True Nature of Evolution

[nameless]

Both.

[chaz wyman]

Hello friends
The true nature of evolution is not steadily crawling, but taking “giant leaps” when forced into a “corner”, and then maintaining that “giant leap” style over generations. It comes from being put into a “do or die” situation

You have misconceived evolution. Mutation, whether in small steps or large is not the response TO being forced into a corner or any other pressure. Only selection can respond to the pressure of the environment, mutations and variation have to pre-exist their identification as adaptive. There can be no adaptive responses.

[Joseph]

It really depends on the scale considered. Also, I don't see how evolution has any particular "nature"—there are certain ways of characterizing it, adjectives that can be used, and so forth, but a sentence cannot be enough. A lot of people would agree with your statement, and the fossil record seems to argue in its favor, with for example diversification usually centered around episodes of severe perturbation (like a mass extinction), but at a population level, selection and mutation are constantly at work even on the shortest of scales.

[Mike Strand]

Not exactly on topic, but this may shed light on "evolution":

Our current diverse collection of dog breeds, and as another example, the variety of new, hardy and disease-resistant food plants, are the result of what is termed "artificial selection". The term "artificial" refers to the fact that human beings were involved, taking advantage of mutations and variations we like and selecting individuals accordingly, to breed and create offspring. Very amusing, the use of the term "artificial" in this case, as if we are somehow "above" the life forms around us, like little gods.

Human beings are part of "nature", just another type of creature, and we do things that affect the evolution of species that are similar to the interactions of other species (insects and flowers, for example).

You could make the whimsical argument that our evolution as a species is being affected by rats and cockroaches and ticks. Only the hardiest and juiciest and sloppiest of us will survive in the long run to support life forms that may be around long after we've developed into creatures we would have a hard time recognizing.

The development of "improved" breeds of dogs and other domestic animals, as well as plants important to our survival (either as our own food or the food of domesticated animals that we use for food and other purposes) is simply another, and instructive and revealing example of natural selection involving a particular creature, homo sapiens.

God didn't create the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and other breeds of canines useful to us during those six days portrayed in the Bible -- they evolved into being through the centuries with our involvement, and share a common ancestor with our present-day wolves. Hmm, unless God is as smart as they say He is, and secretly created a comfort spaniel for himself, to rest with on day 7. Just Him, his spaniel, and the fleas he also supposedly created.

If God exists, maybe there is something called "divine" or "artificial" selection at work, somewhere in the universe or earlier on our planet, but we can observe "natural selection" at work today, as I've illustrated, involving the mammals known as humans. The same is happening with the domestication of foxes, but I forget where -- a fairly current effort, as I recall.

[bytesplicer]

The short version is, as nameless states, both.

Here's the long version.

The evolution that we commonly talk about is an illusion, albeit a very important one that is correct at the scope in which it deals. There is (in my opinion) a more important and overriding (but still incomplete) idea of evolution based upon energy and how particular 'configurations' of energy interact under the energy laws. Here the 'selector' is the energy laws, in conjunction with the current overall energy state of our universe. The metric of fitness is which structures remain stable (more or less) when interacting with other energy structures.

Look at any particular thing in the universe in terms of energy, and you will find constant change as things go about their business and bump into, consume or destroy each other. The structures that persist through this maelstrom of energy interactions could be termed the 'fittest' survivors in evolutionary terms, things like the proton or hydrogen, for example, are structures that seem to persist under the wildest and most varied of conditions. At the opposite end you have anti-matter, which the energy laws seems to have generally selected against. Things like stars and galaxies are fairly stable energy structures, but compared to things like protons they are like a blip in the ocean. Individual lifeforms are pathetically unstable, but achieve a form of 'pseudo-stability' through replication with variation. Whether that variation is large or small is by the by, the only real meaning in terms of evolution is which structures persist (either through their own stability or replication). Looking at DNA we find an extraordinarily stable molecule, which 'holds' its structure over many many generations with only small changes creeping in here or there. These small changes are enough of course, to induce massive changes in the life form that results from that DNA, but the DNA molecules itself, and the resulting life form, must both pass the ultimate evolutionary test and remain stable in relation to other energy structures, at least until replication time (instead of breaking down when eaten or killed, for instance). In a relatively stable energy environment life would adapt slowly, but large scale energy changes (for example, if all life on earth were suddenly directly exposed to cosmic radiation) could result in large changes to the DNA or how it is expressed, any surviving stable structures being the giant leaps which you describe, although such leaps are possible in a more gentle energy climate, due to the complexity of how DNA interacts.

In a nutshell, gradual or leaping changes really depend on the energy involved, with the 'shape' of such energy structures being as important as their magnitude in achieving stability and thus long term survival. The fact that the energy laws are constantly at work means you should expect both gradual and dramatic changes, dependent upon what energy the life form is exposed to (which includes other life, weather, particles, anything of energy that can interact with the life in question).

[Mike Strand]

To bytesplicer -- Just to say I enjoyed reading your post depicting evolution in terms of energy and the laws and behavior of energy. I hadn't looked at it before from that larger perspective.

This energy perspective covers entities that are "alive", as in earth/carbon-based life forms, as well as protons, galaxies, and other entities we don't associate directly with biological life but are also subject to changing, being stable for awhile, etc.

[evangelicalhumanist]

I have a very hard time with bytesplicer's post, because in order for "energy" or "protons" (or anything else) to evolve, the require -- a priori -- the ability to procreate with small differences, which differences may be selected for. I don't see those abilities as being inherent in either matter or energy, only in living (or potentially non-living but autopoietic) systems.

[Joseph]

What about Cosmological Natural Selection?

[chaz wyman]

Mystical idiotic nonsense, devoid of an understanding of NS and evolution.
Energy does not change in nature, it does not mutate, it does not reproduce, it cannot evolve.
There is no such thing as an energy structure.
Energy does not compete.

The short version is, as nameless states, both.

Here's the long version.

The evolution that we commonly talk about is an illusion, albeit a very important one that is correct at the scope in which it deals. There is (in my opinion) a more important and overriding (but still incomplete) idea of evolution based upon energy and how particular 'configurations' of energy interact under the energy laws. Here the 'selector' is the energy laws, in conjunction with the current overall energy state of our universe. The metric of fitness is which structures remain stable (more or less) when interacting with other energy structures.

Look at any particular thing in the universe in terms of energy, and you will find constant change as things go about their business and bump into, consume or destroy each other. The structures that persist through this maelstrom of energy interactions could be termed the 'fittest' survivors in evolutionary terms, things like the proton or hydrogen, for example, are structures that seem to persist under the wildest and most varied of conditions. At the opposite end you have anti-matter, which the energy laws seems to have generally selected against. Things like stars and galaxies are fairly stable energy structures, but compared to things like protons they are like a blip in the ocean. Individual lifeforms are pathetically unstable, but achieve a form of 'pseudo-stability' through replication with variation. Whether that variation is large or small is by the by, the only real meaning in terms of evolution is which structures persist (either through their own stability or replication). Looking at DNA we find an extraordinarily stable molecule, which 'holds' its structure over many many generations with only small changes creeping in here or there. These small changes are enough of course, to induce massive changes in the life form that results from that DNA, but the DNA molecules itself, and the resulting life form, must both pass the ultimate evolutionary test and remain stable in relation to other energy structures, at least until replication time (instead of breaking down when eaten or killed, for instance). In a relatively stable energy environment life would adapt slowly, but large scale energy changes (for example, if all life on earth were suddenly directly exposed to cosmic radiation) could result in large changes to the DNA or how it is expressed, any surviving stable structures being the giant leaps which you describe, although such leaps are possible in a more gentle energy climate, due to the complexity of how DNA interacts.

