Evolution in schools; legal trap (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, June 12, 2012, 02:56 (4549 days ago) @ xeno6696


> This is where our difference in training is a chasm. 
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> A computer IS a circuit. So far, so good.
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> The simplest computer is 1 bit. It only computes two values, 0, or 1--(On or off.)
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> In the case of a light switch, if the input is "up" the value is "1" or "on." In the case of "0" the value is "0" or down.
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> You can argue what a "computer" is, but you'll be arguing with ME--a computer scientist. What I just described is the de facto standard for the simplest computer possible. Pre Von Neumann a "computation" was some poor fellow plugging pegs into holes, or moving beads on an abacus. What the input and output are--is irrelevant. It requires a mind to interpret why the input makes sense in regards to the output. This isn't the same in chemistry or biology at all.
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Matt, -I am very familiar with the progression of computers. I've worked/studied in IT/High Tech departments for a long time (All total about 25 years(I was learning to program games at 5 and oracle databases at 7 via my mom who was the lead programmer for the State Attorney's Office)) and even got quite a ways into a computer science degree before I decided that the school and the degree program were not for me. So, while I respect your opinion as a highly intelligent individual and have no doubt that your knowledge of computers and programming far surpasses my own, don't throw your shoulder out patting yourself on the back.-To compute means to calculate or reckon, and a computer is something that calculates or reckons. In the case of a light switch, a single binary circuit, nothing, and I do mean nothing, is being computed or reckoned. Neither does the abacus 'compute' anything, no more than your pencil or paper computes the answers for you when you do math on paper.-0 or 1 is meaningless without context. It doesn't mean on or off, open or closed, up or down, black or white, or anything else without context. That is why, and we can argue about this all week, a single isolated circuit is not a computer. Yes, I am well aware that at the hardware level a computer is a bunch of binary circuits. The difference is that it is a bunch of binary circuits in a system that function together to receive input and reckon/compute a meaningful response. -This difference in opinion may be a result of the difference in paradigms between your field of study and mine though, and I willing to admit that. My specialty focuses on the design of systems, and realizes that any single component, existing in isolation, does not a system make. My field also recognizes the fact that something must process the data, whether a machine or a person. In a light switch circuit, the person flipping the switch on and off acts as both control and the processor. If you include that person/entity in the equation, then that could indeed be counted as a computer, but not without it, literature be damned.-> Because we found a way to shift electricity around on silicon doesn't mean we gain some "magical" ability. A computer is a light switch, and little else. Don't mistake the forest for the trees--movie special effects are "on and off" interpreted in a way that makes sense to US. 
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> > > This section has one "imperative."
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> > > "6. Self-monitor and repair its constantly deteriorating physical matrix of bioinstruction retention/transmission, and of architecture"
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> > > This is where I start to see an unnecessary bias towards cellullar life... 
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> > > What about Virii and prions? Virii work by taking over a cellular host, by directly altering some physical structure. This process require energy... and meets all the other criterion of life.
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> > Yes, there is a bias against Virii because Virii are not 'alive'. The do not do anything at all in the absence of living organisms aside from simply existing. They do not consume, reproduce, die, or ANY of the other biological functions unless, and only unless, they have been introduced into an existing living biological structure.
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> Virii consume energy by virtue of what their reprogramming does. They reproduce by coopting the machinery of something else. They don't NEED to do anything else, because their hosts do that for them. There is no consensus on virii for exactly these reasons.-The virus itself doesn't actually consume. It doesn't internalize any outside energy. It hijacks the processes of the cell, true, but that strand of DNA does not possess he capability to metabolize, and therefore is incapable of consumption. Their reprogramming does not actually consume anything either, not in the biological sense at least. It may interject, overwrite, or copy, but that is not the same function at all.-> 
> > > Further, there is nothing I've read to counter the idea that virii didn't evolve from a more complex form... meaning that under this definition life can become animate nonlife--creating a category we've never dealt with.
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> > Evolve or Devolve?
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> Evolution has never been an accretion-only process. It means travel in any direction of survival. (There is no goal, save survival.)-Oi

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.