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We don’t even fundamentally understand physics yet. Certainly there is much to life that we don’t understand.
by cnnlives1987 1y ago
We don’t even fundamentally understand physics yet. Certainly there is much to life that we don’t understand.
- jacquesm 1y agoThis is not so much about the understanding of life as it is about the definition of life.
- IAmBroom 1y agoEh, you're quibbling with words. We're getting closer to the quantum (indivisible) definition of life, and that's understanding.
- willis936 1y agoI don't think that they are. The term life, as it's currently defined, is not very useful. The reality is that there is a very colorful spectrum of microscopic biology and that a single bin of "alive" and "not alive" is like trying to paint the mona lisa with a single pixel. This scishow video gives a good look at the tip of the iceberg. https://youtu.be/FXqmzKwBB_w https://youtu.be/FXqmzKwBB_w
- Noaidi 1y agoAs they said in another comment, life is the ability to decrease entropy. That definition would tie in quantum mechanics.
- tshaddox 1y agoI don’t think a precise definition of life is particularly important or of particular interest to most biologists. This thing is life in the sense that it’s definitely in scope of being studied by biologists (same is true for viruses, of course). And the reason it is speculated that it may be crucial to understanding life is mentioned in the article: “This organism might be a fascinating living fossil—an evolutionary waypoint that managed to hang on.”
- russdill 1y agoWe understand enough physics to model all the possible interactions life might have on this planet. Unless this planet is having a really bad day.
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y agoMaybe better to say "We understand enough physics to model all the possible interactions PHYSICS might have on this planet". There are many levels of abstraction between quantum/particle physics and life, or even just cosmology (things like dark matter, etc), that we really know very little about.
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y agoAn interesting counterpoint to how little we know, and/or how useless in practical terms our quantum level understanding of physics is, is chemistry. Chemistry is adjacent to physics, at least classical physics and the standard model, so you might think that we should be able to use our knowledge of physics to determine things like atomic bond "angles" and the protein folding problem, yet even this smallish step up in abstraction from physics puts us in a realm where we know very little. DeepMind's AlphaFold, now able to correctly predict 90% of protein folding in agreement with experimental determination, is mostly based on learning from experimental data, as well as evolutionary consideration of proteins that co-evolved, etc. It makes you wonder how useful the reductionist model really is in terms of understanding higher level dynamics. Maybe different levels of abstraction like physics, chemistry, etc, are really a lot more independent than is commonly thought.
- bloomingeek 1y ago[flagged]
- aydyn 1y ago[flagged]
- bloomingeek 1y agoMe thinks, sir, you think you knowth, but not.
- aydyn 1y ago[flagged]
- bloomingeek 1y agoYou misunderstood my original statement. SCOTUS struck down RvsW, which I think is wrong- both morally and scientifically. You shouldn't name call, leave me alone or I will report you.
- aydyn 1y ago[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago> Its easily googlable or ChatGPT-able. Dont be intentionally dense. You are just making your "side" look dumb. This is an unacceptable comment on HN. It breaks several guidelines, including those listed below. Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them whenever participating here. We've had to ask this of you multiple times previously. Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer... Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html