In a nutshell, gradual or leaping changes really depend on the energy involved, with the 'shape' of such energy structures being as important as their magnitude in achieving stability and thus long term survival. The fact that the energy laws are constantly at work means you should expect both gradual and dramatic changes, dependent upon what energy the life form is exposed to (which includes other life, weather, particles, anything of energy that can interact with the life in question).

[bytesplicer]

@Mike Strand

Thank you ). It's a nice way to think about things I find, and it definitely is a larger perspective. Energy is still, and probably always will be, a very misunderstood concept. You can think about pretty much anything in terms of it, without ever knowing what the 'it' actually is. It tells you everything about the universe's workings and at the same time nothing at all.

@evangelicalhumanist

There's nothing to disagree with in your post, everything you say is pretty much spot on when it comes to biological evolution. The problem in my eyes is separation, typical in science and the cause of many arguments. Biological processes, all of them, are abstractions of lower level activities which ultimately (as far as our knowledge has stretched) boil down to physics. You say the ability to procreate is not inherent in matter, only living life-forms. This is separation, all life forms are composed of matter/energy, and the biological processes we see (if you believe physics) ultimately boil down to how that matter/energy behaves. What I was saying in my post is not that a proton could adapt and become a hairy-spiky proton. What I am saying is that proton, under the sway of the energy laws, is constantly interacting with other particles, and these interactions can, and do, result in change. Protons break down, and combine with other energy structures. Two strands of DNA from separate entities combine together to form a third, distinct strand. As far as I know, DNA is not considered alive and yet it is at the core of our adaptability. The reason we see varying distributions of different kinds of matter, in a similar way to seeing different distributions of different species, is that all these various kinds of materials interact, and in those interactions they change each other, with some materials not surviving the interaction (typically breaking down into a material that does survive the interaction. Some materials survive this change with minimal impact upon their structure, others do not. Note I'm using survival loosely here, the same amount of energy is present before and after the interaction, but some of that energy has lost or changed its structure. Energy/matter that maintains its structure (large scale properties) under many different interactions could be said to be adapted, it 'survives' because its structure allows it (in relation to what it interacts with). As with evolution, adapted doesn't mean better.

The core idea is that both our environment and the life that adapts to it are ultimately matter and energy in constant interaction, the only real distinction between life and non-life comes down to a difference in the combination of interactions. Some structures (life) can persist through these interactions, others can't.

@chaz wyman

Wow, you were so offended you posted your disgust twice Well, apart from the unnecessarily insulting first line (you consider thermodynamics 'mystical nonsense'?) you make some good points.

'Energy does not change in nature, it does not mutate, it does not reproduce, it cannot evolve.'

I guess that's true if you don't believe that DNA, or any of the other materials from which life is composited, obey the energy laws. Mutation, reproduction, and evolution (in the biological not energy sense) are all the result of energy interactions. Life itself is the example that disproves your point.

'There is no such thing as an energy structure.'

Hmmm. Even if I couldn't find numerous academic articles online that 'probe the energy structure' of something or other, I would have to disagree with this. Physics doesn't really tell us what energy actually is, but the evidence of our observations is that it has structure. If it didn't, we wouldn't have the wealth of different phenomenon we see in the universe. Diamond is carbon as with coal, the difference between the two coming down to structure. Doing the e=mc2 business highlights both as energy, but with differing structures. A proton isn't a neutron, they have similar energy levels but quite different structures.

'Energy does not compete.'

I guess that's true if you don't believe that DNA, or any of the other materials from which life is composited, obey the energy laws.

What is the criteria for competing? Certainly not intention, that would rule out 99% of life. The criteria for competing is simply existence. Life competes by its presence, with resources being taken (intentionally or not) that may have helped or hindered another life form. But this 'competing' isn't limited to life. If the food I need to survive is on the other side of a very very high wall, either i'm going to starve or that wall is gonna be knocked down. Which scenario transpires depends on my structure and that of the wall. If I'm strong or smart enough I'll get through the wall, my energy structure will persist whereas the wall does not. Both are energy structures that interact. If I eat something poisonous and die, and another animal eats the same and lives, we are competing (in this case I lost ). The difference in our survival here comes down to the shape of various molecules in our digestive systems, with the poison binding with something in my case where it didn't with the animal. This comes down to a difference in the energy structure of our respective forms, in this case the animals structure is more stable with respect to the environment (it wasn't changed as much) whereas my structure was changed catastrophically, ultimately resulting in the breakdown and loss of life. Every survival/evolutionary scenario comes down to these kind of interactions, and all these interactions are ultimately energy ones.

As humans, we categorise and label things to make them easier to deal with. Sometimes this leads us to believe that different names mean different things. DNA, life, rocks, stars. Carbon, hydrogen, photons. Different names, all energy in different forms as a result of their interaction history. Evolution from this point of view is just lots of different pieces of matter/energy banging into each other and seeing what persists.

[chaz wyman]

@Mike Strand

Thank you ). It's a nice way to think about things I find, and it definitely is a larger perspective. Energy is still, and probably always will be, a very misunderstood concept. You can think about pretty much anything in terms of it, without ever knowing what the 'it' actually is. It tells you everything about the universe's workings and at the same time nothing at all.

@evangelicalhumanist

There's nothing to disagree with in your post, everything you say is pretty much spot on when it comes to biological evolution. The problem in my eyes is separation, typical in science and the cause of many arguments. Biological processes, all of them, are abstractions of lower level activities which ultimately (as far as our knowledge has stretched) boil down to physics. You say the ability to procreate is not inherent in matter, only living life-forms. This is separation, all life forms are composed of matter/energy, and the biological processes we see (if you believe physics) ultimately boil down to how that matter/energy behaves. What I was saying in my post is not that a proton could adapt and become a hairy-spiky proton. What I am saying is that proton, under the sway of the energy laws, is constantly interacting with other particles, and these interactions can, and do, result in change. Protons break down, and combine with other energy structures. Two strands of DNA from separate entities combine together to form a third, distinct strand. As far as I know, DNA is not considered alive and yet it is at the core of our adaptability. The reason we see varying distributions of different kinds of matter, in a similar way to seeing different distributions of different species, is that all these various kinds of materials interact, and in those interactions they change each other, with some materials not surviving the interaction (typically breaking down into a material that does survive the interaction. Some materials survive this change with minimal impact upon their structure, others do not. Note I'm using survival loosely here, the same amount of energy is present before and after the interaction, but some of that energy has lost or changed its structure. Energy/matter that maintains its structure (large scale properties) under many different interactions could be said to be adapted, it 'survives' because its structure allows it (in relation to what it interacts with). As with evolution, adapted doesn't mean better.

The core idea is that both our environment and the life that adapts to it are ultimately matter and energy in constant interaction, the only real distinction between life and non-life comes down to a difference in the combination of interactions. Some structures (life) can persist through these interactions, others can't.

@chaz wyman

Wow, you were so offended you posted your disgust twice Well, apart from the unnecessarily insulting first line (you consider thermodynamics 'mystical nonsense'?) you make some good points.


TEEHEE. No I find your understanding of TD mystical nonsense. You have mystified a materialist concept - that is a misunderstanding.



'Energy does not change in nature, it does not mutate, it does not reproduce, it cannot evolve.'

