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> without testing it What is the proposed test methodology to test your hypothesis?

by daeken 8y ago

mozumder 8y ago
Ask a scientist that. Any test of life should do. How do scientists tests for life right now? Also, it could be multiple additional forces..
- simonh 8y ago
  There is no such thing as a test for life at the molecular level, we only describe it at the system level of a whole organism. Even then there is no hard and fast test because organisms exhibit such diverse ranges of behaviour. For example the chemicals in cell cytoplasm seem to function identically outside a cell as they do inside one. In the first case they are not part of a living organism but in the latter case they are, but this does not appear to make any difference to their properties or characteristics. What difference would you expect to see?
  - mozumder 8y ago
    How are nanobes & prions determined to have life? Are there microscopic Turing tests? And cytoplasm isn't DNA/RNA itself.
    - simonh 8y ago
      Whether or not those things are alive is a matter of debate, many scientists say that they exhibit some of the properties of living things but not all of them. There are many web sites that discuss the properties of living things, I’ve linked a decent one below. It might be useful to think of it in terms of a ‘running’ engine. If I switch a running engine off, or it runs out of fuel, or someone breaks it with a hammer it stops running. Being alive for an organism is analogous to being in a ‘running’ state for an engine. It’s not an attribute of any individual components, but rather a description of the behaviour of the whole system. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/biology/biology/the-science-of-biology/characteristics-of-living-things https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/biology/biology/the...
    - ben_w 8y ago
      > How are nanobes & prions determined to have life? They aren’t. To quote: “No conclusive evidence exists that [nanobes] are, or are not, living organisms, so their classification is controversial.” > Are there microscopic Turing tests? No. That’s what we’re telling you. “Life” is not well-defined. The textbook definition you might have seen in school would misclassify fire as alive. For a fun take on this, look up the comedy podcast (starring Professor Brian Cox) called “The Infinite Monkey Cage”, specifically all the episodes which ask if a (freshly picked) strawberry is alive and if not when exactly did it die.
      - mozumder 8y ago
        They aren’t. To quote: “No conclusive evidence exists that [nanobes] are, or are not, living organisms, so their classification is controversial.” You say nanobes aren't life, but then you say you don't know? Pick one. “Life” is not well-defined. The textbook definition you might have seen in school would misclassify fire as alive. Sorta pretentious to just define life to fit existing narratives when you don't have an explanation. We have to figure out more instead of stopping at what we don't understand. Will check out the podcast. Love Brian Cox.
        klmr 8y ago
        > You say nanobes aren't life, but then you say you don't know? Pick one. No, ben_w said that they “aren’t ‘determined to have life’”. That’s a very different statement. But I’ll go out and say it: they aren’t life. Nobody is talking about nanobes any more. There is no research on nanobes in the life sciences. This is not a hyperbole, I mean that the number of articles published on nanobes in over two decades is literally zero. No single lab in the whole world is researching them. The last scientific publication on the topic, from 2001, was a review concluding that there’s nothing to it. They were an embarrassing mistake that briefly made headlines.
        ben_w 8y ago
        To add to the other reply: > Sorta pretentious to just define life to fit existing narratives when you don't have an explanation. I’m having trouble understanding where you’re going with this sentence. I’m not defining life, I’m saying there isn’t a definition of life (that I know of) which seems satisfactory. Also, I don’t think it would be pretentious to start with a definition that fits existing narratives, because that’s how most words work: a label for a bunch of examples, followed by a rule — a definition — which creates a pattern for those examples. Like fire “metabolising” oxygen and fuel to reproduce and “move”, but not being alive. When you find edge cases, either change the definition to fit the new data or create a new category for the new data [1]. I know that domain experts don’t use that previous definition of life for exactly the reason I gave, but last I checked “are viruses alive?” still got arguments. Also also, treating life as a fifth fundamental force of the universe when chemistry explains all the components just fine is… well, literally pretentious. [1] That’s just an IMO about language, of course: if language was that simple then NLP would be a solved problem.

