Asgard and Archaea

avatar

AsgardiaArchaea.png
IMG source - NewScientist.com

In my effort to understand our world and my place in it, I seek reliable and well-founded information. It is necessary to account for bias that is ubiquitous from all reporters of such information (we all are biased in favor of our own understanding), and Plato's observation that all he knew is that he knew nothing is a very good mechanism for rejecting our intrinsic biases. Anton Petrov posts daily on Odysee and I find his forthright exposition of the new research his wide ranging interest in science from a layman's perspective reveals well supported by the foundation of humility Plato shared.

The most recent post of Anton's I have watched discusses a group of Archaea known as Asgardia that are some of the most ancient forms of life on Earth, and their interactions with other bacteria as mediated by viruses. He cites the recent (June, 2022) Nature article linked below, and points out that ~7% of our genome is derived from viruses, which hints at how features of eukaryotes like chloroplasts and mitochondria, likely once separate species, became incorporated into complex multicellular life.

"Asgard archaea are globally distributed prokaryotic microbes proposed to be closely related to eukaryotes1,2. Their genomic composition indicates that they are descendants of the archaeal cell that gave rise to the first eukaryotic common ancestor3. Asgard biodiversity has expanded greatly in recent years due to the recovery of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from a range of marine and terrestrial aquatic sediments4. The recovery of these Asgard MAGs has resulted in predictions about their metabolic abilities and evolutionary histories. Recently, an anaerobic slow-growing Asgard, Lokiarchaeota, has been cultured and appears to have syntrophic dependencies with bacteria, a finding that supports previous omics-based predictions5. Interactions between bacteria and Asgards are thought to have led to the formation of the first mitochondria-containing eukaryotic cell5,6 and it is also hypothesized that interactions with viruses contributed to the origin of complex cellular life7. This observation is based on the nucleus-like cytoplasmic viral factories of some nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs)8 and jumbo bacteriophages9,10 that allow for replication within the host cytoplasm and the decoupling of transcription and translation7. Additionally, representatives from the Mimiviridae family possess mRNA capping pathways homologous to those present in eukaryotes11. Putative viral proteins have been identified within Lokiarchaeota genomes12, suggesting a role of viruses in the exchange of genetic information and the evolution of Asgards."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-022-01150-8

This is an extremely fascinating aspect of biology, well illustrating the almost inconceivable complexity of biochemistry and genetics, with specific and extreme import to understanding ourselves, and our place in life on Earth. I hope you find it as interesting and edifying as I do.



0
0
0.000
66 comments
avatar

What if it is the other way around?

you heard of exosomes?

or do you know prof dr hamer and his germanic medicine? could really interest you :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

I have heard of exosomes. They don't leave their DNA as fossils in our genes, because they don't have DNA.

Not sure what you mean by 'the other way around'.

Thanks!

0
0
0.000
avatar

your dna is not solid, it never was

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Other than mutations, the DNA I was born with is the DNA I will die with [Edit: or the deliberate imposition of genetic therapy]. I do not know what you mean by 'solid' in this context.

0
0
0.000
avatar

geneticists have already admitted that they have disproved themselves - or what is epigenetics? - but they just forgot to tell the virologists...

0
0
0.000
avatar

I disagree that the existence of epigenetics disproves genetics. Biology is incomprehensibly complex, and both genetics and epigenetics are aspects of that complexity. The ability of bacteria to transfer DNA between them does not disprove sexual reproduction. Both happen.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I noticed your response, @woelfchen. Good stuff! I'm familiar with Dr Hamer. No doubt you're acquainted with the doctors I mentioned in my reply to @valued-customer. I have some additional excellent sources you may be interested in. I'm sure you have some valuable resources, yourself. I'm up for sharing...

0
0
0.000
avatar

The most recent post of Anton's I have watched discusses a group of Archaea known as Asgardia that are some of the most ancient forms of life on Earth, and their interactions with other bacteria as mediated by viruses. He cites the recent (June, 2022) Nature article linked below, and points out that ~7% of our genome is derived from viruses, which hints at how features of eukaryotes like chloroplasts and mitochondria, likely once separate species, became incorporated into complex multicellular life.

Dear @valued-customer!
That theory doesn't seem to get the attention of East Asians yet.
Scientists in Japan and China are currently focused on catching up with the military and aerospace fields in general among American advanced technologies.

Perhaps they, like you, are not interested in defining modern science through Plato's philosophical perspective.
They are only interested in catching up with American science, military, and industrial technology.

Thank you for article!😃

0
0
0.000
avatar

The most devastating weapons have yet to be devised, and they are all going to be biological, rather than electromechanical devices. I await weaponized wasps, ground crickets, and ants. Nightmare fuel.

Thanks!

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Dear my honorable senior @valued-customer!
Perhaps they will have a hard time understanding your profound prophecies!

From your point of view, a genius, East Asian scientists would be seen as technologists imitating American technology.
They do not know the way of thinking to understand the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle as the thought of science.
Perhaps, They will only study science and technology at the command of the state and overlords.
Because the overlords promised to give them enormous wealth, power, honor, and beauty in return.

East Asian scientists are an elite aristocratic group that obeys the orders of overlords.

If they knew that low-class people like me have these kinds of conversations with foreigners like you, I'd probably be jailed.😅

0
0
0.000
avatar

Best keep our discussions on the down low, then. I am a simple carpenter. I work with my hands, sweating in the sun and cursing the rain when it pours. I hardly prophecy genius, but you are very kind to praise me so.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Aw, you've been reading the same zombie novels as I am! Those ideas are in there, seriously! Good to see you still on this platform, my old friend. Been a long while!

No doubt the scientist wizards are attempting to weaponize everything. Their most potent weapon is and likely will continue to be FEAR.

Rule #9: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing, itself.

— Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals

As for viruses, my favourite source is still Dr Stephan Lanka, one of the pioneers in the field of virology. Read all you can on this guy, if you haven't already. I promise you it is mindblowing material!
https://abruptearthchanges.com/2017/11/17/dr-stefan-lanka-the-history-of-the-infection-theory/

Dr Tom Cowan and Dr Andrew Kaufman are top notch, also. Amazingly insightful and surprisingly very hopeful and positive stuff!
https://truthcomestolight.com/a-follow-up-to-the-virus-challenge-dr-tom-cowan-with-dr-andrew-kaufman-mike-stone-mike-donio/

0
0
0.000
avatar

I certainly agree regarding fear, and nothing has proved to me what you say about it more than my own experiences.

I do not agree that viruses aren't real and actual.

https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/settling-the-virus-debate-challenge

But, my reasons have nothing to do with the above challenge, exosomes, or terrain theory, nor even the fraudulent and egregious criminal imposition of medical tyranny since the Covid psyop started in China with outrageous videos of hapless victims gushing blood from their various orifices and falling dead in the street.

Biology is simply so complex that it is impossible viruses have not arisen.

Life is an act of war. Every blade of grass is striving with every one of it's neighbors for it's very life. Every leaf, root, and stem in the beautiful, fractal forest is strategically placed to take light, and that taking blocks something else. In the PNW rainforest the climax forest is almost exclusively hemlock, because as a seedling it can endure light deprivation at the bottom of the well of shadows. Doug Fir grows faster, straighter, and far taller than Hemlock. Sitka Spruce is more shade tolerant than Doug Fir, but cannot match Hemlock. When it's seemingly greater brethren finally fall to the forest floor, the lowly Hemlock that has been waiting, draped in moss, wretched and wracked, barely alive, perhaps for centuries in their shadow, is far ahead of any new seedlings that may sprout in the suddenly sunny soil.

