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Author Topic:   Life - an Unequivicol Definition
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 271 of 374 (773951)
12-11-2015 11:13 AM
Reply to: Message 270 by AlphaOmegakid
12-11-2015 11:03 AM


Re: Black White or Grey?
I have been trying to show you the contradiction over and over again, but you just can't comprehend it. The problem is, because you chose the words, "living " for one end and "non-living" for the other then there is no logical word for what is in the grey area because you chose two mutually exclusive words on each end.
Applying words to the endpoints does not exclude the possibility that those same words to the middle portions of the spectrum. This argument is laughable. Small wonder Percy cannot 'comprehend it'.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 270 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-11-2015 11:03 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
ringo
Member (Idle past 412 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(3)
Message 272 of 374 (773953)
12-11-2015 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 270 by AlphaOmegakid
12-11-2015 11:03 AM


Re: Black White or Grey?
AlphaOmegakid writes:
Of course I put them together specifically to show you that your prior arguments were nonsensical.
Since nobody agrees with you, you don't seem to have "shown" anything. When you're right and everybody else is wrong, it may be time to try a different approach in your explanation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 270 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-11-2015 11:03 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 273 of 374 (773955)
12-11-2015 11:41 AM
Reply to: Message 270 by AlphaOmegakid
12-11-2015 11:03 AM


Re: Black White or Grey?
Of course I put them together specifically to show you that your prior arguments were nonsensical.
You seem unable to recognize your own nonsense.
There are continuums between extremes everywhere. Living/non-living, harbor/ocean, foothills/mountains, rich/poor, and on and on. You can legitimately prefer other perspectives rather than continuums, but you cannot say they make no sense or are contradictory. Continuums are an incredibly common way of looking at a wide variety of things.
Even whether a person is living or dead is a continuum. Is a person dead when they stop breathing? When their heart stops? When they're brain dead? When their cells are dead?
If you choose brain death, how much of the brain must be dead before the person is considered dead?
If you choose cell death, what percentage of cells must be dead before the person is considered dead? Does it matter which cells in the body are dead?
You can choose hard and fast definitions for living and dead, but they would remain just your opinions. There are a variety of opinions out there, and so fixing on any particular definition would be arbitrary. There is a gray area between living and dead where we can't be sure.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Typo.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 270 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-11-2015 11:03 AM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-11-2015 5:23 PM Percy has replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 274 of 374 (773982)
12-11-2015 5:23 PM
Reply to: Message 273 by Percy
12-11-2015 11:41 AM


The horse is just about dead!
Percy writes:
Even whether a person is living or dead is a continuum. Is a person dead when they stop breathing? When their heart stops? When they're brain dead? When their cells are dead?
If you choose brain death, how much of the brain must be dead before the person is considered dead?
If you choose cell death, what percentage of cells must be dead before the person is considered dead? Does it matter which cells in the body are dead?
You can choose hard and fast definitions for living and dead, but they would remain just your opinions. There are a variety of opinions out there, and so fixing on any particular definition would be arbitrary. There is a gray area between living and dead where we can't be sure.
Percy, your brain cells are just about to recognize the problem whether you want them to or not!. Yes my friend, you can and do have a continuum between life and death. It was me that used that example almost eons ago now and in my last post. Yes! Yes!, we agree on something!
And I agree that there is a continuum between harbor/ocean, foothills/mountains, rich/poor, and on and on! Even life/chemicals. Oh mercy, we are almost best buddies now!
But here's the rub! You can't have a continuum between harbor/non-harbor, ocean/non-ocean, rich/non-rich, poor/non-poor, foothills/non-foothills, and mountains/non-mountains. Do you see now how nonsensical these all are! And the same applies to living/non-living.
Did that sink in? Or is it still blowing by?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 273 by Percy, posted 12-11-2015 11:41 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 275 by Percy, posted 12-11-2015 6:24 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied
 Message 276 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-11-2015 7:42 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied
 Message 277 by herebedragons, posted 12-11-2015 10:15 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 275 of 374 (773983)
12-11-2015 6:24 PM
Reply to: Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid
12-11-2015 5:23 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
AlphaOmegakid writes:
But here's the rub! You can't have a continuum between harbor/non-harbor, ocean/non-ocean, rich/non-rich, poor/non-poor, foothills/non-foothills, and mountains/non-mountains. Do you see now how nonsensical these all are! And the same applies to living/non-living.
All of these make perfect sense in their particular context. If the context is bodies of water, then harbor/non-harbor and ocean/non-ocean make perfect sense. If the context is wealth, then rich/non-rich and poor/non-poor also make perfect sense. If the context is geography or geology then foothills/non-foothills and mountains/non-mountains make perfect sense. And if the context is life then living/non-living makes perfect sense.
Apparently to you living/non-living and life/chemicals are distinctly different opposites. I don't mind using the term life/chemicals, if that's what it takes to help the discussion move forward, but I don't agree with you that living/non-living is a completely different beast, and I don't think anyone else does, either.
Your earlier objections had a completely different basis, nonsensically mixing "obvious" and "arbitrary" in ways that no one else had, and insisting that your nonsensical statements were identical in meaning with other people's when they were clearly not.
So using your terminology, a dog is an obvious example of life, and a block of lead is an obvious example of chemicals (in this case a single element), and there is a continuum between life and chemicals where there is no clear boundary between the two. This doesn't feel as clear to me as when expressed using the terms living and non-living, but there you go.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-11-2015 5:23 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 292 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-15-2015 11:17 AM Percy has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 276 of 374 (773985)
12-11-2015 7:42 PM
Reply to: Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid
12-11-2015 5:23 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
You can't have a continuum between harbor/non-harbor, ocean/non-ocean, rich/non-rich, poor/non-poor, foothills/non-foothills, and mountains/non-mountains.
Yes, you can.
I can point to one side and say "white", and I can point to the other side and say "black", and then I can admit that I don't know where white ends nor where black begins.
There is nothing wrong with that.
It is not a problem for biology.
And it doesn't count as equivocation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-11-2015 5:23 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 278 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 1:20 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
herebedragons
Member (Idle past 857 days)
Posts: 1517
From: Michigan
Joined: 11-22-2009


