In the latest post in my previous thread I quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson. The first paragraph read:
Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness and light, in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the undulations of fluids and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. Superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle, the opposite magnetism takes place at the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here, you must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as, spirit, matter; man, woman; subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay.
The term, ‘life force’ will most probably invoke many criticisms and objections. But if we take it to mean observed vitality and let it stand at that without speculating any further, we can study its ‘ebb and flow’ in the natural world around us. We can see these processes in a wide variety of life forms.
I look around my neighbourhood and see winter fast approaching. In preparation the deciduous trees have all but shed their leaves, hedgehogs are beginning their hibernation and the metabolism of frogs is slowing right down. I can see in all of these organisms a reduction in vitality. The life force is being withdrawn and it will resurface in the spring.
It is obvious that a young spring oak leaf has more vitality than a piece of the tree’s bark, and a mating wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) has more vitality than one in which much of its tissue is frozen solid during winter.
Animals in general have more freedom than plants and some animals are not so tied to a particular environment. Many birds are free to migrate long distances. There is only one species of bird that is known to hibernate and that is the common poorwill
Heterothermy is common among animals and has convergently evolved multiple times. Some animals enter a state of torpor daily in addition to annual hibernaton.
Instead of having their lifestyle dictated by a particular environment migratory animals are able to move to more suitable surroundings. Many animals that reside permanently in a specific location compensate for this restriction by becoming dormant through the winter. There are many examples of compensatory behaviour in nature. Elephants compensate for lacking a pair of dexterous appendages by having one dexterous trunk that can be used in conjunction with their tusks for handling objects. Birds become very adept at using their beaks for construction work and parrots use their beaks and feet in a highly coordinated manner.
Like parrots and elephants, cetaceans are also highly intelligent animals and like the former their creative skills are restricted. And because they are highly adapted to existing in an aquatic environment these skills are even more restricted compared to parrots or elephants. Their lack of hind limbs and extremely specialised forelimbs ensure that this is the case.
Animals at the opposite extreme to the cetaceans can be found among the insects and arachnids.. Here can be found master creative builders but their individual intelligence is very poor compared to advanced mammals and birds. Cetaceans must return to the surface to breathe but some insects manufacture an aqualung for themselves allowing them to remain underwater while breathing. The bubbles used will need to be replenished from time to time but they can take in oxygen from the surrounding water extending their usable life.
Due to our creativity in shielding ourselves from the local environmental conditions we humans can survive and remain active anywhere on the planet.
Most of the vital energy of a plant is taken up with growth. In the case of us humans the energy of growth is prominent up to the point of reaching maturity and then our vitality begins to decline. During our life as mature adults a high percentage of our metabolic energy is allocated to the seat of our creative activity, the brain. Our conscious, creative activity come at the expense of the decline of the body. To compensate for serving our organ of consciousness our plant-like vitality must decline accordingly. A continual balance must be held between ebb and flow.
The ebb and flow of life is pretty much the same thing as the struggle for survival.
The plants have the freedom to just stay where they are and bask in the sun. The animals are compelled to keep moving.
But are they free to not migrate?
It’s much broader than that. Would you say that apoptosis was concerned with the struggle for survival? Are the cells in a limb bud competing for survival?
It’s not a matter of compulsion. I am talking about freedom in the physical sense. Think of it in the same way that a moored boat in a storm might break free from its tethers.
Again I mean in the physical sense. Think of garden birds and frogs in the UK. Some of these birds feed on insects. As winter approaches and the insects become scarce in a wave from north to south the birds are able to keep pace with the wave whereas frogs are not. The birds have more freedom and the frogs are more restricted.
Yes.
You are looking at things too narrowly.
What is the point of the CharlieM post ?
Well we could discuss apoptosis in which a cell kills itself in a precisely controlled and highly regulated manner. It does this in such a way that ensures its contents are not just spilled out into the surrounding area, which, if allowed to happen, would cause damage and disruption to the tissue as a whole.
Can you justify your claim and explain in what way these cells are competing for survival? Maybe you believe some cells are also competing for self-destruction 🙂
I was hoping to stimulate sensible discussion. Already it has stimulated me into having a closer look at torpor, hibernation, migration and now apoptosis.
An interesting fact I have discovered is that the word now used for a type of programmed cell death was in general use in ancient Greece to signify the falling of petals from a plant and leaves from a tree.
Another interesting area I would like to pursue is apoptosis in amphibians. It would seem that although it features highly in amphibian metamorphosis the forelimbs develop by way of individual growth of the digits and not by apoptosis of the intermediate tissue as in reptiles and higher vertebrates.
The cycles of life and death throughout nature at all levels is a good example of the fractal nature of the living world.
If you don’t find anything of interest in whatever this thread throws up feel free to ignore it.
That’s still part of the struggle for survival of the whole organism. As I already said, you are looking at things too narrowly.
Thanks for giving me something to think about.
So individual cells sacrifice their existence to assist the organism in its struggle for survival. Parts being sacrificed for the good of the whole.
