Laura Knight-Jadczyk, Barcelona Conference, October 15th 2011

[cassandra]

Excellent job, thanks a lot ,Hesper! I did actually work on some of what you transcribed, but you got much further than me.
I'm going to start working on 42:29 - about 46 this morning. The speed will depend on how well I can hear.

 

[Hesper]

Ok Cassandra, sounds great :) I'll get started at 46:00 and see how far I can get this morning.

Edit: I'm at about 53:00 and will start again later. I will work until 60:00 before I post my results. If anyone wants to work from there to the end that's fine by me :)

 

[cassandra]

That's great, Hesper! I will take it from there to finish part1. Like you, will post when it is done.

 

[Hesper]

That's great, Hesper! I will take it from there to finish part1. Like you, will post when it is done.

Nice work Cassandra, this is fun :D

 

[cassandra]

Part one continued: 40:29 –4 6:00
their discoveries of double helix architecture in the DNA molecule. Okay, not only that, but that was the same year that Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of the University of Chicago simulated hypothetical conditions thought at the time, they were wrong by the way, to be present on the early Earth, demonstrating that amino and nucleic acid , the essential molecules for life, can be produced artificially from chemical reactions. It was later then determined that there were a whole host of flaws in their experiment , not least of which was the discovery that Earth's atmosphere was actually quite different than they hypothesized.
That was over 60 years ago, when there is still no proof of what is called spontaneous abiogenesis. Spontaneous abiogenesis is, of course, the idea that, you know, some primal acids in a primal soup bumped into each other, decided to like each other, shook hands, and, you know, hit it off, formed some amino acids, the amino acids bumped into each other and somehow they formed a, you know, primitive cell, and they've gone into some real extraordinary, you know, mental gymnastics to try and explain how you go from no life to life. And the problem with this is, is the laws of thermodynamics. But we'll get there.
Okay, let me get to the part where we have, okay we have these options. I'm talking here about, there's a book called 5th Option, it's by a guy named Byrant M. Shiller and he is writing about that life is arised from? (44:13 )a chance encounter in the chemical soup of the primordial sea here that was deliberately designed. (this whole bit is not quite clear to me- Cassandra)
Now, this guy is an engineer and remember all we said, what Ark says about engineers. You see this is theorized, you know, engineers make a tweak and make it work (?44:27- 44:32). So, I want to tell you a couple of little engineer jokes just to help understand the difference. See, I was raised by an engineer, which is why I think the way I think. So I really appreciate the point of view of this guy Shiller. Engineers are by nature pragmatic problem solvers. Engineers take abstract science produced by theoreticians and try to see what really works in real life. They are oft called upon to combine esoteric findings from a number of disciplines to find a practical application. And here we ? (45:9-45:10) the jokes: What is the difference between an engineer, a physicist and a mathematician? An engineer believes the equations approximate the world, a physicist believes the world approximates equations. A mathematician sees no connection between the two. A physicist and an engineer in a hot air balloon. They've been drifting for hours, have no idea where they are. They see another person drifting by in a balloon and call out , “wait, where are we?” The person replies, you're in a balloon!” and drifts away. The engineer says to the physicist, “that person was obviously a mathematician. The physicist replied, “How do you know that?” “Because what she said was completely true and totally useless!”

 

[Hesper]

Since Cassandra's working on the last of part 1 I'd like to start on part 2, but I'm wondering where the other transcribers are at on that. Here's 46:00 to 1:00:00

46:00
This is my favorite. There was a mad scientist who kidnapped three colleagues; an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician, and locked each one of them in separate cells with plenty of canned food and water but no can opener. Returning a month later the mad scientist, he was a social scientist by the way, went to the first cell where the physicist had been left. The physicist had worked out the angle necessary to knock the lids off the tin cans by throwing them against the wall. He was eating well, developing a good pitching arm and quantum theory. The mathematician had stacked the aluminum cans into a surprising solution to the kissing problem. His desiccated corpse was propped against the wall, and this was inscribed on the floor in blood: theorem, if I can’t open these cans I’ll die. Proof: assume the opposite. The engineer’s cell, however, was empty. The engineer had taken apart his bed, made a crude can opener out of the parts, then he had used the aluminum shavings from the can and dry sugar from the beans to make explosives and escaped. So, let’s look at the other options. The four other options.