(1)
Message 277 of 374 (773987)
12-11-2015 10:15 PM
Reply to: Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid
12-11-2015 5:23 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
But here's the rub! You can't have a continuum between harbor/non-harbor, ocean/non-ocean,
So which category does the open ocean fit into? "harbor" or "non-harbor"? Non-harbor. And you already agreed that there is a continuum between harbor and ocean, which in this case ocean is "non-harbor," so there is a continuum between harbor and "non-harbor."
What category does fresh water river fit into, "ocean" or "non-ocean"? "Non-ocean" and so we can have a continuum between ocean and non ocean
And so on...
You are simply engaging in some weird kind of word-play. Who uses terms like "non-harbor" and "non-ocean" anyway???
Here's the really funny thing, this line of reasoning does nothing to help your actual argument. What you are really arguing is that abiogenesis cannot of happened because life does not come from non-life. Now, let's consider your line of reasoning in that context.
Let's say we identify 7 characteristics that make something unambiguously alive. Then we identify various entities that have some, but not all of those characteristics. Then we line those entities up in order and hypothesize that this is the progression from non-life to life. So the progress looks like the list below where the numbers represent the number of characteristics that each entity has.
0 --> 1 --> 2 --> 3 --> 4 --> 5 --> 6 --> 7
Now your position, which you have painstakingly developed a "unambiguous definition" for, is that only if it has all 7 characteristics, is it alive; or in other words, the line between living and non-living is between the 6 and the 7.
However, maybe I draw the line between 5 and 6. And someone else draws the line between 3 and 4 and yet another person thinks the line is between 0 and 1 (so even 1 of the seven characteristics is enough to call it alive).
First of all, what makes any of the above positions better than the others?
And secondly, what difference does it make? You still have the progression. At some point in that line, where ever you draw the line, you have non-life going to life.
As entertaining as it may be, I don't think this line of argument can accomplish what you think it will.
Did that sink in? Or is it still blowing by?
Just because we don't agree with your premise doesn't mean we don't get it, it just means we think it is wrong. You are the one who doesn't seem to "get it" - even a simple concept like a continuum. Your "unambiguous definition" is just too simplistic and too stringent and doesn't address the complexities of life. And besides, it doesn't really make a difference to your central argument.
HBD

