76 replies to this topic

[addx]

I believe the flaw of most research base is lack of agreement and research into fundamental abstract "biologic life concepts" that can be used as a guide to predict concrete research direction.
[...]
Anyway, lack of perspective and understanding of *life* is driving scientists into dead ends and random experimenting.

Can you, please, provide an example of that? Understanding of the evolutionary causes of a given biological structure or process does not always help us in gaining understanding of the proximate causes thereof. The theory of evolution is very, very important for biology, but it should be obvious that it's not all there is to biology.

I only know of avenues that I wondered into. Research in antidepressants and anxiolitycs is one such example, explained in this thread. Research in mental health is intact almost completely split to psychoanalisys and neurology. It doesn't seem any scientist actually uses both domains to bring forth a single sound theory that makes sense in both domains. Furthermore the domain of evolution also needs to be added as a source of valuable complementing logic and facts and tests. Noone does research like that. Everyone focuses on their own domain and that's that. Blind.

And also as explained is this thread, gerontology is another example.

As explained also, science about eating habits, nutritionist etc also fail to see many truths that come from evolution and using facts from other domains like neurology etc. The fact that they still mislead people with cholesterol bashing is insane. Cholesterol is the building block of animal cells. It serves the function to repair damage. Reducing it provides good grounds for cancer. Atherosclerosis, damage is caused by glucose and insulin. Cholesterol is used to fix the damaged sites. Etc..

There's so many fundamental errors in medicine coming from inability to recognise and respect the drive of evolution and how we evolved etc.

Cortisol for example intact provides enhanced opioidergic signalling during the day to provide more sacrifice of the now for future. The animal works for the future during the day. In depressed people the opioidergic numbing during the day enables sleep which they can't get at night due to lack of cortisol.

etc. so much misleading science.

Opioid networks are ALWAYS about modulating immediate sacrifice for a better future level of "well being".
[. . .]
You can see how concepts of aging "oozes" from the function of opioids providing sacrifice(aging) mechanisms.

Even if by "aging" you meant psychological defense mechanisms against the knowledge of mortality (I know you don't), there is no pain to numb in the case of aging unless the animal knows it's doomed and cares.

My mother just walked 6 months on a broken foot. She did not bother to go to the doctor and suffered the pain. Eventually it got worse and it doesn't want to get better anymore. From the constant pain/stress signalling the body decided to shut down the overburdening part of it(broken foot) and it will not recover now. That's my "diagnosis". And there's nothing wrong with it. Once they elaborate the exact pathways it will become clear. For now it seems p38 map kinase pathway is responsible and kappa opioid receptor activity provides pain relief and also p38 map kinase activation. Figure that. My concepts predict such stuff easily and I've been doing it for a while.

Slow ageing is subtle stress gathering and numbing adaptation over the lifetime, depending on experience. It can not be registered by the individual to be happening unless the stress is very intense.

The stress of pathogens, internal damage is not felt consciously but is still processed by the same mechanisms.

It is sacrifice for "life", even for offsrpings, maternal care and sacrifice for the offspring is also a function of opioids(and piggybacking oxytocin. the mammalian urge to take care of offsprings evolved though oxytocin providing a piggyback "wellbeing input" on top of opioidergic signalling if the attached offspring survives).
[. . .]
Aging is evolutionary and conceptually sacrifice for future life(primary abstract function of opioids)

What you are saying is all so thought-provoking, but with all due respect, it's my impression that you have fallen victim to the unnecessary teleological manner of speaking characteristic of modern biology. When biologists say that the heart beats to pump blood, they don't mean that it makes a conscious decision to do so; when evolutionary psychologists say that sexual arousal evolved as a means of reproductive success, they don't mean that an infertile person can have no sex drive (think people who choose never to have children). You mustn't confuse the body with the soul. The organism is just the body, an unconsious physical structure; the organism is not the person, the mind. The mind, the soul, the psyche -- whatever you choose to call it, is a separate entity altogether.

It's almost as if people think aging is a glitch, an imperfection in mother nature, cells that can't last long, whatever, as if it could not create us better. While infact it did it on purpose.

No one did it on purpose. Nature cannot do anything on purpose. Why? It follows syllogistically from (1) the primary premise that only conscious entities can do something on purpose and (2) the secondary premise that nature is not a conscious entity.

It quite offending to read this, but I hope you did not mean it.

Of course I mean "evolution crafted it" as opposed to "it is a random glitch" or "evolution failed to improve ageing". Even so I still make out evolution to be conscious, but you do realise I don't really think evolution is a conscious entity, but there's no other way to talk about it and make sense.

For me the definition of life is self-replicating patterns of matter/energy. Life is created by the passing of time within a system of rules(physics) and "players"(particles). Time proves which of them can self-replicate. The "game of life" (this mathematicians game awed me back when I was a 12 year old kid, even then I could grasp the truth and abstract meaning of evolution) unfold as the time passes and what we can observe we call evolution. It seems purposeful, but intact it is random, only the less purposeful entities do not get to replicate and after some time, you can only see the ones that evolved better. As the time passes higher order functions begin to appear such as "reducing life expectancy in order to cause faster generation change to speed up evolution compared to another species".

Now that we have this out of the way, we can stop projecting that I have "romantic ideas"

A species that is in danger and being overrun by other conditiones experiences more stress, lives shorter, procreates more(stress increases procreation) in order to speed up evolution and make up for the lack of adaptation.

Species or individual organisms? If you mean the latter, then at least in the case of sexual reproduction it can only be true for male animals (minus seahorses). For those females who cannot reproduce without gestation, it's pointless because if death is imminent, it's counterproductive for reproductive purposes to waste time and other resources on a lengthy pregnancy -- and, in altricial taxa, rearing -- instead of struggling for personal survival. This also is a known observation in evolutionary psychology.

Well that sounds even better, and individual becomes endangered and loses ability to see a point in group life.

But an endangered female will infact offer sex and attempt to attach in exchange for male protection(oxytocin functioning). This is clearly evident in borderline personality disorder for example. Nonmammalian lifeforms are not included in this, they don't form social groups, they form non altruistic swarms.

As said, I stepped in here few days ago from mental health forum. I have not had time to evolve these concepts and I'm sure someone could do it better, but it seems to me that my approach makes better progress in 2 days than all the rest.

Maybe I'm losing it, but it all makes sense on so many levels and domains and yet all other gerontology research seems like desperate grasping for straws in hopes that we can manipulate some gene to have our cells divide indefinitely or whatever. I guess they're looking for new ways to create cancer or something.

Edited by addx, 09 March 2014 - 10:32 PM.

[addx]

Oh yes, also note the profound effect of opioids on the immune system obvious from heroin withdrawals. It shows that even pathogens are processed by the same basic abstract mechanism.

[addx]

To prove the point further, mu opioid receptors are postioned more externally, muscles and extremities. They provide sacrifice of the now in a motivated way and if succesfull they promote growth of parts that were sacrificed(muscles) so the successful action can be more readily repeated.

this is opposed to kappa opioid which promote death of parts that cant cope and are positioned more visceraly. Theybdo this to spare energy for more useful parts of the organism.

So, how come this all fits so nice? When explained in this 'teleological' way?

[Bogomoletz II]

I only know of avenues that I wondered into. Research in antidepressants and anxiolitycs is one such example, explained in this thread. Research in mental health is intact almost completely split to psychoanalisys and neurology. It doesn't seem any scientist actually uses both domains to bring forth a single sound theory that makes sense in both domains. Furthermore the domain of evolution also needs to be added as a source of valuable complementing logic and facts and tests. Noone does research like that. Everyone focuses on their own domain and that's that. Blind.

How can this new approach help with treatment of clinical depression?

As explained also, science about eating habits, nutritionist etc also fail to see many truths that come from evolution and using facts from other domains like neurology etc. The fact that they still mislead people with cholesterol bashing is insane. Cholesterol is the building block of animal cells. It serves the function to repair damage. Reducing it provides good grounds for cancer. Atherosclerosis, damage is caused by glucose and insulin. Cholesterol is used to fix the damaged sites. Etc..

Right, but thankfully, they're starting to realize that dietary cholesterol does not necessarily raise LDL levels. As more cholesterol comes from food, the liver reduces production of endogenous cholesterol. It's also funny how people who are trying to lose weight think that it's more important to reduce lipids than sugars; that dietary fat automatically translates into body fat.

Cortisol for example intact provides enhanced opioidergic signalling during the day to provide more sacrifice of the now for future. The animal works for the future during the day. In depressed people the opioidergic numbing during the day enables sleep which they can't get at night due to lack of cortisol.

Overtraining, which increases cortisol, disrupts rather than aids sleep.

Opioid networks are ALWAYS about modulating immediate sacrifice for a better future level of "well being".
[. . .]
You can see how concepts of aging "oozes" from the function of opioids providing sacrifice(aging) mechanisms.

Even if by "aging" you meant psychological defense mechanisms against the knowledge of mortality (I know you don't), there is no pain to numb in the case of aging unless the animal knows it's doomed and cares.

She did not bother to go to the doctor

She should have, and she still should.

It quite offending to read this, but I hope you did not mean it.

