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Ursula Goodenough updated new location at St. Louis, MO 63130, USA 4 years, 6 months ago
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 8 years, 7 months ago
Well, the physicist’s question to the cell biologist doesn’t have a disconnect in that cells operate via molecules and molecules operate via chemistry and chemistry operates via physics, so there’s lots to be said about building cells, and about their molecule-mediated interactions, that builds on physics. I’m not getting how one can have a…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 8 years, 9 months ago
The IIT proposal was first published by Tononi in 2008 so it’s been around a while. For readers who’d like to read a direct, and accessible, paper by Tononi and Koch, rather than the hype of the HuffPo piece, here’s an open-access paper from 2015: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1668/20140167 For readers interested in a c…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 8 years, 10 months ago
Jim — It would be appreciated if you would hit return twice between paragraphs so your message isn’t a huge wall of words. Thanks! You wrote: That would be a scenario reminiscent of the so-called Modern Synthesis which had evolution produced by the accumulation of beneficial random mutations (the odds against random mutation producing the human g…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 8 years, 10 months ago
My first post in this conversation, back in April, ended as follows. Seems time for a re-post. Here’s where I come out in general. I’ve not been resonant with any Gaia-premised understandings of nature from the get-go, where Duane’s expansion of the concept to the universe is even less appealing to me. To my ears, those proposing Gaia-like world…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Meant to add that such a conversation would be off-topic for a DTJN blog, so if interested, please email me at [email protected]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Mike Bell — I would love to exchange thoughts with you about interweaving your perspectives into our Religious Naturalist Association (RNA) sphere and perhaps also vice-versa. I cut my ecomorality teeth with Thomas Mary Evelyn and Brian — in fact, Mary Evelyn, Brian and I co-chaired a week-long summer conference on Star Island called Ecomorality…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Davidson — As you lucidly summarize, the practice of medicine has been plagued with ignorance and charlatans capitalizing on that ignorance. I’ve just read the excellent The Emperor of All Maladies, which will furnish you with additional examples of disinformation and hubris in the cancer field. You’ll find in the last chapters that mechanistic…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Davidson –What do you have in mind when you say the orthodoxy of mechanistic/positivist sciences?
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
I guess I’ve been living in a bubble where science is done correctly. If you were a subject and not a researcher, then it would help me, and probably others in this conversation, if you would let us know on what basis it is the case that you are confident that the full dataset includes significant findings. Is this what the researchers…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Duane — Are you saying that the published SRI reports, which I gather indicate that the results of the 20-year study are inconclusive, would have instead be deemed conclusive had the full data been released? In my 50 years of being a scientist I’ve never heard of such a thing. Had the CIA wanted to keep the work secret, which may be their…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Ed — I wouldn’t claim that we mostly understand the processes of life — happily, since otherwise I’d be out of a job! I would claim, however, that everything we’ve figured out thus far points to the kinds of processes that Terry and I describe in our essay and not to “something else… hitherto invisible dimensions, forces or influences.” This i…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Jennifer wrote: “Epi-genes, the environment, the microbiome all appear to have a huge impact on what gets turned on/off . . . and therefore . . . what gets thought/not thought . . . and hence acted upon/not acted upon. How does this affect our understanding of consciousness as being only a brain function?” I’d respond that the concept of…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
A paper just came out on the dinoflagellate’s “eye” that is publicly available: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118415. It’s very cool.
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
I believe I went through this a few days ago.
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Duane — just re-read the article you note above, and I’m not finding Dr. Leander quoted as saying “it remains a mystery.” But even if he did, it would be a figure of speech — scientists routinely say in conversation that the answer to the research question they’re pursuing remains a mystery because they haven’t yet figured it out. When a…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Thanks for your kind words. W note at the start of the second section of the essay: “Emergent properties arise as the consequence of relationships between entities. Robert Laughlin (2005) intriguingly suggests that emergent properties arise even at the level of relationships between subatomic entities – indeed he suggests that the very “…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Duane — Please read the Goodenough and Deacon article, to give us a basis for this conversation.
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
Duane — You might click around in Google/Wiki using those terms — membrane receptors, ion channels, and signal transduction cascades — and get at least a sense of it. It’s pretty cool stuff. “Eliciting” works by inducing shape changes, basically. Have you had a chance to read my emergence piece with Terry Deacon yet? Jennifer has posted it…[Read more]
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Ursula Goodenough replied to the topic Is the universe a "living system"? in the forum Deep Time Journey Forum 9 years ago
As I tried but perhaps failed to convey above, I think of awareness and sentience as applying to all forms of organismal perception, and consciousness as applying to what interconnecting neurons/brains do.
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