. Just like the with the gradient I posted, you can clearly see that one edge is white and the other edge is black, but it is impossible to determine where white stops and black starts.
Why can't a definition have the same?
Because life is fuzzy.
Your misunderstanding of what a gradient is stems from you thinking that the gray area between the black and white edges is somehow a line between the different colors. It is not. Its a gradient. Gradients don't have lines like that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 215 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-04-2015 10:35 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 221 of 374 (773618)
12-04-2015 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 220 by NoNukes
12-04-2015 12:23 PM


I've been repeatedly asking him why since my first post.
He has never bothered to explain.
Then he admitted that he is trolling.
So that's why.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 220 by NoNukes, posted 12-04-2015 12:23 PM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 276 of 374 (773985)
12-11-2015 7:42 PM
Reply to: Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid
12-11-2015 5:23 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
You can't have a continuum between harbor/non-harbor, ocean/non-ocean, rich/non-rich, poor/non-poor, foothills/non-foothills, and mountains/non-mountains.
Yes, you can.
I can point to one side and say "white", and I can point to the other side and say "black", and then I can admit that I don't know where white ends nor where black begins.
There is nothing wrong with that.
It is not a problem for biology.
And it doesn't count as equivocation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-11-2015 5:23 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 278 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 1:20 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 279 of 374 (774037)
12-12-2015 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 278 by AlphaOmegakid
12-12-2015 1:20 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
Well I would say there is something tragically wrong with that.
You are fatally failing to understand what a continuum is.
The whole point of it is being able to say that one thing changes into another without being able to point to where that change takes place.
You just contradicted yourself in one sentence and you cannot realize it after all these posts.
There is no contradiction at all. And you're unable to show one.
You are completely and utterly wrong about what a continuum is, and this is causing you to miss a very important part about how defining life in a strict manner is unimportant to biology.
Life is a continuum from chemical process to biological process to cultural processes.
That's an issue that your whole approach to defining is failing to account for, or well, even notice.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 278 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 1:20 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 280 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 2:45 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 283 of 374 (774145)
12-13-2015 6:54 PM
Reply to: Message 280 by AlphaOmegakid
12-12-2015 2:45 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
because you just said where white ends and you just said where black begins. It's at the sides.
You're misunderstanding. Going from left to right:
White clearly begins at the left edge of the image, then as you go to the right it gradually changes into grey and you cannot tell where white ends, nor where grey begins. Then grey gradually changes into black and you cannot tell where grey ends and black begins. Then black clearly ends at the right edge of the image.
You don't know where white ends nor where black begins, because it gradually changes to and from grey in between. You do know where white begins and black ends, that's at the edges of the image.
This is due to the nature of what being a continuum is. This is the concept that you are failing to comprehend.
What you and others can't comprehend is that the white/black continuum is defined as three things. White on one edge, black on the other edge, and the continuum of grey in the middle. The white and the black are definitive, but the grey is in between and not definitive.
The continuum contains all three colors, white, grey, and black, and is not limited to just the grey section.
When you use life/non-life or white/non-white, you just have two things which are mutually exclusive. So anything other that white would be non-white, and anything other than life would be non-life.
No, the white is life and the black is non-life and the grey is all the stuff between life and non-life.
The point of the analogy is to blur the line between life and non-life so as to do away with a strong dichotomy that something is either life or it is not.
You don't have to agree that the analogy truly represents reality, but to discuss the idea you have to understand what the analogy is representing. Until you can do that we cannot discuss the idea.
Life is a continuum from chemical process to biological process to cultural processes.
This again is a faith based statement.
I do have faith in some ideas. This is not one of them.
This one is based on years of studying physics, chemistry, and biology, and realize that there are no hard lines between those disciplines. The closer you zoom in on where you perceive the edges between those disciplines to be, the more you realize the line between them is actually blurry, and that there is a continuum between them.
This is because chemistry is like a derivative of physics, like how biology is like a derivative of chemistry.
The theories within Biology clearly state that life is at least cellular,and that all cells come from pre-existing cells.
Again, the map is not the territory. Reality is not constrained by the theories.
The theories need to be useful, and that is helped by making working assumption like life being cellular. If the theory works, then great, we're getting stuff done. But that doesn't mean those working assumptions must represent reality. And we cannot let our assumptions limit our ideas or we wouldn't be able to grow.
That's an issue that your whole approach to defining is failing to account for, or well, even notice.
Well the issue to your approach is you want me and others to accept your religion.
We haven't even gotten into whether or not you should accept it because we've been too busy trying to get you to understand the analogy that conceptualizes the idea.
You don't have to accept that there is a continuum from life to non-life in order to discuss and consider the idea.
And this is not religious, it's based on scientific evidence. My religion, actually, is Christianity.
I will stick with what Biologists theorize about life.
What you're really sticking to is what you think Biologists theorize about life. It turns out that you're wrong about that, too.
But really, how can I believe that your sticking with what Biologists theorize about life when you opened this thread to berate them for equivocating on their definition of life?
You're contradicting yourself:
quote:
In every text book that addresses this subject, they are all quite comfortable in stating that there is no unequivocal definition of life and they usually spend a significant effort in "proving" why we can't come up with an unequivocal definition.
quote:
I suspect this indoctrination has led most Biologists to give up on the definition. But not me! I believe it is possible to create an unequivocal, simple definition of biological life
quote:
I will stick with what Biologists theorize about life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 280 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 2:45 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 285 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-14-2015 5:40 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 287 of 374 (774225)
12-14-2015 7:30 PM
Reply to: Message 285 by AlphaOmegakid
12-14-2015 5:40 PM