Of course I didn't mean to offend you, but why would you even get offended at something like that? This is just an Internet conversation, after all. Besides, as I have stated elsewhere on this forum, true hypotheses are strengthened by criticism, not by applaud. If it's your conviction that these hypotheses of yours are true, you should welcome criticism, at least constructive criticism. I, on the other hand, honestly believe that even though your approach deserves further investigation, you have been misled on some crucial points. Obviously, I'm not saying you're stupid; on the contrary, you're prone to faith in outlandish intricacies, and unfortunately smart people are prone to faith in outlandish intricacies. Open-mindedness must be balanced by skepticism.

For me the definition of life is self-replicating patterns of matter/energy.

n scientific jargon, the state-of-the-arts term "life" is just a collective term for functioning organisms. To prevent confusion, it would be wise to start referring to biology as the science of organisms, rather than of life.

Nonmammalian lifeforms are not included in this, they don't form social groups, they form non altruistic swarms.

First of all, the increase in sex drive by thoughts of death that may occur in human males has nothing to do with altruism, but rather it's about passing their genetic material. Second of all, social groups do form among nonmammalian lifeforms and, on top of that, some of them surely do exhibit the kind of reproductive "altruism" you're talking about; for example, bees, who are not mammals, are eusocial.

Edited by Bogomoletz II, 09 March 2014 - 11:33 PM.

[xEva]

As significant as this discovery is, I doubt that it bears any consequences for the SENS project specifically. Unlike the criticism at hand, it doesn't threaten the paramount premise of the SENS project; that this gradual deterioration of function and increase in mortality is effectively treatable by repair of cumulative cellular and molecular damage.

...

This was Boyko's third argument, questioning de Grey's claim that a full understanding of aging is unnecessary to come up with a solution to it. You seem to concur with Boyko when you say, "the assumptions being that what we don't know can't possibly be important" But, look, it's not unusual for an ailment to be "fixed" despite all the gaps in its understanding, let alone gaps in understanding or knowledge of the entire body and all its functions.

Yes, it is very common to have an ailment "fixed" despite the gaps in its understanding, and/or having no clue about how the fix works. The tradition of medicine is based on this. Most of the fixes/remedies, certainly in the old times, were discovered serendipitously', and the reason they were noted and used was because they worked, or at least helped. In contrast, nothing was ever found, purposefully or by chance, that would fix aging -- despite it being the oldest dream of humanity.


Re SENS, it's great that they are proactive in changing people's attitudes and supporting research, but in itself it is only a theoretical proposition based on insufficient knowledge. It sounds reasonable and serves as a banner for the community.

Edited by xEva, 09 March 2014 - 11:51 PM.

[Vardarac]

I've been looking into this "primo-vascular system" and find the vast majority of sources in journals of "acupunctural and meridian studies." If anyone knows of more reputable sources on the subject, I should like to see them.

As for the OP, this is an interesting point. Why, when a human and a tortoise are subject to exactly the same stresses on a cellular level, would the human call it quits after seventy years, while the tortoise continues to persist for centuries?

A speculative answer on my part would be that basically such animals that exhibit negligible senescence have evolved forms of protection against those types of damage, not that those damages turn out to be insignificant.

Consider the naked mole rat. It apparently never suffers from cancer - This is because of a protective mechanism that evolved in its extracellular matrix, not because cancer or the formation thereof would not be a serious threat to the organism over time. I suspect that analogous mechanisms against other types of aging wear are at work in animals like the giant tortoise.

Edited by Vardarac, 09 March 2014 - 11:38 PM.

[addx]

I don't have time to answer all now, but I have to note this.

First of all, the increase in sex drive by thoughts of death that may occur in human males has nothing to do with altruism, but rather it's about passing their genetic material.

There's subtle wrongness in this. It's not about passing their genetic material. It's about LIFE. The very definition I gave and you said to focus on biology as a science of organisms. I'm sure it is not wise to ignore theory of life in trying to understand how the organism came to be what it is and why it does what it does.

I never said males increasing procreating from stress is altruistic. I'd trust it actually becomes quite selfish and competitive/desperate.
I said it increases the speed of creation of NEW genetic material in the hopes that the offspring will be different in a way that provides it a better life than its parent. It's a higher order function of life evolution enabled through evolution evolving sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction enabled evolution to craft a mechanism for increasing or decreasing the speed of evolution in response to resources availability, competition or anything stressing.
The male doesn't pass his genes. He creates new unique genes through sexual reproduction. Because this is in the interest of LIFE. His genome will become basically wiped out by this process in time. Even if the species were the only ones on the planet, well, very much like penguins, they would still increase sexual reproduction and ageing speed if the climate started changing rapidly in order to evolve faster to compensate. Do you really think evolution evolved sexual reproduction and did not craft these higher order functions at the same time?

It seems most people think everything bad we experience is an accident or whatever of evolution not making us perfect. A mistake that needs to be corrected by us humans. So they look for random stuff to fix. Ageing is not a fluke of evolution, it's a purposeful mechanism in balance with factors of life.

Edited by addx, 10 March 2014 - 02:34 AM.

[xEva]

I've been looking into this "primo-vascular system" and find the vast majority of sources in journals of "acupunctural and meridian studies." If anyone knows of more reputable sources on the subject, I should like to see them.

I thought this review was good 50 Years of Bong-Han Theory and 10 Years of Primo Vascular System

[addx]

How can this new approach help with treatment of clinical depression?

Well if this approach happened to be fathomed a few decades ago we might have had working drugs by now.

Humans stumbled onto the true antidepressant a long time ago. Opium/moprhine. If the concepts that I explained in this thread were conceived at that time it would have become apparrent that overcoming tolerance(kappa opioid/dynorphin upregulation) is also curing depression/anhedonia, anxiety and other various fear-response consequence.

I guess even today an attempt to overcome tolerance to opium/morphine/heroine for any other reason other than analgesia at first glance seems like an attempt at developing chemicals that have serious abuse valude and thus a breach of ethics.

In spite of that, decades of SSRI/SNRI/monoamine failures eventually caused the randomness of research to venture out of monomamine area and in the last decade or so it is finally becoming apparent that the opposing, tolerance facilitating kappa opioid/dynorphin system is key to the entire negative cascade and embodies the nervous systems fear(cased by threat to LIFE) processing mechanism.

So, in understanding the abstract function of opioids - requiring to understand the abstract concept of LIFE - we can predict its role in all LIFE and from this we can know what situations can be corrected by influencing opioids. Same goes for other neurosystems, some of which I have abstract roles in this thread.

Right, but thankfully, they're starting to realize that dietary cholesterol does not necessarily raise LDL levels. As more cholesterol comes from food, the liver reduces production of endogenous cholesterol. It's also funny how people who are trying to lose weight think that it's more important to reduce lipids than sugars; that dietary fat automatically translates into body fat.

Yep, people dont seem to percieve sugar turning into fat... They also dont perceive the damage sugar can cause which caused the need to evolve very precise/tight blood sugar control mechanism, while infact there is no evolved FFA levels control but we still think fats somehow cause issues rather than sugar.

Also, the fact that nowhere in nature is an animal able to eat so much carbohydrates in so little time because such foods dont exist in nature.

Further more, the biggest part of our diet consists of inedible plants like wheats, rye, legumes. I wonder how smart it is to bet your lifes wellbeing on something that's by default/naturally inedible.

Cortisol for example intact provides enhanced opioidergic signalling during the day to provide more sacrifice of the now for future. The animal works for the future during the day. In depressed people the opioidergic numbing during the day enables sleep which they can't get at night due to lack of cortisol.

Overtraining, which increases cortisol, disrupts rather than aids sleep.

Opioidergic mechanisms have U shaped effect curve.

Small amounts of moprhine will often cause motivation, euphoria. A bit higher and you get the "warm nod" sedation.

Similar with kappa opioid effects, low amounts will cause dysphoria, high amounts will cause a kind of dissociation(numbing) and sedation. Infact this needs more research, as said, if they werent so blind the research would have already happened.

In other words, cortisol infact wakes you up and provides energy(by increasing sugar levels) and opioidergic signalling to work for a better well being in the future - this is the more euphoric effect.

But if your mind is plagued by depression(active fears - kappa opioid signalling) it will cause your opioidergic signalling to be at a higher level causing inability to sleep at night(dyshporic thought patterns) and when cortisol again leaks during the day you get the sedation effect.

Cortisol will generally put you to sleep. Get a perscription for cortef and try it.

Overtraining causes cellular stress and as explained in this thread this potentiates kappa opioid functioning which would tend to produce inability to sleep at night and a rise in cortisol demands would only parallel this rather than cause it.

Cortisol is present in negligable quantities at night and thus should have no part in causing insomnia directly.

She did not bother to go to the doctor

She should have, and she still should.

She kept quiet about it for 6 months(thinking she's omnipotent) and eventually succumbed as she noticed it isnt getting better and started getting numb. Doctors are now unable to explain whats happening in the foot. Some kind of edema thing started in the surrounding tissue spreading out fractally out of the microfractures in the bones. They're puzzled by it and she's going to various therapies. They giving her all the random crap of "ultrasound therapy", "magnetic therapy", "electric therapy", "heat therapy".