Ok? The first option, oh go back. Biblical creation. You know, God said he created everything, all the creatures were all created at once. All the stuff that is evident in the fossil record is just put there by the devil to lead you astray and trick you into, you know, giving up your faith. The second option, that’s spontaneous abiogenesis. That’s our, you know primordial soup, everything coming together by accident. And notice that, they’re really, the closed system people are really stuck on this. They’re stuck on this to the extent that, um, it’s actually staggering when I read the kind of stuff that I read when I’m going through this kind of research that they must insist that there is nothing outside of matter. This is the whole point of it. It’s a complete and utter denial of anything above and beyond physical matter. Everything has to be accidental because it if it’s not accidental, if you suggest that there’s anything primary to, or prior to, the eruption of physical matter in the universe i.e. the Big Bang then there is some possibility that paranormal phenomena could be something other than physical, and of course the reason that they have completely dissed studying paranormal is because it’s impossible! You know, I mean, mathematicians must be in charge.

Third option: panspermia. This was come up by uh (inaudible 49:10) what was his name, Rick Wentz (sp?), forget his name, I can’t say his name. And their idea was that uh, they did some calculations, and Hoyle was an astronomer, and they did some calculations and they decided it was just completely impossible considering the odds against life you know just appearing, you know out of magic or by accident or by going against each other, and so it couldn’t have happened in the four billion years that our planet has existed. It couldn’t. So their idea was that ok life was brought here, seeded on this planet by comets or asteroids or whatever. So, comet comes along and has you know gazillions of uh, you know micro organisms and then you know they already have, they’re already set up, they already have cellular machinery, they already have DNA, all this kind of stuff, so they just basically splatter all over the planet; there’s millions of them and they begin to create the evolution that leads to what we see in the fossil record. The problem is, if four billion years isn’t enough time, where did they come from? Now supposedly the universe itself is supposed to be like thirteen to seventeen to twenty, depending on who you ask, billion years old. So there’s still not enough time for life to have evolved to the point where there would be cellular creatures that could be brought down on a comet or an asteroid. So they basically just, they just put the problem off to somewhere else.

The fourth option: directed panspermia. This isn’t really that much better. Because that is, that somebody deliberately sent it here, it doesn’t accidentally happen from a comet hitting the earth which Is kind of an iffy proposition, you know the right comet with the right micro organisms hitting the right planet, you know I mean that just pushes your probabilities way out there. So the fourth option is directed panspermia, somebody sent it here. Well we still have the same problems, so we can’t deal with that. Is that all there is? Scientific creationism, yeah you notice Al Gore? We have fun. The rational design hypothesis can be de-coupled from religious dogma and subjected to scientific inquiry, and that’s what we’re going to talk about here. Scientists have been pursuing the problem of the origin of life from the materialist “got to be able to repeat experience, experiments,” point of view trying to create a semblance of biological life from the basic elements of inanimate chemistry. This approach is supposed to demonstrate that the initial organisms that began life on earth some 3.8 billion years ago might have self generated under the then prevailing conditions, but without the input of a molecular biologist in the laboratory re-creating those conditions, you know running electricity through the test tube, and then all of these things right? You know it’s completely lost on them that the only way they were able to make an amino acid was because they artificially controlled everything about the experiment. But not all scientists think this is how things happened. Many believe that life was just too complicated to have appeared as a result of a chance encounter when chemicals slipped into the primordial sea. These scientists point out that even the simplest one celled organisms are way too complicated. Take the simplest bacterium, e. coli. It has ten thousand or so genes that represent a level of complexity that so overshadows anything researchers can hope to reproduce in a test tube that the prospect of ever doing so is vanishingly remote if not impossible. A junk yard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747 dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? That is what astronomer Fred Hoyle had to say about that.

