https://dtnetwork.org/our-members/ursula/activity/ Activity feed for Ursula Goodenough. Wed, 17 Jun 2026 20:29:26 -0400 https://buddypress.org/?v=9.1.1 en-US 30 hourly 2 24308c538b8d0c7ecd35cc0c0430ee23 https://dtnetwork.org/activity/p/24996/ Sat, 11 Jan 2020 08:42:04 -0500 0 bd8057859395b3605d2e04a9aad382d1 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/27/#post-5151 Fri, 04 Dec 2015 20:42:19 -0500 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]

]]> 0 b2743545088de560bf1cce6a8cb55959 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/25/#post-4789 Fri, 25 Sep 2015 17:51:10 -0400 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]

]]> 0 0d0ad8b21c386241959005bfe2227db2 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/24/#post-4710 Wed, 09 Sep 2015 12:49:18 -0400 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]

]]> 0 881fa16b0c8a06c3479e6b586c99d07d http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/24/#post-4708 Tue, 08 Sep 2015 23:56:38 -0400 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]

]]> 0 839b6161391d49cd93cefc92e0d86f2a http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/21/#post-4570 Thu, 16 Jul 2015 21:43:40 -0400 Meant to add that such a conversation would be off-topic for a DTJN blog, so if interested, please email me at goodenough@wustl.edu

]]> 0 3138cf0291f2eeba82aaf2b8087be9a2 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/21/#post-4569 Thu, 16 Jul 2015 21:41:21 -0400 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]

]]> 0 e7b04e400112b105f4d25d9be5059936 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/21/#post-4554 Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:04:14 -0400 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]

]]> 0 5ff2829612487211d5c5ea7563f394ee http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/21/#post-4549 Tue, 14 Jul 2015 05:04:52 -0400 Davidson –What do you have in mind when you say the orthodoxy of mechanistic/positivist sciences? 

]]> 0 0dc9a903524d0a97def78a8d07fa8738 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/20/#post-4520 Fri, 10 Jul 2015 14:53:02 -0400 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]

]]> 0 bd29cf0cbb881a567c768c1a66e9b7b7 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/20/#post-4514 Fri, 10 Jul 2015 14:24:21 -0400 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]

]]> 0 3752450cd8fc9cef936ecf7e9208745d http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/19/#post-4424 Mon, 29 Jun 2015 14:31:01 -0400 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]

]]> 0 ca7ae78f92cd2975b95b444ccd3c9f36 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/19/#post-4423 Mon, 29 Jun 2015 14:20:59 -0400 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]

]]> 0 41b82c69c22965e6c2fd35f4392cd858 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/19/#post-4422 Mon, 29 Jun 2015 12:40:00 -0400 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. 

]]> 0 30d961a1558c10b07964e9e973df9ac0 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/19/#post-4416 Sun, 28 Jun 2015 01:14:36 -0400 I believe I went through this a few days ago.

]]> 0 aeef60dc142c1ce0cc53ae64e6a8e59b http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/19/#post-4414 Sat, 27 Jun 2015 23:55:17 -0400 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]

]]> 0 ee09f8113f42f961831fbbe0955ab9a1 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/18/#post-4404 Fri, 26 Jun 2015 18:50:44 -0400 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]

]]> 0 ee4a52cc0acb247f7bca62ff6d553629 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/18/#post-4394 Thu, 25 Jun 2015 23:45:20 -0400 Duane — Please read the Goodenough and Deacon article, to give us a basis for this conversation. 

]]> 0 8147676e0ded5363cd3c1f4352c71932 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/18/#post-4392 Thu, 25 Jun 2015 22:50:49 -0400 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]

]]> 0 e1717a3ff08d7e5bb970caca65e661fc http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/18/#post-4387 Thu, 25 Jun 2015 20:26:24 -0400 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. 