It quite offending to read this, but I hope you did not mean it.

Open-mindedness must be balanced by skepticism.

I don't mind skepticism.

But I'm not sure how intentionally misunderstaning what is basicly a figure of speech in order conjur up a basis for skepticism should be welcomed? I do appreciate you taking the time to comment my concepts and I don't really mind if you say I'm wrong. I just mind when you say I'm wrong because of something I didn't really say or imply. That seems like you're projecting something onto me and defeating it without me playing any part in the show really but merely serving as a trigger for the projection.

Social groups do form among nonmammalian lifeforms and, on top of that, some of them surely do exhibit the kind of reproductive "altruism" you're talking about; for example, bees, who are not mammals, are eusocial.

Bees are drones as all insects are. True social behavior requires awareness of self in relation to the group. A bee never considers isolating itself, competing with other bees. It never considers a selfish attempt to keep food for itself. It is not able to weigh altruism against selfishness so therefore sociality of bees is basicly drone behavior(or pure altruism. however you logically/philosophycaly want to play this. inability to fathom selfishness also invalidates the ability to fathom the distinction of altruism - them being the opposites of the same concept. if there is no good, there is no bad. etc).

This is what I'm talking about. The lack of perspective is causing scientists to make arbitrary groups that can not be conceptualized into concepts that intrinsically make sense. They struggle to fit them into false human-centric perspectives, projecting errors on the genome in hopes of fixing it and simultaneously proving human triumph over mother nature.

[addx]

Just look at the beauty of fundamental principles crafted into concrete manifestations by time and evolution.

If an animal encounters chronic stress in a given locality it will learn to avoid it. Translated: when life encounters anti-life circumstances it learns to avoid them both physically(position wise) and mentally(thought wise - or position in imagination or projected position or inability to even project ones position into a known dangerous circumstance).

The animal moving towards a locality is expanding effort/energy/life force in order to gain more life force. If the locality is promising in regards to being a life force source motivation to do this will be provided by opioids. This is conditioned place preference. It exists from early evolution. The basic automatic functioning is provided by dopaminergic guidance towards life force and away from death force modulated by serotonin. Opioids piggy back on these basics automatic systems to provide modulation of accelerated learning that is a higher order function - it sacrifices now for the future.

Opioids create an urge to make sure life force will be available in the future. This causes integration with an object that provides life force, or in other words - posession. Territory, food, females, heroin. Without opioids the lifeform doesnt integrate(learn to control) with the sources to ensure a future. It just acts according to the state of the now. C. Elegans as an example. Opioids produce posession behavior by modulating the lower order monoamine networks. It would be quite interesting to prove that complex multi-organ organisms evolved around the same time as opioidergic signalling.

I should really just shut up and write a book and get my nobel prize already. Got damn it am I the only one who can see this?


If the nervous system encounters chronic stress in a given locality within the body it instructs the rest of the body to avoid it. Translated: when life encounters anti-life circumstances it learns to avoid them. Repair mechanisms and nutrients is denied to trouble causing locality(position wise) within the body and the knowledge of the stressed locality is also avoided by numbing of pain(thought wise).

"Inside body" relations of organs and tissues are symbiotic in nature, testifying to the idea that organisms formed by symbiotic enslavement of less complex organisms embodying protoorgans. These protoorgans once viewed each other as distinct lifeforms and acted towards each other using the desire/fear response(symbiotic enslavement is achieved naturally also via addictive/enslaving/integrating tendencies of opioid signalling). If one of the organs is causing increasing stress - the rest "avoid" it, reduce their effort towards it. The avoidance of symbiotic roles of the other organs in relation to the failing organ causes death of the failing organ/tissue. In this way, the same mechanism continued to serve a purpose for "in-body" fears as it does for external fears. Opioids regulate both the rewarding value of the symbiosis and the opposing death instinct that can break it. They facilitate integration/disintegration with life relevant objects.

Isn't it quite interesting that the same neurologic substrate of opioids sits on top of both these mechanisms(inside and outside) and I am able to make an abstract connection explaining it.

Opioids also facilitate the basic M. Klein paranoid-schizoid metnal process. Good in, bad out. Integrate the good - increase life - increase well being(mu-opioid) and disintegrate(project, destroy) the bad - kappa opioid.

The fundamental ideas of life and evolution, life force, death force, integration with life or death, all these concepts need to be seriously rethought as the proof is staring us in the face. The conservation of opioids function providing the urge and means to integrate with good(pro-life) and disintegrate/control the bad(anti-life) throughout evolution is literally SCREAMING and noone is listening. And at the same time people seem impressed with infact a lot more far fetched theories(broken genes? flukes of evolution? radiation? selfish genes?).

Can you see how easily opioids explain the main higher order drive of life? Symbiotic enmeshment, sacrifice for future, integration with good life force, avoidance of bad life force, paranoid schizoid thought process, depression, anhedonia(inability to perceive life force worthy of integrating to provide motivation).

It is a holy grail that's been left unresearched because of taboo ethics issues.

Edited by addx, 10 March 2014 - 01:45 PM.

[xks201]

In humans at least I think if we could focus on repairing parts of the body that sustain damage and are not repaired at the same rate as other body parts such as the microtubules of the kidneys which are responsible for many essential body functions. Hippocampus regeneration a La NSI and brain or nervous system repair a La dihexa would also be my bets for longevity.

[addx]

I definitely lost it with the organ enmeshment theory, I should stop

[Bogomoletz II]

A speculative answer on my part would be that basically such animals that exhibit negligible senescence have evolved forms of protection against those types of damage, not that those damages turn out to be insignificant.

Yes, and this is the crucial point. In fact, it should have come up earlier in the discussion. What this is saying is that contrary to Boyko's argument, the existence of damaging intrcellular mechanisms in biologically immortal organisms does not outright disprove the thesis that cellular senescence is the key to understanding aging on the level of the organism (or even that the former underlies the latter). If anything, it reminds us that that is still an open question.

Consider the naked mole rat. It apparently never suffers from cancer - This is because of a protective mechanism that evolved in its extracellular matrix, not because cancer or the formation thereof would not be a serious threat to the organism over time. I suspect that analogous mechanisms against other types of aging wear are at work in animals like the giant tortoise.

Off topic. Israeli researchers at the University of Haifa reportedly isolated the substance which in NMR functions as an antidote against carcinogens and, supposedly, contributes to or underlies their immunity to cancers. They're looking forward to examine its potential at treating cancers in humans.

[Bogomoletz II]

There's subtle wrongness in this. It's not about passing their genetic material. It's about LIFE.

It's a matter of perspective, terminology, etc. Richard Dawkins suggested a rather useful one in his "The Selfish Gene," which you've referred to. It could help with clearing up some of the popular confusion on evolutionary psychology and biology -- or, sadly, create new confusion.

I'm sure it is not wise to ignore theory of life in trying to understand how the organism came to be what it is and why it does what it does.

Abiogenesis is the word.

I'm sure it is not wise to ignore theory of life in trying to understand how the organism came to be what it is and why it does what it does.

An organism is a physical body that is developing or has developed (i.e., undergone morphogenesis) in accordance with an internally formed (i.e., endogenous) instructing code (i.e., its genetic material). A trait universal to all established organisms on Earth is that at least some organisms within a given organism's group of genetically similar counterparts (i.e., its taxon) are capable of reproduction. Again, in biology, "life" is just a collective/mass noun for organisms.

I'm sure it is not wise to ignore theory of life in trying to understand how the organism came to be what it is and why it does what it does.

Ultimately, it's all in the genes; organelles, cells, tissue, organs and organ systems. Then there are foreign stimuli, the environment.

I never said males increasing procreating from stress is altruistic. I'd trust it actually becomes quite selfish and competitive/desperate.
I said it increases the speed of creation of NEW genetic material in the hopes that the offspring will be different in a way that provides it a better life than its parent.

Short of a second formation of life from inanimate matter on Earth, only one thing here is capable of creating new genetic material: mutation.

The male doesn't pass his genes. He creates new unique genes through sexual reproduction.

It's not new genetic material; it's just a rearrangement of half of each parent's nuclear genetic material, plus Mom's mitochondrial genes and, if it's a mammal boy, Dad's Y chromosome, which pretty much accounts only for spermogenesis.

Because this is in the interest of LIFE.

It doesn't happen because it's in someone's interest. It's just a machine, and an inefficient one at that, even when it comes to its own "interests".

Ageing is not a fluke of evolution, it's a purposeful mechanism in balance with factors of life.

It's a side effect of evolution. There's no reason why evolution would make all organisms biologically immortal. It's silly of the common people to assume otherwise, as they almost invariably do.

I just mind when you say I'm wrong because of something I didn't really say or imply. That seems like you're projecting something onto me and defeating it without me playing any part in the show really but merely serving as a trigger for the projection.

Technically, that would be called a straw man argument, but that's only if I knew what you meant, which can sometimes be difficult, simingly due to your favoring of methaphors and figures of speech, so that I'm left only guessing whether you meant this or that to be taken literally.