I guess that's true if you don't believe that DNA, or any of the other materials from which life is composited, obey the energy laws. Mutation, reproduction, and evolution (in the biological not energy sense) are all the result of energy interactions. Life itself is the example that disproves your point.

There are no laws to obey. That is a metaphorical devise that makes a material necessity into an anthropomorphised story. Things act according to the necessity of nature - they do not obey laws in the sense that they might have a choice to break the law. I have no trouble with the idea of DNA or that is codes for the structure of the organism, and re-combines to make the next generation. But the evolution does not happen to DNA, as such. Evolution is the result of change - it is not a cause in any sense. You speak as if energy is a directing force, when it is nothing more than the means of change and growth and death.



'There is no such thing as an energy structure.'

Hmmm. Even if I couldn't find numerous academic articles online that 'probe the energy structure' of something or other, I would have to disagree with this.

Please try - I stand by my words. Energy is nothing but a potential by one way of looking, and particles by another. There is no form to these particles that is determined by any structural force. heat is amorphous, light is in motion, it can be directed but as a laser and this structure can contain information but it is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted.


Physics doesn't really tell us what energy actually is, but the evidence of our observations is that it has structure. If it didn't, we wouldn't have the wealth of different phenomenon we see in the universe.

What are you talking about?

Diamond is carbon as with coal, the difference between the two coming down to structure.

You are confusing matter and energy. Please make your points more clearly!

Doing the e=mc2 business highlights both as energy, but with differing structures.

No it does not. In order to transform matter to energy requires an atomic explosion which is thankfully VERY rare on earth and plays no part in evolution. You seem to have forgotten what c2 means. It is a very big number which makes the energy from the transformation very destructive.

A proton isn't a neutron, they have similar energy levels but quite different structures.

'Energy does not compete.'

I guess that's true if you don't believe that DNA, or any of the other materials from which life is composited, obey the energy laws.


Once again you are confusing matter and energy. If you make this mistake you are simply throwing away 100 years of physics - the very physics upon which the rest of your (ahem!) Ideas rely.


What is the criteria for competing? Certainly not intention, that would rule out 99% of life. The criteria for competing is simply existence. Life competes by its presence, with resources being taken (intentionally or not) that may have helped or hindered another life form. But this 'competing' isn't limited to life. If the food I need to survive is on the other side of a very very high wall, either i'm going to starve or that wall is gonna be knocked down. Which scenario transpires depends on my structure and that of the wall. If I'm strong or smart enough I'll get through the wall, my energy structure will persist whereas the wall does not. Both are energy structures that interact. If I eat something poisonous and die, and another animal eats the same and lives, we are competing (in this case I lost ). The difference in our survival here comes down to the shape of various molecules in our digestive systems, with the poison binding with something in my case where it didn't with the animal. This comes down to a difference in the energy structure of our respective forms, in this case the animals structure is more stable with respect to the environment (it wasn't changed as much) whereas my structure was changed catastrophically, ultimately resulting in the breakdown and loss of life. Every survival/evolutionary scenario comes down to these kind of interactions, and all these interactions are ultimately energy ones.

And so --what is all this about energy?

As humans, we categorise and label things to make them easier to deal with. Sometimes this leads us to believe that different names mean different things. DNA, life, rocks, stars. Carbon, hydrogen, photons. Different names, all energy in different forms as a result of their interaction history. Evolution from this point of view is just lots of different pieces of matter/energy banging into each other and seeing what persists.

Yes you have mislabelled matter and energy - this make sit much easier for you - but simply makes everything you say a nonsense.

[bytesplicer]

This quoting makes constructing replies hazardous, hope I don't mangle things too much!

TEEHEE. No I find your understanding of TD mystical nonsense. You have mystified a materialist concept - that is a misunderstanding.


What is heat? What for that matter, is matter? Is there any definition that can be produced that doesn't rely on a relational description? There is no misunderstanding, these 'things' can only be described in terms of relationships to other 'things', usually mathematically. There is no material basis for our science, only relational descriptions of things we observe. Energy is an abstract (read, mystical) concept that is useful in describing the relationships we see in nature, and that concept is based in thermodynamics, itself an abstract concept that describes how the thing we name as 'heat' behaves. We can't say what heat, or energy is, beyond a description of behaviour.


There are no laws to obey. That is a metaphorical devise that makes a material necessity into an anthropomorphised story. Things act according to the necessity of nature - they do not obey laws in the sense that they might have a choice to break the law. I have no trouble with the idea of DNA or that is codes for the structure of the organism, and re-combines to make the next generation. But the evolution does not happen to DNA, as such. Evolution is the result of change - it is not a cause in any sense. You speak as if energy is a directing force, when it is nothing more than the means of change and growth and death.

Hmmm. You say in the first sentence there are no laws to obey, then in the third say things act according to the necessity of nature, which is just another way of saying there are inviolate laws. Ok, I get your semantics, law isn't really the right word (anthropomorphical as you say), but whatever words you play with the result is the same, things in our universe behave in set patterns in relation to each other. That's how we have science, and the concept of energy. Wherever evolution happens to 'take place', in DNA or as you say, being simply the result of change, is irrelevent. All the materials involved in evolution 'follow the necessity of nature', a necessity wholly describable in terms of energy interactions, or how 'Thing1' relates to 'Thing2' if the word energy is so unpalatable. Evolution itself is simply a 'mystical' concept coined to describe the overall pattern we see. We are just describing what nature does from our point of view, and energy as a description encompasses our description of evolution, as well as many other things.

Please try - I stand by my words. Energy is nothing but a potential by one way of looking, and particles by another. There is no form to these particles that is determined by any structural force. heat is amorphous, light is in motion, it can be directed but as a laser and this structure can contain information but it is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted.

No need to try, I did the search before typing the sentence. Literally thousands of scientific papers discussing 'energy structure' in one way or another.
It's fine to say energy is just another way of looking at things, as a description, in the same way that particles is. We perceive form but the structure is entirely in the relationship of one thing to another. When I use the term 'energy structure' this is what I'm referring to, an informational construct that describes the relationship between phenomenon. I'm not saying the structure is in the energy, energy is an abstract concept that means pretty much the same thing as information. If it's easier for you to think of it in those terms, replace my use of the word 'energy' with 'information', the meaning of what I'm trying to say won't change (though the sentence structure may need a bit of a tidy ) This is exactly what you're saying when you say the information is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted (itself a misnomer, given energy's abstract status, we don't really know what is being transmitted, and can only encode it as information meaningful to us). What you call 'transmitted' I call 'related'. A particle is describable as a number of properties, this collective information and how it relates to other particles, is what I refer to as energy structure.

What are you talking about?

Maybe my above statement will make it more clear. We don't know what anything is 'made of', we perceive interactions between things, and this information is what I mean by energy structure. What is fire? What is a proton? What is a neutrino? These are just names we give to re-occuring phenomenon only describable in terms of how they interact with other things. We see many things in our universe, with many different ways of interacting. Energy structure is the name I, and it seems, many other scientists, give to the relational information of a particular phenomenon.

You are confusing matter and energy. Please make your points more clearly!

Energy is an abstract concept used to describe the relationship between things. Matter is a particular phenomenon we observe, describable in terms of the abstract energy concept. In other words, matter is just a word for another relationship we see repeatedly in nature, that we can only describe in terms of how it interacts with other things. If this is wrong perhaps you could enlighten me?

No it does not. In order to transform matter to energy requires an atomic explosion which is thankfully VERY rare on earth and plays no part in evolution. You seem to have forgotten what c2 means. It is a very big number which makes the energy from the transformation very destructive.


