The Universe: Machine or Organism?

Consider your present situation. You're siting in front of a monitor, absorbing and processing the light that's coming at you, which happens to form these words. Perhaps you are chatting with someone, and you are sending light-information between each other. Every word that is typed, no matter how complex its meaning, can be reduced down to 1 and 0 -- to a series of yes and no. Because of it's simplicity, we view this computer as an unintelligent being, a chunk of dead, inanimate matter that only appears vaguely alive because we living creatures happen to be manipulating it.

Now look at yourself. Millions of times more complex, your brain contains of around 100 billion neurons. Each one relays information via electrical impulses, and just like with a computer, each neuron is only capable of two functions -- firing or not firing. Yes or no. 1 or 0. There is no in-between, as a neuron can't partially fire. With each neuron connected to as many as 10,000 others, and billions of neurons firing at any one time, there are literally trillions of interactions going on inside your brain at any one second. Yet, if you break it down to its most fundamental functions, the brain is itself an extremely complex (if slightly more squishy) computer -- a very convoluted system of binary.

If you break things down even further, to the level of quarks and atoms and molecules, we're essentially all the same. So, the question arises: where does the living organism end and the non-living machine begin?

Let's for a moment look at the primary dictionary definition of 'life':

Quote:

---

Main Entry: 1life
Pronunciation: 'lIf
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural lives /'lIvz/
Etymology: Middle English lif, from Old English lIf; akin to Old English libban to live -- more at LIVE
1 a : the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body b : a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings c : an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction

---

(source: Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary)

The 'quality' that distinguishes a vital functional being from a dead body is defined in C: characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli and reproduction.

Humans have already created computer programs that not only self-replicate, but evolve and compete with each other just as living organisms do. (http://www.nis.atr.jp/~ray/tierra/whatis.html). Of course, we've created machines and computers that respond to stimuli, as well. Growth, in biology, is most often attributed to the reproduction of cells, and so computers can 'grow' in the same manner.

This leaves us with metabolism.
While computers have been successfully programmed to simulate metabolism, the definition of metabolism itself restricts it from recreation by circular logic:

Quote:

---

Main Entry: me·tab·o·lism
Pronunciation: m&-'ta-b&-"li-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary, from Greek metabolE change, from metaballein to change, from meta- + ballein to throw -- more at DEVIL
1 a : the sum of the processes in the buildup and destruction of protoplasm; specifically : the chemical changes in living cells by which energy is provided for vital processes and activities and new material is assimilated b : the sum of the processes by which a particular substance is handled in the living body c : the sum of the metabolic activities taking place in a particular environment <the metabolism of a lake>

---

(source: Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary)

According to the definitions, metabolism is a prerequisite of life, and life is a prerequisite of metabolism. At its core, though, metabolism is yet another chemical reaction that takes place within the human body, a function that could easily be viewed as purely mechanical.

So we're left with these two views:

One, that life at it's core is not truly alive, but a machine. And two, that the 'external' universe is not really inanimate, but just as alive as you and me.

The former of these two views presents several dilemmas. First, if the universe is a machine, that implies that it must have been created, that the order that we see must have been shaped from this dumb, chaotic matter by some sort of external intelligence. Secondly, that in order for our consciousness to have meaning and significance, it must be more than a mere chemical reaction. Thus, we conceive a solution called 'God' -- a monarchical architect that molds inanimate matter and breathes life into it.

If the latter is true, however, there is no need for outside interference, because life is self-sustaining; indeed, from this point of view all living energy could be viewed as God itself -- an intelligent, growing, evolving, and conscious being, without need of some deeper meaning. From this viewpoint, life has value in and of itself. There is no living soul that is separate from the dead matter of your physical body; the matter itself is alive. Evolution is not striving towards some unseen goal, instead each stage of existence is the point of itself. As Alan watts points out in one of his lectures (and I'm paraphrasing here): "The seed doesn't exist to produce a plant, nor does the plant exist to produce flowers, nor do the flowers exist to produce more seeds." They are all equally significant, just as none of the organisms in an ecosystem are more or less important than any of the other organisms in that ecosystem. Though on the surface there is an illusion of strife, of competition, of wanton violence, at its core such a system is a unified and harmonious entity in its own right.

Now, tell me... which makes more sense to you, and why?

Isn't the question really just about defining and refining descriptions?

Yes, but it's also a redefining of attitudes. Seeing yourself as an isolated intelligence in an unintelligent universe tends to instill a sense of hostility. If we see nature as a machine rather than a part of ourselves, we're more likely to take on the attitude that it needs to be subdued and conquered, rather than respected and commutually cared for.

its an ever changing universe so defining and redining is nescessary, imo. I do think there are certain natural laws in place that keep it running like a machine, though. W/o them the univirse would fall apart...including our short little lives on earth. Still, everything is alive, and connected. w/o one thing another might not be able to exist. Love and respect for all would seem wise, but haw many Love and respect wanton violence, strife, and dire competition?