The horse might not be dead!
So if white is life and black is non-life, then the grey is also non-life, because anything non-white is also non-life in your analogy.
No, you've got it backwards. Grey is not black, so it isn't non-life either.
Grey is between life and non-life.
Despite the contradiction you are trying to make of that, we know that Biology uses Chemistry.
It's like Biology is a derivative of Chemistry.
This can be an interesting and useful concept to use to talk about how life differs from non-life.
You know, it worked for explaining Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity as being a space-time continuum.
I understand that it may hurt your religious sensibilities, but can't you leave those at the door when you're discussing science? If you can't expand what you're willing to accept, and you have been outright rejecting the concept, then you are going to hinder your growth.
That's neither good for your self, nor for the discussion you're trying to have on the internet. Well, assuming you're not just trolling which you have pretty much already admitted.
I have said before, you can have life and chemicals as your continuum with the grey being anything in-between.
Fine, that'll work for me.
Can you see why trying to draw a line in the grey to say that this is the point where chemicals become life would be a foolish endeavor? It would be like trying to draw a line on the continuum to say that this is where white becomes black.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 285 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-14-2015 5:40 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 304 of 374 (774296)
12-15-2015 6:02 PM
Reply to: Message 297 by AlphaOmegakid
12-15-2015 1:10 PM


Grey has some life in it, 'cause it ain't black
ringo writes:
You quoted it but you don't seem to understand it: Black and white are distinct but gray and gray are not perceptibly different.
Imagine a room with one wall painted black and one wall painted white. Black is different from gray because you've hit he wall. White is different from gray because you've hit the wall. Everything else in the room is gray.
Now apply this to the analogy. Life is one wall. Chemicals the other wall. The gray in between. Fine. So all the things in the grey are not white or are not life.
But also not just chemicals, because grey is not black.
Its between being just chemicals, and being life.
It is not life, it is not non-life, it is in between.
That is the concept that you have simply been outright rejecting without argument.
You won't stray from your hard dichotomy that it is either alive or it is definately not.
Look at what I said two weeks ago:
quote:
But the things that are life-like, but don't meet your definition, are rejected as not being alive.
That's denying the grey area and insisting that life is only the things that are white.
quote:
Instead, let's talk about the difference between chemistry and biology, or chemicals and organisms.
If you drill down into an organism, you find that it gradually changes into chemicals. If you expand up from the chemistry of an organism (which is not alive, itself), you find that it gradually changes into biology.
There is no sharp line where chemistry stops and biology starts. It is like that image of a gradient that I showed.
Trying to build a rigid definition of life is a fruitless endeavor because you are trying to find the point in that gradient where black becomes white... and that is impossible.
quote:
My definition does not remove the grey, but it limits what can be identified as white.
That's what I'm talking about; You are removing the grey area from what you are defining as life.
You can't say that the grey area is non-life, because that is the black part and grey is not black.
You have yet to address this point.
Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 297 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-15-2015 1:10 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 311 of 374 (774375)
12-16-2015 6:27 PM
Reply to: Message 308 by AlphaOmegakid
12-16-2015 4:11 PM