[Social groups do form among nonmammalian lifeforms and, on top of that, some of them surely do exhibit the kind of reproductive "altruism" you're talking about; for example, bees, who are not mammals, are eusocial.]

Bees are drones as all insects are. True social behavior requires awareness of self in relation to the group. A bee never considers isolating itself, competing with other bees. It never considers a selfish attempt to keep food for itself. It is not able to weigh altruism against selfishness so therefore sociality of bees is basicly drone behavior(or pure altruism. however you logically/philosophycaly want to play this. inability to fathom selfishness also invalidates the ability to fathom the distinction of altruism - them being the opposites of the same concept. if there is no good, there is no bad. etc).

Gotta take crows into account, though. Those fellows are no mammals.

Just look at the beauty of fundamental principles crafted into concrete manifestations by time and evolution.

If an animal encounters chronic stress in a given locality it will learn to avoid it. Translated: when life encounters anti-life circumstances it learns to avoid them both physically(position wise) and mentally(thought wise - or position in imagination or projected position or inability to even project ones position into a known dangerous circumstance).

In the modern world, it's often maladaptive, but evolution hasn't catched up with this, because it's so slow, and it may never catch up.

You go to med school, write your magnum opus and get that Nobel Prize, but this is swaying terriby off topic.

For evolution, there's no such such thing as right or wrong, outside the scheme of reproductive success. Nothing else matters to it as long as fertile offspring are produced. And if the ancestor has to be thrown under the bus, so be it. I, however, am not evolution; its "interests" are not mine.

In humans at least I think if we could focus on repairing parts of the body that sustain damage and are not repaired at the same rate as other body parts such as the microtubules of the kidneys which are responsible for many essential body functions. Hippocampus regeneration a La NSI and brain or nervous system repair a La dihexa would also be my bets for longevity.

Would it really do much at this point, seeing that the leading cause of death in the developed world is not brain or kidney disease, but heart disease (the underlying cause being aging, of course)?

Edited by Bogomoletz II, 23 March 2014 - 04:56 PM.

[addx]

It doesn't happen because it's in someone's interest. It's just a machine, and an inefficient one at that, even when it comes to its own "interests".

It's a side effect of evolution. There's no reason why evolution would make all organisms biologically immortal. It's silly of the common people to assume otherwise, as they almost invariably do.

For evolution, there's no such such thing as right or wrong, outside the scheme of reproductive success. Nothing else matters to it as long as fertile offspring are produced. And if the ancestor has to be thrown under the bus, so be it. I, however, am not evolution; its "interests" are not mine.

Again, subtle difference. Reproductive success is not the point. Overpopulation is not the point. Immortality is not the point.



The point is LIFE.


Reproduction is also means of mutation. And mutation is a "necessity of evolution" therefore quite probably modulated by a detection of necessity to evolve(death drive). Therefore, reproduction is subject to both life drive and death drive except one favors low mutation and the other high mutation.

Evolution EVOLVED "programmed death" as strategy in order to provide, among other things, a "time frame" for organisms to "prove their worthyness". Each life lived provides evolution a clue about how to evolve or not evolve further. Each life lived is a testimony to the success of its form(genetic arrangement) and its knowledge(relation to reality learned from parents/group/self-experience) in relation to the conditions available at the time. Obviously it seems quite smart to evolve mechanisms that recognize "worthyness" in advance, before the final verdict to speed up the process of evolution(which is a competition).

Organisms actively measure their success against the "life and death urges and instincts crafted by evolution into their bodies" during their lifetime and this measurement, this state, is used to process life and death drive of the organism at various levels - including migration, maturing and aging. Most interestingly I would postulate that certain if not most life forms do have a death drive mechanism that also increases mutation during replication. When analysing evolution from an abstract standpoint and trying to lay out evolution principles it seems quite logical that a mechanism for increasing and decreasing mutations would evolve and feed off other life/death mechanisms and that it would work in tandem with aging and maturing.

You may think you do not share evolution interest, but the neuron networks that allowed you to conceive that thought were inevitebly crafted by years of evolution to provide you good feelings when you behave in ways that are pro-life, or provide bad feelings when you behave in ways that are anti-life.

For example, the inevitable human urge to compare to others is evolution at work. The ability to deny this urge is also provided by evolution as a balance of individual vs. group attachement preference. A strong individual preference is provided by the death instinct of being the worst of the group. Currently this "mechanism" supports "escape from society" thoughts but more often today it supports maladaptations of personality disorders since escape from society is not a real possibility any more.

Human struggle to control EVERYTHING is an evolutionary urge stemming from the appearance of vmPFC that enables "awareness of control" and provides a measure for "level of control". This enables urge to acquire/learn control or in other words - increase "level of control"(serotonin) by execution of control(dopamine).
Opioids modulating life and death drive since unconscious life, also modulate the recently evolved life drive of "urge to control"(of pleasures - wellbeing increasers) and death drive of "urge to control"(of threats - wellbeing decreasers). Urge to control is infact possession. Urge to control self-image is urge to control your own subconscious projections. Opioids produce repetitive behavior(think autism) of control execution(dopamine) in order to increase wellbeing(serotonin) until level of control is "full" at which point motivation(in case of controlling pleasurable objects)/anxiety(in case of controlling threatening objects) disappears(for example end of infatuation period is infact the moment of perception of full control/integration and a switch to anxious processing - fear of loss of control - "death drive").
It is quite interesting that kappa opioids(death drive) control cellural stress and aging mechanisms, "social attachement" mechanisms, memory(behavior) repression, immune system, avoidance along with mostly visceral pain. Kinda seems like evolution kept evolving higher order "death drive"(kappa opioid) and "life drive"(mu-opioid) mechanisms parallel to mechanisms of "immediate functioning/survival" or in other words "guidance - relating to reality"(dopamine), "power/stress"(adrenaline) and "satiety"(serotonin). It seems that since the nervous system appeared these main abstract functions of neurotransmitters were kept.

So, how much free will do you actually have? You can resist mating, feeding or anything that "lower lifeforms" can't. But only for the time being. You are able to sacrifice lower level urges for higher level urges. The sacrifice of lower level "life/death drive" for a higher level(more evolved mechanism) of "life/death drive" is also perfomerd by the life/death drive mechanisms themselves piggybacking and feedbacklooping off each other - opioids. You are able to resist hunger in order to finish a project you're working on. Because the project you're working on enables you to control some aspect of your life or make money to control some aspect of your life which is a higher level evolutinary urge. You are able to sacrifice the lower level urge of feeding for a while until you get really hungry and can only think of food - which is the lower level sending its overwhelming feedback to the higher level. You are only able to sacrifice low level urges if the higher level urge is motivating. So working on your project must be motivating. Stuff is motivating only if in the end it feeds into one of the "lower urges" - if acquiring of control enables you to provide more for your lower urges. So, our intellect is still modulated by evolution and most progress happens today because of social insecurities causing "scientific minded people" to see motivation in explaining things that others can't understand. Knowledge of control. This provides "wisdom" to the ego which provides a notion of domination(worthlessness is replaced by a notion of providing knowledge of control to others which others should respect - ability to assume control is respected, inability is shamed or laughed at). In mammals, older animals have domination because they acquired most knowledge, not so much because they are stronger as in reptiles. In vmPFC mammals - smarter animals often dominate - smarter - means more wise. So the urge to dominate within vmPFC species is infact the urge to be wise. While domination can obviously be achieved through force, wisdom provides the paranoia of awareness(death drive) that even the strongest person can be overthrown/beaten by two or more others.

All these aspects of psychology have not been studied through their evolutionary meaning leaving Freud and the rest of them baffled by the "death drive" or "destrudo". At the same time gerontology is also clueless about the real causes of aging.

Life and death drive are in balance. Facilitated mostly by mu-opioid and kappa-opioid receptors, they provide "tolerance" to drugs and to the world itself. Acquired control is an increase in "life force", a measure of "life drive". Kappa opioids upregulate immediately to provide counterbalance. This causes a "shadow fear" of loss of control of that which is already controlled and this shadow fear is part of the "death drive". Tolerance/upregulation is crafted by evolution in order to preempt negative changes in the environment. The organism is not allowed to lose control of that which it already has control. It fights to keep this control and this is provided by "death drive". You see, evolution crafted the organism to start acting according to "death drive" as soon as "things start going downhill". Evolution doesn't wait around for time and death to resolve things - it evolved higher order functions to predict this - if the organism that can't keep control it will have lesser chance to survive and thrive. It must make behavioral changes immediately in order to keep up with other evolving organisms - it can not wait for death to show that it wasn't worthy. Thus mammals adapt faster by being able to modify their subconscious behavior through conscious experience of its success and vmPFC mammals are able to adapt even faster by an ability modulate conscious behavior with their "wisdom".

Edited by addx, 24 March 2014 - 12:41 PM.

[addx]

The book "Selfish Gene" fails to capture the essence of life and death drive and so fails recognize true meta-carriers of life favoring the genes as the only carriers of life.

Genes are the least evolved, most basic carrier of life.

Group is also a meta-entity, a carrier of life, carrying within its gene pool a mechanism for slow evolution(sexual recombination of slowly acquired individual mutations).