Of course this comment is attacked in numerous ways by materialist types including Richard Dawkins who, by the way, doesn’t even have the scientific qualifications to disprove Hoyle. So we’ve been through those four options. After decades of intensive investigation, the abiogenetic theory still has to reveal a plausible workable solution to the origin of life problem. Biblical creationism of course predates the scientific way of thinking by thousands of years. Before the advent of the scientific method, unquestioned religious dogma dictated the answers to nearly all important questions. And they’re really trying to get that back in place again, sorry. Today religious dogma has been largely superseded by empirical science but science has been so preoccupied with co-opting the authority of the church that it tends to lump anything with the faintest odor of the design hypothesis with religious creationism. There is certainly more to this than meets the eye, and in fact the efforts to materialize all of science is the most corrupting influence on our planet today, initiated and propagated by pathological thinking. The fact is to date there have been no scientific inquiry into the rational design hypothesis. But as Shiller notes the design of systems is not really in the purview of science, it’s in the realm of engineering, that’s what engineers do.

So Shiller takes an engineering approach to the study. Systems engineering concerns itself with: form, the structure, pattern, organization or essential nature of anything, the outward appearance of something that distinguishes it from what it is made. So as we’ve already noticed this living system on our planet basically has spread in the four billion years it has been here to every nook and cranny of the planet. It could be described kind of like the mold on a cheese, and it has taken many many forms and basically found ways to survive literally anywhere. From the arctic to the thermal vents at the bottom of the ocean to the tops of mountains to the deserts, anywhere you look you will find something has evolved to live there. Function: the acts or operations expected to occur (to something? 56:18). Boy, you’re not going to be happy with me when you hear that one. Use: the act or practice of putting something into action or service. A method devised for making or doing something or obtaining an end. Intent: What one proposes to accomplish or do. Design intent: The set of goals intended to be achieved by the designer as reflected in the setup of the design. So it’s obvious that the living system on our planet, in my opinion, is designed. The question is what is it designed for? What are we really here for, what is really our purpose? You know, I mean if you just look at the living system and you just looked at all of those species that came and went and keep in mind we could go too, we are not the acme of biological evolution, clearly. What is this system we call life? What is its form and function? What does the living system do, what is its generic purpose, its specific use, that might reflect the design intent? And finally what is the origin of the living system phenemonon?

Take an internal combustion engine for example, you can study its various parts and components and the way they are connected to determine its form. You can see how the engine converts fuel to energy, rotational mechanical energy, that’s its function. You can examine its output; what the rotational energy is applying to, and that will tell you its use. The modifications to the basic design will give insight into the design intent; was the design originally a kumquat or is it an automobile engine that was designed, modified into a kumquat? Thus a systems analysis will give the following: try to identify the overall living system’s objective, distinguished from form and function, try to identify what generic use the living system as a whole can possibly serve, and try to determine what particular purpose the living system was designed to achieve as reflected in the design intent. The answer is going to be, you know I mean I have to go through this stuff, it’s really cool. So here’s our question: what is the origin of the living system? Nowadays they have kind of an anthropocentric thing about your Gaia hypothesis. The problem with the Gaia hypothesis is that it assesses the relationship between the planetary biosphere and the living system from our contemporary anthropocentric point of view. James Lovelock has devised (don't understand/can't find similarity on google 59:04) models involving non-equilibrium thermodynamics to justify how a life could get a jumpstart in defiance of the second law of thermodynamics. In short this is really just a variation of the abiogenetic origin of life theory despite the fact that it has been roundly attacked by arch materialist Richard Dawkins for daring to suggest that life has a purpose. Ok the Living System, the earth is obviously the habitat, and the living system is the user-occupier. Basically you know we’re renting the planet, I mean just imagine an advertisement: you know, planet for rent, it’s in rough shape, doesn’t have an oxygen atmosphere yet, you know it’s pretty volcanic right now, the boiling hot seas, um, you know it’s a real fixer-upper, you know any takers out there? And the living system says well, you know, and also there’s a warning in there… (60:00)

 

[Nicholas]

Since Cassandra's working on the last of part 1 I'd like to start on part 2, but I'm wondering where the other transcribers are at on that. Here's 46:00 to 1:00:00

Um, have you not seen my posts for part 2?

Anyway, here is the rest of Part 2 from 46:20 - end.