The rationale, of course, being that an individual cell’s loss ultimately benefits identical gene copies in other cells – in the germline. That’s what ‘the good of’ ultimately relates to, since the somatic organism does not last more than a single generation. Somatic cells that are not lost through apoptosis are lost instead through organismal death, so are lost either way.
Something else to think about (though from experience I hold out little hope you will) is that developmental apoptotic patterns are consistent throughout a species. How is that ensured, mechanistically?
It benefits the whole organism and ultimately life as a whole in its progress through time. There is nothing ultimate about gene copies. As part of life they never exist in isolation. What is it you think is benefitting from multiple gene copies? Why would a pattern of chemicals benefit from being copied?
Life maintains consistency by means of subsequent generations keeping the same processes going at multiple levels within each organism. From patterns of gene expression networks at the lowest level to sexual intercourse at a much higher level. The activity of cells is just one intermediate level of process. There is no obvious privileged level.
The developmental apoptotic patterns are dynamic processes. And geneticists these days are moving on from envisioning genes as being in control to considering genetic networks to be the controlling factors. As in this review
They say that currently the term “gene” is “shrouded in confusion and ambiguity”. Talking about the unit of heredity, they “feel that it is now clear that no such generic universal unit exists”, and so they propose a tentative definition of a gene as:
This definition deliberately omits genes as units of heredity.
Yawn.
The more frequently a sequence is copied relative to alternatives, the more of that sequence there is. Such sequences are more successful than alternatives. If promoting apoptosis in specific cells at specific developmental stages is the consequence of gene action, and that promotion causes the bearers of those genes to produce more offspring than those with alleles of such genes, there is clearly a ‘benefit’ to the more successful gene, and not merely to its bearer. Gene sequences survive a specific bodily instance, the rest of the organism doesn’t, so it certainly doesn’t benefit that organism over the long term. It’s gone. What’s left are its genes (wrapped, I am well aware, in a cell, so there is no need to point that mundane fact out yet again).
And how do they do that? What ensures this generational consistency? It has to be small enough to stick in a gamete. I could give you a clue …
And I should care what they think because … ?
OK, just to expand on this, I have said many, many times that ‘the gene’ in gene-centrism is not the physiological unit – the DNA ‘for’ a trait – but the evolutionary one: a haplotype. It gains its independent character through replication and recombinational slicing, not through its organismal effect, which may undoubtedly be complex and multi-layered.
Yet here you are peddling a demand for a redefinition of the physiological gene. Using The Words Of Others, yet. Perhaps I should just don my Dawkins glove-puppet and join you in a cut-paste battle, to save time.
You get bored of me saying that genes never exist in isolation and then you go on to speak about them as if they were isolated units.
Organisms that die are not just “gone”. They provide food which ensures the continuation of life at a higher level. Death ensures the success of life, or to put it another way life benefits from death. And life is not just a repetition of the same pattern over and over, it is a progression with what is to come building on what went before.
In the case of higher animals your “successful gene” would soon disappear were it not for the copulating organisms that ensured its continued existence.
Quantum physics teaches us that at the molecular level the rules of time and space that we experience at our everyday level do not apply. You talk about gametes as if they were miniature Lego bricks.
Because they might have something interesting to say about genetics.
I would be interested to read any quotes or links that you wish to provide. Just about everything I have ever learned about life has been stimulated by the words of others. And quite often it is those who we disagree with that can teach us the most.
No. I’ve already pointed out, a lot, that ‘genes never appear in isolation’ is not an effective counter to gene centrism. Gene centrism is not a stance that requires them to appear ‘naked’, and nothing I have written in the paragraphs you quote considers them in that way. Nonetheless, genes (by which I mean recombinationally-segmented haplotypes) really do increase or decrease in frequency in the population, and through recombination, they pass down the generations independently of other such linkage units. They don’t ever have to be ‘naked’ for this to happen.
Sure. Their molecules might last a year or two. Then they are ‘gone’. Where would we be without ‘gotchas’? 🤔
Cast things in vague enough terms and you can refute just about anything. Fact remains, apoptotic developmental patterns are repetitious.
And? All genes depend on others to some degree. It’s a collective endeavour.
You think an interest in the opposite sex is nothing to do with genes? Genes that maintain such interest are definitively ‘successful’. Alleles tending toward disinterest would tend to be lost; to be unsuccessful.
Bully for quantum physics. Now, back to biology …
I do?
I tend towards the view that an organism’s developmental arc is ‘determined’ (in a weak sense) by the contents of the gametes that formed its zygote (I’m aware that environment can also play a role; spare me the gotcha). That the consistencies within a population are ultimately due to genetic consistency, likewise the inconsistencies. You go to considerable lengths to evade this line of reasoning, inventing all manner of extra-genomic activity without recognising that the cellular extra-genomic activity you point to is actually genomic activity, once removed.
But then you go beyond that, to something ‘beyond the cell’, or mystically ‘within it’ but not made of matter. If there is some extra-gametic component that influences development consistently – that gives the illusion of heritability without actually being inherited – I feel the onus is on its proponent to provide some evidence.
Read The Selfish Gene and then The Extended Phenotype, then. Saves me a lot of typing.