Transforming matter to energy is a process that happens at every moment in every star. The clumsy equivalent you see in the mushroom cloud doesn't yield a fraction of the efficiency. Are you telling me the energy output of the sun (dictated by e=mc2, and yes, i'm well aware of what the c2 means) plays no part in evolution? Also, it is not the size of this number that makes atomic explosions destructive. It is the relative value of the liberated energy with regards to the environment the explosion takes place in. Can't remember the number but our sun is the equivalent of something like billions of single megaton explosions going on every second, and yet the sun still shines (in fact, those explosions are necessary for it to shine). It is not just a destructive process, you are looking at it in human scales, it is also a creative process. In the end though, it's just a relational process, energy doing its thing.

Going back to e=mc2, this equation says there is a relationship (law) defining the upper bound of potential you can get from 'breaking down' matter, expressible as a number (i.e. meaningful only in relation to other numbers) that we call energy.

Once again you are confusing matter and energy. If you make this mistake you are simply throwing away 100 years of physics - the very physics upon which the rest of your (ahem!) Ideas rely.

See my above answer to this.

And so --what is all this about energy?

Exactly what I said. That the process we refer to as evolution is ultimately describable as energy interactions. Not only that, but the concept really applies to everything, not just life, when you remember that all things are describable as energy. Thinking of a thing as a collection of information that changes over time (as you can with DNA, or a particle, or anything), things that can maintain the same or similar properties, in light of interactions with other things, are the survivors. Things that break down are the losers.

Protons have extremely long half lives, from our point of view. Nevertheless, thermodynamics dictates that eventually they will all break down. They don't break down now (well, statistically, some do) because of the relationship these particles have with the other particles. But this relationship is constantly evolving. Eventually all the protons will be replaced by other forms (of energy). DNA works along the same principles, discrete changes in our genome turning one thing into another over time and generations. We call this process evolution. One form of energy, or information, becoming another, as a consequence of interactions with other forms of energy, or information. All dictated by nature's necessity, the energy 'laws'.

Yes you have mislabelled matter and energy - this make sit much easier for you - but simply makes everything you say a nonsense.

It doesn't make it sit any easier for me at all. While I think energy works as a description of all phenomenon in the universe, it also represents the barrier beyond which it seems we cannot go, at least with our brains in their currently evolved state, and perhaps never. Non-relational ideas, such as free-will, god, or what came before our universe, are all brick walls into which energy (as the basis for our science) run into. I find this quite upsetting. I'm fully willing to accept that everything I say may be nonsense, but that is due to the uncertainty of the ideas we're talking about, none of these subjects are fully understood, by anyone, and may never be. Nevertheless, give me a description that encompasses all the stuff that we observe, and is more concise than the idea of energy. Until you can do this, it is simply illogical to state that I'm talking nonsense.

[chaz wyman]

This quoting makes constructing replies hazardous, hope I don't mangle things too much!

TEEHEE. No I find your understanding of TD mystical nonsense. You have mystified a materialist concept - that is a misunderstanding.


What is heat? What for that matter, is matter? Is there any definition that can be produced that doesn't rely on a relational description? There is no misunderstanding, these 'things' can only be described in terms of relationships to other 'things', usually mathematically. There is no material basis for our science, only relational descriptions of things we observe. Energy is an abstract (read, mystical) concept that is useful in describing the relationships we see in nature, and that concept is based in thermodynamics, itself an abstract concept that describes how the thing we name as 'heat' behaves. We can't say what heat, or energy is, beyond a description of behaviour.


There are no laws to obey. That is a metaphorical devise that makes a material necessity into an anthropomorphised story. Things act according to the necessity of nature - they do not obey laws in the sense that they might have a choice to break the law. I have no trouble with the idea of DNA or that is codes for the structure of the organism, and re-combines to make the next generation. But the evolution does not happen to DNA, as such. Evolution is the result of change - it is not a cause in any sense. You speak as if energy is a directing force, when it is nothing more than the means of change and growth and death.

Hmmm. You say in the first sentence there are no laws to obey, then in the third say things act according to the necessity of nature, which is just another way of saying there are inviolate laws.

No, Laws are human conceits which are verified and modified. At its best, science is capable of changing those laws. For nature no regard to these laws in necessary.

Ok, I get your semantics, law isn't really the right word (anthropomorphical as you say), but whatever words you play with the result is the same, things in our universe behave in set patterns in relation to each other. That's how we have science, and the concept of energy. Wherever evolution happens to 'take place', in DNA or as you say, being simply the result of change, is irrelevent. All the materials involved in evolution 'follow the necessity of nature', a necessity wholly describable in terms of energy interactions, or how 'Thing1' relates to 'Thing2' if the word energy is so unpalatable. Evolution itself is simply a 'mystical' concept coined to describe the overall pattern we see. We are just describing what nature does from our point of view, and energy as a description encompasses our description of evolution, as well as many other things.

FIne, then we agree to a point

Please try - I stand by my words. Energy is nothing but a potential by one way of looking, and particles by another. There is no form to these particles that is determined by any structural force. heat is amorphous, light is in motion, it can be directed but as a laser and this structure can contain information but it is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted.

No need to try, I did the search before typing the sentence. Literally thousands of scientific papers discussing 'energy structure' in one way or another.

As I thought, you are not going to back up your words but make a vague reference to 1000s of non existent papers. Fortean Times does not count. Please cite one of these "1000s" of papers.


It's fine to say energy is just another way of looking at things, as a description, in the same way that particles is. We perceive form but the structure is entirely in the relationship of one thing to another. When I use the term 'energy structure' this is what I'm referring to, an informational construct that describes the relationship between phenomenon. I'm not saying the structure is in the energy, energy is an abstract concept that means pretty much the same thing as information. If it's easier for you to think of it in those terms, replace my use of the word 'energy' with 'information', the meaning of what I'm trying to say won't change (though the sentence structure may need a bit of a tidy ) This is exactly what you're saying when you say the information is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted (itself a misnomer, given energy's abstract status, we don't really know what is being transmitted, and can only encode it as information meaningful to us).

No it is not. Natural radio waves are chaotic. radio energy is nothing more than the means. nature does not structure its energy. Lasers, infra-red can alos be used to contain information, but you are simply mistaken to assert that energy in its natural form is relevant to what you are saying or is "structured".


What you call 'transmitted' I call 'related'. A particle is describable as a number of properties, this collective information and how it relates to other particles, is what I refer to as energy structure.


Gibberish

What are you talking about?

Maybe my above statement will make it more clear. We don't know what anything is 'made of', we perceive interactions between things, and this information is what I mean by energy structure. What is fire? What is a proton? What is a neutrino? These are just names we give to re-occuring phenomenon only describable in terms of how they interact with other things. We see many things in our universe, with many different ways of interacting. Energy structure is the name I, and it seems, many other scientists, give to the relational information of a particular phenomenon.

You are confusing matter and energy. Please make your points more clearly!

Energy is an abstract concept used to describe the relationship between things. Matter is a particular phenomenon we observe, describable in terms of the abstract energy concept. In other words, matter is just a word for another relationship we see repeatedly in nature, that we can only describe in terms of how it interacts with other things. If this is wrong perhaps you could enlighten me?

No it does not. In order to transform matter to energy requires an atomic explosion which is thankfully VERY rare on earth and plays no part in evolution. You seem to have forgotten what c2 means. It is a very big number which makes the energy from the transformation very destructive.


Transforming matter to energy is a process that happens at every moment in every star.

