Basic Principles. Lesson 2

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8. How Big Is Life? We have already established that there was life existing at the level of a single cell, and the possibility of life, or quasi – life below the cellular level. We have established that dogs, cats, people, trees and rose bushes are all alive, and all composed of groups of cells that work together in concert to produce a living thing. We have also established that those living things are composed of differentiated cells, which when combined in a particular format, give us that life. It is interesting that the hundreds of different cell types -- bone, muscle, brain, heart -- all differentiate themselves from two simple original cells, the sperm and the egg. Two cells combine into one, only to later differentiate into thousands! Life it self, at the cellular level, in some respects is similar to the atom! All atoms are composed of protons and electrons. It is only the number of protons that distinguishes hydrogen gas from liquid mercury to solid aluminum!

What is it that causes something to be a live? What separates the healthy baby from the cluster of tissue which represents an early miscarriage? The baby is alive. It reacts to its environment, one learns and grows. It is a wondrous thing. However, occasionally something goes wrong in the division of the cells. What we are left with is tissue that has not formed into a human. It may have no brain. It has no thought. It may have none of the systems that we normally associate with a living being. It certainly is not human, by our definition. However, it's cellular structure may resemble any of several types of human tissue. Certainly, the individual cells may be alive at the time of birth! They have no way to sustain life after birth, so in that sense they are something like a virus. However, put into the right culture, many of these cells can multiply.

So what is it that separates living from nonliving? Sentient from non-sentient? A very interesting question.

There are two things that we should observe about living things.

First, they all come from a source. They are, if you will, born. They may be borne by cell division, they may be borne by budding, they may be borne by sexual reproduction, but a new living thing comes into being from the existence of one or more prior living things.

Second, living things metabolize. They produce energy, usually from some sort of matter. People eat food and drink water and produce energy to work and play. Withholds the food and water and the cells of the human eventually die. This is true of virtually every living thing. Now viruses and prions have no way to produce this fuel on their own. That is, perhaps, what separates them from truly living things. However, they absorb the energy of living things capable of producing it, and metabolize that energy that they receive from others.

9. Immortality. Think about it. Certain living things seem to be immortal. It also seems as though the simple learn the life for, the longer it can live. Think about the amoeba or the euglena (another one celled creature). They multiply through cell division -- mitosis. A cell reaches a certain point in size or age, and then splits into two cells. Those two cells reach a certain point in age or time, and split into two more cells each. This process continues indefinitely. When you see an amoeba under a microscope in a drop of pond water, that amoeba is the product of countless cell divisions over the course of millennia. When you see a sponge on the seafloor, it is the product of budding, a sexual reproduction. It is an extension of some animal which has lived for centuries, even millennia. It is as though the human could cut off an arm and growing a new person from that arm, while at the same time we growing the arm on the original person! Is the second person who grew from a cut off arm a new to person, or an extension of the same person?

As we said before, if

10. 21st Century scientific mysteries. In this sense, a mystery is any result which our current level of knowledge cannot explain -- the cause of the result is unknown, but performing certain actions can scientifically determine that certain proscribed result will occur.

Thus far we have established that there are atoms made up of subatomic particles, elements which consist of a single type of atoms, and compounds (molecules) such as water that exist because we "glued together" certain types of atoms by sharing their electrons. These molecules combine in certain ways to form, simply described, animals, vegetables and minerals as well as things that are perhaps less than alive such as viruses and prions. This leaves several unanswered questions.

First, what is life? Is it an emergent property of a certain combination of elements or matter? Or, is life something separate from matter which can manifest itself in our four dimensional space by using matter, which is inherently inert? In other words, is my personality, my thought process, my mind, separate and distinct from my body? Is my body merely a biological mechanism that my mind is capable of inhabiting?

Second, we know that there is something which we have classified as quasi-life, incapable of supporting itself without another living being his presence. We know there was life which exists, consumes matter and energy and produces matter and energy. What we don't know is whether there is a form of life beyond what we have described, of which the highest form we can envision, is human life.

Let us conduct some thought experiments, as Albert Einstein called them. Let us expand our thought process to consider some older alternatives.