Now. Information and organization are intimately related. All organized structures contain information. No organized structure can exist without containing information. What did we just say about the automobile? Somebody can, you know, try to read it, can read it and tell you whole lot about it. It has information inherent in its organization. Therefore the addition of information to a system manifests itself by causing a system to become more organized or reorganized. An organized system has the capacity to release or convey information to the person who figures out how to read it or extract it. Energy is defined as the capacity to perform work. Information is defined as the capacity to organize the system or to maintain it in an organized state. It is impossible to perform useful work without an input from both energy and information. But as noted, machines can convert energy into information and information into energy. This maybe an important esoteric concept that deserves more investigation.

So. Communication systems, including (patterns? 47:57) and transmissions, are for the purpose of bridging the space between two or more receptors. Intelligent beings. Example: source, man on a telephone. An encoder, the mouthpiece on the telephone. The message, the words the man speaks. The channel, the electrical wiring now (...? 48:27). A decoder, the earpiece of the receiving telephone. A receiver, the ear and mind of the listener.

Now. We ask the question just a little while ago, who is or what is the information contained in a living system, the inner library for? Pause. That's what you get for having hundreds of pages on notes. Now we already mentioned the "Origin of Life: The 5th Option" by Bryant Shiller. Now Bryant Shiller does some really interesting things talking about DNA because among the things that he has done is that he has done a systems engineering analysis about how DNA (... ... ...? 49:57). He can tell you exactly how many hostile recombinations there are because he worked them all out. And he can show you what possible mutations occur in (changing? 50:16) universe or possible mutations occur from, you know, external events. He can tell you many mechanisms because he has systems engineering analysis of it. For example: did you know that um, well I better tell you about the DNA before I can tell you that, hang on.

What we got here, you see is your standard, you know, picture of DNA. And what you have in your cell nucleus is you have 22 pairs of chromosomes and they kind of look like this. Okay? And then you take this, you know, a piece of this, this is just a little bit of it like (...? 50:57) place right there. And it stretches out into these little balls like this and each one of those little balls around over to this ... and you end up with this. Okay? So you have this ladder like structure with these little ladder one (...? 51:16). Okay? Chromosomes are made of tightly wound DNA (encroaching? 51:27). Genes are found along the length of the chromosomes. A gene is secondary to DNA contains instructions for making a specific protein (...? 51:37). There are 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. Those are the base pairs right there, those little rungs of the ladder, there is 3 billion of them. Each twist in a DNA coil takes ten nucleotides and is about 3.4 nanometers long. The DNA strand is normally compacted forming millions of tight coils around a core made of protein filaments called histones. The histone surface has a path of positive charge on it. (is ...? 52:17). The precisely matched pattern of negative charges is along the DNA double helix. It is thought that the histone scaffolding behaves somewhat like an accordion, relaxing and forbidding the DNA coils to separate by a particular segment, a genetic instruction needs to be copied and then bunching up again now that the copying is complete. This right here is not the copying activity necessarily. This is uh, yeah it is. Because what happens is the cell needs something. And the little cell machines go over and make, you know it’s like having a tape collection, millions of tapes of the C's, and somehow this little machine that knows what piece of DNA is needed, goes over to these 23 pairs of chromosomes, and it knows which of the 23 to go to, knows how to emit the enzyme to inform it to relax. To open up and relax just a little salient of this, you know, very long string of DNA so that it can make it comfy. And then makes a copy like a photocopy and takes it out of the nucleus of the cell, takes it to the ribosome which then assembles the polypeptide protein that is needed. Now, we're talking about, right there, just to do that, just to make a protein, we're talking about intelligence that just staggers the mind. I mean how is it going to happen in the primordial soup, you know like hey, I've got a plan for how we can do this. You know? I mean you look like a pretty nice amino acid, let's get together and do this sort of thing. This is nuts!