But as yet we have not witnessed any biological activity on any star as yet. Are you trying to make a point. PLease SEE THE HEADING OF THE THREAD.


The clumsy equivalent you see in the mushroom cloud doesn't yield a fraction of the efficiency. Are you telling me the energy output of the sun (dictated by e=mc2, and yes, i'm well aware of what the c2 means) plays no part in evolution? Also, it is not the size of this number that makes atomic explosions destructive. It is the relative value of the liberated energy with regards to the environment the explosion takes place in. Can't remember the number but our sun is the equivalent of something like billions of single megaton explosions going on every second, and yet the sun still shines (in fact, those explosions are necessary for it to shine). It is not just a destructive process, you are looking at it in human scales, it is also a creative process. In the end though, it's just a relational process, energy doing its thing.

You are rambling. This thread is apparently supposed to be about "Evolution".


Going back to e=mc2, this equation says there is a relationship (law) defining the upper bound of potential you can get from 'breaking down' matter, expressible as a number (i.e. meaningful only in relation to other numbers) that we call energy.

Once again you are confusing matter and energy. If you make this mistake you are simply throwing away 100 years of physics - the very physics upon which the rest of your (ahem!) Ideas rely.

See my above answer to this.

What has any of this to do with the "TRUE NATURE OF EVOLUTION"?




And so --what is all this about energy?

Exactly what I said. That the process we refer to as evolution is ultimately describable as energy interactions. Not only that, but the concept really applies to everything, not just life, when you remember that all things are describable as energy. Thinking of a thing as a collection of information that changes over time (as you can with DNA, or a particle, or anything), things that can maintain the same or similar properties, in light of interactions with other things, are the survivors. Things that break down are the losers.

Protons have extremely long half lives, from our point of view. Nevertheless, thermodynamics dictates that eventually they will all break down. They don't break down now (well, statistically, some do) because of the relationship these particles have with the other particles. But this relationship is constantly evolving. Eventually all the protons will be replaced by other forms (of energy). DNA works along the same principles, discrete changes in our genome turning one thing into another over time and generations. We call this process evolution. One form of energy, or information, becoming another, as a consequence of interactions with other forms of energy, or information. All dictated by nature's necessity, the energy 'laws'.

Yes you have mislabelled matter and energy - this make sit much easier for you - but simply makes everything you say a nonsense.

It doesn't make it sit any easier for me at all. While I think energy works as a description of all phenomenon in the universe, it also represents the barrier beyond which it seems we cannot go, at least with our brains in their currently evolved state, and perhaps never. Non-relational ideas, such as free-will, god, or what came before our universe, are all brick walls into which energy (as the basis for our science) run into. I find this quite upsetting. I'm fully willing to accept that everything I say may be nonsense, but that is due to the uncertainty of the ideas we're talking about, none of these subjects are fully understood, by anyone, and may never be. Nevertheless, give me a description that encompasses all the stuff that we observe, and is more concise than the idea of energy. Until you can do this, it is simply illogical to state that I'm talking nonsense.

[bytesplicer]

Hmmm, this mixing in of replies doesn't really help much, we've gone through bold and italics, I guess my replies here will have to be in blue.

This quoting makes constructing replies hazardous, hope I don't mangle things too much!

TEEHEE. No I find your understanding of TD mystical nonsense. You have mystified a materialist concept - that is a misunderstanding.


What is heat? What for that matter, is matter? Is there any definition that can be produced that doesn't rely on a relational description? There is no misunderstanding, these 'things' can only be described in terms of relationships to other 'things', usually mathematically. There is no material basis for our science, only relational descriptions of things we observe. Energy is an abstract (read, mystical) concept that is useful in describing the relationships we see in nature, and that concept is based in thermodynamics, itself an abstract concept that describes how the thing we name as 'heat' behaves. We can't say what heat, or energy is, beyond a description of behaviour.


No response to this, does this mean you find this description acceptable?


There are no laws to obey. That is a metaphorical devise that makes a material necessity into an anthropomorphised story. Things act according to the necessity of nature - they do not obey laws in the sense that they might have a choice to break the law. I have no trouble with the idea of DNA or that is codes for the structure of the organism, and re-combines to make the next generation. But the evolution does not happen to DNA, as such. Evolution is the result of change - it is not a cause in any sense. You speak as if energy is a directing force, when it is nothing more than the means of change and growth and death.

Hmmm. You say in the first sentence there are no laws to obey, then in the third say things act according to the necessity of nature, which is just another way of saying there are inviolate laws.

No, Laws are human conceits which are verified and modified. At its best, science is capable of changing those laws. For nature no regard to these laws in necessary.

Correct, there is no intention in what nature does. When describing something that nature does, which doesn't vary, it is acceptable to use the word law. If you feel strongly about this, take it up with the scientific community, as I'm taking my lead from there in my use of the word law. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_science the first sentence in particular. 'The laws of science are various established scientific laws, or physical laws as they are sometimes called, that are considered universal and invariable facts of the physical world'.

Ok, I get your semantics, law isn't really the right word (anthropomorphical as you say), but whatever words you play with the result is the same, things in our universe behave in set patterns in relation to each other. That's how we have science, and the concept of energy. Wherever evolution happens to 'take place', in DNA or as you say, being simply the result of change, is irrelevent. All the materials involved in evolution 'follow the necessity of nature', a necessity wholly describable in terms of energy interactions, or how 'Thing1' relates to 'Thing2' if the word energy is so unpalatable. Evolution itself is simply a 'mystical' concept coined to describe the overall pattern we see. We are just describing what nature does from our point of view, and energy as a description encompasses our description of evolution, as well as many other things.

FIne, then we agree to a point

Great!

Please try - I stand by my words. Energy is nothing but a potential by one way of looking, and particles by another. There is no form to these particles that is determined by any structural force. heat is amorphous, light is in motion, it can be directed but as a laser and this structure can contain information but it is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted.

No need to try, I did the search before typing the sentence. Literally thousands of scientific papers discussing 'energy structure' in one way or another.

As I thought, you are not going to back up your words but make a vague reference to 1000s of non existent papers. Fortean Times does not count. Please cite one of these "1000s" of papers.


Here's a few, there are many more. Note the use of the phrase 'energy structure' in all of these. Couldn't find any Fortean Times articles...

Probing the energy structure of positronium with a 203 GHz Fabry-Perot Cavity - http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/199/1/012002

Exciton Energy Structure in Wurtzite GaN - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... S/abstract

Energy structure and magnetization effect of semiconductor quantum rings - http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_ ... er=1032126

Energy-structure correlation in metalloporphyrins and the control
of oxygen binding by hemoglobin - http://www.pnas.org/content/74/5/1789.full.pdf

It's fine to say energy is just another way of looking at things, as a description, in the same way that particles is. We perceive form but the structure is entirely in the relationship of one thing to another. When I use the term 'energy structure' this is what I'm referring to, an informational construct that describes the relationship between phenomenon. I'm not saying the structure is in the energy, energy is an abstract concept that means pretty much the same thing as information. If it's easier for you to think of it in those terms, replace my use of the word 'energy' with 'information', the meaning of what I'm trying to say won't change (though the sentence structure may need a bit of a tidy ) This is exactly what you're saying when you say the information is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted (itself a misnomer, given energy's abstract status, we don't really know what is being transmitted, and can only encode it as information meaningful to us).

No it is not. Natural radio waves are chaotic.