I’m not arguing against gene centrism, I am pointing out that it is not just chemicals that are transferred from parent to offspring. There is the very important matter of molecular processes that are constant and continue through the generations.Here is a representation of DNA replication.
At least ten proteins are involved in DNA replication. Here is a short description of the most important ones for those who may be less familiar with this highly regulated process that is ubiquitous to life. DNA helicase is required to open up the double helix to expose the single strands. Single strand binding protein prepares the DNA for replication. A sliding ring holds the DNA polymerase onto the DNA strand. An erasable RNA primer, which is manufactured by DNA primase, prepares the fragment of lagging strand to be copied. Accuracy is vital to replication and so the system has proofreading built in. The DNA polymerase can recognise a mistake, back up to repair it and then continue in the normal direction. This results in an accuracy which produces only about one mistake per billion bases copied. Of course this is only one aspect of the process of cell division. Processes that are going on continuously countless times in our bodies as we speak.
Gone where? Nature is not wasteful and always has a ready supply of materials waiting to be used. Something to think about; in that video clip of DNA replication where do the nucleotides that are added to the strands come from?
Including the dynamic patterns of process.
Exactly. A collective endeavour involving all levels and complex systems of feedback loops between proteins and nucleotides. This is a major difference between life and machines. Unlike machines, life does not operate by the simple rules of cause and effect.
Of course genes are involved but they are not primary in some imagined causal chain.
Below is a screenshot from the linked video which I have anthropomorphised just for fun 🙂
You think that anyone researching molecular biology can ignore quantum physics? This is precisely the level at which quantum effects must be considered.
Do you believe that your thoughts and feelings are nothing more than genes at work? And don’t forget, genomic activity involves more than the genes. The process of DNA replication is much more consistent throughout life than any single gene.
There is nothing mystical beyond or within the cell. Think about what gets passed on from parent to offspring. It is a cell with all its material plus, of equal, if not even more importance, the cellular activity. Each new life is dynamic right from the very beginning.
Been there! Do you have anything else?
Steiner
The Darwins
From The ‘root-brain’ hypothesis of Charles and Francis Darwin: Revival after more than 125 years
Researchers have claimed that:
These observations demonstrate a polarity and indicate a connection between plants and higher animals.
There is no escaping the fact that plants are intelligent beings even if that intelligence is rooted in the earth. Intelligence exists at the level of cells, of organs, of organisms, of populations, and of life as a whole. Life is driven by its innate intelligence.
There are many examples of the innate intelligence of plants. A germinating seed lying on the ground has to overcome Newton’s third law. In trying to force its way into the earth the growing root would end up just raising the seed above the surface were it not for the fact that the seed first anchors itself to the earth using root hairs. This gives it enough purchase to penetrate the earth.
In ‘The Power of Movement in Plants’ Darwin wrote:
In the tropics epiphytic plants which grow on trees, have an even harder challenge of anchoring themselves firmly onto the tree in order for them to have any chance of developing further.
One type of orchid has a clever way of achieving this:
Spiralling its way to success.
I was going to say more in my reply to Allan here,but I know Nonlin has been worried about the thread being cluttered with off-topic discussions which, I admit I’ve had a hand in. So I’ll continue below some further comments I was going to make.
Much of what I write below has been inspired by Steiner’s lecture, ‘Probability and Chance, Fritz Mauthner’s Studies of Improbability’, from a series of lectures, Chance, Necessity and Providence. The lecture in written form can be found here and in audio can be found here But these are my interpretations and so any errors of thought are mine alone.
Every organism is formed through a balance of inner formative forces and outer formative forces. It is only the outer formative forces that can have mechanistic causes but the limits of these forces are governed by the inner formative forces. These inner formative forces have mechanistic aspects but primary causes do not stem from mechanical forces.
A good example of external causation is demonstrated by the domestication of dogs. By breeding dogs for specific tasks humans are acting as external forces shaping how dogs have evolved. But due to the inner formative forces dogs will always be recognisable as dogs and no external influences can transcend the limits set down by the inner formative forces.
Dog breeding is a good example of external formative processes involved in intelligent creativity. Humans are responsible for the creation of poodles, terriers and the rest from the more general canine form. As creators humans did not know about the genes involved, nor did they need to.
When Douglas Adams wrote ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide…’ it wasn’t necessary for him to pick out every letter that made up the book and arrange them in the correct order. He formed the story in his mind and the letters automatically fell into place. That is the way that creative intelligence works.
Creative intelligence works from the whole to the parts and not from the parts to the whole.
In Steiner’s ‘Light Course’ given in 1919. He talks about mechanics in relation to the living and the non-living world. Mechanics,with its pointwise forces, is perfectly apt for the non-living world, but in order to get a better understanding of the living world peripheral forces must be taken into account. The effects of these pointwise forces cannot be measured in the way that pointwise forces are.
From the first lecture:
The creative, living peripheral forces are integral to all living beings. In the case of machines they have quasi-living forces within them but the creativity is external to them. It comes from the minds of their human inventors.
I’ve provided just one portion of Steiner’s lecture. A better understanding would require a full reading, but I know for many here even reading the excerpt is too much to ask. But it is there if anyone does want to read it.