Using Classification in Biology

[New Buddha]

* * * * * Split from Biologists Replicate Key Evolutionary Step * * * * *

 

I'm going to address in this thread what has me stumped in the Free Will thread, since it has to do more with cells.  My understanding of biology is very limited, so I could be grossly wrong in some basics and/or terms, but I believe that how it relates to Causality is, or could be, interesting.
 
As I understand it there are two types of cells: Prokaryotic (single cell organisms) and Eukaryotic cells found in plants, animals, yeasts, etc.  But each, single Eukaryotic cell IS an organism - and it seems wrong to say that it's "part" of an organism (tree, plant, etc.).
 
From the OP:
 
"More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on the Earth's surface began forming multicellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals. Just how that happened is a question that has eluded evolutionary biologists."
 
A single Eukaryotic muscle cell - that happens to be part of a human heart - did not evolve with the purpose of becoming a heart.  It has no idea that it is even a part of a human heart.  It's an end-within-itself.  This is to much "intelligent design" or a 180 degree reversal of Causality, as I see it and as touched on in the Atlas Society quote.
 
Life is Prokaryotic Cells and Eukaryotic Cells (in clusters) and nothing more....
 
I won't beat this to death (as I typically do with most subjects) but do you see what I'm asking/wrestling with?
 
Edit:  The coupling together of the first two single cells was not done for a "reason", it was not a-causal, but it was similar to the way that in vitro, two muscle cells will couple and constrict together.  Electrical coupling.  The fact that it may have ended up benefiting each cell it immaterial.  As I understand it, Eukaryotic genesis has occurred multiple times in the past.

Edited August 14, 2015 by dream_weaver

[dream_weaver]

[E]ach, single Eukaryotic cell IS an organism - and it seems wrong to say that it's "part" of an organism (tree, plant, etc.).

Single Eukaryotic cellular life forms perform their life-cycles.

If you were to split a multi-celled - can both parts continue to perform independently? A branch broke from some plants passes away, although some plants can be started from clippings or shoots. This is more pronounced in animals, where a severed limb, unless reattached, decomposes.

From the OP:

"More than 500 million years ago, single-celled organisms on the Earth's surface began forming multicellular clusters that ultimately became plants and animals. Just how that happened is a question that has eluded evolutionary biologists."

A single Eukaryotic muscle cell - that happens to be part of a human heart - did not evolve with the purpose of becoming a heart. It has no idea that it is even a part of a human heart. It's an end-within-itself. This is to much "intelligent design" or a 180 degree reversal of Causality, as I see it and as touched on in the Atlas Society quote.

Life is Prokaryotic Cells and Eukaryotic Cells (in clusters) and nothing more....

I won't beat this to death (as I typically do with most subjects) but do you see what I'm asking/wrestling with?

If I am keying in on what you are asking, the difference of causality was one of actions or events causing other actions or events rather than entities being the cause of actions/events, which may in turn act on other entities. . . etc.

 

In line with this thread, (split since original posting) biologist are looking for inanimate matter to be come animate. Going from a single celled Eukaryotic to multi-celled would be under evolution of life. Each step of an evolution would be it's own entity and act according to it's nature as a composite celled organism.

Edited August 14, 2015 by dream_weaver

[New Buddha]

My attempt to understand more about cells stems (no pun intended) from a book I just read by a neuroscientist who's specialty is the study of neuron's electrical, chemical properties, etc. at a cellular level and less so at a system level. 

 

What I believe was hanging me up in the post above was, not only a lack of knowledge, but also a classification issue - something which Objectivist Epistemology might shed light on in a way to help science.

 

After more reading, I see that there are single-cell eukyrotic organisms (Protists) and multi-cellular eukyrotic organisms (plants, animals,etc.).  The classification "protists" is problematic, apparently because - while all most certainly sharing a common ancestor of animals and plants - there is no micro-fossil ancestor common to all three.  And we may not find physical evidence of a common ancestor in the way that we hope to find for primates, for example.

 

I'm sure I'm way I'm using some of these terms would make a biologist shudder, but I find this fascinating.

 

Edit:  I don't want to derail this thread, but in addition to the epistemology of Classification, I also see how this ties into my differentiation between models constructed to "model" a system or structure, and models used as tools in the applied sciences to accomplish goals across multiple domains, while not needing to be exhaustive of any domain.  A model can be "good enough", as noted in the 2, 3 & N-body gravitational problem, which, while unsolvable (edit, in a way that would satisfy a mathematical Platonist), we can still send rockets to Mars.  Modeling existing, living organisms is hard enough, modeling historical organisms, for which there is no record, is another order of problem entirely.

