25 replies to this topic

[caston]

I'm currently reading Power, sex, suicide : Mitochondria and the meaning of life as well as Oxygen: the molecule that made the world both by Nick Lane.

They are both damn interesting. P,S,S, It's about endosymbiosis and the formation of the individual. Although I probably just go looking for books that support my ideas it seems to fit with my view that our personalities' are patterns formed by the colonies of Mitochondria. It even presents a theory that the mechanisms for apitosis ( cell death) were originally sex mechanisms of mitochondria which have been adapted to ensure the "Stalinist" (as he calls it) state of the body maintains the individuals survival against cancer or cells that rebel against the individual.

Did you know that some women even have Y chromosomes? It's all the in book.

Oxygen is about the oxygen catastrophe and how it made the rule of the Mitochondria (and thus multi-cellular life) possible and why we all depend on a deadly toxin (O2) for our survival.

[maestro949]

The intricate web of life is pretty amazing with all of the various symbiotic interdependencies. I'll be amazed if we don't destroy a good portion of the higher forms of life on the planet with all of our meddling. A few key links here and there that we inadvertently remove and entire ecosystems can collapse which then ripple through other interconnected ecosystems. I guess we'll see how fast evolution really is as we increasingly muck up more of the various gene pools.

[caston]

maestro: I think that the more toxins that get released just speed up evolution. Oxygen is the ultimate pollutant (in terms of the overall damage to DNA and the extinguishment of simple unageing organisms) yet its production enabled the evolution of complex life. The energy from the sun required for chemical reactions is what creates the basic blocks of life that constantly builds on each other and release toxic waste products that future organisms evolve that can use them for sustenance, fermentation and respiration. Life is also evolving on the colder planets and moons of our solar system by won't reach any kind of detectable complexity until the sun expands to provide them with enough energy to terraform their planet.
So in light of any human led destruction of the environment we will see many new forms of life evolve that flourish in the effluent of our cities. We are already seeing this.


I was reading the chapter on gender and it sorts of answers the question on adams curse. Sure the Y chromosome in danger because no mitochondria wants to be inside a male and will attack the Y chromosome at every opportunity but the males that go on to survive and become one of the 1 in 9 of those that actually becomes fathers pass on some very advanced and (in some cases completely by chance) defence mechanisms.

The male is constantly being threatened with extinction yet there is such a demand for it that any random mutations that happen to fit the bill of successful male (even just by sheer luck) get passed on to future generations.

There is a constant battle within and by passing on your genes you win.

Edited by caston, 04 July 2007 - 11:12 AM.

[maestro949]

maestro: I think that the more toxins that get released just speed up evolution.

Not on timescales we're interested in and perhaps for microorganisms and smaller species but mammals higher up in the food chain are showing difficulty in adapting to the disruption to their food supplies. It's much more than toxins too. Habitat conversion is destroying the micro climates for many species thus disrupting the biodiversity which in turn has a ripple affect through neighboring systems. Decline in genetic diversity is very bad for evolution. If this were a temporary hit to the global gene pool I wouldn't worry about it as life is amazingly resilient but it takes thousands of years (perhaps millions) to restabilize so the sooner we can lessen our impact on nature, the better we'll be in the long-run.

[caston]

Yes, but the globalisation and digitalisation of the world is increasing the speed at which genetic code is exchanged. Not only just by world travel and import/export operations this will excellerate to the point where genetic information overtakes even music and movies in sheer volume of internet traffic. Evolution like any system has bottlenecks and those bottlenecks are being removed with the increased use of energy. There is no fundamental law that evolution will always be slow.

The "natural" habitats and other mammals are being superseded by systems of commerce or biosystems that are operated for the purpose of trade. The ancient biosystems are no match for the modern global biosystem driven by market forces which evolved from these lesser biosystems.

Edited by caston, 04 July 2007 - 12:06 PM.

[maestro949]

Is it in our best interest though to accelerate evolution by putting the gene pool in a blender? Can the human race even survive such turmoil with our current slow rate of reproduction, lengthening lifespans and lack of control over our own genetic code and function? Certainly we will overcome this ignorance in the coming centuries but we're at the "know enough to be dangerous" state in regards to managing evolution, especially our own species role in the process. I suspect our future descendants will not be pleased with our recklessness in disrupting the cycle of life.

Edited by maestro949, 04 July 2007 - 12:49 PM.

