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From: Archimedes Plutonium on 1 Aug 2010 13:21


Archimedes Plutonium wrote:

>
> I am comfortable with having well-defined, precision defined finite-
> number versus
> infinite-number and how this amply corrects mathematics and makes the
> old-math
> obsolete. It will be some time before others catch up and accept these
> ideas.
>
> So let me move on and what better place than to well define, precision
> define a much
> tougher concept. And this concept has never really been given a
> acceptable definition
> for we see strife within biology as to whether viruses are living or
> nonliving. So the concept
> of life versus nonlife is what I am aiming at for the moment. Whether
> I achieve any sort
> of progress or success will remain to be seen. I always go into these
> projects with a gloomy
> success forecast, but seem to always emerge with some sort of victory.
>
> Let me see if I can precision define Life versus NonLife. What gives
> me some advantage
> over all past such projects is that I have the Atom Totality theory
> with the latest in
> quantum-mechanics.
>
> Let me just dive into the middle of the problem.
>
> Imagine three reproduction chambers as three separate experiments. In
> one chamber is
> of course one celled living creatures and multicelled creatures
> reproducing to make more
> new life. In the second chamber is atoms of physics that are bombarded
> with energy and also
> chemical solutions in vats where chemicals are added and reactions
> take place. In the third chamber are all sorts of computers and
> artists drawing fractals, making small fractals larger or some making
> small fractals even smaller and all sorts of different shaped
> fractals.
>
> Now the reason I have these three chambers is to refer to them to
> guide me on as to whether
> I am making a precision definition of Live vs. Nonlife.
>
> Now if my memory is correct, the very best that the biology community
> can come up with on
> a precision definition of Life vs. Nonlife is that it embodies four
> main aspects:
> (a) is a closed geometrical shaped object
> (b) takes in energy from outside of its body
> (c) reproduces itself
> (d) has motion
>
> Now it would be nice if there was only one distinction between life
> and nonlife rather than
> requiring four distinctions that separates whether something is alive
> or nonliving.
>
> Now let me briefly check how much a fractal from the fractal chamber
> follows those four
> requirements: It surely is a closed geometrical shaped object because
> the artist when finishing one fractal moves to the same one that is
> larger or smaller version of itself. It surely takes in energy from
> the environment as the artist or computer is required to draw the next
> fractal. But fails for self reproduction because it needs the artist
> or computer aids and also
> has no motion.
>
> Now the atom chamber or chemical mixing chamber fails at reproducing
> itself. But fails by
> not very much of a failing. I mean that we can construe a experiment
> where we have
> hydrogen atoms bombarded with some energy and for which some of that
> energy converts
> into more hydrogen atoms so we have an increase in hydrogen atoms
> overall, due to the
> energy bombardment from the outside. So in a sense, a real sense, it
> is going to be extremely
> difficult to say those hydrogen atoms are nonliving.
>
> Now there is one idea that may help at this juncture. A feature about
> life that is very difficult to
> realize in any sort of nonliving system. I speak of the idea that all
> life on Earth was like a baton carried back through time of a
> continuous path of living creatures in order for each and every one of
> us to be alive today. Let me call it a chain of continuity of life.
> Where I can trace back my cells that only stops when I reach some
> ancient primitive first cells on Earth.
>
> This chain of continuity cannot be existing in the fractal chamber.
> Can this chain of continuity
> be somehow existing in the atom or chemical chamber? Now if the atom
> chamber had elements of bismuth, and all those bismuth atoms were
> built step by step adding protons to initial hydrogen atoms, and if we
> take one bismuth atom we can make a chain of continuity of each of
> those 83 protons having so to speak ancestors of an aufbau principle
> buildup, much like each one of us can trace our history back to the
> first living organisms on Earth.
>
> But the chain of continuity is choppy in the atom chamber. The chain
> of continuity is very much continuous in the life-chamber. And this is
> where, also, we finally iron out the question of viruses. Because in
> the Chain of Continuity of life, as we go back in time we also
> encounter the first virus of a specific virus and thus viruses are
> part and parcel of that same
> chain of continuity. Thus, viruses are alive.
>
> Not bad progress for the first stab attempt. I feel that the essential
> ingredient of whether something is alive or not-alive is that it is a
> member of a Chain of Continuity. But the distinction is not a very
> sharp distinction over atoms bombarded with energy.
>
> What I am doing is fishing for the key defining concept. It looks as
> though the idea of
> continuity is essential, and a long history or long chain of
> continuity. Because one can say that starting with a single hydrogen
> atom and bombarding it with energy so that it grows into
> become a bismuth atom in the end, that one can say it was a chain of
> continuity. But a difference here with life is that when I place
> another bismuth atom alongside the "grown bismuth atom" that they have
> no past history in common. Whereas if I put a person alongside
> a sea anemone, that if I go back far enough in past history they are
> ancestors of one another and are thus linked. It is called a web of
> life. So maybe the important key concept that distinguishes living
> from nonliving, is that if you go back far enough in time the living
> is still
> linked to other bodies but the nonliving had been severed of any
> links.
>
> Now of course, in the Atom Totality, the above would be in trouble
> because the present day Plutonium Atom Totality has links all the way
> back to the beginning whether it is 14 billion years ago or 200
> billion years ago as each Atom Totality was created by a former Atom
> Totality. So this precision definition already is far more difficult
> than anyone could first imagine. So are we to say that life is not
> confined to biology but that physical objects such as
> atoms are living entities? It may just well turn out that living is a
> duality to nonliving and so we
> can never have a precision definition but only state that living is
> dual to nonliving.
>

Now I could not help but notice from the above that I could use my
recent
understanding of a precision definition of finite-number versus
infinite-number
in that it requires a boundary point. A boundary such as 10^500 in
order to have
a precision definition. So the question here, becomes, in order to
have a precision
definition of living versus nonliving, is there some boundary point
that needs to be
included?

Say for instance, all living bodies in the Cosmos have to be no
smaller than a virus
and no larger than the largest organism ever lived? I suppose that is
some tree.

And this in itself raises a fascinating question of what is the median
or "average"
size if the extremes of life are a virus and a large tree? And then,
is there a corresponding
analog in physics of this median size? How about the size of galaxies,
does it follow
this median for virus versus tree. I suppose fractal researchers can
add to this question.

A pinpointing of a boundary of size for biology would disclude the
Atom Totality as living and as a topic for biology.

But the above also raises the reverse question of whether finite is
the duality of infinity and
that they can never be precisely defined. But that sort of answers
itself since by
saying 10^500 is infinity, we have precisely defined infinity and thus
the finite versus
infinite is not a duality relationship.

Archimedes Plutonium
http://www.iw.net/~a_plutonium/
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies
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