No Intelligent Design Nor accident

Schandra Tripathi you say:

``In fact, the drive to mutate, even at the cost of their own death is greatest among those creatures who are trying to control their environment.``

and again...

``But then why a virus will try to `survive` when it is not living. It does not even have a cell. It changes form from one kind of flu, Aids, etc.to another. It will mutate to another kind just to survive our attempts to eradicate it.``

Not so. There`s nothing purposeful in it - no DRIVE to mutate, no TRYING to `survive` no WILL mutate - at all. You seem to have misunderstood how evolution and natural selection work.

What we cannot count, or estimate, are the life-supporting planets that might exist in other - or parallel as some would say - universes. Why should the known (the one known to us, that is) universe be the only one? Our knowledge doesn`t stretch beyond our own surroundings, even when we consider that to be this entire universe. Did it all begin from nothing, as some scientists speculate? Can you, or anyone, conceive of this pre-cosmic ``nothing?`` Not I, said the pig.

mirmir

My apologies to all for not having responded earlier. As it was a take off on a Mohammad Gill’s article in early may and not very carefully written and I did not see it appearing, my conclusion was that it was not considered worthy. I also could not visit Chowk for last month.
Yes I did not bother much about coherence and wrote without giving myself much trouble a la Gill saheb. must do better next time. Thanks to Beejay for help and encouragement.
Re: 3& 7 Inquirer: Philosophy (Darshan= ‘logic by demonstration’ in sanskrit) is utmost science, encompasses mechanics, physics..all. But it is certainly not Indian religious mysticism which passes for philosophy. It is no claim to be a student of philosophy but I do love reading all that makes sense and even though it may not be coherent, I still hope it was nowhere self contradictory. Please point out if it was.
#2 Azur: Yes I also wondered at times whether anybody would really crave to live on, as software or even as a fully functional body, if you just take out the genes working on emotions. Are’nt the soldiers or assassins taught to turn them off. But even as software, you may have emotions and sex. Take the case of your robot. Imagine it running on a software which rewards it with a rejuvenating maintenance if it helps other robots in their daily chores. As for your question on Self replication, it may be necessary to adjust to changing environment. Instead of accepting the environment and adopting our selves we teach ourselves to control the environment to the point where any unlearning creates so many social and psychological adjustment problems ( Ek hamara jamana tha….). I do not see why two robots cannot create a new copy of their own self starting from raw material as we humans do. They don’t have to cannibalise themselves.
#4 Ullu ka Pattha: Sir, Do you really think life and specially ‘human’ is designed for something specific and great. With only afterlife promises to most noble and well behaved and rewarding with all worldly pleasures to those who deserve them least, can we really call it useful allocation of resources by ‘God’? The only alibi God has is his inexistence.
Cordially.
Sharad

Layers is the answer. Energy sustains in the form of atoms. Atoms tend to go to the next layer of complexity, the molecule. Then comes the next layer, mr. virus, so on and so forth... This theme is followed by all orginized activities in this world. The only question is, `how come?`

In a modren computer, the basic hardware is very very simple. At the lowest level, it can only do add, shift and inverse operations with binary numbers which is pretty low tech. But stuff as complex as Quake can be built on top of those operations (provided they happen quick enough). This happenned in a course of less than 50 years. This shows the potential which is there in the provisions and working of the universe.

To me, life seems to be a hobby of nature, because otherwise it has nothing to do. Just like a kid makes small shapes of clay. But this kid is smart.

Dear Schandra Tripathi:

Since that rascal temporal seems to slacking, let me grab his hat for a second and say this:

“Schandra, welcome to Chowk!”

Okay, Tempo bhai, I give you your hat back.

Schandra, you seem to represent a very rare breed of personality in these waters – someone who appears to claim to understand most of what Dr. Gill-types can write, and (Lord Almighty!) even try to build upon it. Please be careful, Chowk might be trying to use you as an unsuspecting pawn (those Chowk editors are wily, and through careful observations (for example, by analyzing “flies” in sweets-stores), I have been able to identify at least one!) in a backdoor attempt to sneak in some scientific-type “high-bro” discussion here, as distinct from the run-of-the-mill-garbage-type “high-bro” discussion the site seems to specialize in!