Group evolves in reptiles and produces domination urge. Up until reptiles dominance was a question of a given moment, an instinctual calculation stemming from estimation of size and state of surrounding competition. Reptiles have urges that make them acquire dominance status in the long term. This means they are able to sacrifice lowel level urge of survival for the higher level urge of domination . This is infact a second order slow evolution mechanism for the group stemming/upgrading from the previous instinctual/momentary dominance.

Group evolves further in mammals to provide "carrying" of an new meta-entity that evolves, replicates and transfers to descendants - behavior - or knowledge of interacting with reality. Domination by power has now evolved to become "Domination by knowledge" as the mammals look up to experienced rather than the strongest.

Groups evolve further as the growing populations require wisdom to handle growing knowledge banks and so "awareness (of knowledge)" evolves providing us with the ability to "test" knowledge in imagination and compare it to other knowledge and make "aware" choices. The person can now choose or reject their dominator(teacher) according to how they see their knowledge as useful or stupid providing an ability for descendants to override/reject/cherry pick the knowledge of ancestors. A demonstrated ability to "choose well" "how to control" is wisdom and is mostly rewarded by being offered dominance. A demonstrated lack of ability to choose well results in shame. Shame can be nulled by humor in friendly groups. Humor is infact a way of training/evolving wisdom.


Now, Richard Dawkins reducing all this to genes is wishful thinking and his own narcisstic attempt to conquer meaning of life obvious from his urge to prove atheism.

[Bogomoletz II]

The point is LIFE.

What is LIFE? What do you mean by "LIFE"? As Aristotle once wrote, "How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms."

You may think you do not share evolution interest, but the neuron networks that allowed you to conceive that thought were inevitebly crafted by years of evolution to provide you good feelings when you behave in ways that are pro-life, or provide bad feelings when you behave in ways that are anti-life.

And that sits how well with the fact that some people, including myself, have no desire to have children and, no matter how much they try to make themselves want it, they won't get broody?

For example, the inevitable human urge to compare to others is evolution at work.

I don't wish to compare to others. As Ayn Rand once wrote, "Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

So, our intellect is still modulated by evolution and most progress happens today because of social insecurities causing "scientific minded people" to see motivation in explaining things that others can't understand. Knowledge of control. This provides "wisdom" to the ego which provides a notion of domination(worthlessness is replaced by a notion of providing knowledge of control to others which others should respect - ability to assume control is respected, inability is shamed or laughed at).

I desire control not because I desire respect; I desire respect because I desire control. Respect translates into reputation, which means more opportunity, which means more control. That control can be exercised for beneficial things, like convincing people to work on that which really matters, e.g. life extension.

The book "Selfish Gene" fails to capture the essence of life and death drive and so fails recognize true meta-carriers of life favoring the genes as the only carriers of life.

"Death drive" is just another of those Freudian concepts that sound cool in theory, but have no basis in reality. The closest thing to a death drive in people is suicidal tendencies in some individuals and the aging trance, which is a psychological defense mechanism against thoughts of inevitable death.

Now, Richard Dawkins reducing all this to genes is wishful thinking and his own narcisstic attempt to conquer meaning of life obvious from his urge to prove atheism.

Neither atheism nor theism has anything to do with the meaning of life.

[addx]

The point is LIFE.

What is LIFE? What do you mean by "LIFE"? As Aristotle once wrote, "How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms."

Life is a phenomena and as such it can be observed and described. No single thing can be taken out of its context and pointed at and called life. Life as a phenomena is discerned from other phenomena mostly by observing self-replicating evolving patterns of matter.

You may think you do not share evolution interest, but the neuron networks that allowed you to conceive that thought were inevitebly crafted by years of evolution to provide you good feelings when you behave in ways that are pro-life, or provide bad feelings when you behave in ways that are anti-life.

And that sits how well with the fact that some people, including myself, have no desire to have children and, no matter how much they try to make themselves want it, they won't get broody?

As already explained, vmPFC mammals have the ability to resist the lower urges for the urge of acquiring knowledge of control. So it sits rather well, as we'll see in your next quote, thank you very much.

For example, the inevitable human urge to compare to others is evolution at work.

I don't wish to compare to others. As Ayn Rand once wrote, "Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

Achieve exactly what? What others haven't? There we go. Evolution is making you work and making you happy for working. And as we'll in your next quote - how exactly it made you work.

So, our intellect is still modulated by evolution and most progress happens today because of social insecurities causing "scientific minded people" to see motivation in explaining things that others can't understand. Knowledge of control. This provides "wisdom" to the ego which provides a notion of domination(worthlessness is replaced by a notion of providing knowledge of control to others which others should respect - ability to assume control is respected, inability is shamed or laughed at).

I desire control not because I desire respect; I desire respect because I desire control. Respect translates into reputation, which means more opportunity, which means more control. That control can be exercised for beneficial things, like convincing people to work on that which really matters, e.g. life extension.

So you're not really arguing my point but just confusing yourself with egg and chicken dillemmas. Acquirement of social respect(vmPFC mammalian respect/domination) requires demonstration of control exactly as described.

Acquirement of respect of many proves that your wisdom is superior and gives you good feelings. The others that respect you automatically absorb your wisdom and since many respect you, the wisdom that improves life ability spreads(and evolves away from you - the original creator).

So, the opportunity you see is the opportunity of many people respecting your work. Your neurology guarantees that this respect will make you happy - to spread the good knowledge because you can "feel" the perks of dominating.

So, you're still doing evolutions work, working out the urges the best way all your intellect can. The fact that the urges are not that visible but are convoluted into societal/ethical/whatever kind of rules doesn't really change the essence but it does seem to cloud the essence for most.

The book "Selfish Gene" fails to capture the essence of life and death drive and so fails recognize true meta-carriers of life favoring the genes as the only carriers of life.

"Death drive" is just another of those Freudian concepts that sound cool in theory, but have no basis in reality. The closest thing to a death drive in people is suicidal tendencies in some individuals and the aging trance, which is a psychological defense mechanism against thoughts of inevitable death.

That's beacause you're thinking about it wrong.

It's not a theory.

Death drive is not "drive towards death". It is a "drive away from extinction". Life drive is towards thriving, death drive is away from extinction. All systems in the body have opposing homeostatic levels.

It also puzzles me how someone obviously smart can deny "drive away from extinction" and "drive towards thriving" as being the most basic fundamentals of evolution. There is nothing more basic than that. And I can't beleive that people don't see that evolution kept evolving/bettering systems for exactly those two drives.

Life drive and death drive have beta-endorphins and dynorphins.

It is not a theory, it is not Freud(who didnt understand it).

It exists tangibly and is modulated by kappa opioids as life drive is modulated by mu-opioids.

It enables a person to cut off their hand to survive when life is threatened. It enables a person to erase a painful memory.

Even on the cellular level, mu-opioids regulate cell proliferation while kappa-opioids degrade the cell.

Now, Richard Dawkins reducing all this to genes is wishful thinking and his own narcisstic attempt to conquer meaning of life obvious from his urge to prove atheism.

Neither atheism nor theism has anything to do with the meaning of life.

Sorry, but that's seriously coming out of your ass as basicly those two disciplines make it their mission to provide the meaning of life by proving or disproving a divine entity that created us and the meaning with it so... are we actually discussing stuff here or are you just going against whatever I say? I have those type of discussions with my wife every month, I do not enjoy them.

[Bogomoletz II]

The closest thing to a death drive in people is suicidal tendencies in some individuals and the aging trance, which is a psychological defense mechanism against thoughts of inevitable death.

Self-correction: the pro-aging trance.

Life is a phenomena and as such it can be observed and described. No single thing can be taken out of its context and pointed at and called life. Life as a phenomena is discerned from other phenomena mostly by observing self-replicating evolving patterns of matter.

Not very helpful, unfortunately. A dictionary-style defintion would be more useful. "No single thing can be taken out of its context and pointed at and called life," and now it starts sounding like mysticism, metaphysics, sophistry... which is, of course, at odds with the pragmatist approach. There's a nice quotation by the Buddha, from the parable of the arrow:

"But the man refuses to let the doctor do anything before certain questions can be answered. The wounded man demands to know who shot the arrow, what his caste and job is, and why he shot him. He wants to know what kind of bow the man used and how he acquired the ingredients used in preparing the poison. Malunkyaputta, such a man will die before getting the answers to his questions. It is no different for one who follows the Way. I teach only those things necessary to realize the Way. Things which are not helpful or necessary I do not teach."

I insist that in biology "life" is merely a mass noun for living organisms; but maybe I shouldn't: there are more urgent things to insist on.

As already explained, vmPFC mammals have the ability to resist the lower urges for the urge of acquiring knowledge of control. So it sits rather well, as we'll see in your next quote, thank you very much.

What urges? You can't resist an urge you don't have, including any reproductive urge.

Achieve exactly what?