This is a percentage of your DNA that are used for various activities. Before the human genome project, it is thought that human genetic library must have something like 100,000 genes. Each of which coded a single protein or define an instruction. We have now been informed that there are only 30 to 35,000 genes in the human genetic library unless they changed that, you know, you changed the chain (...? 54:57). However, if all the information contained within the human DNA were written on paper, it would have a billion words, three letters each, 5,000 volumes of 500 pages each. But the genetic content, the part that actually codes the protein, is only 8 percent of the total and the other 92 percent is often referred to as junk. And that means that only 400 of the 5,000 volumes in your theoretical library are devoted to instructions. That the remaining 4,600 volumes are now (...? 55:34). (Ectrons? 55:39) is the term used to describe an expressed gene or an expressed sequence. That is genes that do so. Introns are called intervening sequences of stuff, but doesn't do anything as far as anyone can tell. And as you can see there is a bunch of it.

Genetic information is encoded in the DNA molecules as a series of bases running up and down the ladder-like structure where rungs are the base pairs. The base pairs are a kind of genetic alphabet of four letters. The four letters of the DNA alphabet are themselves composed of two set of complimentary nucleic acids that are attached to each other via a chemical bond. The ends of the rung are attached to the ladder frame also by a chemical bond. You know what they really mean is that there is a chemical that has some extra, you know, atomic activities going on versus electrons and protons they kind of keep each other together. The important thing is the actual information encoded in the base pairs that are strung along the ladder.

So we have an alphabet of four letters. Four chemical letters of a, t, g, and c, which stand for the names of the nucleotides bases: Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, and Cytosine. "a" pairs always and only with "t", "g" pairs only with "c". So, "g" and "c" can pair only as g-c or c-g. So, any "t" pairs only with an "a", as t-a or a-t. This exclusive "complimentarity" is at the heart of the copying of a genetic message from anywhere as well as the replicating the whole genetic library when the cell that reproduces itself. When the DNA replicates during cell division, the ladder like structure unzips along its length. One side with its half of base pairs goes to each of the new cells being produced. This procedure permits each half to reconstruct its corresponding other half by gathering from within the cell the missing complimentary components to make up the complete DNA molecule. In other words, it knows if it splits out a (help? 58:27) it knows what has a (purpose? 58:31) because there are only two possibilities.

Transcription is when a gene is extracted from the DNA library and transferred to the translating machines of the cell, the ribosomes, to be read and interpreted, and the instruction followed to the letter. So we already talked about when a cell calls for a working copy of a gene and the mechanism to search for and locate the gene where ever it is. Once the beginning and end portion of the DNA, *film skip*.
So anyhow, the important thing about this, oh we have little hand truck things called transfer RNA that deliver the individual’s amino acid blocks. See those little hand trucks? You know it brings along some amino acids and gives it to this and you know this is reading the piece of DNA and its constructing it, its adding these things to the string, and then it tosses out this, and another one comes along. And, I mean do you really understand the amazing complexity of this process? And you think it's not been informed by a tremendous amount of information? I mean this is, you know the systems analysis of this process tells you how much information is contained in there.

So, anyway, now we are getting into something really kind of fun and interesting. Now, while pondering whether such a system could arrive naturally, consider as well for the whole genetic coding system may have come from. These are two very separate entities. The intelligent machinery that carries out the instructions and the DNA that carries instructions. Because DNA is just like a one dimensional mass just like a book. It carries the information, it didn't write it. That's the important thing. Now, we use such one dimensional mass all of the time in the sequence of the numbers written on a note pad to dial a telephone to connect us to one of a billion phones on the planet or more. The numbers tells us the precise sequence of numbers to push that reproduces a series of tones which activates the telephone company equipment which connects us to the party we wish to speak to. There is no intelligence in the numbers. The intelligence is in the way the system exchange interprets the pushing of a sequence of buttons. The system is setup to interpret the low level information as the caller inputs to initiate the call. This is processed through a series of intelligent and sophisticated subsystems and end in you being connected to the person you are calling. The sequence of the symbols themselves, whether in a DNA or a phone number, must be used in a specific and restrictive way to initiate a chain of events that results in specific results. Can additional information be incorporated into sequential information systems in order to expand their versatility?