It has husbanded it's resources, carefully spending it's hoarded nutrients and scant sugar on a hopeful twig here, a few needles there, patient as death itself while awaiting the opportunity only death can provide. No other tree can survive that deprivation and denial for decades as can Hemlock. In the deep old growth where the canopy stretches across the sky, no other seedlings lurk in it's shadow. The only woody stems you can find are Hemlock seedlings in a full canopied old growth forest.

Life is extremely competitive. In time every niche is filled. There are plants like the Indian Pipe, white, pink, and purple, never green, because they don't bother with photosynthesis in the shadows of giants. They are strictly parasitic on the roots of those that can reach the light. There are Redwoods and Doug Firs as white as snow, completely parasitic, all the sugars they need donated by their community through their interconnected roots, but they are a rare sport, and not separate species breeding true, and so cannot compete with the shaggy Hemlocks once they comprise the whole of the forest.

Certainly life is predatory, and the lower on the food chain you go the more hideous the methods of killing and eating you find. Vertebrates rarely eat their prey alive, and never just by dissolving them in acid and absorbing the nutrients. So I am confident in germ theory and there is certainly ample evidence for pestilential creatures at the microscopic scale. I am also familiar with parasitism, having myself often experienced vermin sucking my blood.

And these are relatively massive and mind-bogglingly complex creatures compared to viruses. Where there is a gap in defenses, some living thing will slip through to feed, to wage life, and where the gaps are too small for even microscopic vermin a variety of parasitic genes, prions, and viruses must insert themselves and reproduce, even if they can't feed in some horrific tortuous way.

Life is very reliable, even when it's not alive. You can count on it making you suffer somehow.

Because of that I am sure viruses exist in plethora, even disregarding mountains of evidence, such as our own DNA replete with more remnants of viruses than our sexy Neanderthal lover-cousins have left traces of in us.

I am glad we are here, and I hope you are well and hale, my friend.

0
0
0.000
avatar

sounds like more philosophy

still doesnt make viruses alive or even existential at all

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

No, my belief doesn't make anything. However, what everything is sources my beliefs, so the incomprehensible complexity of life shows that opportunities, such as for parasitic mechanisms like viruses to hijack cellular machinery to reproduce, which is what viruses do, are eventually taken advantage of. Life is incredibly ancient, shown to have begun before ~4bya. In that time it is not credible to state that such mechanisms haven't arisen to take advantage of the available niche.

It's comparable to stating that if the government issues EBT cards no one will claim them. The nature of biological mechanisms, their literally inconceivable complexity, makes such parasitic mechanisms inevitable in time, and there's been far more time for such mechanisms to arise than is necessary to make such event certain.

In favorable conditions bacteria can reproduce asexually every ~20 minutes. Each reproductive event has a small chance of going slightly awry, which occasionally produces mutations. You can do the math regarding how many mutations that generates in 4B years, but with any plausible degree of error in replication that is more mutations than there are possible species on Earth. That many opportunities for relatively short chunks of RNA or DNA that happen to encode instructions to replicate statistically guarantees they have arisen.

It's not a list of genetic code of viruses, or the tiny subset that cause disease in people. It's not much of a philosophy, and certainly not nihilism. It's just acknowledging that things happen when opportunities to happen arise, and the extraordinary complexity of biology has created so many opportunities for self-replicating parasitic mechanisms to arise it's just inconceivable they have not. Taking that statistical certainty in view of the easily reproducible evidence in our own DNA of relic fossil viral DNA that is stated to exist by entire industries of specialists that have specific expertise in the field and agree on that evidence - even without the voluminous other evidence of viruses that exists - is enough to convince me viruses are real.

YMMV

Edit: I want to emphasize the word 'industries'. I'm not talking about AN industry, but a plethora of them, many of which depend on completely different kinds of products based on using the viral form to create economic returns. From vaccines to CRISPR, from bioweapons to food additives, mechanisms found in viruses are used to produce products that make money. I don't know what you call a philosophy that simply looks at what exists and acknowledges that it exists, but that's the philosophy I ascribe to.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

If bacteria, viruses, parasites were really as threatening as I interpret them to be on the basis of your statements, how could the many species have existed at all in the course of their existence on this earth? Why don't people die in immense numbers all the time? How can it be that people grow old?

From my point of view, the assumption that humans are capable of biological warfare is due to the belief in the total feasibility and specific targeting of what is intended.

But it is also said that each organism's biome is distinctly different from every other organism's, according to another theory. What some researchers seek to identify as "hostile", "parasitic", "killing", others want to find out as "beneficial", "interacting" and "making healthy".

Some years ago I read a scientific paper on the subject of tapeworms in the organism, which until then had always been considered enemies of the organism and which were now considered to have their benefits. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I found it. The organism is far more than its DNA, the so-called building blocks of life, if you take it as the ultimate realisation that all life is the same, is in strong conflict with what is happening at the higher levels of the organism.

Similar to physics, where there have been or are efforts to establish an all unifying theory, I see this in biology, where the all unifying theory is genetics.

Ultimately, this leads to the long-standing dispute between pure materialism, according to which all living things can be explained and manipulated on the basis of their individual parts, and what people call consciousness or spirituality, according to which there is an intelligence at work that opposes materialism.

The "truth" will have to be assumed somewhere in the middle, I think, without being able to pin it down.

Placebo research and how one's mind influences one's body and vice versa are the great unknowns that materialistically attuned minds are reluctant to engage with because it offers them too much fuzziness and uncertainty.
For example, it is still not really known why anaesthesia works the way it does and there has been research into this where patients have been operated on by surgeons in hospital using only hypnosis and felt no pain at all during the operation. This raises the interesting question of how much the body/mind does its own to become insensitive to pain and how much is externally supplied and ultimately you can't really tell the two apart.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Let me respond by stating I strongly agree that life isn't mechanical, merely the sum of it's parts. I personally consider humanity to be sacred.

Neither do I consider genes to be some kind of ultimate blueprint, particularly in view of epigenetics and the glimpses researchers are beginning to get of gene expression. Further, I also expect that numerous genes have more than one mode of action. In other words just because it can be shown that a gene affects some particular thing, that does not mean it doesn't also affect others.

Generally, I do not consider the sciences mature at all, but that we are merely beginning to grasp some potential in scientific understanding.

I don't consider viruses and bacteria as generally threatening either. Pathogens are subject to the fact of evolution, and one aspect of that is that any organism that degrades it's environment reduces it's prospects for survival. A virus that is immediately utterly lethal almost completely eliminates it's ability to spread by killing it's hosts before much opportunity to be transmitted can be taken. The more lethal a pathogen, the less virulent it can be (the less it can spread).

The vast majority of viruses and bacteria aren't pathogens, at least not human pathogens, and some, such as I discuss in the OP here, are beneficial. It is not commonly understood that bifidobacteria in our guts is critical to human health, for example, and without our gut fauna we'd just die, unable to digest food or prevent infections.

However, there are pathogens, and that is why we have immune systems. Evolution creates a tension between host immunity and pathogen virulence and lethality that has been ongoing since life arose.

I do not only consider material, mechanistic factors real, but reason is the basis for understanding. Rationality is not materialism. Regarding cognition, consciousness, or how persons relate to bodies, I have strongly criticized the view that we even have a word to describe it. We are at a laughably rudimentary state of understanding what it is, and it is provable that consciousness continues when we are unconscious, such as when we sleep. This exemplifies the absolutely inadequate understanding presently attained by scientists studying it.

