Consider our bodies. Consider what blueprint stands for the manufacture of our bodies, the DNA. Its a highly stable molecule, replicable, and very emergent in its creativity. There are more possible combinations for the base pairs in a chromosome of human DNA than there are atoms in the universe.
This simple mutable structure ties me to a lineage. This isn't just the human lineage, but rather a lineage much longer. Somewhere in the matrix are combinations stretching back in time unto the begining of life on this planet, 3.5, maybe 4 billion years, going to the first replicating molecules. There is pride and glory in this lineage, that through this unbroken chain through your parents and their parents and on and on, back through the chain, we are connected to the begining and the seat of life in its creativity. We are at some point connected to every living thing that ever was and ever will be on this planet through this lineage. If we continue back further, past life, past the explosion of a long dead star, going back even further to where everything was energy, if you believe that idea, we then connect to everything everywhere that ever was and ever will be.
Thats power. Thats not just the power of four billion years but of 14 billion years, or longer. Thats the power of universal emergence, from energy to matter to molecules to life to consciousness. When people cast aside the "hippy" notion that we are all one they fail to realize that sometime, at some point IT WAS. Somewhere beyond this emergent nature IT STILL IS.
Very nice. :mittens:
Quote from: Kai on December 30, 2008, 01:30:46 PM
Consider our bodies. Consider what blueprint stands for the manufacture of our bodies, the DNA. Its a highly stable molecule, replicable, and very emergent in its creativity. There are more possible combinations for the base pairs in a chromosome of human DNA than there are atoms in the universe.
Does this mean we don't have enough atoms to try all the combinations?
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on December 30, 2008, 04:04:32 PM
Quote from: Kai on December 30, 2008, 01:30:46 PM
Consider our bodies. Consider what blueprint stands for the manufacture of our bodies, the DNA. Its a highly stable molecule, replicable, and very emergent in its creativity. There are more possible combinations for the base pairs in a chromosome of human DNA than there are atoms in the universe.
Does this mean we don't have enough atoms to try all the combinations?
Yep. Think of it this way: Every new combination makes a strand of DNA that has never existed before. Its emergent creativity in every living thing.
hmm, how long is human dna, a billion pairs?
Quote from: Requiem on December 31, 2008, 07:32:51 AM
hmm, how long is human dna, a billion pairs?
not a clue.
About a billion judging by the size of the chromosome 1 file I downloaded. Or half that if you don't count the duplicate chromosomes.
I got bits and bytes confused... assuming that 1 has the same compression ratio as the others, its more like 4-5 billion between both chromosome sets.
YUO R MAED OF STAR STUFFZ
If I remember correctly, human DNA is something like 3×109 base-pairs. Four base pairs, so that's two bits each, i.e. a quarter of a byte. So that's around 700 to 800 MiB, about a CD-ROM's worth. This'd very likely go down with entropy coding, but I cannot estimate to what ratio.
I'm going to cast aside the "hippy" notion of one-ness since it's often dressed with pseudoscience and bullshit like morphic fields and Akashic nonsense and so-forth, but that our universe's Laws of Physics have taken us all the way to things that can Know Joy is a remarkable thing. I, and pretty much every other fundamental theorist out there, would dearly love to know why this is so (anthropic fine tuning? or a natural consequence of physics at much higher energy scales?). Science may sate my wonder but never the awe.
Quote from: Jean-Lustine d'Hadamard on January 03, 2009, 11:43:18 PM
If I remember correctly, human DNA is something like 3×109 base-pairs. Four base pairs, so that's two bits each, i.e. a quarter of a byte. So that's around 700 to 800 MiB, about a CD-ROM's worth. This'd very likely go down with entropy coding, but I cannot estimate to what ratio.
I'm going to cast aside the "hippy" notion of one-ness since it's often dressed with pseudoscience and bullshit like morphic fields and Akashic nonsense and so-forth, but that our universe's Laws of Physics have taken us all the way to things that can Know Joy is a remarkable thing. I, and pretty much every other fundamental theorist out there, would dearly love to know why this is so (anthropic fine tuning? or a natural consequence of physics at much higher energy scales?). Science may sate my wonder but never the awe.
