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Author Topic:   Does Death Pose Challenge To Abiogenesis
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(1)
Message 41 of 191 (533170)
10-29-2009 6:08 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by Cedre
10-29-2009 5:47 AM


Can you show me bacteria that's been around from the beginning, if they don't die we should have bacteria that are millions of years old according evolutionary timescales.
As long as conditions are right, bacteria will grow and then divide once they reach a certain size. Once one bacteria has divided into two, are these two new bacteria; or are both or one the same as the original bacteria? If the latter, then every bacteria, and every other living cell, is thousands of millions of years old. All living cells arose from division of a previous living cell, and so each traces a continual existence since the earliest beginnings of life without ever dying.
When conditions aren't right for cell growth and division, one of two things can happen. If something in the environment irreperably damages the cell, then it will die - as its parts are no longer connected in the correct way for life to be maintained. In the right conditions though, growth will stop but the cell will not die, and will happily go back to growing and reproducing once conditions are right again - even if this is millions of years later.
It's not a bacteria, but here's an example of an even more complex organism, eukaryotic yeast cells, which were revived after 45 million years and then used to make beer! These cells had been lying dormant for a long time, but because nothing irreparably disrupted the organisation of the cell, they can still get on with things when conditions are right.
The same research team* has gotten even more impressive results with dormant bacteria, claiming to have revived strains which have lain dormant for up to 250 million years.
There really are bacteria millions of years old, whichever way you look at it.
*ABE - sorry, I misread. It wasn't the same research team, it was another from West Chester University.
Edited by caffeine, : typo
Edited by caffeine, : ABE footnote

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 Message 40 by Cedre, posted 10-29-2009 5:47 AM Cedre has not replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 93 of 191 (533321)
10-30-2009 5:45 AM
Reply to: Message 88 by Cedre
10-30-2009 3:00 AM


Brains are important
quote:
I have shown you that this destruction doesn't happen as fast as you're proposing, it's a process taking place in stages; the earliest cells to undergo deterioration are brain cells "Brain cells can die if deprived of oxygen for more than three minutes." http://www.deathonline.net/...hanges/heart_stops.htm,however despite damage to the brain life can carry on, in fact this is what is seen in victims of brain damage, which is the total necrosis of the cerebral neurons following loss of blood flow and oxygenation in line with Wikipedia. Conversely, muscle cells live on for several hours meaning that heart is still intact for several hours following death even at the cellular level. Bone and skin cells can stay alive for several days as well. A great deal of cell deterioration doesn't happen right after death as Wikipedia here says,"The process of tissue breakdown may take from several days up to years" Not Found, for this reason I said a couple of times already that a dead body and a living one are not all that different from each other.
As you point out here, brain cells are amongst the first to die when starved of oxygen, and the brain is a pretty vital and central part of the effective functioning of a human body. I'm not sure of what significance it's supposed to be if skin cells are still puttering along a day or two after death - skin and bone cells do not a coherent, functioning organism make.

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 127 of 191 (533371)
10-30-2009 12:36 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by Cedre
10-30-2009 9:53 AM


Which all just goes to show that life and death are not the absolute categorie you'd like them to be so you can talk about the prescence or absence of 'spirit'. What's being demonstrated by brain-dead people on lifem support is that we can keep the metabolism of many of the body's cells going by using artificial means to keep them supplied with oxygen and nutrients, even when the brain is irreprably damaged and the body is incapable of doing this by itself.
If we turned off the machines, the body would stop working. How is this a sign of a spirit? It suggests the obvious explanation that the machines maintaining function are what is preventing these cells from dying. The brain cells, meanwhile, are still dead. Why doesn't the spirit magic them back into action, if it's there in the body?
And regarding the bacteria and yeast lying dormant in the examples I mentioned in message 40, why did the spirit animating them bugger off for millions of years and return only when scientists intervened to revive the cells?

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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 179 of 191 (533828)
11-03-2009 5:33 AM
Reply to: Message 178 by Cedre
11-03-2009 5:12 AM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
You know, aside from missing the point, your repeated insistence that cars need drivers isn't even true. With modern computer technology we do have cars that drive all by themselves. Here's Junior, an autonomous Volkswagen Passat, getting ready to take part in the DARPA urban challenge a couple of years ago. The DARPA Urban Challenge is a race run entirely by driverless cars, instituted to encourage innovation in the design and construction of cars that drive themselves.
And there's an even better example of emergent properties for you. No magical or mysterious force is required for the arrangement of materials in a computer to accomplish astonishing feats - emergent properties that certainly aren't present in any of the components unless there are arranged in the correct way.

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