It is very, very hard for most people to honestly state they do not know, and the more educated and specialized they are, the more difficult it is to overcome hubris and not overstate confidence in their understanding. People allow insuperable speculation to overcome superable reason. For this reason I consider humility to be the foundation of wisdom, and try to carefully differentiate between my speculations regarding what I believe or think, and what I consider factual and have confidence is real.

It is useful to keep in mind that science is based on falsification of what can be disproved, not proving some theory is true. Every scientific theory will be found to be false in some way, and science will progress in that field when that happens. That's how science progresses. Therefore I try to be open minded regarding my beliefs, and prepared to change my mind when something I believe is fact is falsified. If I do not do that I will believe what is not factual, and that will cause me to act contrary to what is right. I do not want to wrong people, so I strive to correct my understanding as reason allows. This is why I find criticism so valuable, because that is what best falsifies things I erroneously believe.

0
0
0.000
avatar

For the most part, I can agree with what I find as overriding statements in your comment.

Therefore I try to be open minded regarding my beliefs, and prepared to change my mind when something I believe is fact is falsified.

I think it is a paradox, in a way. As I noted in the other comment, "facts" are a word that comes from the origin "to do ", they are therefore always open to attack.
The moment you accept a fact as disprovable, you are following a logic given by others (which coincides with your logic, otherwise you would not be able to follow it. However, all inner logic ultimately follows conscience and what one subjectively deems significant).

Our entire modernity prides itself on being fact-oriented when it comes to research and experimentation, but it shies away like the devil shies away from holy water from naming the role of the scientific experimenter (as observer and evaluator of his work) as a decisive influencer on the success and failure of his research and experiments. The objective observer does not exist. Objectivity is completely excluded in human social interaction. You would otherwise have to have someone observing the observer, who in turn is observed by an observer, and so on. (I assume you will name blind and double blind studies, but they are not saving from many other experiments where nothing is done blindly).

I am not negating your statement, I am merely mentioning its weakness, but also accepting its strengths. But I differ little in my own attitude from yours, I would say.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"Objectivity is completely excluded in human social interaction."

While we all have biases, these biases do not completely exclude objectivity. Objectivity should not be considered only an absolute, but is a range. We are all more or less objective regarding the variety of things there are, depending on our beliefs.

Some of us strive to be utterly objective, and some of us strive to be utterly faithful to a given dogma. I strive to eschew the latter because I believe we are incapable of ascertaining understanding of the reality we are part of due to our limitations. I may be accused of taking objectivity as dogma I am faithful to, just as I note that Atheism is as insuperable and dogmatic is every other religion. Every argument that faith in God is insuperable factually also can be turned around and apply to belief there is no God.

You are right there are weaknesses in my rationality.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

While we all have biases, these biases do not completely exclude objectivity. Objectivity should not be considered only an absolute, but is a range.

But that is exactly what prejudices do, they preclude objectivity, because otherwise they were not prejudices, i.e. preconceived views, but an open result. A result remains open as long as you leave it open. If one "closes" it, then one has subjectively agreed, nothing more. There is nothing wrong with that, one should just be aware that it is so.

I state that objectivity is not needed to move in relationships. It is, radically speaking, even irrelevant, to want to establish objectivity within human relationships and to even try is the horse's mouth here. I must first completely destroy my belief in objectivity in human interaction so that, relieved of this burden, I can talk to each other on a reasonable basis. One cannot "be a bit objective", objectivity is understood as absolute and is also applied in this way, trying to beat another's arguments to death by bringing his or her "false" subjectivity into the field against one's own "correct" subjectivity (backed up by "objectivity").

I consider it a misapprehension to give objectivity this relevance.

Atheism is as insuperable and dogmatic is every other religion

HaHa! Yes, I must always laugh at the claim to be an atheist. :D chuckle.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"I state that objectivity is not needed to move in relationships. It is, radically speaking, even irrelevant, to want to establish objectivity within human relationships..."

Nothing could be less true, IME. A lot of things have almost killed me. Only one thing has ever made me want to die, that most dangerous of things, a relationship. The utter lack of objectivity produces behaviours that are obviously crazy. Those people are pretty easy to avoid. What's far more dangerous is people that claim to be objective and aren't. If I believe their claims and trust them to view their skills and work objectively, and instead they're arrogant and conceited, they can ignore dangers that put me at risk, cost me money, or do harm to people I am trying to do good for.

Objectivity is born of humility, and part of the foundation of wisdom. Bias is always a negative, and extreme bias is obviously irrational. Many scientific papers are not reproducible, and bias is a terrible problem that degrades the quality of research, clouds our understanding, and reduces the prosperity and felicity of humanity.

Pretty hard to overestimate it's cost, or of the benefits of objectivity.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Heinz von Förster once put it this way- I guess, it is mostly him who influenced my stance on the topic of objectivity (I watched all what is available about him and some books as well as texts and interviews with him):

"I consider the whole idea of objectivity to be a stumbling-block, a foot-trap, a semantic trick to confuse the speakers and the listeners and the whole discussion, right from the start. For objectivity, after all, as far as I understand Helmholtz's formulation, requires the locus observandi. There the observer must strip off all his personal characteristics and must see quite objectively - locus observandi! - see it as it is.

And this assumption already contains fearful errors. For when the ¨observer strips off all his characteristics, namely language - Greek, Latin, Turkic, whatever - when he puts away his cultural glasses and is thus blind and mute, then he cannot be an observer, and he cannot narrate anything at all. The preconditions of his narration are taken away. To ascend to the locus observandi means: put aside all your personal qualities, including seeing, including speaking, including culture, including nursery, and now report something to us. Well, what is he supposed to report? He can't do that."

What you say about "objectivity" actually is more telling about you as a person than about objectivity :) Same counts for me, of course.

0
0
0.000
avatar

While none of us can be perfectly objective, as von Forster notes, that does not preclude us from making observations that can usefully contribute. Bias is a terrible problem, stemming largely from hubris in science today, that does all too often produce irreproducible research. But it does not necessarily render us incapable of producing reproducible work. Not being 100% objective does not prevent us from contributing to understanding by creating falsifiable hypotheses.

Good science isn't necessarily right. Being provably wrong is really useful too, because it enables us to eliminate false hypotheses. We only need to be objective enough to be reproducible to be scientifically productive. Supposing that because we cannot be perfectly objective we cannot produce useful science is an impossible standard that demonstrably cannot apply to human endeavor. All we need to do is be reproducible, and that can be possible even if we are biased, as long as we are not so biased that we proceed to make assumptions that prevent testing our hypotheses.

0
0
0.000
avatar

... and that can be possible even if we are biased, as long as we are not so biased that we proceed to make assumptions that prevent testing our hypotheses.

A very significant point. What scientist or scientific assistant would openly admit to being biased?
This is why many say that today's science has acquired a sacrosanct status, according to which the concept of fact is used like sliced bread, and compare this with previous dogmatic views such as those of ecclesiastical sovereignties.

That being said, science alone, based on empirical data, is not the holy grail it is stylised to be. Analysis is not everything in life. Knowledge has limits and someone who does not want to humbly acknowledge this is not a good scientist in my eyes.