Let white = life and black = non-life
Where do you draw the line to show where the gradient is no longer white?
The limitations of the image being in a digital format do not count; in a true gradient one element is indistinguishable from the adjacent one.
To have a continuum, you must have at least three things. Two distinct things being compared or contrasted and at least one thing in between.
With no distinction between adjacent elements. It is impossible to point to where white becomes grey.
You are trying to make this a hard dichotomy; where something is either alive or it is not.
That's where a continuum can come into play: What if you're wrong and there is a third state that is neither life nor non-life but rather something between those states that we cannot distinguish from either one?
Contrary to your insistence, that does not prevent us from pointing to the things that are obviously alive or not. Just like my arrows above clearly point to the distinct white and black parts, but also admit that you cannot tell where white ends and black begins.
Contrary to you insistence, that is not a contradiction.
Edited by Cat Sci, : added quote
Edited by Cat Sci, : add more

This message is a reply to:
 Message 308 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-16-2015 4:11 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 312 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-17-2015 9:57 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 315 of 374 (774409)
12-17-2015 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 312 by AlphaOmegakid
12-17-2015 9:57 AM


Re: Let white = life and black = non-life
I am in no way creating any dichotomy.
Of course you are, it's right here:
But you cannot have a continuum between "life" and "non-life", because, as you recognize, this is a dichotomy. They are mutually exclusive words, because one word is defined as the negative of the other word.
There is nothing more dichotomous than black and white. And yet, we can produce a continuum between them.
What you have done is equivalent to your visual continuum being labeled "white" on the one side and "non-white" on the other side. Surely, I agree that the black is "obviously" non white. But also the dark gray is also "obviously" non-white, and the light grey is just as "obviously" non-white.
Whoops, I submitted this hastily and meant to make a different point.
Yes, black = non-white
You keep harping on this point that since grey is not white then it has to be non-life. But you're failing to recognize that grey is not black, so therefore it isn't non-life either.
The whole point is that it is something in between. You refuse to even talk about this because you cannot allow yourself to consider that life/non-life is not a strict and hard dichotomy and that it can have a continuum between them.
Surely, I agree that the black is "obviously" non white. But also the dark gray is also "obviously" non-white, and the light grey is just as "obviously" non-white.
And yet, by the nature of being a continuum, you cannot tell where, exactly, white becomes non-white. You cannot draw a line to say that this where grey begins.
In fact if I push away from the computer screen just a little, you can easily and "obviously" perceive that non white extends at least to the center line of the oval on the left side.
As I explained beforehand, this is cheating. You cannot create a perfect continuum with a digital image. Artifacts of the digital nature of the image are moot points.
So, what are you left with? Well it's not a continuum at all.
It represents a continuum. Whether or not it is a true continuum, based on the limitations of the media in which it is being communicated, has nothing to do with the point that it is being used to make.
No one would consider this a continuum.
Everyone but you considers it a continuum. You utterly refuse to because it destroys your argument.
Non white extends all the way to white. It "obviously" includes black and a multitude of gray shades, so Non-white is not distinct but has multiple colors within.
Yes, of course. That's the point of a continuum.
It is absolutely impossible and logically inconsistent to have a continuum between non-life and life. That is my claim, and I stand solidly behind it.
There you go making a strict and hard dichotomy.
The whole point of bringing up the continuum is to suggest to you to drop this dichotomy and start thinking about what life is in a different way.
Consider a third state that is between life and non-life that spans into not being strictly distinct from either one. A blurry grey in between white and black, if you will.
Now, the interesting thing is, why do all of you resist the real continuum that "science" is hypothesizing from chemicals to life?, and why do you want to confuse the issue with terms like "life" and "non-life"?
I started this rabbit whole with the concept being between biology and chemistry, I've been at this same position for weeks.
You have just been outright refusing to talk about it in the context of what life is.
And you really got to stop contradicting yourself:
quote:
I am in no way creating any dichotomy.
quote:
It is absolutely impossible and logically inconsistent to have a continuum between non-life and life.
Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.
Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.
Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.
Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 312 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-17-2015 9:57 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 316 by herebedragons, posted 12-17-2015 1:39 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 318 of 374 (774417)
12-17-2015 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 317 by AlphaOmegakid
12-17-2015 1:45 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
It only means that the grey stuff is not living,
It can't be non living because then it would be black.
You're literally saying that all the non-white regions are black and that grey does not exist.
That's not refuting the concept, that's just outright rejecting it without discussion.
Edited by Cat Sci, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 317 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-17-2015 1:45 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 326 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-18-2015 11:16 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 324 of 374 (774472)
12-18-2015 10:20 AM
Reply to: Message 322 by AlphaOmegakid
12-18-2015 9:31 AM