[caston]

maestro: But have future descendants we will and they wouldn't be there to grumble about the past if they had an alternate history.

I don't view what is happening as unnatural. I bet it has happened billions of time before in the universe and will happen billions of times again.
I view it as a increasingly complexity of interwoven nuclear and chemical reactions made possible and accelerated by the energy of the sun.

[maestro949]

The "natural" habitats and other mammals are being superseded by systems of commerce  or biosystems that are operated for the purpose of trade.

Indeed. Trade itself is emerging into a lifeform in itself. We increasingly feed it every conceivable resource and piece of knowledge. Have we already turned over control to this new entity? For it's evolving into an autonomous decentralized network of networks that nobody truly controls. It will increasingly become more intelligent as we wire more processing power decision making and learning agents into it. From this will emerge what some refer to as the singularity as it will, as a whole, contain all human knowledge, numerous interconnected processing centers and continuously demand more efficiency wherever possible. Sounds like a giant brain and living organism to me. The question is, do we control it, or it us?

Edited by maestro949, 04 July 2007 - 12:35 PM.

[maestro949]

maestro: But have future descendants we will and they wouldn't be there to grumble about the past if they had an alternate history.

I don't view what is happening as unnatural. I bet it has  happened billions of time before in the universe and will happen billions of times again.
I view it as a increasingly complexity of interwoven nuclear and chemical reactions made possible and accelerated by the energy of the sun.

I don't doubt that much of the unfolding is perfectly natural but if we truly have free will and the ability to collectively engineer our future then we should try and preserve as much biodiversity as we can. I see the biodiversity as a toolbox from which we can pluck out the fantastic nanotechnological creations that evolution has devised in the form of proteins. Surely we will be able to synthetically regenerate and reevolve them but it will take centuries or millennium to do so. The very nearterm generations of humanity will need to rely on evolutionary based machinery as our nanotech models.

[caston]

Realistically the only way to preserve this genetic information is to store it electronically and make a lot of distributed back up copies. I would even suggest we colonise space using an electronic Noah's ark.

[maestro949]

But we don't have the means nor capacity to do so yet. Other than a few modest efforts to sequence species DNA and cryopreserve species eggs that are on the verge of extinction, little is happening. This treasure trove of functional components is being lost at a rate of about 250 species per month. Evolution doesn't replace these at this rate and as we teraform the planet into tapestry of replicant cities and suburbs, there will be little evolutionary pressure for species to branch. i.e. the remaining biodiversity will be a fairly shallow pool of genes.

[caston]

The real question is are we losing genetic information with (even if potential and unrealised) commercial value?

The same thing could be said of our research efforts. A lot of important knowledge exists in the brains of our elderly and has been lost in the passing of previous generations yet we ignore our seniors while we spend billions and decades on research labs.

Does the knowledge of our ageing population have (even if potential and unrealised) commercial value?

[maestro949]

The real question is are we losing genetic information with (even if potential and unrealised) commercial value?

I would argue that all complex forms of information have potential value - especially those that can carry out function at the nanoscale. Life forms being the most complex of functional information storage and processing systems that we have yet to find, we should try and preserve it to extract as much utility as we possibly can.

The same thing could be said of our research efforts. A lot of important knowledge exists in the brains of our elderly and has been lost in the passing of previous generations yet we ignore our seniors while we spend billions and decades on research labs.

Does the knowledge of our ageing population have (even if potential and unrealised) commercial value?

In their current form I would argue that the value is unfortunately limited and declining. What is truly lost is the synergy of their efforts and imaginative approach to tackling distinct challenges at the forefront of the scientific event horizon. But this isn't due to their death but rather the cognitive decline that sets in around age 35. If we could delay or prevent this decline and lengthen lifespan we could possibly accelerate humanity's evolution. Imagine the genius minds of Einstein, Ramanujan, Riemann, Tesla, Turing, etc. having decades or centuries to work out their ideas at peak ability all the while more people joining them.

[caston]

If they were alive today do you think they would be working on RLE?

[maestro949]

Not specifically. While it may be difficult to predict, just about any advancements in lower level physics, mathematics, computational theory etc. has the potential to propagate value to tools used for working with the complexity of biological function.

[Lazarus Long]

Einstein died unreasonably young given that within five years of his death, the burst aorta that caused it was one of the first reliably treatable cardiac conditions from surgery that is today routine.