I think the balance could be tipped to favor our preferences, but I don't think ridding ourselves completely of any bad is a good idea. Death is nescessary, strife as well, so is a bit of competition good.



Love,

Quote:

---

If we see nature as a machine rather than a part of ourselves, we're more likely to take on the attitude that it needs to be subdued and conquered, rather than respected and commutually cared for.

---

I don't think anyone can really escape the sense of isolation. One might come to the realization that it's all an integrated whole, but as long as we're down here stuck within our minds, that isolation is going to be a dominant factor. Interesting to speculate how far we can take it though, and what integration could mean on down the road. Maybe we'll die off and our machines will be running the show? Maybe that's already happened to somene/something else and that is going on now? Bigger speculations than my imagination can handle...lol

I think we're at a crossroads where your attitude shift is taking place. After all, the initial step was subdueing and conquering Nature. I, for one am rather glad to be at the top of the food chain where I don't have to worry about being eaten by lions, starved, or frozen by the elements. Now, finally we've reached to point where we can choose to be caretakers, or we'll loose our status and be right back at square one struggling for survival.

Care takers...that's a nice thought, isn't it?

I think this is what was intended from the moment we became the dominant species here. We are kings now, and I suppose we get to choose our crowns. Power and overpowering dominance, or meager care takers of our earth and people. I like the latter, but I'm not a power seething war monger, lol! "Stay out the bush!" Maybe we should have listened the good Rev...

As for isolation, I feel isolated when it comes to the way the world is, but only because I've created my own little world. I suppose how one lives and acts, and how they think and feel, becomes the dominating reality in their lives?

I enjoy where I am at the moment, simply being a working part of a great machine, and/or organism.


Love,

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hamlet

I don't think anyone can really escape the sense of isolation. One might come to the realization that it's all an integrated whole, but as long as we're down here stuck within our minds, that isolation is going to be a dominant factor. Interesting to speculate how far we can take it though, and what integration could mean on down the road. Maybe we'll die off and our machines will be running the show? Maybe that's already happened to somene/something else and that is going on now? Bigger speculations than my imagination can handle...lol

---

It's difficult, yes, but only because we're programmed to think this way pretty much from birth. Our language separates the universe into objects and symbols, and thus it is a semantic entanglement that has tricked us into viewing ourselves as something different from our environment. Now, I'm not suggesting that we abandon our language and start over... but I think that we have the potential to be much more aware of this connection, whether through meditation or spiritual use of psychotropic substances. This feeling of isolation can be escaped, as anyone who has experienced a state of ego-loss can attest to.

Quote:

---

but I think that we have the potential to be much more aware of this connection, whether through meditation or spiritual use of psychotropic substances. This feeling of isolation can be escaped, as anyone who has experienced a state of ego-loss can attest to.

---

It's a really groovy idea and I hope you're right about the potential. But in my long experience with such things, I've never met, read, or heard of one single individual who has attained enlightenment (if it even exists) and lived that way on a day to day basis. (maybe Ghandi?...<if anyone did it, it was him) The rest of the gurus I've encountered are the biggest egomaniacs on the planet.

I know a lot of people who have used way too many psychotropic substances trying to 'find enlightenment' or 'God' or answers...whatever. All they got for their trouble was problems with paranoid psychosis. My brother-in-law is like that. Likes to think of himself as a guru. Thinks he's the reincarnation of Saint Peter and the Government is after him. I've met a thousand people like him...I've never met anyone who's attained enlightenment from it. Sure you get some 'warm and fuzzys' from high minded thoughts you might have. But you've just dumped high-powered chemicals into your brain. Thoughts, senses and endorphens are running wild. So who's to make the call that this is really 'enlightenment' and not just being fucked up? (yes, I've even tried myself a few times.)

You're right about the 'language' thing for communication though. If we ever evolve to the point where we're like the Star Trek aliens, using telepathy and thinking with 'one mind'...we'll be unstoppable. That day may happen and maybe it won't....I guess experience has made me skeptical and jaded...lol

Thanks for the reply, Hamlet. :)

Of course, living day-to-day in a state of complete ego-loss is hardly practical, if it's even possible (though perhaps Buddha and Jesus may have attained such states). What I'm talking about isn't casting off the masks that are our egos (sense of self) completely and permanently, but rather being consciously aware that it is only a mask.