Apart from measurable fields, rays, frequencies, etc., etc., there are tangible experiences in the human context, such as those I described, which are based on singing, movement and music and about which you have said nothing so far. The arts (anything in the realm of spiritual consciousness) are, in my view, relegated to their own corner from school and university life and are not really considered (or their work published or funded) by natural scientists as influencers of health and disease (or more generally, "consciousness").

To put it bluntly and in terms of a stylistic exaggeration: art students go to an MRI and have themselves examined, they undergo surgical procedures, get on aeroplanes and use modern technologies. But do science students also go to a séance, have a phenomenological family constellation done, try the effects of LSD, hypnosis, are curious about metaphysics, philosophy?

0
0
0.000
avatar

"What scientist or scientific assistant would openly admit to being biased?"

All of them. Honest people should acknowledge they have bias. I follow Dark Horse on Odysee, the Weinstein's. I distinctly recall them noting that researchers need to ensure their research is reproducible, because that enables bias to be overcome. Different researchers have different biases in many respects, and these biases can be compensated for through undertaking the same specific actions to conduct experiments - or are universal and shared between all that conduct the experiment.

There are certain biases that are universal to humanity, and are therefore difficult to overcome experimentally, which limits the ability of the scientific method to advance in ways such biases preclude.

"The arts (anything in the realm of spiritual consciousness) are, in my view, relegated to their own corner from school and university life and are not really considered (or their work published or funded) by natural scientists as influencers of health and disease (or more generally, "consciousness")."

There are scientific means of measuring the health benefits of the arts. Both prayer and music (and probably more) have been shown to be beneficial to health through experiments that quantify health outcomes and contrast control groups with groups that use prayer or listen to music. However, this does not mean that artists' feelings about their art, nor religious dogmas, are verified. Experiments that differentiate and can falsify specific predictions have not been able to be designed for those purposes, AFAIK.

I doubt you would be able to conduct experiments that seek to falsify such dogma today in any academic environment. People get stabby over such things. Ask Salman Rushdie.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thanks for that awesome reply, @valued-customer. I wrote several paragraphs in response last night and then left to research - to double check my info, lol - and closed the damn Hive window and lost everything!

Anyhoo, I think viruses have been hijacked by mainstream acedemia/science/pharma/media cartels, and added to their collective fear arsenal. In fact on land sea and air, viruses are necessary and prolific - and good!!

Viruses are part of what keeps us operating effectively, working in harmony with the essential parasites and good bacteria, which somehow all got the rap of alien intruders, instead of part of our essential infrastructure.

Inside our bodies is an ecosystem, not unlike that found in the unadulterated version of nature. Sure, we're out of balance, but that's down to our horrible diet, poison in our food, water, chemtrails in the air, the plastics in our food packaging, etc.

Did you know ocean going vessels are allowed to dump billions of tons of garbage in the ocean - every year? Who is the worst of the filthy offenders? Executives at the highest echelons of the world's most powerful biz, the good ole USA Inc, and affiliated corporations, get off looking squeaky clean, while ensuring the masses are kept sufficiently misinformed, only by virtue of massive PR budgets!

https://abetterfootprint.com/does-the-us-dump-garbage-in-the-ocean/
"Recent studies show that the US dumps the highest number of water bottles in the ocean. In fact, studies show that the US contributes as much as 242 million tons of trash in the ocean every year."

Have you ever heard of phage therapy? And, do you know what happens in germ free animals? I was shocked to see the net has been scrubbed of material I found on that subject just two years ago, which is very telling.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"Viruses are part of what keeps us operating effectively, working in harmony with the essential parasites and good bacteria, which somehow all got the rap of alien intruders, instead of part of our essential infrastructure."

I agree strongly with this, yet there are harmful parasites, predators, and viruses, and if we don't keep functioning immune systems these will eventually kill us. Something eventually kills us all, however, and I reckon the best defense is to prepare to die fighting.

Regarding corporations, I note that the actions of individual persons are their personal responsibility, and claiming to act on behalf of some legal fiction does not absolve anyone of their personal responsibility for their actions. This is why I think such institutions are the Antichrist, because they obfuscate our personal responsibility for our acts by the pretense that it is the institution acting.

Agreements cannot act, and all institutions are nothing more than agreements. In this context only people act, and regardless of their agreements they remain responsible personally for their actions. Whoever ordered ocean dumping, and whoever carried out such order, are personally responsible for ocean dumping, and that culpability is negated under color of law by other institutions that have no rightful authority to do so.

Crimes are crimes, and their committers criminals, even if they escape prosecution and penalization.

It is my fervent hope that the present evolution of technology to decentralization of the means of production will eliminate all such deception soon, and our children will inherit a better world as a result.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I would say it is a matter of interpretation and ultimately it remains unfounded how people influence their reality.

The assumption that one has to deal with hostile, parasitic, deadly influences on the biological level often coincides with the assumption that one also has to deal with or gets such influences on the social level among humans. The age-old dispute between materialism and spirituality.

In the meantime, I am not surprised that the events of the last two years have revealed two opposing camps that have been pitted against each other time and again in human history. It is also called materialism and determinism versus spirit (a non-materially tangible intelligence) and fuzziness. I assume you know about this.

Now, in turn, we see that the opposing camps are splitting within themselves again, but not really, I think. One who accepts the virus theory as infallible and set must at the same time accept that there is or can be such a thing as biological warfare.

But then how does one even come to terms with the contradiction according to which, for example, on the one hand one considers the "protective measures" taken to be suitable (distance, masks, lockdowns) and on the other rejects them? One possible answer would be that one only wants to do such things voluntarily, but does not want to see them as a national exertion.

The question arises for me that if someone who follows the virus theory and the resulting consequences believes in the superiority of what is technologically feasible and would have to assume that there can and should be effective vaccinations and treatments against viruses and is not in favour of the measures because one believes that the means and vaccinations have another purpose, such as deliberate killing.

Now, such a thing cannot be proven and certainly not when it is said so directly. You would have to accuse the person who gives you the treatment of being a killer, and how can you accuse someone who is convinced that he acted in good faith and with his best conscience? One does not argue with the government directly, one has to argue with colleagues, friends, family etc.

That is precisely the infamous argument that ordinary people on both sides oppose, that one would be a murderer without even one of these camps ever having harboured an intention to murder. That is perfidious, I think.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I think I have substantively addressed most of what you say here in another response, but your division of people into only two camps.

Virus isn't a synonym for pathogen. Just because some viruses are pathogens doesn't mean that all viruses must be prevented, and I think it's reasonably likely that some viruses are extremely beneficial, perhaps even essential to human health.

I don't think there are technologically feasible protective measures available today to prevent viral transmission, and that includes the mechanism of vaccination. Certainly it is impossible for masks to work to prevent viral transmission without quite extreme protocols in addition to masks, and it isn't possible to undertake such protocols and maintain society.

No study has ever shown masks to prevent viral transmission in practice. Lots of studies have shown that masks do a lot of harm. Masks are quite hazardous, causing build up of pathogens, and causing people wearing them to breathe far higher levels of CO2. Masks are actually killing people by both of these mechanisms today, and there are other harms masks do as well.

So, I do not agree that there are only two camps regarding covid, or actually on any issue whatsoever. I consider that to far oversimplify reality. I neither think SARS2 doesn't exist or that jabs or masks are beneficial. I am in neither camp, and I am not alone.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

I would like to ask you directly, because you say that you do not make this distinction, whether you think that body/mind influence each other or that what happens on the mental/psychosomatic level in a person has an effect on the organism.