Who said anything about 'morphic fields' or 'Akashism'? The basis of my rant was not of physics but rather emergence, which put simply:
-when you put a bunch of similar things in close proximity and interaction, a whole bunch of them, shit tends to happen, and the happenings cannot be described in the same manner as the system below, yet don't refute them. All arrows do NOT point down is the conclusion of emergence, because emergent systems cannot be described by base physics.
Physics does NOT take us there. If you knew anything about my previous writings you would know I would be the last person to think that. In fact, consciousness as an emergent system from biology is an unknown to me. I'm a biologist, so I work in that realm of emergence, and sometimes ecology (which is a realm of emergence above basic biology) but I do not touch consciousness with that same language, because it would be wrong. I also would like to just point out that my awe is not satiated. Not in the slightest. In fact, that
same awe was the whole reason for writing this in the first place. If you can't share in awe of the connectedness of all living things through genetics then its probably just an aspect of being a biologist which brings me to that. I don't know what your mentality is.
If I interpreted your post as a negative critique wrongly, I apologize. Its a general reaction I have to people who speak the word 'pseudoscience' in my direction.
Thanks for the number (~3 billion) though.
Quote from: Kai on January 04, 2009, 01:52:04 AM
Who said anything about 'morphic fields' or 'Akashism'?
Well, no-one, that's just one corner of another (generally unrelated) rant I made elsewhere a while ago against New-Age "hippy" rubbish, that's all. No, I'm not accusing you of that.
Quote from: Kai on January 04, 2009, 01:52:04 AM
I also would like to just point out that my awe is not satiated. Not in the slightest. In fact, that same awe was the whole reason for writing this in the first place.
Never sought to imply it was.
Quote from: Kai on January 04, 2009, 01:52:04 AM
If I interpreted your post as a negative critique wrongly, I apologize. Its a general reaction I have to people who speak the word 'pseudoscience' in my direction.
It wasn't a negative critique.
Okay. Sorry then.
Quote from: Kai on December 30, 2008, 01:30:46 PMThats power. Thats not just the power of four billion years but of 14 billion years, or longer. Thats the power of universal emergence, from energy to matter to molecules to life to consciousness. When people cast aside the "hippy" notion that we are all one they fail to realize that sometime, at some point IT WAS. Somewhere beyond this emergent nature IT STILL IS.
this is sort of the way I interpret the 7th Circuit--collective DNA consciousness or some such--if I'm looking to validate it. which usually I'm not, because there's been so much research on emergence since the 8 Circuit model was made, I doubt I'll get any more insights from the idea. I mean, better to study actual emergence than an outdated model that sort of hints at it.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on December 30, 2008, 04:04:32 PMDoes this mean we don't have enough atoms to try all the combinations?
yes. definitely not all at the same time, but even if you wanted to try the combinations serially, I'm pretty sure it'll take way longer than "X times age of the universe" before you looped through them all.
it's permutation land. that's very big.
we're talking 4
3.000.000.000 big. that's kinda big, that is.
Quote from: Kai on January 04, 2009, 01:52:04 AMwhen you put a bunch of similar things in close proximity and interaction, a whole bunch of them, shit tends to happen, and the happenings cannot be described in the same manner as the system below, yet don't refute them. All arrows do NOT point down is the conclusion of emergence, because emergent systems cannot be described by base physics.
Physics does NOT take us there. If you knew anything about my previous writings you would know I would be the last person to think that. In fact, consciousness as an emergent system from biology is an unknown to me. I'm a biologist, so I work in that realm of emergence, and sometimes ecology (which is a realm of emergence above basic biology) but I do not touch consciousness with that same language, because it would be wrong. I also would like to just point out that my awe is not satiated. Not in the slightest. In fact, that same awe was the whole reason for writing this in the first place. If you can't share in awe of the connectedness of all living things through genetics then its probably just an aspect of being a biologist which brings me to that. I don't know what your mentality is.
nice, i still think it's amazing that we managed to be ignorant of our very very similar ideas on this subject matter for so long ;-)
Yeah, really. Don't know how we missed each other on this stuff for so long.
