SoCal, Nice article, looks familiar .

You Yahooka?

Thing is there are already millions who share this awareness...welcome to the train that is about to begin leaving the station.



You do not understand. With the realization comes the exact opposite reaction. It means we are all personally responsible, a concept foreign in today's world, there is always someone else to blame. Would you cut off your own finger out of spite and say, "Its all gooooood...."?


To the original conversation at hand. I find is interesting that creating "synthetic" life is being compared to painting, or soap, or animal husbandry. It is of such orders of magnitude above these "accomplishments" of our intelligence as to be incomparable. The potential for both good and ill are staggering. Some have already mentioned some of the good...how about some of the bad...Diseases targeted to a particular race, eye color, hair color, gender? Even some of the good things mentioned could turn out horrifically...we so little understand the interconnected environment we live in, we are more likely to do more damage than good by targeting something specific, not knowing how it will affect the environment as a whole.

To create an organism, by purposefully mainpulting its DNA, when in the course of time within the universe it would never have existed, is playing the most funamental role of creator. Intelligence, creating a new life form using the most basic building blocks we are aware of is playing "god". This is the most fundamental concept of god or the creator, using its intelligence to create life out of the building blocks available.

If anything, it confirms that we are in fact god using its intelligence to create life wheretofore it did not exist.

"
Through science Dorge? The engineering chemicals and teleporting states (information, not particles btw), yes, but you seem to infer that "the totality of existence becoming aware of its own nature" has been discovered through science. How do you mean? Not sure that is any more science than it is the rantings of a madman or a mystic.

Science, like spiritualism, is an overused, mishandled and largely misunderstood word."

JBark, i agree with you, I am not saying that I am even in support of them doing this, all I am saying is that its happening, and this might be why. I dont believe that science or spirituality had cornered the market on reality.

"To create an organism, by purposefully mainpulting its DNA, when in the course of time within the universe it would never have existed, is playing the most funamental role of creator. Intelligence, creating a new life form using the most basic building blocks we are aware of is playing "god". This is the most fundamental concept of god or the creator, using its intelligence to create life out of the building blocks available."

I dont agree with that at all. It is not playing god. That sounds utterly rediculous when you think about it.

"when in the course of time within the universe it would never have existed"

Would haves make no sense here..thats nonsense..it does exist because it happened, period. What you are saying is that essentailly we are above nature now, and that somehow we have the ability to alter the course of the universe. That doesnt make any sense to me. We are not beyond nature and we cant controll nature any more than a blade of grass can. Thats all an illusion. Nature will run it's course either way, we are just a part of it's plan, a stepping stone it uses to extend itself through itself. There is no "playing god".

Sure, this canbe used to do "good" and "bad" things..but that doesnt change the fact that it exists, and naturally at that..just another reality of the natural progression of the cosmos.

Agreed saidin; however, every new major accomplishment is orders of magnitude above what had come before, and intellectually and ethically incomprehensible (or at least ungraspable) by the vast numbers who live concurrently. Maybe i should have cited copernicus, galileo, christopher columbus or einstein to make my point, but I thought the subtleties of more mundane accomplishments might drive the point deeper.

so: the earth is NOT flat; the celestial bodies circumnavigate the sun in space, not heaven; the invention of bronze; alchemy then chemistry; and more recently, relativity, the heisenberg uncertainty principle, coherent superposition and nonlocality; and cloning and genetic modification, of course.

But I still think that soap fire the wheel and bread top em'all.

Saidin wrote:
"You do not understand. With the realization comes the exact opposite reaction. It means we are all personally responsible, a concept foreign in today's world, there is always someone else to blame. Would you cut off your own finger out of spite and say, "Its all gooooood...."?"

Saidin, I would forgive anyone underestimating me based on a few words typed in haste on an internet forum. i DO indeed understand. Its really not that sophisticated (or novel) a concept (albeit profound). But I did state that "I can't elaborate without writing a book, but hopefully you'll catch my meaning. In line with the system of beliefs i mentioned above that i didn't want to get into for fear of sparking a(nother) non sequitur sidebar debate."

Not a cop out. just a space saver. and a confrontation avoidance technique .

Incidentally, love your posts mr Satan... ooops. i mean saidin.

But I really do. They are well thought out, introspective and while very different from my own, well argued and respectful. Thanks for that.

Cheers,
JBArk

Those discoveries are of things that already existed, and as such are irrelevant to the discussion. Before the other day, this organism didn't exist. It was created though intelligence. How is this in any way comparable to discovering something that has always existed but we were unaware of?



Very true and fair enough. Its really not relevant to the discussion at hand anyway.



LOL! Funny thing is, one of my nicknames when growing up was Satanic Smeagol

Thank you for the kind words, and much respect back. One of the simplest joys in life is a good discussion, and I am grateful for the wonderful contributions of all who wish to discuss with thought and respect for others point of view.

PostScript:

To sum up, I guess what I am saying is that all technologies, all advancements introduce change; and change challenges what we think and how we perceive and interact with the world. And that can be scary. It is the unknown.

And any unknown quantity, by definition, can be good or bad, depending on OUR interpretation. No technologies are inherently good or evil, despite what some would argue. Its what we do with them that counts and renders them positive or negative.

An optimist will embrace change; a pessimist will foretell ill of change. Both POVs are slightly naive.
I fall somewhere between these poles. I have faith in humanity (yes, still), but i recognize that there is a huge responsibility that accompanies change.