It can be stated that the view called e.g. materialism is opposed to the view called e.g. spiritual.

I did not invent this conflict, it is not my assertion, but it is based on a millennia-old dispute that has philosophical backgrounds. Countless people observed this split and called it by different terms.

For example, the cosmic bodies existing in the universe as a dull programme running according to the laws of nature, without any intelligence. This is also called the Newtonian view or the Decartian view of the world, as well as a purely mechanistic view.
This is contrasted with another view that works with the concepts of consciousness and intelligence, according to which life, and the consciousness of livingness that arises from it, cannot be attributed solely to observable and investigable phenomena whose ultimate explanation is not possible, but nevertheless exerts an influence on everything that is alive or connected with living things within their dynamics.

To these two main currents - a universe running according to a strict programme, events underlying physical principles, contrary to that of a spiritually intelligent, inspired divinely assumed one, for instance. Beyond that, there are other views, but I don't think they outrank the main currents, or not yet.

One could also say "fate" and " coincidence", two equally opposing concepts. According to the former, everything is predetermined (determined), the latter is a purely coincidental sequence of events, sometimes proceeding in one way or another.

Personally, I am undecided, but tend to emphasise the mental/spiritual influence, as it seems to me that my fellow world is determined to treat health & illness more like physics and mathematics by machine medicine and looking at the smallest particles.

I left the following as a comment somewhere else and just copy it here:


Behind every scientist there is also a will. If this will is such that it tends towards making something repeatable, which is considered a significant step in any scientific experiment, it will want reproducibility to be feasible because it rejects the fact that something cannot be reproduced.
The word "fact" comes from the Latin "facere", from "to do". Therefore, all "information" appearing as facts is open to dispute. Only fiction is indisputable.

Apparently, people equate biology with astrology or other physical phenomena, which they mathematically calculate via indirect factors influencing the as yet unidentified object. For example, the movement of cosmic bodies, through the observation of which one can discover a previously unrecognised or invisible other cosmic body. I think this is called "extrapolating"?

I looked it up:

"Extrapolation is the estimation of a value. The estimate is based on an extension of a known sequence of values or facts and goes beyond the known range. In general, extrapolate means to infer something that is not explicit from the information available."

It goes on to say:

"Interpolation is the estimation of a value within two known values in a sequence of values. Polynomial interpolation is a method of estimating values between multiple known data points. For example, if graphical data has a gap, but the data is available on both sides of the gap, or even at some specific points within the gap, interpolation can be used to estimate the values between the gap."

Source

I spontaneously saw the similarity to genetics here. Since you have genetic bases as a model, it is apparently much easier to use them for further calculation than the subject itself. So you have an abstraction of the subject to be studied, but not the subject. From here, from this abstract subject you can endlessly reproduce experiments.


Yet there, you have other terms referring to the dualism "abstract" versus "concrete".

I would say the divisive camps regarding virus theory and disease in general are falling back on their worldviews. Every worldview is a simplification of dynamics beyond our comprehension.

I don't assume you are claiming you don't have a picture of the world/cosmos/universe. Since we have already talked about it, yes.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"I would like to ask you directly, because you say that you do not make this distinction, whether you think that body/mind influence each other or that what happens on the mental/psychosomatic level in a person has an effect on the organism."

I observe that our mental state provably affects our physical body in some ways that almost everyone will agree is factual. When we are frightened we experience reflexive responses that are caused by our fear, the fight or flight hormonal response. I am utterly certain there are many more ways in which our mental state affects our physical bodies, but also certain that some believe things that are not true, such as the claim that if we believe and state we will become rich that the universe will conform to that statement, something I think is referred to as the law of attraction. I have read very strong beliefs in such mechanism and find them without factual basis and utterly irrational.

I note that the range of beliefs regarding to what extent our minds affect physical reality far exceeds what can be demonstrated experimentally, and is the reason I seek to restrain myself to discussion that can be based on evidence that enables reasonable people to agree, rather than all but compelling people to disagree on matters such that we cannot work together at all because we are focused on our disagreements instead of our agreements.

0
0
0.000
avatar

such as the claim that if we believe and state we will become rich that the universe will conform to that statement, something I think is referred to as the law of attraction. I have read very strong beliefs in such mechanism and find them without factual basis and utterly irrational.

The question is interesting, why should you find something rational against statements you perceive as irrational, if you don't want to?
How do you come to oppose this kind of irrationality, or think you have to? Where in the world of technological or machine applications do such views disturb? (And if they do, don't they do it for good reasons? Can good reasons also be irrational?)

Those who think that if they pray to God to fill their bank account bulging next month are welcome to do so if they think so - but in honesty, I don't think they literally believe in this but metaphorically.
They still have to pay their taxes, use the same accounting software or forms and use cars, mobile phones etc. I don't see much difference between talking about the law of attraction and trying to get into vibration with the universe or the request to the great Father. People pray all kinds of things.

Nevertheless, I would say that you seem to be interested after all, and if it didn't bother you, you wouldn't care, would you? I think that what perhaps "disturbs" can have a positive connotation, because there is something in one's own existence that likes to try to clarify the disturbing for oneself.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"Where in the world of technological or machine applications do such views disturb?"

I wouldn't know. You'd have to ask someone in those fields. I'm a carpenter. When people in my field act irrationally, people get hurt by dangerous equipment or failure of structures.

I've almost been killed many times. I've learned to avoid crazy as a result.

0
0
0.000
avatar

It seems you were responding to the author, though the reply turned up in my reply section. So I'll be brief. I think the intent is to cause perpetual division, exponential might be more accurate. That way how could any groups possibly ever manage to unite in challenge to the constant orchestrated chaos? One hopes that humans improve their understanding of how their own amazing, incredibly complex bodies operate.

Why do you think anatomy and basic healing and self care, real remedies, aren't taught alongside math and "science," and the basics at school? This would remedy much of the suffering we endure, not to mention the economic winfall any society that undertook this mission could expect.

But then spirituality has been essentially wiped in favour of a purely physical experience led by the sickness model. We have become increasingly weakened over the generations, intentionally so, in order to bring us in alignment with the weak specimens at the top of the pyramid scheme. Threat eliminated!

Society is now largely dependent from cradle to grave on the white lab coats, big pharma and subject to the illusory control of all the other corrupted industries and authorities that perform their assigned functions as part of the global cartel.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Yes, I accidentally replied to your comment :) So thank you for answering me nevertheless. I will do, too.

I see the thing as a pendulum movement, where the end of the movement before the pendulum swings back is an extreme.

At the time of the Rennaissance, the natural sciences defied the clergy, who spread throughout Europe and beyond as knowledgeable about the human soul and its well-being, and it seemed to be time that a movement was formed here that we now call the Enlightenment.

Now, it seems, the baby has been thrown out with the bath water here too and the soul, consciousness, has been eliminated from the considerations of the natural sciences. At least one pretends that this is the case.

However, I think that you cannot simply erase two thousand years of Christianity and monotheism and that what is deeply rooted in educated Christians exists very strongly and has continued to work quietly for all the centuries since the Renaissance. It's not that the clergy has been cold-cocked or crippled, the people who thought they knew what was best for humanity before just think the same now, they've just swapped the black priestly frock for the white lab coat.

The conflicts of the last two years makes this very clear. "Contact guilt", for example, is a deeply Christian concept (where it was branded as a "sin" and not out of insight that every human being is fallible). Blaming others for an illness that affects you is typical misunderstood Christianity. The concept of guilt and atonement, of shame and branding of the guilty is also found in the Creed, for example. Or the Lord's Prayer.