Natural radio waves are not chaotic, chaotic is a human conceit. Nature's necessity. Of course I know what you mean, but it has nothing to do with what I said in the above paragraph. Also, could you please let me know how 'unnatural' radio waves differ from natural ones? That's right, they are structured differently (different frequency, to avoid interference with natural processes). That structure is how radio waves carry information.

radio energy is nothing more than the means. nature does not structure its energy.

Do you know what the electromagnetic spectrum is? The periodic table? Human descriptions of repeated structures observed in nature. Nature is structured. No structure, no science (and probably no life). Are you still flogging the idea that I'm ascribing intent to what nature does?

Lasers, infra-red can alos be used to contain information, but you are simply mistaken to assert that energy in its natural form is relevant to what you are saying or is "structured".

They cannot be used to 'contain information', the information is in their structure, or, more precisely, how we interpret that structure. They can be restructured, by altering frequency or through pulsing. Also, can you please say what you mean when you refer to 'energy in its natural form'? Are you asserting the difference between 'man made' and 'natural'? That is certainly not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the measurable properties of observable things (human constructed or naturally occuring, the constituents are still made up from the periodic table and electromagnetic spectrum), and how those properties change through interactions. Such interactions have been shown to be structured, the chaos emerges simply because there are so many going on. The underlying particle interactions are still structured. Energy is very relevant to what I'm saying, as the interactions are only describable in terms of energy (which to be clear, is another human conceit used to describe nature. Necessary, with the describer (me) being human and all...).


What you call 'transmitted' I call 'related'. A particle is describable as a number of properties, this collective information and how it relates to other particles, is what I refer to as energy structure.


Gibberish

Charge. Frequency. Wavelength. Amplitude. Color. Spin. Mass. Energy.
All this information, and more, defines (from our point of view) the structure of the particle possessing these properties. Nature of course has no names for these things, nevertheless, the fact that we can differentiate what we see in nature, according to these properties, means that the energy in nature is structured.


What are you talking about?

Maybe my above statement will make it more clear. We don't know what anything is 'made of', we perceive interactions between things, and this information is what I mean by energy structure. What is fire? What is a proton? What is a neutrino? These are just names we give to re-occuring phenomenon only describable in terms of how they interact with other things. We see many things in our universe, with many different ways of interacting. Energy structure is the name I, and it seems, many other scientists, give to the relational information of a particular phenomenon.

My use of the word energy structure seemed to be objectionable to you, forcing a further off-topic explanation. Is what I'm saying above clear? You didn't comment so I'm not sure...

You are confusing matter and energy. Please make your points more clearly!

Energy is an abstract concept used to describe the relationship between things. Matter is a particular phenomenon we observe, describable in terms of the abstract energy concept. In other words, matter is just a word for another relationship we see repeatedly in nature, that we can only describe in terms of how it interacts with other things. If this is wrong perhaps you could enlighten me?

Ok with this? I asked you to enlighten me otherwise, and you haven't?

No it does not. In order to transform matter to energy requires an atomic explosion which is thankfully VERY rare on earth and plays no part in evolution. You seem to have forgotten what c2 means. It is a very big number which makes the energy from the transformation very destructive.


Transforming matter to energy is a process that happens at every moment in every star.

But as yet we have not witnessed any biological activity on any star as yet. Are you trying to make a point. PLease SEE THE HEADING OF THE THREAD.

Hmmm. I'm clearly not talking about biological activity on a star. You implied I was talking about atomic bombs having an effect on evolution, completely missing the fact that stars convert mass to energy, VERY relevant to evolution. I inform you of this fact, and you choose to interpret it to mean I'm talking about life on stars. Please do not attempt to paint me as diverting the thread, I am simply answering your questions. I repeat my question, which you have not answered. Are you saying the sun's output has nothing to do with evolution? Moreover, are you saying that the properties of matter and energy have nothing to do with evolution?

The clumsy equivalent you see in the mushroom cloud doesn't yield a fraction of the efficiency. Are you telling me the energy output of the sun (dictated by e=mc2, and yes, i'm well aware of what the c2 means) plays no part in evolution? Also, it is not the size of this number that makes atomic explosions destructive. It is the relative value of the liberated energy with regards to the environment the explosion takes place in. Can't remember the number but our sun is the equivalent of something like billions of single megaton explosions going on every second, and yet the sun still shines (in fact, those explosions are necessary for it to shine). It is not just a destructive process, you are looking at it in human scales, it is also a creative process. In the end though, it's just a relational process, energy doing its thing.

You are rambling. This thread is apparently supposed to be about "Evolution".

You asked a question, I answered. I repeat my question. Are you saying that the sun's output has nothing to do with evolution? Are you saying the properties of matter and energy have nothing to do with evolution?

Going back to e=mc2, this equation says there is a relationship (law) defining the upper bound of potential you can get from 'breaking down' matter, expressible as a number (i.e. meaningful only in relation to other numbers) that we call energy.

Once again you are confusing matter and energy. If you make this mistake you are simply throwing away 100 years of physics - the very physics upon which the rest of your (ahem!) Ideas rely.

See my above answer to this.

What has any of this to do with the "TRUE NATURE OF EVOLUTION"?

See my original post. My take on the true nature of evolution. Repeating and summarising. Evolution is ultimately dictated by energy interactions. More precisely, you can describe any life form as an energy structure being transformed through interactions with other energy structures. Once you do this, the distinction between life and non-life disappears, and you can talk instead of evolving energy structures, or more precisely, persistent energy structures. Thus, energy dictates evolution but evolution as a principle also applies to energy. The true nature of evolution, in my opinion. Instead of debating this, you decided to divert into the semantics of describing matter and energy, intent in nature and the definition of law in the context of science. All interesting sidelines, but totally off-topic. Now that I've expanded on what I originally said, for your benefit, you now accuse me of going off topic. I've answered the questions you posed, in defence of my original statements relating to evolution.


And so --what is all this about energy?

Exactly what I said. That the process we refer to as evolution is ultimately describable as energy interactions. Not only that, but the concept really applies to everything, not just life, when you remember that all things are describable as energy. Thinking of a thing as a collection of information that changes over time (as you can with DNA, or a particle, or anything), things that can maintain the same or similar properties, in light of interactions with other things, are the survivors. Things that break down are the losers.

Protons have extremely long half lives, from our point of view. Nevertheless, thermodynamics dictates that eventually they will all break down. They don't break down now (well, statistically, some do) because of the relationship these particles have with the other particles. But this relationship is constantly evolving. Eventually all the protons will be replaced by other forms (of energy). DNA works along the same principles, discrete changes in our genome turning one thing into another over time and generations. We call this process evolution. One form of energy, or information, becoming another, as a consequence of interactions with other forms of energy, or information. All dictated by nature's necessity, the energy 'laws'.

All of this is in context of the thread, unlike the other stuff debated above, and yet you have no comment?

Yes you have mislabelled matter and energy - this make sit much easier for you - but simply makes everything you say a nonsense.

It doesn't make it sit any easier for me at all. While I think energy works as a description of all phenomenon in the universe, it also represents the barrier beyond which it seems we cannot go, at least with our brains in their currently evolved state, and perhaps never. Non-relational ideas, such as free-will, god, or what came before our universe, are all brick walls into which energy (as the basis for our science) run into. I find this quite upsetting. I'm fully willing to accept that everything I say may be nonsense, but that is due to the uncertainty of the ideas we're talking about, none of these subjects are fully understood, by anyone, and may never be. Nevertheless, give me a description that encompasses all the stuff that we observe, and is more concise than the idea of energy. Until you can do this, it is simply illogical to state that I'm talking nonsense.