So given that caveat, i will champion change, i will celebrate newness, diversity, progress and embrace the subconscious but ever powerful natural process of inexorable adaptation and evolution, of which technology is undeniably a part.

With faith that ultimately, we will do what is ethically correct under the circumstances, and prevail.

respect, JBArk

Maybe is sounds rediculous to you, but I don't find it so. You are essentially correct with would haves. Though this one seems to make more sense. It is unlikely this organism would have existed if we ourselves did not exist.

It is the most compelling indication that we may have put ourselves above nature (though at our present level of awareness this is technically and semantically impossible). Each of us alters the course of the universe every single solitary moment. We have altered the course of the universe in a fundamentally different way with this creation, and make no mistake about it, it is a creation (formally only the purvue of what we have termed "god", and much like Frankenstien's monster, we should be wary about where this road leads.

Saidin said:


Ya got me! oh, but wait... (drum roll)

Cloning, genetic modification, bronze, all that chemistry has provided...

only a partial "gotcha" saidin .

But i summed up in the postscript above. (that last sentence screws me up...)

JBArk

I have thought about it and it does not sound ridicules to me and I bet the majority of the world. To you, obviously it does sound ridicules which you have every right to believe but you are implying WE should feel that way as well.



Can a blade of grass create life? Can a blade of grass take life? Can a blade of grass do anything other than grow?



How is artificial lab created life natural?
Wekipedia: "This traditional concept of "nature" implies a distinction between natural and man-made, artificial"elements of the Earth.
Under your idea of natural a high rise building is natural because it is man made which seems to be the opposite of the definition of the word.. What is your definition of natural?

I agree with all this. Change is the nature of things, we can accept it, or we can fight against it. Technology is not inherently good or evil, it is what is done with it.

My current faith in humanity is not as stalwart as yours. I think this is too much power for our current level or moral and ethical awareness, as science in an of itself is neither moral nor ethical, and there are far too many that would use technology of this sort for thier own gain. I mean look at this planet and the life that is already here before this creation of new life. We have been terrible stewards of the only home we have. We can't respect the life that is already here, let alone worrying about what new sorts of things we'll unleash on an interdependent and interconnected biosphere.

ThirdEyeVision wrote:


a high rise IS natural. Insofar as we are natural and can only use what is natural to create natural things - notwithstanding the wikepedia definition, which i could have written had i been first to arrive.

Please don't take us out of the equation.

I have to thank entropymancer for this, but, paraphrasing:

why is a beaverdam natural but not the hoover dam?

JBArk the unnaturalist

Cloning = reproduction of a natural process that already exists, and it is not creating something from scratch. You are inserting a fully expressed and natural set of dna into a new "shell"

Genetic Modification = cross breeding is selective evolution, just a faster and more specific process of what already occurs naturally. Now changing genes, by chemically altering dna...that comes close to the subject at hand, and carries with it all the same inherent risks and rewards.

Bronze...are we really going to relate non living chemical processes to creating living organisms? I mean sure, on a basic level they are similar, but might as well say lighting a match is the same as nuclear fusion.



They are both natural. Anything inanimate that is created by a living organism could be considered natural. But we are not talking about inanimate objected being created, we are talking "synthetic" organisms.

Synthetic
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/synthetic

2. noting or pertaining to compounds formed through a chemical process by human agency, as opposed to those of natural origin:

5. not real or genuine; artificial; feigned

And we shall prevail.

But I am getting dangerously close to unveiling my contentious and arguably anthropocentric - but spiritual and optimistic nonetheless - world view.

The reality is that if this all somehow was going against nature, than nature wouldnt have created us, would it? What we do is based on our NATURE, that which is innate to humans..just like a wolf runs of natural instincts, so do we..nature created us, therefore what we do IS NATURES doing, reguardles of what a dictionary says.

Honestly, why is that so hard to understand? I get the feeling that some people dont want to accept that truth, while at the same time accepting that that means that nature decides to create some things like synthetic cells and atomic bombs, and even Adolf Hitlers, things that have may have the *potential* to do harm.

Thats reality. I dont get the point in trying to argue that. Nature isnt all unicorns and rainbows, sometimes its about opportunity, at the expense of taking risks. Thats just the way it seems to be.

Exactly - a question of degree. And relative. And as time progresses, yesterdays progress is today's status quo. Had you lived in those times however...

JBArk

Your definition of natural is just different than the norm then. So a car, atom bomb or a jet is natural under your definition. I understand what you are saying as far as they're made of materials of this earth but that is not the typical definition of the word natural.

I like the analogy of the beaver dam.

We are monkeys. we make monkey-things. sometimes monkey-things destroy tree-things and elephant-things and cell-things. Sometimes monkey-things help whale-things and ocean-things and forest-things and cell-things. Sometimes not.

But they ain't nothin but monkeys makin things that monkeys make.

And now the monkey made a cell thing! hoorah!

JBArk

I understand your point of view, I really do. But we are working with language here that is barely able to express the concepts of which we are speaking. We only have language and have to use it, therefore the basic definition of Synthetic which is NOT NATURAL, is completely relevant to the discussion.

To say that something which by definition is NOT natural, IS natural, is logically inconsistent.



This is getting into the nature of existence itself, and since no one can claim absolute and irrefutable knowledge or understanding of this, to claim that people cannot accept the truth, when the "truth" is not known, is again a logical fallacy.

We are not making, we are creating. There is a universe of difference between these two concepts.