Whoever calls me ignorant shares my own opinion. Sorrowfully and tacitly I recognize my ignorance, when I consider how much I lack of what my mind in its craving for knowledge is sighing for... I console myself with the consideration that this belongs to our common nature. - Francesco Petrarca
"Nothing is easier than to persuade people who want to be persuaded and already believe." - another Petrarca gem.
Ignorance is a most formidable opponent rivaled only by arrogance; but when the two join forces, one is all but invincible.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-11-2015 5:23 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 278 of 374 (774033)
12-12-2015 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 276 by New Cat's Eye
12-11-2015 7:42 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
Cat Sci writes:
I can point to one side and say "white", and I can point to the other side and say "black", and then I can admit that I don't know where white ends nor where black begins.
There is nothing wrong with that.
Well I would say there is something tragically wrong with that. You just contradicted yourself in one sentence and you cannot realize it after all these posts.
It is not a problem for biology.
That's clear, and that is what is tragically wrong with Biology
And it doesn't count as equivocation.
Correct, this isn't equivocation. It is contradiction. That's worse than equivocation.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 276 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-11-2015 7:42 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 279 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-12-2015 1:40 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 279 of 374 (774037)
12-12-2015 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 278 by AlphaOmegakid
12-12-2015 1:20 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
Well I would say there is something tragically wrong with that.
You are fatally failing to understand what a continuum is.
The whole point of it is being able to say that one thing changes into another without being able to point to where that change takes place.
You just contradicted yourself in one sentence and you cannot realize it after all these posts.
There is no contradiction at all. And you're unable to show one.
You are completely and utterly wrong about what a continuum is, and this is causing you to miss a very important part about how defining life in a strict manner is unimportant to biology.
Life is a continuum from chemical process to biological process to cultural processes.
That's an issue that your whole approach to defining is failing to account for, or well, even notice.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 278 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 1:20 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 280 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 2:45 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 280 of 374 (774057)
12-12-2015 2:45 PM
Reply to: Message 279 by New Cat's Eye
12-12-2015 1:40 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
Cat Sci writes:
You are fatally failing to understand what a continuum is.
The whole point of it is being able to say that one thing changes into another without being able to point to where that change takes place.
This is just as contradictory. Think about it for a moment. You just said one thing is changing into another thing. Then you said you can't tell where that change takes place. Then how do you know it changed?
There is no contradiction at all. And you're unable to show one.
Sure I can...
I can point to one side and say "white"
You just said definitively that one side is white.
and I can point to the other side and say "black"
And you just said definitively one side is black.
and then I can admit that I don't know where white ends nor where black begins.
your admission is contradictory, because you just said where white ends and you just said where black begins. It's at the sides. At least that's what you said.
You are completely and utterly wrong about what a continuum is, and this is causing you to miss a very important part about how defining life in a strict manner is unimportant to biology.
What you and others can't comprehend is that the white/black continuum is defined as three things. White on one edge, black on the other edge, and the continuum of grey in the middle. The white and the black are definitive, but the grey is in between and not definitive.
When you use life/non-life or white/non-white, you just have two things which are mutually exclusive. So anything other that white would be non-white, and anything other than life would be non-life.
Life is a continuum from chemical process to biological process to cultural processes.
This again is a faith based statement. The theories within Biology clearly state that life is at least cellular,and that all cells come from pre-existing cells.
That's an issue that your whole approach to defining is failing to account for, or well, even notice.
Well the issue to your approach is you want me and others to accept your religion. I will stick with what Biologists theorize about life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 279 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-12-2015 1:40 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 281 by Percy, posted 12-12-2015 5:36 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied
 Message 283 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-13-2015 6:54 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 281 of 374 (774066)
12-12-2015 5:36 PM
Reply to: Message 280 by AlphaOmegakid
12-12-2015 2:45 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
You're rejecting common language anyone would use when describing a continuum, even just a simple blending of white into black. Why don't you tell us what language you would use to describe a continuum from white to black?
The original points remain. Your definition of life is just one of many possible, and not a very good one at that. It's arbitrary, incomplete, ambiguous, and lacks generality by not even attempting to anticipate other forms of life.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 280 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 2:45 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 286 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-14-2015 5:45 PM Percy has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 282 of 374 (774080)
12-13-2015 7:46 AM
Reply to: Message 256 by AlphaOmegakid
12-09-2015 3:46 PM