Re: Let white = life and black = non-life
A dichotomy cannot be a continuum.
You can turn a dichotomy into a continuum by introducing a third state in between them.
White or black is a dichotomy. If we introduce grey, then we can create a continuum.
Life or non-life is a dichotomy. If we introduce a third state in between, then we can create a continuum.
Until you can stop refusing to even consider the idea, you're never going to be able to talk to us about this concept.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 322 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-18-2015 9:31 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 338 of 374 (774651)
12-20-2015 8:30 AM
Reply to: Message 326 by AlphaOmegakid
12-18-2015 11:16 AM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
The problem is, there can never logically be anything continuing in between white and non-white.
Yes, there can. All you have to do is create a third state in-between them:
Off-white - a shade of white that isn't quite pure white but still counts as white
Semi-white
Quasi-white
Sorta-white
I can't tell if that is white or not
I don't know
Extremely light grey - still not quite non-white, but further from pure white than off-white is.
None of those are non-white, but they're not quite white either.
I can say that a virus is very close to living. It's pretty far away from just simple chemicals and it is pretty close to living. That's legitimate. Now if we place the virus on the "non-life"/"life" chart in exactly the same spot, what can we say? Not much, because we don't have a continuum. We have a dividing line between life and non-life.
The whole point that you're failing to address is to drop this hard-line dichotomy and think about a third state between life and non-life.
Let's just call it quasi-life.
Life - quasi-life - non-life.
Viruses are quasi-life.
There's no reason to draw a strict line and say that they are definitely non-life. You can't say that something that called quasi-life isn't called life because we don't know that, it might be or it might not.
In the continuum from chemicals to life, we can have an equivocal definition of life, or we can have an unequivocal definition of life. That does not destroy the continuum from chemicals to life in any manner.
Having an unequivocal definition creates that hard-line dichotomy and prevents the inclusion of a continuum. The portion you drew below the yellow line is a dichotomy that you placed on top of a continuum to identify where one part of the continuum ends and the other begins. The whole point of having a continuum is to remove the ability to place that line.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 326 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-18-2015 11:16 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 339 by Admin, posted 12-20-2015 10:28 AM New Cat's Eye has not replied
 Message 340 by RAZD, posted 12-20-2015 4:29 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied
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