Quote:

---

Sure you get some 'warm and fuzzys' from high minded thoughts you might have. But you've just dumped high-powered chemicals into your brain. Thoughts, senses and endorphens are running wild. So who's to make the call that this is really 'enlightenment' and not just being fucked up? (yes, I've even tried myself a few times.)

---

Forgive me for using a snippet of quote here, but I find that this sums up my thoughts in words better than I can:

Quote:

---

For the purposes of this study, in describing my experiences with psychedelic drugs I avoid the occasional and incidental bizarre alterations of sense perception that psychedelic chemicals may induce. I am concerned, rather, with the fundamental alterations of the normal, socially induced consciousness of one's own existence and relation to the external world. I am trying to delineate the basic principles of psychedelic awareness. But I must add that I can speak only for myself. The quality of these experiences depends considerably upon one's prior orientation and attitude to life, although the now voluminous descriptive literature of these experiences accords quite remarkably with my own.

---

(http://deoxy.org/w_psyrel.htm, 7th paragraph ... very interesting essay, by the way. ;) )

What I'm getting at with that is that yes, I feel there are noteable differences between the 'bizarre alterations of sense perception' (being fucked up) and the 'fundemental alterations of the normal, socially induced consciousness of one's own existence and relation to the external world' (enlightenment).

True, such chemicals aren't a 'mystical experience in a bottle', but they can shift your perspectives to make it much easier to attain such experiences, especially if you're seeking them. One person might do mushrooms and just laugh his ass off for 5 hours without gaining a shred of insight, while another person might find God. :stoned:

Can't say I haven't experienced what I would consider 'Higher Consciousness'. Funny story about that and it didn't even involve drugs. I just hit a state once where I felt I understood everything and felt completely as ease in the world and blissful. And yes, it did involve meditation and a lot of reading.

Funny thing about it too. It was short lived, but I got a strange verification of it's validity. I went to a party in this state-perfectly straight-and was being very quiet. Everybody there was crawling over the tops of each other to talk to me. People were interrupting others just to tell me their life stories. It was interesting now that I think back...almost like a Christ Consciousness that you hear about in the New Age circles.

I've never experienced that since, and in hindsight I still have my doubts if it was anything valid.....but from time to time, when I think back on it, it does intrigue me still.

look at all the little cogs putting on airs...

First, I want to take issue with your claim that the brain is a complex variant of a computer. This is patently false. Computers were built to model some of the brain's functions, but its a logical error to reverse this causation and assume that what a brain is, is essentially just a more complex model.

I want to know why you feel that identifying with an organism has a more engaging aspect to it than identifying with a machine? Aren't all the part of a machine as equally engaged as the parts of an organism? In fact, with a machine, assuming its well engineered, one could say that all the parts are essential. Everything involved plays its own vital role. With organisms, well, let's just say I still have an appendix, and its not doing anything for me.

I'd think that regardless of how you structure these possibilities, its impossible to show that one is actually better or more fruitful then the other. Obviously they're both just a mask one can wear to hide from the world and for this reason alone I think it's a silly question.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by afghooey

Thanks for the reply, Hamlet. :)

Of course, living day-to-day in a state of complete ego-loss is hardly practical, if it's even possible (though perhaps Buddha and Jesus may have attained such states). What I'm talking about isn't casting off the masks that are our egos (sense of self) completely and permanently, but rather being consciously aware that it is only a mask.

---

Clear me up on this: I hear many people talk about the high states of consciousnesss etc. reached by Guatama and Jesus. The former i can completely understand, but what about Jesus (from a non-Christian perspective) would put him on the same level as the Buddha? Buddha pretty much took Hinduism and made it exportable for anyone to be able to in time reach enlightenment, or get close, and has a system that has held up throughout the centuries and doesnt focus on "morals" and other ever-changing things: he was able to look through them. I realize I'm getting a little side tracked and going on more about arguing pro-Buddhism, but just enlighten me what qualifies Jesus at being at a higher state of consciousness (or however you would describe it).

Polymirize --

Thanks for your reply. :)

I must admit, I'm neither a computer engineer, nor a neuroscientist, but I do also understand that a computer and a brain aren't the same in all aspects. Maybe it was a bit naive of me to jump to the conclusion that a brain and a computer essentially function the same way... I'm just piecing together what I know from college psychology and my (admittedly limited) knowledge of computers. The analogy still makes sense to me, though maybe you could explain a little further why it doesn't to you? If you're willing to humor my sense of curiosity. ;)

Quote:

---

I want to know why you feel that identifying with an organism has a more engaging aspect to it than identifying with a machine? Aren't all the part of a machine as equally engaged as the parts of an organism? In fact, with a machine, assuming its well engineered, one could say that all the parts are essential. Everything involved plays its own vital role. With organisms, well, let's just say I still have an appendix, and its not doing anything for me.