Because of RAZD's relentless non-comprehension of "self-contained entity", I will revise my definition to improve it. It's part of the scientific process, and it clarifies the type of self-contained entity.
The ad hominem (attacking the person instead of the argument) is not a refutation, and what it shows here is that my argument is making an impact.
Life, or a living organism is a self contained entity which is a contiguous system that uses ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for metabolism and synthesizes ATP with enzymes which are synthesized from a genetic process requiring the transfer of information from DNA to RNA.
That won't help you either: the lower 48 states are also call the contiguous 48 states, because they form a contiguous group of one toughing another. Curiously you can stand on the outer boundary of this land mass and not know it.
A clam is a contiguous organism with a clear outer boundary, so is everything inside the outer boundary living ... including the shell? Same for exoskeleton organisms like the shells of lobsters?
It is taking me more time than I anticipated to put my step by step critique together, and I'll need a little bit more additional information from you:
(1) "genetic process" -- what do you mean by this and can you state it in a way that does not imply life ... as in "chemical reactions" ... ?
(2) "synthesized" -- isn't that just more chemical reactions?
(3) "requiring the transfer of information" -- do you mean transcription ("Transcription is the first step of gene expression, in which a particular segment of DNA is copied into RNA (mRNA) by the enzyme RNA polymerase.")
(4) "synthesize enzymes ... to RNA" -- are you talking about making RNA enzymes?
Ribozyme - Wikipedia
quote:
Ribozymes (ribonucleic acid enzymes), also termed as catalytic RNA enzymes RNAzyme, are RNA molecules that are capable of catalyzing specific biochemical reactions, similar to the action of protein enzymes. ...
Or do you mean protein enzymes
Enzyme - Wikipedia
quote:
Enzymes /ˈɛnzaɪmz/ are macromolecular biological catalysts. Enzymes accelerate, or catalyze, chemical reactions. The molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates and the enzyme converts these into different molecules, called products. Almost all metabolic processes in the cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates fast enough to sustain life. ...
... Most enzymes are proteins, although a few are catalytic RNA molecules. Enzymes' specificity comes from their unique three-dimensional structures.
Coenzymes are small organic molecules that can be loosely or tightly bound to an enzyme. Coenzymes transport chemical groups from one enzyme to another.[51] Examples include NADH, NADPH and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ...
Thanks
Edited by RAZD, : .

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 256 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-09-2015 3:46 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 284 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-14-2015 4:57 PM RAZD has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 283 of 374 (774145)
12-13-2015 6:54 PM
Reply to: Message 280 by AlphaOmegakid
12-12-2015 2:45 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
because you just said where white ends and you just said where black begins. It's at the sides.
You're misunderstanding. Going from left to right:
White clearly begins at the left edge of the image, then as you go to the right it gradually changes into grey and you cannot tell where white ends, nor where grey begins. Then grey gradually changes into black and you cannot tell where grey ends and black begins. Then black clearly ends at the right edge of the image.
You don't know where white ends nor where black begins, because it gradually changes to and from grey in between. You do know where white begins and black ends, that's at the edges of the image.
This is due to the nature of what being a continuum is. This is the concept that you are failing to comprehend.
What you and others can't comprehend is that the white/black continuum is defined as three things. White on one edge, black on the other edge, and the continuum of grey in the middle. The white and the black are definitive, but the grey is in between and not definitive.
The continuum contains all three colors, white, grey, and black, and is not limited to just the grey section.
When you use life/non-life or white/non-white, you just have two things which are mutually exclusive. So anything other that white would be non-white, and anything other than life would be non-life.
No, the white is life and the black is non-life and the grey is all the stuff between life and non-life.
The point of the analogy is to blur the line between life and non-life so as to do away with a strong dichotomy that something is either life or it is not.
You don't have to agree that the analogy truly represents reality, but to discuss the idea you have to understand what the analogy is representing. Until you can do that we cannot discuss the idea.
Life is a continuum from chemical process to biological process to cultural processes.
This again is a faith based statement.
I do have faith in some ideas. This is not one of them.
This one is based on years of studying physics, chemistry, and biology, and realize that there are no hard lines between those disciplines. The closer you zoom in on where you perceive the edges between those disciplines to be, the more you realize the line between them is actually blurry, and that there is a continuum between them.
This is because chemistry is like a derivative of physics, like how biology is like a derivative of chemistry.
The theories within Biology clearly state that life is at least cellular,and that all cells come from pre-existing cells.
Again, the map is not the territory. Reality is not constrained by the theories.
The theories need to be useful, and that is helped by making working assumption like life being cellular. If the theory works, then great, we're getting stuff done. But that doesn't mean those working assumptions must represent reality. And we cannot let our assumptions limit our ideas or we wouldn't be able to grow.
That's an issue that your whole approach to defining is failing to account for, or well, even notice.
Well the issue to your approach is you want me and others to accept your religion.
We haven't even gotten into whether or not you should accept it because we've been too busy trying to get you to understand the analogy that conceptualizes the idea.
You don't have to accept that there is a continuum from life to non-life in order to discuss and consider the idea.
And this is not religious, it's based on scientific evidence. My religion, actually, is Christianity.
I will stick with what Biologists theorize about life.
What you're really sticking to is what you think Biologists theorize about life. It turns out that you're wrong about that, too.
But really, how can I believe that your sticking with what Biologists theorize about life when you opened this thread to berate them for equivocating on their definition of life?
You're contradicting yourself:
quote:
In every text book that addresses this subject, they are all quite comfortable in stating that there is no unequivocal definition of life and they usually spend a significant effort in "proving" why we can't come up with an unequivocal definition.
quote:
I suspect this indoctrination has led most Biologists to give up on the definition. But not me! I believe it is possible to create an unequivocal, simple definition of biological life
quote:
I will stick with what Biologists theorize about life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 280 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-12-2015 2:45 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 285 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 12-14-2015 5:40 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 284 of 374 (774222)
12-14-2015 4:57 PM
Reply to: Message 282 by RAZD
12-13-2015 7:46 AM