Achieve even more control -- control, whether over others, oneself, inanimate objects, nature or, indeed, anything. It's the Will to Power (love Nietzsche's stuff). You're probably thinking about professional and personal life, and it's nice to have control over those areas of your life, but my intention is to eventually amass enough power/control to gain substantial influence over the political processes and attain the mobilization of society from the pitiful state it's now in to a state of efficiency. And it would be all for nothing if it were not for the ultimate goal. What is my ultimate goal? Well, this is rather unconventional, but I hope that one day, probably millions of years from now on if ever at all, civilization, continually advancing as it is now, will reach the stage of a post-scarcity economy -- something the Christians can call the New Heaven and the New Earth (even though we might emigrate from the Earth by that time), religious Jews can call the Messianic Age, Hindus can call Satya Yuga -- the final destination, the point of greatest control. But, of course, the biggest obstacle today is, by a gigantic margin, the aging process.

Achieve exactly what? What others haven't?

Why are you saying that? This is not a zero-sum game. Other people do have goods. It's not against my interests for them to have those. Quite the contrary, the better is the society we all belong to, the better I'm off.

So you're not really arguing my point but just confusing yourself with egg and chicken dillemmas. Acquirement of social respect(vmPFC mammalian respect/domination) requires demonstration of control exactly as described.

Acquirement of respect of many proves that your wisdom is superior and gives you good feelings. The others that respect you automatically absorb your wisdom and since many respect you, the wisdom that improves life ability spreads(and evolves away from you - the original creator).

So, the opportunity you see is the opportunity of many people respecting your work. Your neurology guarantees that this respect will make you happy - to spread the good knowledge because you can "feel" the perks of dominating.

So, you're still doing evolutions work, working out the urges the best way all your intellect can. The fact that the urges are not that visible but are convoluted into societal/ethical/whatever kind of rules doesn't really change the essence but it does seem to cloud the essence for most.

My point was that at least for me, respect is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Not that I don't appreciate respect -- let alone honor, which is a different story -- but, frankly, I get more pleasure from canned tuna (yum!) ;P

It also puzzles me how someone obviously smart can deny "drive away from extinction" and "drive towards thriving" as being the most basic fundamentals of evolution. There is nothing more basic than that. And I can't beleive that people don't see that evolution kept evolving/bettering systems for exactly those two drives.

Don't you see? Biological evolution is only about reproduction -- survival of the species, not of the individual organism, and even then it is inefficient. Whenever evolution makes an organism strive for its own personal survival, it's only because that organism can still reproduce or help its offspring reproduce. After that, from evolution's perspective, the organism is just a disposable piece of organic waste. For example, salmons die shortly after spawning.

Sorry, but that's seriously coming out of your ass as basicly those two disciplines make it their mission to provide the meaning of life by proving or disproving a divine entity that created us and the meaning with it so...

That's an assertion. You didn't substantiate it with anything.

Also, atheism and theism are not disciplines, but merely positions on a certain question, namely the question "Do any deities exist?"

I'd really like to see someone formulate a comprehensive, consistent, valid argument for the assertion that the theological question affects the teleological question. But that isn't going to happen, because it doesn't. All else being equal, the burden of proof is on the positive statement.

If you'll pardon my audacity to question this matter, what does it even change if God exists? My plans are a variable independent of the existence of any deities. So, naturally, I'm apathetic about theology. Peeps gonna be pissed, but the truth must be told. Society ought to stop concentrating on disputes that don't matter, because concentration is a limited resource.

are we actually discussing stuff here or are you just going against whatever I say? I have those type of discussions with my wife every month, I do not enjoy them.

Haha, no, I don't disagree for the sake of disagreement, but admittedly, I do belong to that group of people which, paradoxically, feels happier in an atmosphere of discord. Wouldn't want to have that as the norm with my hypothetical spouse, though. Discuss... according to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "with like-minded people one cannot discuss. With like-minded people one can only participate in a church service, and, as is widely known, I do not like church services."

Edited by Bogomoletz II, 25 March 2014 - 07:35 PM.

[Vardarac]

Off topic. Israeli researchers at the University of Haifa reportedly isolated the substance which in NMR functions as an antidote against carcinogens and, supposedly, contributes to or underlies their immunity to cancers. They're looking forward to examine its potential at treating cancers in humans.

Maybe this deserves its own topic, but I remember reading that Dr. Buffenstein, one of the foremost researchers of the animal in the world, cautioned that multiple authors have reportedly found "the" mechanism underlying NMR cancer resistance, that is, that there may not be just any one mechanism underlying it. Based on this, I would think that the NMR (much like ourselves) has multiple lines of defense against cancer that are potent by themselves but that (unlike for us) are virtually impervious in combination.

As big a fan as I am of the philosophy underlying SENS, I have never liked Dr. de Grey's WILT proposal because it guarantees reliance on a supply of cells with continually, externally topped telomeres. I admit two things here, first that I need to research more about what (if any) consequences there might be for deleting the telomerase genes, and second that it's pretty much guaranteed that an external supply of cells will be necessary anyway, but I think it would be easier to engineer in virtually unstoppable cancer resistance than it would be to get rid of a mechanism agreed to be essential to cell division and that (according to a critique of SENS I remember reading) has no guarantee of actually stopping cancer.

This is all really vague. I'll follow up with some details later.

[addx]

[quote name='Bogomoletz II' timestamp='1395774680' post='651799']
[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395747753' post='651722']
Life is a phenomena and as such it can be observed and described. No single thing can be taken out of its context and pointed at and called life. Life as a phenomena is discerned from other phenomena mostly by observing self-replicating evolving patterns of matter.
[/quote]

Not very helpful, unfortunately. A dictionary-style defintion would be more useful. "No single thing can be taken out of its context and pointed at and called life," and now it starts sounding like mysticism, metaphysics, sophistry... which is, of course, at odds with the pragmatist approach. There's a nice quotation by the Buddha, from the parable of the arrow:

"But the man refuses to let the doctor do anything before certain questions can be answered. The wounded man demands to know who shot the arrow, what his caste and job is, and why he shot him. He wants to know what kind of bow the man used and how he acquired the ingredients used in preparing the poison. Malunkyaputta, such a man will die before getting the answers to his questions. It is no different for one who follows the Way. I teach only those things necessary to realize the Way. Things which are not helpful or necessary I do not teach."

[/quote]

I do believe buddha would find my explanation of life quite in line with his.

[quote]

I insist that in biology "life" is merely a mass noun for living organisms; but maybe I shouldn't: there are more urgent things to insist on.

[/quote]

I'm not trying to be mystic. I'm trying to explain that you can take a single organism out of the food chain, place in a similar artificial environment with inorganic matter only and it would die. It is not life.

Life was created by endless evolving of balanced systems and is intact a big organism.

When first lifeforms developed they overwhelmed. The first thing that was required to enable "more evolution" is cannibalism. The same material, with cannibalism starts to provide endless opportunities to be reused, recombined to be better than before. New forms of life start to feed from the waste of the old etc. The food chain is infact, from the general perspective of life - cannibalism. There is always a life and death balance, always recycling, always species pitted against each other and evolving, getting a firmer grasp into the far corners of the world and climate conditions. The hawks cause the doves to evolve, the doves cause the hawks. It causes them to age faster so their evolution is faster than the other species. Species with little competition can age slow only to allow slow evolution etc. ALL that is life.

Only the most simplest and basic lifeforms would survive in an otherwise dead world.

It's not mystic, it's just profoundly aware of the intricacies of life. It's like the movie avatar, while it may sound ridiculous to explain it, there seems to be no other way.

There is nothing more to be said about life to make the definition more precise except to tell the story about it.


[quote]

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395747753' post='651722']
As already explained, vmPFC mammals have the ability to resist the lower urges for the urge of acquiring knowledge of control. So it sits rather well, as we'll see in your next quote, thank you very much.
[/quote]

What urges? You can't resist an urge you don't have, including any reproductive urge.

[/quote]

You can easily be unaware of it due to the overwhelming nature of your higher urge - domination through acquirement of control.

But just to name a few in guessed order of evolution

feeding - all
swarming - a lot of unconscious life
sexual reproduction( including migration to special places of reproduction) evolved in unconscious life(pre reptilians)
group domination modulated by power - reptilian - subconscious
group domination evolved to be modulated by seniority(knowledge) - evolving cooperation and transfer of knowledge and
offspring nurture - mammalian - conscious
group domination evolved to be modulated by awareness of wisdom and possession - evolving social structure - great apes and humans.

All these systems are in a human today in balance with each other. "Higher urges" or "higher evolutionary ideas" or "more evolved evolutionary systems" are on top of the lower, evolutionary older urges. They evolved piggybacking off each other much like the cars CPU evolved to control the turbo boost by tricking the waste gate about intake manifold pressure using a solenoid valve interrupting the vacuum from the intake manifold to the waste gate at a frequency dictated by the CPU depending on the throttle position. This allowed more precise control of the turbo pressure, otherwise it would normally spool up to maximum pressure as soon as it got enough exhaust gas to start accelerating, making it more an on/off thing.

The highest urge is that of our awareness, the last evolved, domination through wisdom and/or possession(of control). But the things we mostly want to control most often in some way can be traced back to the other lower urges.