Extreme, for example, are atheists who stiffly claim that they do not believe in God, but do not realise that the denial of God is his affirmation. Deeply engraved in our Christian culture is the creation myth that the earth and man were "made". Those who believe in this omnipotence must necessarily assume and presume their own superpotence, that life is controllable, manageable and predictable. You only have to do it "right" and you don't know everything "yet", but you are "close".

Where people see themselves as rational and pure materialists and bring facts and objectivity into the field to ridicule the superstitious or esoteric, they are actually talking about themselves, because they do not know that the belief in total feasibility in the natural sciences is just the same thing, only in a different colour. New wine in old bottles.

My thesis is therefore that the "West" or Occident is far less enlightened than is commonly thought and that the accusation of superstition by those who do not believe in the concept of sin, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, should be referred back to such natural scientists or adherents of natural science who are convinced of the objectivity and infallibility of modern science.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Hello to you,

no matter which theory one follows, it is always the case that individuals put their worldview into the rejection or acceptance of a theory.

Some biologists say that the number of viruses in organic bodies is so high that you have to write a superscript after the number. Millions or even more viruses are said to be harboured by our bodies. Against this background, the question arises that if I have "recognised", say, one or five per cent of the viruses, what about the other 95 %? What I do not know or have not identified, I cannot treat. Now, those unknown viruses, are they all deadly or severe damaging, or mild influencing? When does the moment come, when an unknown must also be seen as deadly, if not, when it is "found so"? I see no logic here... because, after all, it remains neutral until its determined not to be neutral?

One would have to think this through to the "end" and I only ever come to the conclusion that a final knowledge of all viruses is simply impossible. If you add the mutation theory, then it would be a race to the bottom that as soon as a virus was genetically identified, it could in turn have already changed and, moreover, you would have to be able to determine patient zero for every so-called outbreak. An impossibility from my point of view.

I do not agree with the world view that life is a battle and a competition alone. The theory of competition cannot exist without the theory of cooperation. The way in which what is considered harmful interacts with what is considered useful, and how exactly the processes unfold, are largely beyond human knowledge, because the unknowns cannot be included in the calculations. That's how I see it, anyway.

Greetings to you.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

"...I only ever come to the conclusion that a final knowledge of all viruses is simply impossible."

I absolutely agree. I also think that there are trillions, or even more viruses (individual particles, not species) in every human corpus. The vast majority of them are probably simply incidentally present, and have no infectious or pathogenic interaction with our bodies, because we ate something or breathed them in. Viruses aren't all pathogens. They're not alive. They don't eat or breathe, grow, or have any ability to reproduce themselves except as they are able to hijack life. It's actually likely in my estimation that some viruses are able to interact with non-living chemical processes to reproduce, but that's highly speculative, and just reflects the complexity of the universe.

It's just that some mechanisms exist that reproduce themselves, like a pantograph enables an image or item to be reproduced. The pantograph isn't alive, and the user isn't a pathogen.

"The theory of competition cannot exist without the theory of cooperation."

I also agree with this. I point out that life is an act of war because it helps me to dispel insuperable and irrational speculation regarding spirituality. It is clearly demonstrable that fungi and plants cooperate in the sharing of essential nutrients in ecosystems, for example. There is a network in the soil of mycelial hyphae and plant roots that trade sugar for various resources.

If a combatant has no allies, they are likely to lose, however.

All that being said, all life is one living thing, and each extant cell today is connected to that primordial life that originally became able to reproduce by an unbroken chain of living cells, each the daughter of it's parent. Every bacteria, tree, and person is so connected to that original cell. There is only one organism on Earth, it is immortal, and we are all part of it.

Be well.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I point out that life is an act of war because it helps me to dispel insuperable and irrational speculation regarding spirituality.

The question is, why do you want to dispel them? If you delete the word "irrational" before the word "speculations" and instead of "speculations" speak of "worldviews", the tone of the statement changes, no?

The rejection of the spiritual on the basis of an assumed irrationality involves an exclusion up to the point of offending all those who perhaps do not want to prove such a thing, but do want to accept it in the certainty that they are reaching the limits of their understanding. If the rejection remains mutual, both world views lose meaning and do not contribute to finding peace in the mind.

It would be easier for me not to see a contradiction in what you say in the following, which for me still exists in your elaboration.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"The rejection of the spiritual on the basis of an assumed irrationality involves an exclusion up to the point of offending all those who perhaps do not want to prove such a thing, but do want to accept it in the certainty that they are reaching the limits of their understanding."

I believe life is sacred, and humanity specially so. I have spiritual beliefs and understanding, but there is little empirical evidence I could point to in support of such belief. Because of the limitations on scientific evidence, spiritual beliefs are difficult to rectify with supporting evidence that reasonable people can agree on, and such disagreements as arise from that circumstance are all too common and prevent agreements on matters that can be supported by evidence. It is not my intention to dismiss spirituality itself as irrational and insuperable, but spiritual beliefs occasionally drive people to reject reasonable and fact based understanding because of the strongly held nature of spiritual beliefs.

I note my belief life is sacred exceeds the limits of my actual understanding, which is a very small realm because we are quite limited in our ability to perceive reality, at least. If I can only reach agreement with that subset of people that completely agree with my spiritual beliefs, I will forever be in disagreement with all of humanity.

We can all agree on some very general and reasonable things, that people of utterly disparate spiritual beliefs can all work to achieve for our mutual benefit, despite that various spiritual traditions cannot be reconciled and today prevent people from working together, such as Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir. I seek to foster agreement on things that reasonable people can agree on evidence for, and can work together towards mutual goals based on such agreement, rather than splintering our number and preventing us from surmounting our mutual challenges by supporting each other.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I think that it happens to you the other way round, to reject reasonable insights, because in your mind the interpretation is to the disadvantage of spirituality and therefore, when you have to deal with a believer or spiritually oriented person who is not practised in reflecting your vocabulary and your habits of thought, it comes to communicative mismatches.

In these cases, the verbal exchange of arguments is not only counterproductive, but also promotes conflict and can even be harmful.
That which is "reasonable" in the eyes of the spiritual is his space of experience. If you have not yet entered this space or if you have not had this experience or if you had it but have not been aware of it in a way that is meaningful for you, his "reason" cannot reach you.

I would first ask you what exactly you understand by spirituality. I think many people only have something abstract in mind, nothing concrete, which they encounter as actual experience with regular frequency, the less they find themselves in practical spiritual scenarios.

Let's get concrete. When you are in a church filled with practised singers who use their voices skillfully, find a common rhythm, that is, are tuned to a common frequency, what do you feel?
When you watch drummers and dancers performing a ritual that has a spiritual background, how does it move you?
When you hear music and a thousand other people with you, do you see it as a spiritual experience? When you witness a mother using her voice to sing her child to sleep and she is very good at it, is that spiritual?

Where prayer, dance and song become one, where the participants create a certain vibration, would you see such as spiritual? And if so, what do you think causes these frequencies, which can also be measured if you want? What other than prayer, song, chanting, music can be meaningful?

but there is little empirical evidence I could point to in support of such belief. Because of the limitations on scientific evidence, spiritual beliefs are difficult to rectify with supporting evidence that reasonable people can agree on, and such disagreements as arise from that circumstance are all too common and prevent agreements on matters that can be supported by evidence.

But there is. It's hard to find, yes, but not impossible. If you are really really interested in those evidence based research, you would be the one looking for it, right?