RAZD writes:
The ad hominem (attacking the person instead of the argument) is not a refutation, and what it shows here is that my argument is making an impact.
It did make an impact, thank you. That's the reason I do this.
That won't help you either: the lower 48 states are also call the contiguous 48 states, because they form a contiguous group of one toughing another. Curiously you can stand on the outer boundary of this land mass and not know it.
Oh it helps a lot. It may not help you, because you tend to evaluate one word/phrase in the definition by itself.
A clam is a contiguous organism with a clear outer boundary, so is everything inside the outer boundary living ... including the shell? Same for exoskeleton organisms like the shells of lobsters?
The definition identifies the "self contained entity which is a contiguous system " as being alive or not. The definition in your example identifies the organism as a whole as being alive. It does not require that all the contiguous parts of the system be alive. They may or may not be.
1) "genetic process" -- what do you mean by this and can you state it in a way that does not imply life ... as in "chemical reactions" ... ?
(2) "synthesized" -- isn't that just more chemical reactions?
(3) "requiring the transfer of information" -- do you mean transcription ("Transcription is the first step of gene expression, in which a particular segment of DNA is copied into RNA (mRNA) by the enzyme RNA polymerase.")
(4) "synthesize enzymes ... to RNA" -- are you talking about making RNA enzymes?
Protein enzymes. See Central dogma of molecular biology - Wikipedia
for basically what I mean.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 282 by RAZD, posted 12-13-2015 7:46 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 289 by RAZD, posted 12-15-2015 8:16 AM AlphaOmegakid has not replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 285 of 374 (774223)
12-14-2015 5:40 PM
Reply to: Message 283 by New Cat's Eye
12-13-2015 6:54 PM


Re: The horse is just about dead!
Cat Sci writes:
You're misunderstanding. Going from left to right:
White clearly begins at the left edge of the image, then as you go to the right it gradually changes into grey and you cannot tell where white ends, nor where grey begins. Then grey gradually changes into black and you cannot tell where grey ends and black begins. Then black clearly ends at the right edge of the image.
You don't know where white ends nor where black begins, because it gradually changes to and from grey in between. You do know where white begins and black ends, that's at the edges of the image.
This is due to the nature of what being a continuum is. This is the concept that you are failing to comprehend.
No, I'm afraid I understand exactly what a continuum is, but you don't.
quote:
Continuum...a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other, although the extremes are quite distinct. Google
This is why you contradict yourself saying that" you cannot tell where white ends or where grey begins", yet you also say "White clearly begins at the left edge of the image". White and Black are distinct, definable, perceivable, and are at the edges. The variations in grey are hard to perceive. That is the definition of a continuum.
No, the white is life and the black is non-life and the grey is all the stuff between life and non-life.
This is why the analogy doesn't work! You just showed a continuum with three colors, and now you use two labels for the distinct ends which are mutually exclusive. So if white is life and black is non-life, then the grey is also non-life, because anything non-white is also non-life in your analogy.
You don't have to agree that the analogy truly represents reality, but to discuss the idea you have to understand what the analogy is representing. Until you can do that we cannot discuss the idea.
Ok, but we do have to agree on what is on the left and what is on the right. It cannot be life and non-life. The continuum doesn't work. I have said before, you can have life and chemicals as your continuum with the grey being anything in-between. This analogy is logical and consistent with a continuum, but I don't think you like it, because it highlights the distinct edges even more. You have rejected this thus far.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 283 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-13-2015 6:54 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 287 by New Cat's Eye, posted 12-14-2015 7:30 PM AlphaOmegakid has not replied
 Message 290 by RAZD, posted 12-15-2015 8:34 AM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
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