[quote]


[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395747753' post='651722']
Achieve exactly what?
[/quote]

Achieve even more control -- control, whether over others, oneself, inanimate objects, nature or, indeed, anything. It's the Will to Power (love Nietzsche's stuff).

[/quote]

Yes, I find him interesting but also sad because of blindness. He seemed to have identified two neurologic extremes, master/slave infact stemming from the above list of "urges". It does seem humans are inherently split across this dimension which can find its neurologic tangibility and obviously makes evolutionary and psychologic sense. Unfortunately it seems Nietzches condition was quite split. He was so desperate a slave person(akin to borderline personality type) causing an insane energy into trying to figure out his limitations, creating a whole philosophy in order to enable himself to take charge and become a master person(the other end - narcissistic personality disorder) only to break down at the sight of horse whipping, something a master has no trouble seeing given his own philosophy. His insights into this essential split in functioning are interesting but also very distorted due to his blindness of his own subconscious drives.

It seems that most such people start to "break down" in some "world saving" ways around the age of 30. I would put Jesus in the same category.

[quote]

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395747753' post='651722']
Achieve exactly what? What others haven't?
[/quote]

Why are you saying that? This is not a zero-sum game. Other people do have goods. It's not against my interests for them to have those. Quite the contrary, the better is the society we all belong to, the better I'm off.

[/quote]

Yes. And you look to others interests to see how you can control them to get what you want etc. It's classic. It works for everything, infatuation, megalomania.. whatever. It's all nicely neurologically tangible, evolutionary sound and yet none tells this story.

[quote]

My point was that at least for me, respect is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Not that I don't appreciate respect -- let alone honor, which is a different story -- but, frankly, I get more pleasure from canned tuna (yum!) ;P

[/quote]

I mean respect as in terms of submission in the domination/submission axis also explained above. Sorry for the confusion.

[quote]

Don't you see? Biological evolution is only about reproduction -- survival of the species, not of the individual organism, and even then it is inefficient.

[/quote]

So you are inherently aware that the point is life. And as evolution crafts LIFE to be more strong/resilient/rooted/spread, not a single species. It makes life strong by creating divide and conquer(evolving different species) for resources and the two opposing species evolve each other through competition through generations. Except there are millions of species involved in such balances.

Can you see how science fails to fully acknowledge this fact?

What if you look at the food chain as one big long branched/looped DNA. That mutates. That's life.

[quote]
That's an assertion. You didn't substantiate it with anything.

[/quote]

All theism is about creationism. Creationism is about life being of external design. Design meaning the creator(God, Allah whoever) designed us for a purpose. The purpose we are designed for should be our meaning of life. This is the purpose of all religion - to direct people what they should do and give their lives some eternal meaning. Religions tells us our creator and what he told us to do and our "higher" purpose and meaning.
Atheism is basically an opposing stand and pretty much forbids any ideas about us having some higher purpose.

So seriously? If that is up for discussion I guess common sense can be thrown out the window in this conversation?

[quote]

Haha, no, I don't disagree for the sake of disagreement, but admittedly, I do belong to that group of people which, paradoxically, feels happier in an atmosphere of discord. Wouldn't want to have that as the norm with my hypothetical spouse, though. Discuss... according to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "with like-minded people one cannot discuss. With like-minded people one can only participate in a church service, and, as is widely known, I do not like church services."
[/quote]

But you are knowledgable of good wisdom, I'll give you that

Edited by addx, 25 March 2014 - 09:02 PM.

[Bogomoletz II]

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
I'm not trying to be mystic. I'm trying to explain that you can take a single organism out of the food chain, place in a similar artificial environment with inorganic matter only and it would die. It is not life.
[/quote]

Autotrophs.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
When first lifeforms developed they overwhelmed. The first thing that was required to enable "more evolution" is cannibalism. The same material, with cannibalism starts to provide endless opportunities to be reused, recombined to be better than before. New forms of life start to feed from the waste of the old etc. The food chain is infact, from the general perspective of life - cannibalism. There is always a life and death balance, always recycling, always species pitted against each other and evolving, getting a firmer grasp into the far corners of the world and climate conditions. The hawks cause the doves to evolve, the doves cause the hawks. It causes them to age faster so their evolution is faster than the other species. Species with little competition can age slow only to allow slow evolution etc. ALL that is life.
[/quote]

For evolution, interspecies competition is auxiliary, not integral.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
Only the most simplest and basic lifeforms would survive in an otherwise dead world.
[/quote]

Most plants don't feed on other organisms, yet most plants are far from qualifying as the simplest and most basic lifeforms.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
You can easily be unaware of it [your alleged urge to reproduce] due to the overwhelming nature of your higher urge - domination through acquirement of control.
[/quote]

That's unfalsifiable. Anyone can claim you have some undetectable subconscious urge and then, if you say no, tell you you're in denial. You have a subconscious urge to grasp a piece of lipstick and smear it all over your living room walls.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
Yes, I find him [Nietzsche] interesting but also sad because of blindness.
[/quote]

For the record, I don't agree with 100% of his aphorisms. There is not a single person 100% of whose aphorisms I agree with. 30% is a high rate.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
He seemed to have identified two neurologic extremes, master/slave infact stemming from the above list of "urges". It does seem humans are inherently split across this dimension which can find its neurologic tangibility and obviously makes evolutionary and psychologic sense. Unfortunately it seems Nietzches condition was quite split. He was so desperate a slave person(akin to borderline personality type) causing an insane energy into trying to figure out his limitations, creating a whole philosophy in order to enable himself to take charge and become a master person(the other end - narcissistic personality disorder) only to break down at the sight of horse whipping, something a master has no trouble seeing given his own philosophy.
[/quote]

Well, that's an interesting look at Nietzsche.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
His insights into this essential split in functioning are interesting but also very distorted due to his blindness of his own subconscious drives.
[/quote]

They needn't be. The message is more important than the messenger. In philosophical inquiry, argumenti ad hominem are useless.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
It seems that most such people start to "break down" in some "world saving" ways around the age of 30.
[/quote]

20-30 is the age schizophrenia tend to start manifesting itself if you have it (later for a man than a woman).

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
I mean respect as in terms of submission in the domination/submission axis also explained above. Sorry for the confusion.
[/quote]

Explained where? Anyway, that doesn't seem to change the essence of the matter.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
All theism is about creationism. Creationism is about life being of external design. Design meaning the creator(God, Allah whoever) designed us for a purpose. The purpose we are designed for should be our meaning of life.
[/quote]

Why should the purpose that the Higher Being designed us for be our meaning of life? Because some people claim so? How do you even know that the Being created us with a specific purpose in mind? And if he did, how do you know what it is? by listening to the unsubstantiated assertions of sundry impostors? And even if one knew what purpose the Being intended, why would one hasten to fulfill it? What if, as the Gnostics believed, the Being is evil?

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
This is the purpose of all religion - to direct people what they should do and give their lives some eternal meaning. Religions tells us our creator and what he told us to do and our "higher" purpose and meaning.
[/quote]

And you can trust those people because? They contradict each other, so at least some of them must be wrong.

Religion and belief in God are not the same thing. Some religions and religionists are non-theistic, while some theists are irreligious.

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
Atheism is basically an opposing stand and pretty much forbids any ideas about us having some higher purpose.
[/quote]

That was also an unsubstantiated assertion. You presumably based it on the implied premise that a purpose can only be "higher" if it's been sanctioned by God/gods. I have a higher purpose, and it was not given to me by anyone else, mortal or divine (though it is unlikely I could have discovered it without standing on the shoulders of giants).

[quote name='addx' timestamp='1395781136' post='651821']
But you are knowledgable of good wisdom, I'll give you that
[/quote]

And you appear to be the kind of innovative, open-minded person inclined to seek new solutions to problems and not afraid to be different -- a trait of character that biomedical fields could really use. Unfortunately, however, they don't welcome it very warmly, so most of your ilk move to IT.

[addx]

That was also an unsubstantiated assertion. You presumably based it on the implied premise that a purpose can only be "higher" if it's been sanctioned by God/gods. I have a higher purpose, and it was not given to me by anyone else, mortal or divine (though it is unlikely I could have discovered it without standing on the shoulders of giants).

As I see we are moving in circles I think I pinpointed the reason to the philosophical and logical interpretation of our reality.

You are claiming that you do not have a purpose and yet your body pains when you torture it, it hurts when its hungry, your psyche hurts of loneliness and you start to wither away when isolated from society. Your psyche pains you when you see a child suffer. It rewards you to see a brute punished. It arouses you to see an inviting sexy female, etc.

All those undeniable "switches" are there to direct towards something, some of them you have since birth, some have been acquired by mechanisms that support acquiring them.

And yet you see yourself as a completely autonomous will. And you consider most of your switches to result from the work of your autonomous will and its experience. And you imagine it to be an self-actuated supercomputer AI without a designed purpose thats sadly still linked to some of the older components, like the body, organs, survival urges etc, but you have that stuff mostly under control.

So, this fundamental difference in perspective is completely disabling any meaningful cooperation of our intellect or conversation. It seems that you consider these "switches" nothing more than obsolete remnants of animal life left accidentally by evolution. It seems that the phenomena that kept generating and refining these switches in newly evolving life suddenly produced completely autonomous will that invalidates the until then used switches and makes us special and separate from everything life is.