A phone number can be enhanced. A keypad can be used as a coding device with letters of the alphabet including along with the numbers. Thus you can "call ATT" or you can call anything. This additional level of information is designed into the phone system in order to engage the intelligence of another system of the human brain. It's easier to remember "call ATT" than 1155188. Because the mind can associate both the reason for the number together with the phrase translate that into the required dialing sequence. Of course, "call ATT" would be useless if you did not know the reason. The same information format that is utilized in a one dimensional genetic mapping of protein amino acids, a word composed of letter sequences is a linear map. And if you can't read, that all it is, a series of symbols that convey nothing to you. We presently use the English alphabet to represent the amino acids that make up the polypeptide chain that folds into proteins. If we can use the alphabet to represent a genetic sequence, perhaps a genetic code (offset? 1:03:43) could also include messages. Completely understandable to us if only we knew how to read.

Now. Take the word (...? 1:03:58) letters of the English alphabet that has been assigned to these various amino acids. Here you have, and this is interesting but ah (...? 1:04:11), you find that this particular amino acid can be written in four different ways. That means that mutations can occur introduces DNA that absolutely do nothing until another major connecting mutation takes place. As long as mutations can occur at the same amino acid (... ... ...? 1:04:35) because the system is defined to accommodate that. In this design analysis this system coding of proteins is really, really worth reading. And as you can see there are a couple of things that have only two or three sequences to code for them and then there is stop. At the end of every codon, when it is finished, there is a stop code. That's the stop code right there. Take the word warning, you can write it as ugc, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then we transfer it into, from the RNA to the regular DNA language you convert the first "u" to a "t" and this is the word warning written in DNA. The point being that those billions and billions of introns could be a code. Which would give a reason why the living system was designed to survive billions of years.

Now, let me just show you something. This is an article from Science News, they have been discovering that, this is back in 1994, the non-coded regions of DNA contain language properties. (Opus? 1:06:20) neglects 9 percent of the DNA in itself. Long ignored as junk, considered junk, this non-(threatening? 1:06:27) DNA never the less carries its own message. The language-like properties (... ... ...? 1:06:36) being misread. This is from Scientific American, investigators have found that junk parts of the genome of anywhere (...? 1:06:50) maybe expressing a language. The vast majority of genetic material in organisms from bacteria to mammals consists of non-coded DNA segments which are interspersed with the coded parts. Some kind of organized information, junk DNA follows the of structure language. There has to be some kind of hierarchical arrangement of the information to allow one to use it in an efficient fashion that has adaptability and flexibility. Well, Shiller's analysis of it, and how it could be preserved for billions of years, because this is important to know his analysis of how mutations occur. In order to understand how it could be that something like that could survive literally for billions of years carried in the living systems on this planet. This is what Bryant Shiller says "It is somewhat astonishing to discover that information systems can convey language in an alphabet just like we do and (predates? 1:08:17) it by billions of years and has only come to light in the last 50." Billions of years people. Think about it.

 

[carcoom]

Thank you cassandra, Nicolas and Hesper (hope I didn't leave anyone out) for your transcribing work. Without it, it would not be possible for me to enjoy these lectures which my attention seems to have been drawn into.

I attempted to transcribe part 3 of this lecture series and I've done much better than I thought I could. It is mostly done. By tomorrow at this time I should have it posted here. But hopefully, someone here will go through it thoroughly and re-post it as there are many spots where I just don't understand the words.

Also (as I imagine most people who have hearing loss can do) I've developed an amazing capacity to turn "garble" into complete sentences that bear no resemble to what was actually said. All my text is suspect.

 

[Hesper]

Since Cassandra's working on the last of part 1 I'd like to start on part 2, but I'm wondering where the other transcribers are at on that. Here's 46:00 to 1:00:00

Um, have you not seen my posts for part 2?

Anyway, here is the rest of Part 2 from 46:20 - end.

What's the attitude for? The bolded is what I wanted to know so I wouldn't start somewhere that's already being transcribed.

Thank you cassandra, Nicolas and Hesper (hope I didn't leave anyone out) for your transcribing work. Without it, it would not be possible for me to enjoy these lectures which my attention seems to have been drawn into.

I attempted to transcribe part 3 of this lecture series and I've done much better than I thought I could. It is mostly done. By tomorrow at this time I should have it posted here. But hopefully, someone here will go through it thoroughly and re-post it as there are many spots where I just don't understand the words.