> without testing it What is the proposed test methodology to test your hypothesis?

by daeken 8y ago

> without testing it What is the proposed test methodology to test your hypothesis?

Ask a scientist that. Any test of life should do. How do scientists tests for life right now? Also, it could be multiple additional forces..

simonh 8y ago
There is no such thing as a test for life at the molecular level, we only describe it at the system level of a whole organism. Even then there is no hard and fast test because organisms exhibit such diverse ranges of behaviour. For example the chemicals in cell cytoplasm seem to function identically outside a cell as they do inside one. In the first case they are not part of a living organism but in the latter case they are, but this does not appear to make any difference to their properties or characteristics. What difference would you expect to see?
- mozumder 8y ago
  How are nanobes & prions determined to have life? Are there microscopic Turing tests? And cytoplasm isn't DNA/RNA itself.
  - simonh 8y ago
    Whether or not those things are alive is a matter of debate, many scientists say that they exhibit some of the properties of living things but not all of them. There are many web sites that discuss the properties of living things, I’ve linked a decent one below. It might be useful to think of it in terms of a ‘running’ engine. If I switch a running engine off, or it runs out of fuel, or someone breaks it with a hammer it stops running. Being alive for an organism is analogous to being in a ‘running’ state for an engine. It’s not an attribute of any individual components, but rather a description of the behaviour of the whole system. https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/biology/biology/the-science-of-biology/characteristics-of-living-things https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/biology/biology/the...
  - ben_w 8y ago
    > How are nanobes & prions determined to have life? They aren’t. To quote: “No conclusive evidence exists that [nanobes] are, or are not, living organisms, so their classification is controversial.” > Are there microscopic Turing tests? No. That’s what we’re telling you. “Life” is not well-defined. The textbook definition you might have seen in school would misclassify fire as alive. For a fun take on this, look up the comedy podcast (starring Professor Brian Cox) called “The Infinite Monkey Cage”, specifically all the episodes which ask if a (freshly picked) strawberry is alive and if not when exactly did it die.
    - mozumder 8y ago
      They aren’t. To quote: “No conclusive evidence exists that [nanobes] are, or are not, living organisms, so their classification is controversial.” You say nanobes aren't life, but then you say you don't know? Pick one. “Life” is not well-defined. The textbook definition you might have seen in school would misclassify fire as alive. Sorta pretentious to just define life to fit existing narratives when you don't have an explanation. We have to figure out more instead of stopping at what we don't understand. Will check out the podcast. Love Brian Cox.
      - klmr 8y ago
        > You say nanobes aren't life, but then you say you don't know? Pick one. No, ben_w said that they “aren’t ‘determined to have life’”. That’s a very different statement. But I’ll go out and say it: they aren’t life. Nobody is talking about nanobes any more. There is no research on nanobes in the life sciences. This is not a hyperbole, I mean that the number of articles published on nanobes in over two decades is literally zero. No single lab in the whole world is researching them. The last scientific publication on the topic, from 2001, was a review concluding that there’s nothing to it. They were an embarrassing mistake that briefly made headlines.
      - ben_w 8y ago
        To add to the other reply: > Sorta pretentious to just define life to fit existing narratives when you don't have an explanation. I’m having trouble understanding where you’re going with this sentence. I’m not defining life, I’m saying there isn’t a definition of life (that I know of) which seems satisfactory. Also, I don’t think it would be pretentious to start with a definition that fits existing narratives, because that’s how most words work: a label for a bunch of examples, followed by a rule — a definition — which creates a pattern for those examples. Like fire “metabolising” oxygen and fuel to reproduce and “move”, but not being alive. When you find edge cases, either change the definition to fit the new data or create a new category for the new data [1]. I know that domain experts don’t use that previous definition of life for exactly the reason I gave, but last I checked “are viruses alive?” still got arguments. Also also, treating life as a fifth fundamental force of the universe when chemistry explains all the components just fine is… well, literally pretentious. [1] That’s just an IMO about language, of course: if language was that simple then NLP would be a solved problem.