Quote from: Kai on December 30, 2008, 01:30:46 PM
Consider our bodies. Consider what blueprint stands for the manufacture of our bodies, the DNA. Its a highly stable molecule, replicable, and very emergent in its creativity. There are more possible combinations for the base pairs in a chromosome of human DNA than there are atoms in the universe.
Even if you try to think small with the possibilities it quickly gets out of hand. Say you have just translated a short strip of RNA into a small protein made up of fifty amino acid residues. There are twenty amino acids to choose from in each possible placement of the primary structure.
My knowledge in biochemistry and mathematics isn't that great, but am I right here? -----> 20
50 different combinations. That is approximately 1.12589 X 10
65 or, one hundred and twelve vigintillion five hundred and eighty nine novemdecillion, or 112,589,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
:lulz: There's no chance I got that right. Surely? :lulz:
I've heard it as for a high as 10^250 before, but I don't recall how the author arrived at that order of magnitude.
Its so ungrokably high that biology will never exhaust all the possibilities, is the real point of the matter.
Science may sate my wonder but never the awe.
This is by far one of the best statements I have ever seen. It's beautifully poetic and yet at the same time true.
Quote from: Jean-Lustine d'Hadamard on January 03, 2009, 11:43:18 PM
If I remember correctly, human DNA is something like 3×109 base-pairs. Four base pairs, so that's two bits each, i.e. a quarter of a byte. So that's around 700 to 800 MiB, about a CD-ROM's worth. This'd very likely go down with entropy coding, but I cannot estimate to what ratio.
The files are all plaintext though, so its 8 bits per base pair when uncompressed.
Quote from: indigoblade on January 06, 2009, 06:17:56 PM
Science may sate my wonder but never the awe.
This is by far one of the best statements I have ever seen. It's beautifully poetic and yet at the same time true.
I don't think science will ever sate my wonder either, ie "the more I know the more I realize I know nothing".
Theres always more wonder around the corner, and theres always a reason for awe.
It's true that we have not evolved to process probabilities. However, we are very capable when faced with frequencies.
"The idea that we are evolved to make frequency judgments, not probability calculations, is supported by evidence that we use frequencies as inputs and outputs for our likelihood estimates. We automatically notice and remember the frequency of events (input) and have subjective feelings of confidence that an event will or will not occur (output)."1
This suggests that we are better able to grasp probability statistics if they can be rephrased in terms of frequencies.
1-"Mind Hacks" by Tom Stafford and Matt Webb, pg 237
Also, directly regarding the OP: I love it. This is the angle I like to argue when people start getting all uppity and chauvinistic about their "heritage."
These types don't like to admit that their claim of having historical roots in a particular place and culture is a matter of how they prefer to frame "where they're from." If they trace it back far enough, we all ARE from the same place, they just stopped tracing it back far enough to realize this because their head is too far up their ass.
Quote from: Net on January 06, 2009, 09:50:22 PM
Also, directly regarding the OP: I love it. This is the angle I like to argue when people start getting all uppity and chauvinistic about their "heritage."
These types don't like to admit that their claim of having historical roots in a particular place and culture is a matter of how they prefer to frame "where they're from." If they trace it back far enough, we all ARE from the same place, they just stopped tracing it back far enough to realize this because their head is too far up their ass.
:lulz: friggin' love it!
Quote from: Net on January 06, 2009, 09:50:22 PM
Also, directly regarding the OP: I love it. This is the angle I like to argue when people start getting all uppity and chauvinistic about their "heritage."
These types don't like to admit that their claim of having historical roots in a particular place and culture is a matter of how they prefer to frame "where they're from." If they trace it back far enough, we all ARE from the same place, they just stopped tracing it back far enough to realize this because their head is too far up their ass.
Yeah, it depends upon frame. Most things do.
Also, thanks for the mind hacks quote.