]]> 0 6f4a22f47428a18c4968d773f98fe241 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/17/#post-4385 Thu, 25 Jun 2015 19:50:07 -0400 Duane — (Here’s the URL for the article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27730-this-singlecelled-bug-has-the-worlds-most-extraordinary-eye.html) — A cool critter to be sure. Importantly, there’s only one radiation that uses neurons to detect the outside world, called Animalia or Metazoa. All other organisms have ways of doing this w…[Read more]

]]> 0 d587313d7989c496276b490d9db9e381 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/?p=4304 Thu, 21 May 2015 21:38:39 -0400 Description of the dynamics of EMERGENCE covering, among other things: REDUCTION and EMERGENCE; and What is Meant by Religious? — Interpretive Responses (Creation and Purpose, Contingency, The Emergent Human), […]

]]> 2 f99175b6b0c6785d12518e8d82aa2df6 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/16/#post-4288 Wed, 20 May 2015 20:22:30 -0400 Yes. Maybe before we go any further here, you might read (unless you’ve already done so) the paper by Terry and me that I lifted up early in this conversation. I think it would help our communications. http://www.edtechpost.ca/readings/Ursula%20Goodenough-%20The%20Sacred%20Emergence%20of%20Nature.pdf 

]]> 0 e5b05a5300920ba07933a5c79743c809 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/16/#post-4286 Wed, 20 May 2015 20:11:33 -0400 Well, um, it’s the term you used.

]]> 0 cd7958ade0ac26d67350b36c4a6dc838 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/16/#post-4284 Wed, 20 May 2015 19:50:30 -0400 Why invoke a “knowing process”? Why not just say that, given the thermodynamic and molecular-shape constraints of the constituents, they self-organize? 

]]> 0 680276b55e9809fcd9dd17c05a7840d4 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/15/#post-4278 Wed, 20 May 2015 13:39:39 -0400 I wrote yesterday: “Ed indicates that some of his ideas could be subjected to empirical tests but that the scientific establishment is too biased to fund such inquiries. I would be interested in what such a grant application would look like.” First-year graduate students in our program take a class where their weekly assignment is to write a…[Read more]

]]> 0 98f226e2e9560b09fee17442d2bfdebb http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/15/#post-4266 Tue, 19 May 2015 20:25:56 -0400 Duane — well, I offered a definition of life a few screens ago. Of course you might not agree with it, in which case it could be said to already fail as a common definition, but I predict that most students of biology would agree with it.  But there’s something else afoot here, that Jon and Davidson have at various times pointed out as well,…[Read more]

]]> 0 eb4b02445722b1e0a0f918bae23cea99 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/15/#post-4264 Tue, 19 May 2015 16:14:03 -0400 Duane — Dr. Murakami is for sure a legitimate scientist — I wasn’t comfortable with “one of the top geneticists in the world” from his publisher. My publisher blurbs me as “one of America’s leading cell biologists,” which is also incorrect.  His description of the genome’s minute size and extraordinary complexity is totally correct.  Where we…[Read more]

]]> 0 5ccfab63129a692dd5876b663b48e5a8 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/14/#post-4258 Tue, 19 May 2015 14:58:27 -0400 Ed: Ah — epigenetics!  I didn’t realize that that was what Dr. Murakami was invoking.  For sure the expression of a given gene is turned on and off on a regular basis. Protein transcription factors, microRNAs, and DNA methylation are the agents/mechanisms we best understand, but others will doubtless be discovered. Stress, disease, exercise, on…[Read more]

]]> 0 f3fa5a8c66e002207fd474dabf01dc22 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/14/#post-4253 Tue, 19 May 2015 04:50:30 -0400 Hi Duane, welcome back! Murakami may be a very fine man, but “one of the top geneticists in the world” is a line from his book publisher. The rice genome paper has 72 authors, where he is somewhere in the middle. His 2006 book, called The Divine Code of Life: Awaken Your Genes and Discover Hidden Talents…[Read more]