Also (as I imagine most people who have hearing loss can do) I've developed an amazing capacity to turn "garble" into complete sentences that bear no resemble to what was actually said. All my text is suspect.

I think that just having laid the foundation helps a lot since it takes so much time just to write a few sentences, pause, go back, and repeat that process (at least that's how I work). So thanks carcoom. It'd be no problem to go over your transcript since I plan on watching the video a couple times anyways. :)

 

[Jacques]

Hi carcoom,

Welcome to our forum. :)

We recommend all new members to post an introduction in the Newbies section telling us a bit about themselves, how they found the cass material, and how much of the work here they have read.

You can have a look through that board to see how others have done it.

 

[cassandra]

60:00 - End of Part 1

something that says, “well, you know” and also, there’s a warning in there that, you know, conditions can change from moment to moment. There are cataclysms can happen, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes. This is really not a stable place. You know. And then you’ve got a living system that comes along and agrees to signs a contract to live there. What is that living system going to have to do? What is it going to have to be geared to do in order to live in that place and survive?
What do living things do? At any given moment in time, what is life activity if not the enduring challenge to stay alive, to survive at all costs? That is what every living thing strives for and how virtually it’s been all of its time, trying to stay out of the way of danger, and acquire the resources it needs, such as food and water, shelter, air and iPhones, and that sort of thing. Yet despite all such efforts, it is brutally evident that no creature, large or small, ultimately succeeds at it.
After a relatively short lifespan, the only tangible evidence any organism leaves behind is any offspring it may have produced during its brief allotted time as a living system participant. After that, it seems that an organism, any organism, has no further value to the system. If it did, we would find evidence of perpetual organism life. That’s a cold hard fact. Think about it. Can anybody disagree with that?
That’s what we are. We have a short life. We struggle to live that life. Of course, the struggle is made that much harder by the psychopath in power on this planet, but even without them, that’s what it’s all about. We have to have food, we have to have shelter. If we have children, we have to feed our children. We have to clothe our children. Some of us, you know, want to have, you know, other things, like I said, iPhones, TVs, cars..., you know, I mean that’s, that’s just particular to our civilization. We’re still dealing with the same struggle that has always faced every member of the human species from time immemorial.
This description of the living system has the advantage of being an obvious, empirical, universal principle, which operates systemwise? (1:02:25) rather than highly interspecific? (1:02:27), because that’s the same thing that applies to every creature, dogs, cats, cows, horses, bears, wolves, foxes, rabbits, mice, you know. Every creature.
Look at it. I mean, if you were on a spaceship, you know, looking down on the Earth, you would see that there are all these creatures with different shapes and forms running around, trying to get food, trying to get a handle/paddle? (1:02:48) at? something, trying not to get killed or be eaten.
And in the case of human beings, since we have no natural predators, we have a lot of intraspecies predators; psychopaths.
Machines have purposes, organisms have goals. So what is the goal of the living system? Because,a machine obviously is made by something with intelligence to do some work. And an organism is something a little bit different. That’s why there’s a distinction between a goal and a purpose. If organisms have goals, the results must be defined in terms of achievement. The goals of safety and nourishment are ongoing short-term organism goals, while the goal of reproduction is a longer-term goal.
In order to reproduce, the organism must compete with others to stay alive by avoiding danger.
And this, this is where, it is theorized by some people in present times, that Higher Consciousness, conscious awareness, such as...? (1:03:56-57) human beings, is something, it’s like a feedback mechanism. It was developed to make us better at achieving these goals of survival. I mean, that’s all it really is for.
So, you know, any kind of vaunted, you know, elaborate ideas, that our Higher Consciousness is somehow making us better or more holy than any other creature on the planet, you know- maybe ? (1:04:27) going in the wrong direction, but – I don’t necessarily agree with that, but I’m just saying, you know. Strictly from an empirical point of view, it could seem, and it could be said, and it could be said rationally, that Consciousness is just something that developed to make us better at achieving those goals which are to get food, to have shelter, to reproduce and to be better at it. Think about it.
Okay, this is the biggie: we have programed into us a survival instinct. Every and all? (1:05:04) creature does. I would say all creatures in the living system have survival instincts. And yet, and yet! Everything dies. Why in the name of anything rational, would we be programmed with something that drives us to survive when it is an absolute fact that we’re going to die? Think about that.
It’s in this context that we can see that the faculty? (1:05:35) of conscious awareness adds a whole new dimension. What is learning, if not the filing in? (1:05:40-41) in memory for future use, of successful tactics and strategies in the past to help the organism stay alive.
In humans, most humans that is, learning amounts to retention in memory of concepts - literal? (1:05:52-53) reality. The extent of learning success is measured in how little difference there is between what is recalled from memory and what was placed in the memory.
Regarding the fact that we’re going to die, surely the system could accommodate an immortal organism, if that was considered desirable from the overall system’s point of view. If immortality contributed to greater efficiency in achieving the design(ed)? (1:06:24) goals of the living system, surely we would be there, either by evolution or by design.
From a technological point of view there is nothing that stands in the way of genetically programed immortality. Technically, all that is required is to expand the organism maintenance and repair its subsystems?(1:06: 42-43) , eliminating food-chain participation and making the organism photosythesize (er?) (1:06:48)
So, I’m going to leave you with that thought, because we’re all going to break now, but the thing is: is ,we’re all going to die, and yet we’re programed to do everything to not die. And why can’t, or why isn’t or can(’t?) we be immortal? Because that’s where we’re going.
So, I think it’s lunchtime, is that correct? Somebody tell me what I’m supposed to do...