I think that people who say they are guided by facts and reason would have to give a little more credit to those who also have this reason and would very much like to provide the much demanded facts if they were ...
a.) ... taken seriously
b.) ... financed
c.) ... disseminated and supported to distribute their research results.

It may seem like wasting time with people because you don't speak a common language, but the accusation can go both ways.

Here is a link to the subject matter that I consider "spiritual" and yet can also be viewed through the eyes of science and reason:

https://jcer.com/index.php/jcj/article/viewFile/835/859

0
0
0.000
avatar

I am interested in consciousness, generally, and am aware that there are collective aspects of consciousness, and that it does not originate from the brain, because single celled creatures have some form of consciousness.

"...we propose that consciousness is an intrinsic property of magnetic fields."

This is not a scientific claim because it is easily falsified. Various creatures that demonstrably have consciousness do not have magnetic properties, magnetic fields, at all.

Scientism is not science.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Since when is a proposal or thesis unscientific? Or what do you mean by Scientism?

Science is initially based on assumptions, on the basis of which it is formulated into theses and hypotheses.

I would understand if you said that this paper in particular does not interest you further and that you therefore do not want to read it.

I don't know if there are living beings that have been "proven" to have consciousness but "no magnetic field." You would have to, in order to point out a false statement to the author, confront him if you are serious and hear what he has to say about it. My interpretation is that it can't even be about saying he's making a false claim yet, it seems more like a lead-in waiting for further experimentation.

I have considered this text from the outset as a suggestion that first allows for a scenario. On the basis of which experiments have been made.

That is what I meant above. If there is no open-mindedness or further interest in such research and the experiments that are possible with it are financed, no scientific community that can be taken seriously can be formed in this area and it is kept small.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"Science is initially based on assumptions..."

No, not at all. It's based on observations. Hypotheses attempt to explain what is observed, and if they are not soon falsified, they rise to the level of theory. Recently I proposed that dark matter was simply the gravitational effect from matter at other times. It took me a couple weeks to consider my hypothesis in conversation with a particle physicist before I realized I could falsify my hypothesis, because dark matter is not concentrated where visible matter is, which would be the case were my hypothesis correct.

It is no slight to have a theory falsified. I did it to myself. It is simply how false hypotheses are winnowed down leaving only those that have not yet been proven false, which enables the window of possibility to be continually narrowed, availing us the ability to close in on what is actual. We never actually arrive, but we keep getting closer.

Organisms with magnetite in their neurons, like us and certain bacteria, do generate magnetic fields. Not all bacteria do. Therefore consciousness, not being limited to living things that generate magnetic fields, cannot be the product of magnetic fields. The hypothesis is falsified by creatures exhibiting consciousness that do not also exhibit magnetic fields. It's not a slight on the hypothesizor that the hypothesis is falsified. It is good science, and has enabled the things that could possibly be the source of consciousness to be narrowed down.

That is how science works. Nothing can be proved. Things can only be disproved, which leaves an ever smaller potential list of things that have not been disproved. That's literally all the scientific method is.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I largely agree with your view that a hypothesis is a working basis until it has been falsified. Today's scientific community seems to be more concerned with verification and getting as many so-called "peer reviews" as possible that confirm but do not disprove. From my point of view, it's about marketable results. And I second your criticism elsewhere.

I am not conclusive myself whether there is a correct thesis underlying what is in the text I linked, however I would say that observation is something that precedes an assumption about what is observed, hence I said it is the initial element of science. Where nothing is observed, nothing can be assumed that forms the basis of a thesis. Since one can basically falsify any observation that does not concern something as unambiguous as gravity, for example, research based on observations that can be ambiguous or that apply to some/many and not all observed subjects would already be considered unscientific.

But what about the human mind, who wills to establish repeatability? With regard to genetic engineering, I had pointed out in another commentary that humans are quite tricky and that something that cannot be reproduced on the real visible subject can be repeated without problems on the abstraction of the subject. The abstraction of a subject ist not the subject, it's something different.

Since you agree on the one hand that objectivity in the sense von Förster questions it cannot be absolute, you say on the other hand that there is a "good enough". I would not disagree with this, but then I would add that this good enough takes place on the basis of human convention within linguistic communication because one WILL agree at some point. Until disagreement (falsification) sets in.

I would not claim to know what exactly passes as a scientifically clean method of individual works. Since I have too little expertise regarding the individual disciplines.

However, I would add that everything earthly is subject to the earth's electromagnetic field and that those creatures in which such a field can be measured interact with each other and with the earth's field and influence those creatures that do not have their own measurable field for that reason alone (without my being able to prove this assumption). I imagine a room full of people in balloons who are moving, bumping into each other, bouncing back, etc., i.e. who are constantly in motion, influence creatures and objects in the room that do not have a balloon shell.

Apart from that, I would say that false theses are well worth reading and can lead to the establishment of new theses, I think I understood you to mean something like that.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"I would say that false theses are well worth reading and can lead to the establishment of new theses, I think I understood you to mean something like that."

Yes, that is what I mean. Only the ability to falsify a hypothesis can enable it's potential veracity to be ascertained. Nothing can ever be proved right, but being able to be proved false through specific predictive power can show it could be right (if it isn't proved wrong and successfully predicts something), which is the best science can do.

"...everything earthly is subject to the earth's electromagnetic field and that those creatures in which such a field can be measured interact with each other and with the earth's field and influence those creatures that do not have their own measurable field..."

This hypothesis is that there is one consciousness. Since consciousness appears to be separate individual experiences, it would be necessary for some kind of internal organization within that uni-consciousness to enable that apparent division. If consciousness is strictly such a collective, however, what does that mean for species like us that generate magnetic fields?

Without some specific prediction that can be falsified, it is impossible to verify whether or not there is merit to this idea. Because it is impossible to falsify, it cannot be considered a scientific hypothesis. That doesn't mean it's wrong. It just cannot be falsified and can only be a matter of faith, believed or not.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I make a distinction between consciousness and self-consciousness (being aware of oneself). I would state that at least in living beings you can find forms of consciousness. And I find it safe to say that humans definitely do show self-consciousness, again in different states. Having said this, I think that I am alive and am conscious about this. This in itself need neither be falsified nor verified. If I cannot be certain that I am a living being, all other things would be irrelevant, I guess. I might as well think that I dream my life.

It would sound exceedingly ridiculous if someone said that I only believed I was alive, wouldn't it? I would not put such a thing under a question of faith.
In the same way, I remain open to the possibility that the earth and the sun and the cosmic bodies may very well be conscious, just beyond what I, as a human being, can comprehend. :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

We know so little about consciousness we cannot falsify the hypothesis that inanimate things are conscious. This is exemplified by the term consciousness itself, which separates unconsciousness, such as sleep, because of unresponsiveness, which isn't at all lack of consciousness. We just don't have any other way to test for consciousness than responses, and there's an almost unlimited list of very good reasons to not respond. We sure can't test for self-consciousness without first testing for consciousness.

0
0
0.000
avatar

and there's an almost unlimited list of very good reasons to not respond

please, explain.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

Well, if you ask a microbe a question, it won't answer you, because it doesn't have ears, doesn't speak any human language, nor has any mouth, larynx, or lungs capable of speech. Some primates and dogs have been shown to have vocabularies of thousands of words, but dogs have never been trained to use sign language like have apes, AFAIK. Despite their vocularity, cetaceans remain indecipherable, although some may have been trained to understand signs or speech. I really don't know about cetaceans. Some birds can mimic human speech, and certainly have been claimed to understand or be trained.