]]> 0 badc77cbcc6e586a0141b17576599fcb http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/14/#post-4248 Mon, 18 May 2015 21:28:15 -0400 Ed wrote: Interestingly, there is now a raging debate in science about whether there is some sort of active intelligence behind what was hitherto through to be purely random processes behind the origin of the universe, the origin of life and perhaps evolutionary processes as well. If there is some sort of intelligence inherent in the universe, t…[Read more]

]]> 0 a2e1b623401dbb3103ef0d99942c74b7 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/14/#post-4245 Mon, 18 May 2015 20:00:57 -0400 A lot has changed since 1981, Ed. You don’t need all 2000 enzymes in the initial proto-cell (and actually there are now a lot more than 2000). Have you had a chance to read this  yet http://www.edtechpost.ca/readings/Ursula%20Goodenough-%20The%20Sacred%20Emergence%20of%20Nature.pdf  ? 

]]> 0 7a2e0f707f3c790627e74459069a72fc http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/13/#post-4243 Mon, 18 May 2015 18:42:26 -0400 I’m frankly surprised that you are using the dumb/random chance phrase when you are doubtless aware that random chance in biology only creates variability and that it’s selection for those that work that drives the process, selection being the antithesis of random. I’m again not an expert here, but it’s my understanding that the term “information”…[Read more]

]]> 0 f487894193d20446f81dcb11fbe082d8 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/13/#post-4241 Mon, 18 May 2015 17:14:35 -0400 “According to this controversial fine-tuning hypothesis, life can only evolve in rare patches of the multiverse where the fundamental constants are fine-tuned to support the existence of life.” The fine-tuning trope carries the implication of there being a fine tuner. I for one prefer the concept that in at least one universe of the multiverse, t…[Read more]

]]> 0 5411e6c36731a2596ffdafffd3c1ff9c http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/13/#post-4236 Mon, 18 May 2015 01:31:23 -0400 If you get hydrogen nuclei hot enough they fuse to make helium, and if you get helium nuclei hot enough they fuse to make carbon. http://aether.lbl.gov/www/tour/elements/stellar/stellar_a.html

]]> 0 7e92c3aebe45ea256dd339e353df14ff http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/13/#post-4228 Sun, 17 May 2015 20:43:36 -0400 Ed wrote: I suppose that a statistically minded cosmologist could compute the probability of (and thus the expected quantity of) carbon formation in the universe based on random processes alone and compare that with actual measurements. Perhaps in this way you could show that it is “necessary” for intelligence to guide otherwise inert matter,…[Read more]

]]> 0 d44eab315ea5a42586fc4f2ef984ebb7 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/12/#post-4220 Sat, 16 May 2015 21:10:00 -0400 Karen — This is known as the anthropic principle, which takes many forms. The wiki article is a good intro.  

]]> 0 ae2856c8e62e49a2f1d81569741da333 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/12/#post-4212 Fri, 15 May 2015 03:50:39 -0400 As I am neither a neuroscientist nor a physicist, I invited a departmental colleague who is a physics-trained neuroscientist to read through some of this conversation and offer her/his assessment. Here’s the response:  The software analogy is deeply flawed both in discussions of computer “intelligence” and particularly with respect to life and…[Read more]

]]> 0 8a04328b077bdb85013f93e35002a0ea http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/11/#post-4181 Sun, 10 May 2015 15:30:25 -0400 Re-posting my list with additional commentary in boldface.. I’ve lost track of which “Western science” definition(s) of life are to be included in the forthcoming glossary, but I’ll go ahead and offer the ” minimal list of list of features that constitute all present-day organisms on planet earth” that I offered in our course The Epic of Evolutio…[Read more]

]]> 0 5a8ad5797233130bd5364fc8f69104eb http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/11/#post-4171 Fri, 08 May 2015 14:02:17 -0400 I’ve lost track of which “Western science” definition(s) of life are to be included in the forthcoming glossary, but I’ll go ahead and offer the ” minimal list of list of features that constitute all present-day organisms on planet earth” that I offered in our course The Epic of Evolution. 1) Ability to capture and utilize energy from the…[Read more]

]]> 0 067ec12a2750aa368aaa46f9bdb7dacf http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/9/#post-4123 Sat, 02 May 2015 17:32:55 -0400 Jennifer — Please tell us more about what you do in these workshops or post links. The robe is gorgeous!