 

[carcoom]

Will do, Gandalf.

Transcribing the third part of the recently posted video of Laura was fun.

I would be the last person I'd ever recommend for the job, so it is peculiar that I volunteered. I don't know what got into me. With my poor hearing I always turn on “closed captions”, when available, even when wearing headphones to increase the volume. Translating sounds into words has been the bane of my existence. But as I went along, transcribing became easier and easier.

However, there are many errors, gaps, which I pray are forgivable. I hope that anyone who wishes does not hesitate to copy and paste this text, correct the errors and re-post it.

When ever I typed something like “kldjfk djfeoiru” it means that I have no idea what the words are. When I realized that Laura was quoting a text, I generally was able to find the original which helped a lot.

 

[cassandra]

Will do, Gandalf.

Transcribing the third part of the recently posted video of Laura was fun.

I would be the last person I'd ever recommend for the job, so it is peculiar that I volunteered. I don't know what got into me. With my poor hearing I always turn on “closed captions”, when available, even when wearing headphones to increase the volume. Translating sounds into words has been the bane of my existence. But as I went along, transcribing became easier and easier.

However, there are many errors, gaps, which I pray are forgivable. I hope that anyone who wishes does not hesitate to copy and paste this text, correct the errors and re-post it.

When ever I typed something like “kldjfk djfeoiru” it means that I have no idea what the words are. When I realized that Laura was quoting a text, I generally was able to find the original which helped a lot.

Well, it's the weekend, and I'm pretty busy (and dirty house) with my family, but will try to fill in the gaps for you asap!
Would have more time on Monday, but will try before then.

 

[carcoom]

I think that just having laid the foundation helps a lot since it takes so much time just to write a few sentences, pause, go back, and repeat that process (at least that's how I work). So thanks carcoom. It'd be no problem to go over your transcript since I plan on watching the video a couple times anyways. :)

Hesper,

I just noticed your post. I need to learn to read what has been posted before I post. I'm new at this! I guess that's why we're called Newbies. Thanks for your encouraging words and you are welcome.

I see cassandra has volunteered for the job as well. I hope my failure not to notice your post earlier has not caused too much confusion here.

 

[Hesper]

I think that just having laid the foundation helps a lot since it takes so much time just to write a few sentences, pause, go back, and repeat that process (at least that's how I work). So thanks carcoom. It'd be no problem to go over your transcript since I plan on watching the video a couple times anyways. :)

Hesper,

I just noticed your post. I need to learn to read what has been posted before I post. I'm new at this! I guess that's why we're called Newbies. Thanks for your encouraging words and you are welcome.

I see cassandra has volunteered for the job as well. I hope my failure not to notice your post earlier has not caused too much confusion here.

No harm done. There's lots to read :D