Thought experiment number 1. Body and mind unified. In this first experiment, we envision a living entity, let's say a person. That person is a living organism. It has a brain. All thought, all emotions, all feeling, occurs within the brain through its neural connections. Unless a thought is written on paper, told to another person, recorded on video, or saved for posterity by some other extra biological means, the thought exists only in the brain. An unrecorded thoughts ceases to exist when the engine, the person, ceases to be alive. The notion of passing knowledge from one person to another, across time and space, where the timeframe is longer than a human life span, is implausible. For example, if someone in ancient Egypt had a thought, it would be impossible, unless that thought were recorded somewhere, to transmit the install to another, modern day person, or to handle that modern day person perceive that thought that was in the mind of the ancient Egyptian. When the Egyptian dies, his thoughts, his knowledge, dies with him. In this model, unless an idea is transmitted to another person through the senses of sight, sound, taste, touch or smell, either directly (from person to person) or indirectly (a diary, let's say) the knowledge is lost.

Some things in this model of existence are clearly impossible. For example, speaking in tongues by a person never exposed to the language/tongue is clearly impossible. To sit in New York, and, in the mind, perceive a scene or action in, let's say for argument's sake, London, is clearly impossible. Those who think they experience such things are either delusional or misguided.

Thought experiment number 2. Body and mind separate. This situation presents us with some interesting opportunities and explanations of things which may have, and I stress the word may because we are unable to test them at this time, occur in the real world.

Test case A. There is anecdotal evidence that people have been known to speak in foreign languages to which, according to anyone's knowledge or recollection, they have never been exposed. The speaker, in such situations, may or may not understand the message. This is most typically associated with a religious experience, where it is called speaking in tongues. However, in rare circumstances, this phenomenon has been observed in secular settings. In many cases, this has been attributed to a reincarnations experience. The scientific explanation is still a mystery.

Test case B. A person, sitting in a laboratory in Houston, accurately describes a number of cards dealt by an astronaut in space, whizzing around the globe. The number of correct "guesses" by the person locked up in Houston far exceeds the number of correct guesses that would be due to statistical probability. Other people are asked at the same time, to randomly select the same number of cards in the same period of time and end up with a far lower number of correct answers, well within the range of statistical probability.

These two anecdotes are merely a couple of stories culled from countless stories of events that cannot, by today's technological standards, be explained. However, as scientist and science-fiction writer, Arthur C. Clark once wrote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Are these stories examples of sufficiently advanced technology or sufficiently advanced biological and physical processes which we cannot currently explain, such that they appear to be magical? We, as a Western society, are highly reluctant to accept things that defy logical and rational explanation, within our defined boundaries of logical and rational.

Test case C. Many insurance companies, which operate within stringent mathematical, actuarial data, now routinely pay for hypnosis and acupuncture to solve a variety of behavioral problems, most notably, smoking cessation, for which it has been observed to be quite successful. There is more scientific study of the processes related to hypnosis than the processes related to acupuncture. But there is no doubt that when Anton Mesmer first began hypnotizing people, and the biological and neurological processes were not at all understood, hypnosis, as recently as the early to mid 20th century, appeared to be magical. Today, more of the processes of hypnosis are better, if not completely, understood. It is an accepted scientific fact in the medical, and other scientific communities, that hypnosis for smoking cessation and a variety of other mental and physical conditions is an accepted therapy.

Acupuncture is today, where hypnosis was in the prior century. Acupuncturists believe that the insertion of needles at certain points on the human body, with or without electrical stimulation, redirects the body's internal energy fields, resulting in a change in mental and/or physical processes. Current allopathic (M.D.) and osteopathic (D. O.) Medicine currently have no explanation whatsoever for why acupuncture works. There are no observable biological processes that emits energies that can be routinely measured in any meaningful way. What makes acupuncture work? Are there energies and processes which we as humans have not learned to observe? Is it really our own belief in the process that causes us to heal or influence ourselves?



11. The difference between science, theology and philosophy. We digress, momentarily, from our inquiries to recognize some definitional differences.