]]> 0 bc1db6fa6305aa633595ad175b6fa6ff http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/9/#post-4115 Thu, 30 Apr 2015 16:19:10 -0400 DuaneSince current calculations have “ordinary matter” being only 1-5% of the total universe, there’s lots else! We may have different definitions of mechanical, but for me nuclear fusion, for example, isn’t mechanical in the folk understanding of the word. Yes on 2. Purpose shows up with organisms on this planet, as elaborated…[Read more]

]]> 0 8ad07282abdba34d8d323ec60dd44fc8 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/9/#post-4113 Thu, 30 Apr 2015 14:12:33 -0400 Duane — Seems like we’ve circled back to one of the first exchanges in this thread, where you voiced something along these lines and I responded with something about “the grunge theory of matter.” The concept that matter is not alive doesn’t mean it’s “dead.” It means it’s something other than an organism which, on our planet and possibly…[Read more]

]]> 0 a8bbabfc1b41ebdc644294e7e017174b http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/9/#post-4110 Thu, 30 Apr 2015 12:56:33 -0400 Ed wrote: Ok, well I am not a biologist by any stretch. Can you cite more awesome references to back this up? How do spatially distributed stem cells in a zygote know to start differentiating – one into a liver and another into a brain? I thought this was still a mystery. Ursula: The reference I gave you has some of this; my book The Sacred Dep…[Read more]

]]> 0 0583f67a2fb1d2ea875c4390a70b5294 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/8/#post-4101 Wed, 29 Apr 2015 19:29:17 -0400 Various responses. Ed wrote: “I cannot build a living, reproducing being from scratch. There are missing ingredients.” This isn’t the case. Craig Venter’s team almost achieved this in 2010 http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form, though they cheated a little, and they are working away at doing it without…[Read more]

]]> 0 5dbb27f176fa386a2bb33dd60029e342 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/8/#post-4091 Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:44:39 -0400 Ed wrote: you must admit that the ultimate reducibility of biological life to mechanical systems is a faith-based belief and one of several competing theories. I would say that the reduction of biological life to mechanical systems is not a faith-based belief but rather an already-accomplished project, where there are still many many things to…[Read more]

]]> 0 a7917e3c26780bc12221abee53231c4e http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/7/#post-4080 Tue, 28 Apr 2015 19:57:19 -0400 Sure — What’s the model?

]]> 0 2b58c5467c280992f1b20181aa9dd9e3 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/6/#post-4056 Fri, 24 Apr 2015 19:58:41 -0400 Good point on the Sagan quote. I think the context was in his pushing back against paranormal claims, which he and most others found particularly extraordinary. But I’ll scrub it from my usage (actually it’s the first time I’ve used it, but will have it be my last!).

]]> 0 0ae22685e705c6b7d2a827410240c91a http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/6/#post-4054 Fri, 24 Apr 2015 18:23:39 -0400 Jennifer — You write “Lots more needs to be said re this subject of “science-based statements” vs. statements that are outside of science — valid and important in other ways, and perhaps will be proven in the future but are not subscribed to by much of the science community at this point.” My primary concern with Duane’s approach — and he is ha…[Read more]

]]> 0 8e6dda40b3d94f878eeaa5ff529a4ae6 http://wptaverncommunity.wefoster-platform.co/forums/topic/is-the-universe-a-living-system/page/6/#post-4046 Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:29:27 -0400 I suggest that we not get bogged down in self-language, which is used very loosely. Sound waves, for example, are often spoken of as self-propagating.  This sentence illustrates the quagmire we’re in: “If there now is consensus among origin-of-life researchers that RNA chains are too specialized to have been created as a product of random…[Read more]

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