 

 

Edited August 14, 2015 by New Buddha

[New Buddha]

If I am keying in on what you are asking, the difference of causality was one of actions or events causing other actions or events rather than entities being the cause of actions/events, which may in turn act on other entities. . . etc.

I'm working on  causality in this way.

 

Why do we have specialist in medicine?  A Rationalist would say that the subject is very complex, but some day we will eventually arrive at a completely self-consistent body of knowledge, such that we can, from first principles, create designer drugs that can cure anything - with no side effects.

 

I think an Objectivist answer for specialization  would be, because specialization is possible.  By that, I mean that the 200 different cell types in the human body are each causal agents, with internally driven action.  This is why we can perform heart transplants, and use some organs from other animals, etc.  And regarding side effects in medicine, this will probably never be over come because the different cell, while working symbiotically together, are none the less different causal agents, pursuing their own ends.  What cures one organ might damage another.

 

Materialism/Reductionism/Determinism - which is Rationalism - as practiced by such persons as Dennet and Dawkins drives the modern approach to science in many ways, including the interpretation of Free Will.

 

And at the risk of repeating myself, it was in 2009 that I began looking into Climategate and global warming that I became horrified at what passes for modeling in the Church of Climatology.  Rationalism at it's worst.

Edited August 14, 2015 by New Buddha

[dream_weaver]

I think an Objectivist answer for specialization  would be, because specialization is possible.

From page 347 of The Letters of Ayn Rand

It's the thinking, the ingenuity of the exceptional men who discovered and showed me better ways of doing things, which I would not have discovered by myself. The great advantages of an exchange society—of a division of labor and specialization—were made possible only by these thinkers and discoverers. Now the degree to which I profit from this accumulated intelligence depends upon my own intelligence, upon my ability to understand great thinking, to grasp it and to apply it. If my ability is great—then to carry it forward. If my ability is of the lowest order—then I still get a benefit from the intelligence around me, only in this case almost totally undeserved, completely "extra."

 

And from page 208

Man's progress requires specialization. But a division-of-labor society cannot survive without a rational philosophy—without a firm base of fundamental principles whose task is to train a human mind to be human, i.e., conceptual.

 

[New Buddha]

Dream #5

 

I was using the terms specialization and possible differently.

 

In Rationalism, specialization is an expediency, only necessary until we develop a Theory of Everything.  After that, we can reverse the imprecise direction of Empirical => Theoretical to the transcendentally precise Theory => Observation.  Rationalist still believe this, even though it was dealt a serious blow by Evolution and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.  They just changed the domain from "God" to "Physical Determinism and/or Materialism", while still clinging to the Primacy of Consciousness over the Primacy of Existence.

 

In Objectivism, specialization is possible because of the Law of Identity.  A thing is what it is and does what it does.  However, Primacy of Existence over Primacy of Existence in no way implies that a Theory of Everything is possible - and I would argue that ITOE shows how such a thing is in fact a floating abstraction.  Not only are their limits to what any one Physician can learn there is also no reason for one Physician to know everything about all the systems in a human body.  An Orthopedist specialist doesn't also need to specialize in Gastroenterology, etc.  The domain of the model that an Orthopedist works with is different than the domain that a GI works with because the systems are ends-within-themselves.

 

Eventually, this argument will make it's way back to Volition and Free Will from which it split, twice! I guarantee it!  Lol.

Edited August 15, 2015 by New Buddha

[Plasmatic]

Buddha said:

In Objectivism, specialization is possible because of the Law of Identity. A thing is what it is and does what it does. However, Primacy of Existence over Primacy of Existence in no way implies that a Theory of Everything is possible - and I would argue that ITOE shows how such a thing is in fact a floating abstraction. Not only are their limits to what any one Physician can learn there is also no reason for one Physician to know everything about all the systems in a human body. An Orthopedist specialist doesn't also need to specialize in Gastroenterology, etc. The domain of the model that an Orthopedist works with is different than the domain that a GI works with because the systems are ends-within-themselves.

Why don't you make that argument? You don't appear to understand what a TOE actually is. (Or what ITOE says about the division of labor)

there is also no reason for one Physician to know everything about all the systems in a human body

Omniscience and having a TOE are not synonymous.... The notion of a TOE does not entail or require omniscience.

Edit:

Entity based causation is technically a species of materialism. Also, reduction is not the same as eliminative reduction.

Edit:

Essential to what an organism is, is that it is an integrated whole. That means that the systems it contains are interdependent.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Plasmatic

[dream_weaver]

New Buddha #6

 

Is a Theory of Everything to be discovered by a means or method other than applying the art or skill of non-contradictory identification (logic) at every step along the way?