In science, one formulate a hypothesis and then evaluates the data to refine, modify or disapprove that hypothesis based on observable mathematical or scientific data. Science seeks to document provable facts.

Theology is the study of one or more organized religions. A theology represents the belief systems of one religion. One of the basic tenants of most, if not all theologies is that at some point, humanity reaches a point where we must believe on faith. We must believe because God, or the gods, command us to believe without understanding. Theology/religion is often at odds with scientific inquiry and loath to modify its belief system based on science.

There is a difference between pure theology and religion. Theology is a study of the nature of God, and usually his (or, if multiple, there) interaction with humanity. Religion is a temporal/man made construct. A religion as a person or Council at its head followed by serious casts of preachers/teachers. A religion is evidenced by an organization of people who believed in a theology. Theology can be thought of as one fairly narrow branch of philosophy.

Philosophy is the inquiry into the thought processes and ideas. One can think of it as the search for truth on many levels. Philosophy is the study of that which occurs largely in ideas and processes of the human mind.

Our objective is to delve into science and philosophy, and maybe theology, but to avoid purely religious systems because they rely upon accepting something on faith.

12. An interesting philosophy. Most of us have some understanding of one or more organized belief systems. Often, we referred to these belief systems as religions. There are the large organized religions of the Protestant faiths, Roman and Orthodox Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, etc. They all have in common a belief in a single deity or creator. They also have in common the belief that we as mere mortals cannot possibly comprehend the motivations of the divinity.

I digress however, into this religious discussion, because of the belief system of one, uniquely American religion -- the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints also know to its members as the LDS church and to the rest of us as the Mormons. I do not espouse any particular religious belief, for a lot of reasons. And, I am certainly not a Mormon. They do however have one believe that is particularly interesting.

The Mormons are best known for their missionary pursuits, young men and women in white shirts and dark pants and knocking on doors. They are also known for their belief that Jesus Christ visited the New World after visiting the Middle East. Those beliefs, however, are not nearly the most academically interesting portion of their belief system.

They believe in one God that we must worship and pray to, as do most of today's monotheistic religions. They believe in the Christian Trinity -- God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. However, they also have the belief that God, our God, the God worshiped by earthly humans, may be but one of many number of gods! God, by their definition, is at the top of the human pyramid! If there is life on a planet circling the sun Alpha Centauri, and that planet is populated by living beings, the Mormons could absolutely believe that those beings have their own God who created and nurtured them! They believe that every population of living, intelligent beings has its own Creator/God! This is definitely not classical Eastern or Western belief.

Historically, we categorize religions as monotheistic -- believing in one God, polytheistic -- believing in many gods, or adiestic -- believing in some force, or some transcendence of death, which may not necessarily have the name of God. I think the Mormons represent a new category which we shall call multi-theistic which means that any given population worships or believes in one God, but does not discount the possibility that other beings and other gods may exist. The Mormon belief system holds that God is inherently good.

I raised the point because it is a consideration not often evaluated in the study of either Eastern or Western philosophy. As we shall see, this one particular belief may influence our philosophical inquiry just as much as the classical Eastern and Western belief systems.

13. Growth and entropy. There seem to be to force his work in the universe. The first force is entropy. As far as we know, or can observe, everything in the universe eventually succumbs to entropy. Without some intervention, everything will become cold, lifeless, dark and still. However, living things seem to disobey the law of entropy. If we look at the evolution from one celled being to human, there certainly appears to be a force that is counter to entropy. Sure, individuals seem to die away, but a species seems to grow and multiply as long as there are resources for it to do so. Also as we have seen, living things eat. Plants need sunlight and nutrients from the soil. Or before his eat plants. Carnivores eat other animals. Omnivores eat other plants and animals. Life seems to be counter entropic.

We have already established, for example, that the large dinosaurs were far from the largest living things. We have also established that the giant redwood trees of California are far from the oldest living things. What we have discovered is that there are fungi in at least three places on the West Coast of the United States that are massive. These fungi cover literally hundreds or thousands of square miles! They are not only the largest living things, but also perhaps, the oldest. While pieces, or areas of the fungi may die off, the organism itself remains connected and continues to grow. They are truly amazing things.