If I were you (not that I’d probably want to be, especially if you talk in real life the way you talk here, (which is kind of BORING (don’t get me wrong, some of the smartest people in life are that way (I know some (in fact, I have even been accused of being one myself))))), I’d try to say things in a simpler language.

For example, instead of saying

“It is an attempt at scenarios elaboration other than the one of considering life (specially humans) as an intelligent design by `God` or an accident of evolution. Let us start from only the known and sufficiently well established scientific knowledge of today.”

You may consider saying

“Let’s look at this intelligent design (by ‘God’) versus accident (evolution) issue.”

You get my drift. That way, you will lose readers less quickly.

About the article itself (Warning: criticism ahead), it seems like a delightful flight of fancy – the kind that a “bhaang”-loaded reflecting mind will come up with in one of its “few and far between” moments of inspiration, or what someone like Ozer will “create” (I hope he doesn’t show up here and I certainly hope YOU are not one of his countless manifestations (believe me, stranger things have happened here!)) – in the span of about five minutes! I generally agree with comments like #3 and others regarding its lacking coherence and focus. However, you must keep trying and instead of falling into the trap of being like one of those “self-replicating robots” (as most Civic Center writers and interactors seem to be like) try to come up with an improved product. This site could REALLY use some intelligent life!

Notes:
[We may not even need a body- a fragile hardware which deteriorates, keeps us in material bound and susceptible to make us disappear by accident.]
So much for medical doctor jobs! Or ANY jobs!

[As always one answer generates a host of questions?]
The problem is, unlike Dr. Gill who does some legwork in looking for some answers, you are flat on your fanny – gazing at the stars and entertaining us with your accounts of inter-stellar escapades!

Re: # 5 Yes, hell of a lot, but not physics and philosophy.

Thought provoking indeed, but lacks coherence.
And yes, the series of questions is divergant, or all the answers would converge into one...the ultimate one.

Re: # 3

Err... mechancial engineering is all about physics, philosophy and a hell lot more. Pray tell what you are, dear sir, so the mechies here can laugh their heads off! It`s not just engineering, its the maan payo of all engineering, so better watch your step! ;-)

Good one Tripathhi ji,especially that mutating virus thing.A tiny thing like virus is enough to burst the hyperinflated bubble of our sceintific progress.``GOD,SE PANGA NAEE LENAY KA,KYA?``.
Another thing that makes me wonder is the shear hugeness of the universe.I mean just our solar system would have taken care of all the human curiosity and technical playing field.Why this vast space with billions of stars? and a tiny dot like planet called earth sustaining life.Is this ``wastage of resources`` has some explanation.Does God has some other galactic tasks for us mortal humans.

Who knows? ``Sitaaron se aagay jahaan aur bhi hai......``

Sorry, Tripathi ji:
Physics and Philosophy are not the cup of mechanical engineers! While you have run many a tangents what you need is the coherence that needs to weave through any statement.

Ah, finally! A fellow Mechanical Engineer on Chowk!

This is well written, Mr. Schandra, and I guess we do have a lot of common opinions regarding the origins of Life. But when you fast forwarded to the future, you envisoned man as something like an amorphous consciousness with no fascination for its body. At least I wouldn`t like my brain seperated from my body not matter how much my future kids said, `Aww come on dad, it`s the latest trend! You got to get rid of your body and live like an independent brain!`. I`d rather live in a small cell with my body and all than fly around on electromagnetic waves self replicating myself. After all, the brain is the biggest sex organ, they say! Hehe!

By the way, you`ve probably heard or read about those self replicating robots the intelligent infidels have created recently. Being an engineer, would you really consider them self replicating or just machines breaking up into pieces and rejoining with other bits, thanks to some eletromagnetic magic? I wouldn`t! If they could create a two robots with one set of mechanisms each which are able to produce another set of mechanisms thus created a third complete robot with its own set, then we can say that the robots are indeed self replicating.

Interesting and very entertaining!