Turin's contributions to the development of advanced computational language, which theoretically could have come about from his interactivity in today's world should not be underestimated.

However there is a downside to consider, what if the presence of these minds, in the power of their greatness also stifled developments by causing stagnation through the unwillingness to challenge them?

You might consider this a sort of additional Rutherford or Edison Effect. While these minds were invaluable in their contributions some of their efforts also contributed to slowing down progress because of their egos and their willingness to stifle opposing views or competition. Tesla for example being one of Edison's victims.

[Lazarus Long]

BTW another negative effect to the presence of genius is the cult of personality that often surrounds them after success and can contribute to stifling progress.

This cult of personality not only causes fewer ideas to be developed unless in accord (or by contrast in revolt opposing antithetically) it can have the effect of reducing the ability of those around them to think for themselves as many become sycophants seeking social and professional success by latching on like intellectual parasites, not making waves by created novel ideas and just seeking to add weight to already existing theory sometimes even suppressing conflicting test results for academic or financial reasons.

BTW I apologize for these off topic comments but your somewhat deviating train of thought caught my attention.

[maestro949]

It's a good point LL. There's the addage that science advances one death at a time. However real genius (or perhaps madness) recognizes this and drives forward regardless. Also, with lengthened lives where cognition is holding steady or even improving more and more people would continuously be able to challenge the lone egoists.

Today the notion of wise elders is a bit of a misnomer as declining mental ability is constantly robbing us of the experts. Surely all of our most advanced scientific wisdom is packed tightly away in scientific journals but few minds are capable of processing these without many years of study. Bringing new generations up to speed in these fields is taking longer and longer as the scientific horizons are pushed further and further into mathematical obscurity. Even the tools to work out at the edges are increasingly becoming more difficult to develop and use.

It may get to a point where only longer lives for the genius class of scientists and mathematicians allows us to advance science in the theoretical realm as bringing new people to the forefront of their fields exceeds the the limitations of the window of learning ability required to get there.

[Lazarus Long]

Developing cognition is telescoping behaviorally when seen in respect to life expectancy but the stages are tending to remain structurally sequenced in roughly the same manner and proportion.


The cliche goes: "yesterday's 18 is today's 30."

I think as life expectancy is radically extended the general social trends will remain the same but the ages these trends occur will become proportionally protracted, however that is with one important caveat, artificially enhanced intelligence is going to radically alter the impact of individual intelligence.

The ability to upload data, extend and augment human memory, access vastly improved processing power both externally in the form of computer assistance and internally in the form of supplemental personal processing ability for human cognitive processing, AND THEN combined with the ability to network in real time globally (socially) with other minds operating on the same plane, addressing the same issues, will provide for a qualitatively different and radically more powerful stage of human development.

We are already seeing some of these trends impact technological development in the most nascent forms.

(edited grammar)

Edited by Lazarus Long, 05 July 2007 - 03:40 PM.

[caston]

Anyone interested in more discussion about the book?

[Lazarus Long]

Anyone interested in more discussion about the book?

I apologized once and I will again. You are correct to chastise us for going off topic.

If you want we can strip this side topic off into its own thread.

[caston]

No I was by far the biggest offender. I've become very interested in mitochondria that's why I went out and bought a book that puts forward a theory that mitochondria are the "clandestine rulers of our world".

Of course now the way I look at a woman is different. I now can win her admiration by impressing her mitochondria.

But I have so many more questions. If I give blood does my mitochondria survive the transfusion and if so what happens to it when inside the recipients body?

[maestro949]

Yeah, sorry for the tangents. I was going to split this until you said no.

btw, red blood cells don't have mitos.

[caston]

damn that is interesting. Thanks for answering my question maestro:

http://pimm.wordpres...ed-blood-cells/

http://en.wikipedia..../Red_blood_cell

[maestro949]

No problem. I'm fascinated with blood lately. All of the proteins and protein parts provide an enormous amount of value in regards to what organs and cells are doing. When analyzed in conjunction with other easily accessed biostuff (urine, hair, skinflakes, saliva) the rate of aging should be something we can detect (not to mention the other gazillion early detection attributes). This is an interesting read. Is blood the new oil? Interesting analogy.

[lunarsolarpower]

There is a constant battle within and by passing on your genes you win.

Some would say your genes win. Selfish little buggers anyways...