14. Beyond Life as We Know It. Thus far, we have examined non-living, semi-living and living things from subatomic particles through elements and their compounds, to prions and viruses, to very complex living organisms. We have essentially established a hierarchy of complexity and organization, of which living things appeared to be of the highest order. The question is, however, is there a state of living things greater than that which we identify today is the individual?

One thing that we must clarify, since the issue has been raised, is, what is living? A simplistic way to look at it would be to say that living things grow. However, crystals grow too. Stalagtites and stalagmites also grow. So growth alone cannot be the sole definition that separates living from nonliving. Radioactive elements decay into stable elements. They give off energy, but eventually stop. Iron rusts, in the presence of oxygen, converting iron to ferrous oxide, and giving off heat. So what exactly separates living, semi-living, and nonliving?

First, living things consume matter and/or energy and transform that matter and/or energy through some process, into energy which sustains life and replicates itself.

Second, as far as we know, all living things have a cellular structure. They use their metabolic processes to create progeny. Semi-living things use the metabolic processes of living things to manufacture more semi-living things. So clearly, we production is part of a living thing. Iron can beget rust, however, iron cannot beget more iron nor can rust beget more iron. Iron, rust, and crystal growth are terminal processes.

Third, complex living things, above the level of the cell, seem to have their cellular structures constructed in such a fashion that they naturally are in close proximity to another piece of the living entity. For example, in humans everything is in close proximity, at some point, to the flow of blood. When living things multiply, the new entity physically separates itself from the parent. However, the new entity has all the equipment necessary for its two we produce. A begets B begts C. Generally, eventually A dies and B and C continue to have progeny which survive until they die. This, as we have seen, is not true of purely chemical processes, such as rusting.

Now, we are poised to ask ourselves a question. If a living thing represents the highest known order of the complexity of things, and, living things are defined by a cellular structure, is there some order of entity, living entity, which exists beyond the level of single living creature? Is there some order of meta-life that exists? We know that humans form families, individuals and families form communities, communities form cities and states which form nations. We know that the ecology of living things plays an immense role in the formation, sustenance, and even death of human communities.

Much as a skin cell on our big toe is not conscious of the humans cellular community of which is a part, much as the community of cells which form the human heart are not cognizant of the human, is it possible that we humans are part of a meta-life or higher order being that we do not (notice that I did not say cannot) perceive? Is is it possible that we humans are we early meta- cellular constructions in what passes for the massive body of a gigantic being? Is it possible that stars and galaxies, enormous to us, are not even visible to this meta- being?

This raises another interesting question. If the mind is separate from brains, does the mind survive? Is memory stored in the fifth or sixth or seventh or Nth dimension of our existing reality? We can really make two assumptions here.

Assumption number one. What we term the soul is an energy and possibly mass that peeks into our four dimensional space but lives largely in N dimensional space. It may survive the death and decay of the body. And, it may be that the process of producing a body means that the body cannot know, understand or even begin to process the fact that the energy or life force which animates the body is potentially immortal, peeking into our four dimensional world occasionally. In this assumption, the soul is a unique living entity.

Assumption number two. We are recording engines which, for some undefined purpose, to us, collectively collect and store data in N dimensional space, a byproduct of which, for example, could be EEGs which can be measured. In this scenario, reliving past lives, speaking in tongues, and similar experiences means that our brain is, at that point in time, to get to the frequency of those stored memories. It may be quite possible, in this scenario, four to living people to experience the same past memory. Although, to our knowledge, this has never occurred, but cannot be ruled out. We do know however, that two people apparently can share knowledge of a contemporary event. One person sees the events live, and another person, separated by vast distances, can experience the same visual and auditory experience. We term this clairvoyance.

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15. Discuss the effects of various things we put into our body such as water, food, drink, drugs, alcohol. Discuss how these various substances affect the mind's ability to communicate with the body. There are three candidates substances: affect the body away, affect the mind away, affect the body and the mind.



16. Discuss the process of aging. Birth, growth, stasis, regression, death. Why do they happen? What can we do?



17. The power of ritual and talismans. Use the Catholic Mass example. Rituals and talismans evoke a response.