[chaz wyman]

Hmmm, this mixing in of replies doesn't really help much, we've gone through bold and italics, I guess my replies here will have to be in blue.

This quoting makes constructing replies hazardous, hope I don't mangle things too much!

TEEHEE. No I find your understanding of TD mystical nonsense. You have mystified a materialist concept - that is a misunderstanding.


What is heat? What for that matter, is matter? Is there any definition that can be produced that doesn't rely on a relational description? There is no misunderstanding, these 'things' can only be described in terms of relationships to other 'things', usually mathematically. There is no material basis for our science, only relational descriptions of things we observe. Energy is an abstract (read, mystical) concept that is useful in describing the relationships we see in nature, and that concept is based in thermodynamics, itself an abstract concept that describes how the thing we name as 'heat' behaves. We can't say what heat, or energy is, beyond a description of behaviour.


No response to this, does this mean you find this description acceptable?


I understand the point, though I disagree that your implied dichotomy between "no material basis" and "only relationships" is either fair or pragmatic. It also undermines your own thesis that energy is 'structured'. This structure would have to be "ONLY" a description.



There are no laws to obey. That is a metaphorical devise that makes a material necessity into an anthropomorphised story. Things act according to the necessity of nature - they do not obey laws in the sense that they might have a choice to break the law. I have no trouble with the idea of DNA or that is codes for the structure of the organism, and re-combines to make the next generation. But the evolution does not happen to DNA, as such. Evolution is the result of change - it is not a cause in any sense. You speak as if energy is a directing force, when it is nothing more than the means of change and growth and death.

Hmmm. You say in the first sentence there are no laws to obey, then in the third say things act according to the necessity of nature, which is just another way of saying there are inviolate laws.

No, Laws are human conceits which are verified and modified. At its best, science is capable of changing those laws. For nature no regard to these laws in necessary.

Correct, there is no intention in what nature does. When describing something that nature does, which doesn't vary, it is acceptable to use the word law. If you feel strongly about this, take it up with the scientific community, as I'm taking my lead from there in my use of the word law. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_science the first sentence in particular. 'The laws of science are various established scientific laws, or physical laws as they are sometimes called, that are considered universal and invariable facts of the physical world'.

Ok, I get your semantics, law isn't really the right word (anthropomorphical as you say), but whatever words you play with the result is the same, things in our universe behave in set patterns in relation to each other. That's how we have science, and the concept of energy. Wherever evolution happens to 'take place', in DNA or as you say, being simply the result of change, is irrelevent. All the materials involved in evolution 'follow the necessity of nature', a necessity wholly describable in terms of energy interactions, or how 'Thing1' relates to 'Thing2' if the word energy is so unpalatable. Evolution itself is simply a 'mystical' concept coined to describe the overall pattern we see. We are just describing what nature does from our point of view, and energy as a description encompasses our description of evolution, as well as many other things.

FIne, then we agree to a point

Great!

Please try - I stand by my words. Energy is nothing but a potential by one way of looking, and particles by another. There is no form to these particles that is determined by any structural force. heat is amorphous, light is in motion, it can be directed but as a laser and this structure can contain information but it is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted.

No need to try, I did the search before typing the sentence. Literally thousands of scientific papers discussing 'energy structure' in one way or another.

As I thought, you are not going to back up your words but make a vague reference to 1000s of non existent papers. Fortean Times does not count. Please cite one of these "1000s" of papers.


Here's a few, there are many more. Note the use of the phrase 'energy structure' in all of these. Couldn't find any Fortean Times articles...

Probing the energy structure of positronium with a 203 GHz Fabry-Perot Cavity - http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/199/1/012002

Very interesting but this has nothing to do with what you were saying at the top of the thread.


Exciton Energy Structure in Wurtzite GaN - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... S/abstract

Very interesting but this has nothing to do with what you were saying at the top of the thread.


Energy structure and magnetization effect of semiconductor quantum rings - http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_ ... er=1032126

How do you think any of this realtes to "The True Nature of Evolution".

Energy-structure correlation in metalloporphyrins and the control
of oxygen binding by hemoglobin - http://www.pnas.org/content/74/5/1789.full.pdf

Any one can do a "energy Structure" search on a science library portal, without any understanding of the contents of what he finds. This is the new Internet faith based world we live in.
What has ANY of this to do with Evolution?.

It's fine to say energy is just another way of looking at things, as a description, in the same way that particles is. We perceive form but the structure is entirely in the relationship of one thing to another. When I use the term 'energy structure' this is what I'm referring to, an informational construct that describes the relationship between phenomenon. I'm not saying the structure is in the energy, energy is an abstract concept that means pretty much the same thing as information. If it's easier for you to think of it in those terms, replace my use of the word 'energy' with 'information', the meaning of what I'm trying to say won't change (though the sentence structure may need a bit of a tidy ) This is exactly what you're saying when you say the information is not IN the energy, but in the way the energy is transmitted (itself a misnomer, given energy's abstract status, we don't really know what is being transmitted, and can only encode it as information meaningful to us).

No it is not. Natural radio waves are chaotic.

Natural radio waves are not chaotic, chaotic is a human conceit. Nature's necessity. Of course I know what you mean, but it has nothing to do with what I said in the above paragraph. Also, could you please let me know how 'unnatural' radio waves differ from natural ones? That's right, they are structured differently (different frequency, to avoid interference with natural processes). That structure is how radio waves carry information.

You are just shooting yourself in the foot with the post-modernist stuff. If chaos is a human conceit, so is radio waves, nature, structure and everything you think. That would mean that you basically have nothing to say. But the fact is that radio waves that humans generate "contain" music and so on. And they are distinct from 'natural ones'. If you don't get this then it is pointless going on.


radio energy is nothing more than the means. nature does not structure its energy.

Do you know what the electromagnetic spectrum is? The periodic table? Human descriptions of repeated structures observed in nature. Nature is structured. No structure, no science (and probably no life). Are you still flogging the idea that I'm ascribing intent to what nature does?


NO but I am still curious as to what the fuck you mean by "The True Nature of Evolution". I can't wait for you to try to bring any of this together.


Lasers, infra-red can alos be used to contain information, but you are simply mistaken to assert that energy in its natural form is relevant to what you are saying or is "structured".


They cannot be used to 'contain information', the information is in their structure, or, more precisely, how we interpret that structure. They can be restructured, by altering frequency or through pulsing. Also, can you please say what you mean when you refer to 'energy in its natural form'? Are you asserting the difference between 'man made' and 'natural'? That is certainly not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the measurable properties of observable things (human constructed or naturally occuring, the constituents are still made up from the periodic table and electromagnetic spectrum), and how those properties change through interactions. Such interactions have been shown to be structured, the chaos emerges simply because there are so many going on. The underlying particle interactions are still structured. Energy is very relevant to what I'm saying, as the interactions are only describable in terms of energy (which to be clear, is another human conceit used to describe nature. Necessary, with the describer (me) being human and all...).


What you call 'transmitted' I call 'related'. A particle is describable as a number of properties, this collective information and how it relates to other particles, is what I refer to as energy structure.


Gibberish

Charge. Frequency. Wavelength. Amplitude. Color. Spin. Mass. Energy.
All this information, and more, defines (from our point of view) the structure of the particle possessing these properties. Nature of course has no names for these things, nevertheless, the fact that we can differentiate what we see in nature, according to these properties, means that the energy in nature is structured.