I can not agree to that. I can not even agree there is anything logically sound or scientific about such beliefs. Its wishful thinking and human-centric narcissism. I actually do see that such a perspective is pretty much standard in science. Where intelligence grows, emotional maturity withers.

Immortality is mostly desired by those who deep down feel their time is running out and they're wasting it, but don't know how to make use of it, but feel so smart they can't admit it any more, its repressed. So maybe, the solution is to find a way to make use of it, and it won't bother people to be mortal.

Im all for relieving suffering, but I feel that providing immortal life to those who want it would actually prolong and increase their suffering.

Edited by addx, 30 March 2014 - 06:24 PM.

[Vardarac]

Frankly, this is a completely off-topic discussion, but I feel the need to interject here.

Evolutionary mechanisms certainly predispose most of us to desires that preserve life or society, but that does not mean that this was ordained by an intelligence or points to a cosmic moral order.

It does not even mean that it is better to follow that which has been effectively programmed (or biased) into us, or that the "higher purpose", if there is one, would fit our individual needs better.

Indeed, these same mechanisms you posit may be responsible for some of the behaviors that our society denigrates for the collective good, yet that many of us feel the urge to do when enabled - Have you ever felt tempted to cheat, on a test or on a significant other? Have you wanted to hurt others in anger? Do you really feel bad when you do things society tells you is wrong? Might you even feel good when you do such things? Your individual answer to these questions is actually irrelevant, because we know that it is "yes" for highly visible subsets of the human population, perhaps even the majority for some of these questions.

Human history points toward a nature that builds organisms capable of surviving and competing in the short term, but taken to an extreme, where is provided both the means of intellectual self-evolution without a proper and collective tempering of self-interested competitive urges, lies our inevitable and catastrophic destruction by our own hands.

Is this your higher purpose?

Edited by Vardarac, 30 March 2014 - 06:37 PM.

[addx]

Frankly, this is a completely off-topic discussion, but I feel the need to interject here.

Evolutionary mechanisms certainly predispose most of us to desires that preserve life or society, but that does not mean that this was ordained by an intelligence or points to a cosmic moral order.

It does not even mean that it is better to follow that which has been effectively programmed (or biased) into us, or that the "higher purpose", if there is one, would fit our individual needs better.

Indeed, these same mechanisms you posit may be responsible for some of the behaviors that our society denigrates for the collective good, yet that many of us feel the urge to do when enabled - Have you ever felt tempted to cheat, on a test or on a significant other? Have you wanted to hurt others in anger? Do you really feel bad when you do things society tells you is wrong? Might you even feel good when you do such things? Your individual answer to these questions is actually irrelevant, because we know that it is "yes" for highly visible subsets of the human population, perhaps even the majority for some of these questions.

Human history points toward a nature that builds organisms capable of surviving and competing in the short term, but taken to an extreme, where is provided both the means of intellectual self-evolution without a proper and collective tempering of self-interested competitive urges, lies our inevitable and catastrophic destruction by our own hands.

Is this your higher purpose?

My point is that we are "designed" to behave in a "pro-life" way, which takes a long time to explain and buddha does it better.
I think your consciousness and awareness will be "rewarded" with "good feelings" if you follow that way.
And I think this is all evolutionary, neurologically tangible and at the same time in line with religion infact.

[Vardarac]

I am not convinced that all or even most people are rewarded with good feelings for doing the "right" thing, except where they have been conditioned to feel good about doing it.

Indeed, what feels right should, in an evolutionary sense, change over time, because any set of behaviors ideal for survival changes with context and the context can be changed by the organism itself once it is sufficiently intelligent.

So there should (and apparently does) come a clash between the short-sighted and ruthlessly self-interested humanity and the more altruistic humanity. Yet both are right depending on the circumstances.

This is without discussing the idea that, in the relative absence of selective pressures (the present being such as humanity has never before experienced), there should be significant deviation of perceived rightness or purpose from mere survival. And who is to say that they are wrong?

To me, the larger evolutionary context, if we are to derive ethics or purpose from it, would suggest that both are fluid and depend on the times. (For the record, I'm not terribly comfortable with that idea.)

Edited by Vardarac, 30 March 2014 - 07:18 PM.

[addx]

Yes, people have trouble finding their way these days. The pressure of society is never ceasing and intense. Think of people like the native americans. They did not have such troubles.
People are having trouble tapping into the "life drive" crafted by evolution to live good lives and die and happy death, seeing your offspring thrive and your knowledge and effort praised and remembered, your life not being a waste. We have all seen old people die a happy welcomed death. And most of us can say that such people seemed to have tapped in more or less to this "life drive".
The epidemic proportions of depression, bipolar and various other "mental disease" is proof enough that people are losing touch with fundamentals of life, unable to find direction and evolutionary mechanisms that are supposed to guide them going wrong from extreme conditions(pressure) we impose on ourselves today.

[Vardarac]

I don't see anything wrong with saying that most people are or would be contented (or just more content) with learning to appreciate simple and ordinary lives rather than striving for unrealistic ideals, whether in accordance with a hypothetical "evolutionary prime directive" or not. However, the inevitable result of mutation is that there will be people who are not and could never be contented with such lives.

I'll still be on board the immortalist boat, but it's because I think the prospect of "fulfillment" is more often a pretense than a state that is attained by doing enough satisfying stuff in your life. If you enjoy life, then why not go on living? Why make your peace if you don't have to?

Edited by Vardarac, 30 March 2014 - 08:50 PM.

[Bogomoletz II]

You are claiming that you do not have a purpose

Claiming that I do not have a purpose? No. As a case of fact, I have lucidly stated the contrary. Perhaps, in a rush, you mistook my affirmative clause for a negative one.

All those undeniable "switches" are there to direct towards something, some of them you have since birth, some have been acquired by mechanisms that support acquiring them.

These "switches," Instincts and emotions, are themselves directed from something. It's only reason, not emotion, that can purposefully directs us to a meaningful end, rather than from it. The flow must be from the center to the circumference, not vice versa; one's action must not be mere reaction. Emotions can help, but when they subjugate reason instead of submiting to it, they almost invariably lead to failure, doom, destruction -- that is to say, away from the Purpose.

And yet you see yourself as a completely autonomous will. And you consider most of your switches to result from the work of your autonomous will and its experience. And you imagine it to be an self-actuated supercomputer AI without a designed purpose thats sadly still linked to some of the older components, like the body, organs, survival urges etc, but you have that stuff mostly under control.

I do. The "designed purpose" part may be up for debate, and I highly doubt that that exaltd level when most "switches" are governed by volition has been reached (it's somethig to strive for), but otherwise, yes.

It seems that you consider these "switches" nothing more than obsolete remnants of animal life left accidentally by evolution.

What I consider them is capricious whims to be sternly disciplined by willpower.

It seems that the phenomena that kept generating and refining these switches in newly evolving life suddenly produced completely autonomous will that invalidates the until then used switches and makes us special and separate from everything life is.

Yes. This is true not for most people and not at most times, but there are the select few who choose to live by reason rather than by instinct, by purpose rather than by the moment.

Also note that evolution doesn't "refine" species. Many people think that having started from relatively simple organisms, evolution is constantly developing organisms that are more and more complex with each passing time frame. This is not always so.

I can not agree to that. I can not even agree there is anything logically sound or scientific about such beliefs. Its wishful thinking and human-centric narcissism.

Narcissism is the condition of being infatuated with oneself. Narcissism is egocentric, and egocentrism is a weakness, a movement inwords rather than from the center toward the circumference, as proper. This is not narcissism.

Immortality is mostly desired by those who deep down feel their time is running out and they're wasting it, but don't know how to make use of it,

Well, it's not my case. Your line of thougt here is characteristic of the pro-aging trance. Senecca the Younger suggested the same in his "DE•BREVITATE•VITAE" (CS: "O kratkoći života").

So maybe, the solution is to find a way to make use of it [one's time], and it won't bother people to be mortal.

I did just that and, ironic as you may find it, reached the epiphany that the ellimination of aging is itself a part of my purpose.

Since you seem to be big on theology, you might like Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov. He was a Christian philosopher who arrived at the conlcusion that God created us to achieve earthly immortality one day.

Im all for relieving suffering, but I feel that providing immortal life to those who want it would actually prolong and increase their suffering.

That's not a problem. Yours is an argument for euthanasia, not against life extension. The deathist (is he that much of a suicidal madman?) has the means to kill himself any day he wants to. Must you and I labor to thwart him? Quaeritur.

Edited by Bogomoletz II, 31 March 2014 - 12:12 PM.

[Bogomoletz II]

Narcissism is egocentric, and egocentrism is a weakness, a movement inwords [. . .]

Self-correction: inwards.

this is a completely off-topic discussion

It clearly is. You don't happen to know if it's possible to separate it into a new topic or merge it with an existing one (e.g., addx's "Ageing: a purposeful mechanism or an imperfection in evolution?"), do you?

Edited by Bogomoletz II, 31 March 2014 - 12:20 PM.