I think my cat knows more than he lets on.

That's, all considered, a pretty short list of non-human beings we have some kind of ability to communicate with. None of them seems able to discuss consciousness in a way we can quantify, although Koko the Gorilla once blamed her pet kitten for ripping a stainless steel sink off the wall, and I think lying is a pretty sure sign of consciousness, even of self-consciousness.

Bugs, plants, fungi, and all other living and non-living creatures just can't tell us anything (although we can tell they make decisions by indirect means), but rocks and planets and stuff, well, it doesn't seem reasonable to inquire.

That doesn't mean it's not conscious, in some way, and doesn't make decisions. It just means we have no way to test it.

0
0
0.000
avatar
(Edited)

The desire for quantification and testing is, in my opinion, due to the fact that people are reluctant to accept something like uncertainty.

Instead, they want to gain certainty. There is no certainty about this, about consciousness, only something else. But if people do not want to let go of gaining certainty, they will take all possible steps to turn something uncertain into something certain. It may seem that I am in favour of such scientific experiments to prove that "paranormal abilities" exist, for example. I wouldn't put it that way at all, rather I would say that humans can train abilities that are already inherent in them, therefore not para- but "normal". One just doesn't have a particular focus on them.

Whoever gets the impression from the so-called materialists that everything in the universe merely moves by means of blunt physical laws, that there is nothing of consciousness or intelligence to be found in it, probably experiences a narcissistic affront to his world view and wants to stand up against it.
He feels deprived of wonder, the effect of "deep awe!".

Now he wants to counter it by means of the scientific methods that the materialists leave open to him as the only path of discovery they accept. One could call it a clever move that the scientific method exerts a certain compulsion on all those who resist the destruction of their world view to use it (the scientific method) as a counter-evidence. Probably in the knowledge that such a rebuttal can never be achieved.

I wouldn't call it that and I don't see myself as being on one side or the other. Rather, I have this ambiguity in mind, the realisation that this strongly opposing world view reflects a current that appears in many places. A kind of perpetual ping-pong between the forces that fight each other but are mutually dependent. I see the dilemma, I am caught up in it myself in parts, but I can also take a position outside of it or find other interpretations interesting and accept them to some extent.

In the end, I'm not really dogged by seeing scientific experiments popping up all over the place that target abilities related to consciousness, they might as well be ghosts I called and had to regret afterwards.

I talk to "my microbes" occasionally as well as to my plants and I am sure, the cat knows more. I trust, I will be understood. HaHa! ;-)

0
0
0.000
avatar

"The desire for quantification and testing is, in my opinion, due to the fact that people are reluctant to accept something like uncertainty."

Nescience gets people killed. Science produces significant benefits demonstrably preferred by people. However, it is also demonstrable that no matter how reasonable and knowledgeable people are, they all die. Since learning takes time, we are constrained in our quest for knowledge by our need to live, regardless of what we know or don't know. This produces a range of strategies culturally and individually selected that cause a range of rationality and understanding to be affected individually.

Insofar as I can ascertain, these things will not change in the foreseeable future, and I am left with the distinct acknowledgement that one man's poison is another's treasure. While I feel obligated to respect other's choices, it is obvious that I consider my own optimal, and it is this conceit I seek to blunt increasingly as I approach death, as I am ever more confident I should be more humble. It is obviously paradoxical to be confident in one's humility, and Ben Franklin, who strove to exemplify what he considered to be the seven signal virtues, once wrote to his son that he had quite given up on humility, as he was certain he would be proud of achieving it if he ever did.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Ben Franklin, who strove to exemplify what he considered to be the seven signal virtues, once wrote to his son that he had quite given up on humility, as he was certain he would be proud of achieving it if he ever did.

HaHa! That gave me a good chuckle, thanx!
Indeed, a similar insight is also spread amongst the buddhist philosophers, where it is said that if you want to get rid of desire, this in itself is a desire and so one wants to get rid of the desire of not desiring.

But as being humbled is nothing one would be proud of, just humble, I bet, Franklin wrote it with a twinkling eye.

0
0
0.000
avatar

To the rest of your response, I answer you with a quote from the book I gave you the link for:

Here the anthropologists, the mythologists, the pre-historians do agree. All things are tied together: a sacred universal bond exists among all things. One may imagine that millions of hours went into both fantastic and carefully considered leaps in order to form all sights, sounds, and experiences into a meaningful whole.

The ability and need to see all in all is fundamental to the newly created human. The scientifically and technically useful ability to concentrate upon only a single special aspect of a thing derives from the obsessive compulsion to repeat.

The two needs spring quickly from the urge to control. Fearfully and paranoically, the humans saw in everything the thing that would threaten (or, ambivalently, save) them. Fearfully and obsessively, humans had to rehearse and redo what they had experienced, keeping everything the same and in order.

0
0
0.000
avatar

"...millions of hours went into both fantastic and carefully considered leaps in order to form all sights, sounds, and experiences into a meaningful whole."

I am convinced that whole we perceive is false. Such meaning as it has to us is what we seek to justify in our self-deception.

We are demonstrably incapable of total understanding. Any presumption we make to it is false. Plato ascribed to Aristotle the statement that he knew he knew nothing, and since existence is an emergent event, partial understanding is indeed no understanding, because only complete understanding enables comprehension of emergence.

Because of this I doubt I can ever be humble enough. I hope it is enough that I try, because that is all I can do.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I am convinced that whole we perceive is false. Such meaning as it has to us is what we seek to justify in our self-deception.

You take it way too literally. If you read a poem, you understand it, yet if you would want to write down your understanding of it, you'll fail greatly. Because the understanding does find itself between the lines, between what is expressed at its best but still cannot be expressed any further.

What you feel deep down in your guts, when you step out into the night sky and look up, that is where you have this feeling of understanding, of something true. But when you go back inside and you would want to share your experience with your neighbor or wife, you couldn't. It would sound weak, compared to the moment of looking into the stars.
Yeah, I agree, I cannot see you humble in this regard.

0
0
0.000
avatar

and Plato's observation that all he knew is that he knew nothing is a very good mechanism for rejecting our intrinsic biases.

That phrase is attributed to Socrates :)

Interesting post. Note that depending on your audience you will be questioned from time to time if your claims about biology are "too mainstream" or contradict hypotheses like that our DNA comes from reptilians on the moon.

0
0
0.000
avatar

That phrase is attributed to Socrates

You are correct, and my recollection is again shown to be faulty. I appreciate the correction.

"...our DNA comes from reptilians on the moon."

Gasp! And here I thought that all terrestrial life is directly descended from the primordial living cell through an unbroken chain of living cells that show strong evidence of their mutual relation in shared genetic components.

Thanks!

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thanks for your contribution to the STEMsocial community. Feel free to join us on discord to get to know the rest of us!

Please consider delegating to the @stemsocial account (85% of the curation rewards are returned).

You may also include @stemsocial as a beneficiary of the rewards of this post to get a stronger support. 
 

0
0
0.000
avatar

Congratulations @valued-customer! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s):

You distributed more than 45000 upvotes.
Your next target is to reach 46000 upvotes.

You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:

HiveFest⁷ badges available at the HiveBuzz store
HiveFest⁷ meetup in Amsterdam is next week. Be part of it and get your badge.
Our Hive Power Delegations to the August PUM Winners
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!
0
0
0.000