No it means we are applying a structure so as to understand it. But I'm not arguing about any of this. As you say above the structure is in the human conceit. None of this means that energy is "structured" it means that there are consequences to the magnitude and presence of energy that effect matter. But it really is time to bring this back to the headlining promise



What are you talking about?

Maybe my above statement will make it more clear. We don't know what anything is 'made of', we perceive interactions between things, and this information is what I mean by energy structure. What is fire? What is a proton? What is a neutrino? These are just names we give to re-occuring phenomenon only describable in terms of how they interact with other things. We see many things in our universe, with many different ways of interacting. Energy structure is the name I, and it seems, many other scientists, give to the relational information of a particular phenomenon.

My use of the word energy structure seemed to be objectionable to you, forcing a further off-topic explanation. Is what I'm saying above clear? You didn't comment so I'm not sure...



How is any of this relevant to Evolution?.


You are confusing matter and energy. Please make your points more clearly!

Energy is an abstract concept used to describe the relationship between things. Matter is a particular phenomenon we observe, describable in terms of the abstract energy concept. In other words, matter is just a word for another relationship we see repeatedly in nature, that we can only describe in terms of how it interacts with other things. If this is wrong perhaps you could enlighten me?

Ok with this? I asked you to enlighten me otherwise, and you haven't?


I am aware of your point of view - you have made it several times. However this does not relate to your earlier confusion of matter and energy, which you seem to have deleted. ANd NO I am not going to trawl back over previous posts!.


No it does not. In order to transform matter to energy requires an atomic explosion which is thankfully VERY rare on earth and plays no part in evolution. You seem to have forgotten what c2 means. It is a very big number which makes the energy from the transformation very destructive.


Transforming matter to energy is a process that happens at every moment in every star.

But as yet we have not witnessed any biological activity on any star as yet. Are you trying to make a point. PLease SEE THE HEADING OF THE THREAD.

Hmmm. I'm clearly not talking about biological activity on a star. You implied I was talking about atomic bombs having an effect on evolution, completely missing the fact that stars convert mass to energy, VERY relevant to evolution.

I am going to invite you to consider how asinine this statement is. The fact that stars convert mass to energy is relevant to the fac that I got up out of bed this morning, or that Obama is President of the USA. KNowing that stars convert matter to energy does not However help us in this discussion. As for your assertion that I implied that atomic bombs were relevant to evolution, this was simply your own inference. The point is that no atomic reactions take place in evolution, just like an atomic reaction helps us understand Obama's presidency, though it would not have happened if the sun did not shine.




I inform you of this fact, and you choose to interpret it to mean I'm talking about life on stars. Please do not attempt to paint me as diverting the thread, I am simply answering your questions. I repeat my question, which you have not answered. Are you saying the sun's output has nothing to do with evolution?



Well yes. For the same reason it has nothing to do with Obama. The sun's output might be important to everything , but because it is ubiquitous it explains nothing


Moreover, are you saying that the properties of matter and energy have nothing to do with evolution?


no I am not. BUt I am saying that you cannot understand evolution from primary properties, you need to get down to cases. You can't use the chemical composition of paint to tell us why the Mona Lisa is regarded as the greatest painting on earth..


The clumsy equivalent you see in the mushroom cloud doesn't yield a fraction of the efficiency. Are you telling me the energy output of the sun (dictated by e=mc2, and yes, i'm well aware of what the c2 means) plays no part in evolution? Also, it is not the size of this number that makes atomic explosions destructive. It is the relative value of the liberated energy with regards to the environment the explosion takes place in. Can't remember the number but our sun is the equivalent of something like billions of single megaton explosions going on every second, and yet the sun still shines (in fact, those explosions are necessary for it to shine). It is not just a destructive process, you are looking at it in human scales, it is also a creative process. In the end though, it's just a relational process, energy doing its thing.

You are rambling. This thread is apparently supposed to be about "Evolution".

You asked a question, I answered. I repeat my question. Are you saying that the sun's output has nothing to do with evolution? Are you saying the properties of matter and energy have nothing to do with evolution?



see above



Going back to e=mc2, this equation says there is a relationship (law) defining the upper bound of potential you can get from 'breaking down' matter, expressible as a number (i.e. meaningful only in relation to other numbers) that we call energy.

Once again you are confusing matter and energy. If you make this mistake you are simply throwing away 100 years of physics - the very physics upon which the rest of your (ahem!) Ideas rely.

See my above answer to this.

What has any of this to do with the "TRUE NATURE OF EVOLUTION"?

See my original post. My take on the true nature of evolution. Repeating and summarising. Evolution is ultimately dictated by energy interactions.

Dictate implies a dictator.

More precisely, you can describe any life form as an energy structure being transformed through interactions with other energy structures.

only if you want to reduce it to meaningless drivel.

Once you do this, the distinction between life and non-life disappears, and you can talk instead of evolving energy structures, or more precisely, persistent energy structures.

Nothing to do with energy structure

Thus, energy dictates evolution but evolution as a principle also applies to energy.

Dictate implies a dictator.

The true nature of evolution, in my opinion. Instead of debating this, you decided to divert into the semantics of describing matter and energy, intent in nature and the definition of law in the context of science. All interesting sidelines, but totally off-topic. Now that I've expanded on what I originally said, for your benefit, you now accuse me of going off topic. I've answered the questions you posed, in defence of my original statements relating to evolution.


And so --what is all this about energy?

Exactly what I said. That the process we refer to as evolution is ultimately describable as energy interactions.

Tell me about the energy interaction that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. You will have to tell me what you mean by energy intereactions.

Not only that, but the concept really applies to everything, not just life, when you remember that all things are describable as energy. Thinking of a thing as a collection of information that changes over time (as you can with DNA, or a particle, or anything), things that can maintain the same or similar properties, in light of interactions with other things, are the survivors. Things that break down are the losers.

Protons have extremely long half lives, from our point of view. Nevertheless, thermodynamics dictates that eventually they will all break down. They don't break down now (well, statistically, some do) because of the relationship these particles have with the other particles. But this relationship is constantly evolving. Eventually all the protons will be replaced by other forms (of energy). DNA works along the same principles, discrete changes in our genome turning one thing into another over time and generations. We call this process evolution. One form of energy, or information, becoming another, as a consequence of interactions with other forms of energy, or information. All dictated by nature's necessity, the energy 'laws'.

All of this is in context of the thread, unlike the other stuff debated above, and yet you have no comment?


What do you think you have said? This is contentless..

Yes you have mislabelled matter and energy - this make sit much easier for you - but simply makes everything you say a nonsense.

It doesn't make it sit any easier for me at all. While I think energy works as a description of all phenomenon in the universe, it also represents the barrier beyond which it seems we cannot go, at least with our brains in their currently evolved state, and perhaps never. Non-relational ideas, such as free-will, god, or what came before our universe, are all brick walls into which energy (as the basis for our science) run into. I find this quite upsetting. I'm fully willing to accept that everything I say may be nonsense, but that is due to the uncertainty of the ideas we're talking about, none of these subjects are fully understood, by anyone, and may never be. Nevertheless, give me a description that encompasses all the stuff that we observe, and is more concise than the idea of energy. Until you can do this, it is simply illogical to state that I'm talking nonsense.

The point here is that you have nothing to say about evolution. You can use this idea to explain whatever you want but this will not bring you closer to evolution. Let me suggest you look at Karl Popper in "Conjectures and Refutations" where he states that a theory that can be used to explain everything , explains nothing. His two examples are Freudian psychology and Marxism. If you spend a moment you will figure out that this applies to everything you have said.
THe sun shines and nothing would be the way it was if that were not so - I say big deal.