---

Really, whether you think of yourself or the universe as a machine or an organism is completely arbitrary, and two different ways of looking at the same thing (the universe as a whole). But often (at least from my own experience) when one thinks of a machine, they think of something cold, lifeless, and purely mechanical. When one thinks of an organism, they think of something alive and conscious. Whether an organism is 'better' than a machine is also completely subject to opinion, but IMO it has little to do with how efficiently they work in relation to the essentiality of parts. Flaws (such as your useless appendix) are necessary products of an evolution which machines have not had to go through (at least not independently).

As I said in my second post, it's a matter of attitudes and values, and so (just like with beliefs) it is impossible to prove that one is better than the other. To me, personally, thinking of the universe as something as alive and conscious as I am, rather than thinking of myself as a soul trapped in a mechanical body, is more appealing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by orange floyd

Clear me up on this: I hear many people talk about the high states of consciousnesss etc. reached by Guatama and Jesus. The former i can completely understand, but what about Jesus (from a non-Christian perspective) would put him on the same level as the Buddha? Buddha pretty much took Hinduism and made it exportable for anyone to be able to in time reach enlightenment, or get close, and has a system that has held up throughout the centuries and doesnt focus on "morals" and other ever-changing things: he was able to look through them. I realize I'm getting a little side tracked and going on more about arguing pro-Buddhism, but just enlighten me what qualifies Jesus at being at a higher state of consciousness (or however you would describe it).

---

I honestly don't know. :stoned: I didn't know Jesus personally. But from descriptions of him that I've heard and read, it seems to me that he might have been a Buddha himself (a being who has transcended greed, hate, ignorance and suffering... or achieved nirvana). Just speculation, really.. I'm not a theologist either.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by afghooey

To me, personally, thinking of the universe as something as alive and conscious as I am, rather than thinking of myself as a soul trapped in a mechanical body, is more appealing.

---

In answer to your first question, computers are built to model certain human brain functions, most notably an ordering of logic. But to take this point and jump from it to say that brains are essentially biological computers reduces the brain to our current understanding of it. It ignores the possibility that there are processes within our minds that are invisible to us.

Computers are impressive, sure. But before they existed would you have said that the brain was a biological abacus? Until artificial intelligence and cognition arive on the scene for computer science, there are rather obvious gaps in the analogy.

By the same analogy however, I would say that all organisms are also machines, and so the dividing characteristic would have to be biological or mechanistic traits. Rather than organism vs machine. Would that work?

Hmm, I get what you're saying. I guess that is quite true that we still have much to learn about the brain. I can see where my analogy was flawed, and I thank you for pointing that out. But as you break things down more and more to study them, you can see that everything still fundamentally consists of bits of information. For example:

Quote:

---

The DNA in human beings contains about three billion nucleic acids. However,much of the information coded in this sequence is redundant or is inactive. So the total amount of useful information in our genes is probably something like a hundred million bits. One bit of information is the answer to a yes no question. By contrast, a paperback novel might contain two million bits of information. So a human is equivalent to 50 Mills and Boon romances. The University Library contains about five million books or about ten trillion bits. So the amount of information handed down in books is a hundred thousand times as much as in DNA.

---

(Stephen Hawking: Life in the Universe, http://www.brembs.net/SWH.html)

Stephen goes on to argue that our evolution has shifted from a darwinian 'natural selection' phase to an 'external transmission' phase -- that in effect, the knowledge that we pass on through 'inanimate' books and computers are indeed a part of our evolution. After all, we are not our genes, a fact to which scientists agree.

Take viruses, for example. It is often argued whether they are living entities due to the fact that they don't meet some of the previously mentioned 'prerequisites' for life. They have no metabolism, they don't 'grow' in the same way that cells do. Yet, they do have a blueprint (RNA) and they do behave in a way that allows them to propagate themselves. Stephen Hawkings also points out that just because they must use the metabolism of a host cell to reproduce doesn't mean they are not alive. Just like most things that we do consider alive, they must rely on other life to survive.

So, I would argue that the 'biological traits' of life are incidental, and not truly dividing. Though such traits (like the presence of carbon molecules which conveniently group together to form strands of molecules to form RNA and DNA) are a common factor in all 'life as we know it', that doesn't mean that they are necessarily required for life to exist, and they're most certainly not what causes life. In fact, that's one thing that scientists haven't been able to determine, and something that they still struggle over -- if RNA and DNA are just blueprints, what is the driving force of life? How does this great machine create and run itself, with no outside intelligent force?

But as I said, if we remove this outdated context of machine and creator from the universe, and instead view the universe as the living creator of itself, this dilemma is resolved.