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Cure for diabetes?
croxis
I am the walrus
in Zocalo v2.0
[url]http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=21032[/url]
[quote]A multidisciplinary team at King's College Hospital has successfully achieved islet cell¹ transplantation in a Type 1² diabetes patient. This breakthrough has major implications for diabetes sufferers and has never before been achieved in the United Kingdom. The patient, a 61 year old man, now no longer needs insulin injections, following three transplants of islet cells isolated from cadaveric donor pancreases. [/quote]
[quote]A multidisciplinary team at King's College Hospital has successfully achieved islet cell¹ transplantation in a Type 1² diabetes patient. This breakthrough has major implications for diabetes sufferers and has never before been achieved in the United Kingdom. The patient, a 61 year old man, now no longer needs insulin injections, following three transplants of islet cells isolated from cadaveric donor pancreases. [/quote]
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Eh, the debate is going to happen anyway, I may as well start the fire:
What IS life? What defines life? When does life start and what criteria is used to make that decision?
So yes, a featus from day one is life, a tree is life, grass is life, but a rock is not.
Volcanoes take in magma and gasses and excrete lava, ash, and gasses.Cars take in gas and excrete noxious fumes.Stars taken in hydrogen during formation and excrete light.TV shows consume money and excrete garbage.Lamps consume power and excrete heat and light
Should I continue? :D
--RC <!-- the PURPLE master! -->
Lets assume that the rock is not living (which as far as just about all sane people are concerned is true). I will proceed to prove that under that assumption that all biological creatures must also not living:
Rocks are made up of any combination of minerals. Minerals are made up of atoms. Atoms are made up of neutrons, protons, and electrons. Different combinations of neutrons, protons and electrons will produce different atoms. It is therefore arguable that all atoms (and molecules) are not living.
Similarly cells are made up of solely atoms, and therefore are the same material as rock. Based on this combined with the axiom that atoms are not living, it must therefore be infered that all cells are not living.
Biological creatures are made up of cells. Brains are made up of cells. There is no part of your body that is not made up of cells, and occasionally atoms (or molecules) that are independent of cells. It can be argued therefore that all biological creatures are not living.
So explain what is life? :)
--RC <!-- the great purple arguer -->
©scott johnson, [URL=http://www.myextralife.com]http://www.myextralife.com[/URL]
rocks live.
First an axiom that will be used in this argument:
* Consciousness indicates life
Now the question begins what creates consciousness. This in some ways has heavy dependency on beliefs of the individual, but a general concensus can be reached about several specific possibilities:
Consciousness is the manefestation of certain molecular arrangements, specifically in relation to organic data storage and processing networks. Sometimes this is used to discuss silicon based networks also.Consciousness is something that exists on an etheral plane and is connected with the physical human bodyConsciousness is gifted by some divine entity
Based on these ideas we can distill this argument to a few basic scientific premises: If there is such an etheral plane we have no evidence to support it. If there is such a divine entity we have no evidence to support it. Based on this science requires that we focus on the most logical: the molecular processing arrangement.
From this one can argue that anything that processes in any form is conscious. If this is true then even a calculator is conscious. In fact, even a gear is conscious. This is not far fetched at all and numerous philosphers have gone into this idea relating, for instance, a thermostat to being conscious.
In fact the thermostat is a good item to look at becuase it actually spans all three definitions above. This is in relation to consciousness analysis, specifically anything that can process external data and give a responce is conscious - lets not worry about what actually happens - everything is in a black box.
The thermostat takes input signals, processes them, and then outputs a responce (turn on or off the AC). A human could stand at a switch, when hot flick it one way, when cold the other. This performs the same function, so therefore a thermostat is a specialized component of the human consciousness.
Alternatively one could look at the chinese consiousness problem. Every person in China is told "When you get a signal, send it to the following locations, depending on content." The communication can be assumed to be near-instantaneous. Would this resulting network of a billion people be equivlent to a basic brain (if the people are given the right instructions)?
If so one can then declare: Ok, so a billion predefined responces is conscious. Now how about a million? A thousand? Ten? Five? Just a single switch? Are all these conscious?
The argument? There is no possible consensus of consiousness. Therefore it is impossible to define consiousness as relating to any specific thing, and similarly the lack of consiousness. As a result one cannot use an undefined axiom as a definition of life.
--RC <!-- the purple philosopher -->
I hereby declare that nothing is living. Therefore killing is cannot be immoral.
QED. <!-- purple -->
[B]you are correct RC, I left out one main point, it must be able to reproduce as well, sexually or asexually. So, thanks. :) [/B][/QUOTE]
Ah, but how do you debunk Sanfam's statment that fire fits all these premises? If fire is living, and fire is nothing more the simple molecules, then what has really changed?
Also that addition doesn't change anything about my other arguments which simply attack the ability to define life.
However I can argue the rocks are able to reproduce asexually: Under freeze and thaw rocks can break parts of themselves off. Therefore they can reproduce in ways akin to cell division. In both case the resulting object contains a portion of the originating and all the same DNA code (becuase rocks don't have DNA makes duplicating DNA much easier for them).
Oh, and A% - how does a fetus reproduce? In fact, how does any human under the age of about 13 reproduce? Under that definition people are not "living" until they have hit puberty. ;)
--RC <!-- the purple debunker! -->
however, at a certain point in it's life, it can, it is still the same species, and it has always been alive.
Living cells being described as cells which consume nutrients and excrete biological waste.
Made up of "one or more"
Main Entry: make up
Function: verb
transitive senses
1 a : to form by fitting together or assembling b : to arrange typeset matter in (as pages) for printing
2 a : to combine to produce (a sum or whole) b : CONSTITUTE, COMPOSE <10 chapters make up this volume>
(other entries not pertinent)
[B]how about I take it further and define life as any being composed of one or more living cells.
Living cells being described as cells which consume nutrients and excrete biological waste. [/B][/QUOTE]
Then what about Virii and other parasitic life forms? They certainly display characteristics of life, but don't fit that. I see no reason to limit life to being exclusively cellular. Such a closed minded view could pose a problem if presented with alternative versions of life.
In respect to your question, I believe I answered it above in my attempt to demonstrate why fire is alive.
P.S. - it is possible to argue (successfully) with anything and everything (except that JMS is god). Therefore if we decide to argue, well, :D
What is life? when does it start, what is conciousness.
More importantly, by what real virtue do humans have rights?
The answer to that question always ends up being teleological in nauture, ultimatly some form of belief based on non rational imputs, in a sense a form of religion.
So in the end we come down to the way the world really works.
I got the fuckin guns, I make the choices.
or to quote Clint Eastwood.. "there are two kinds of people in this world, those with loaded guns and those who dig, you.. dig."
yay cynicism!
-- Life is a peculiar process: information capable of self-replication, generally stored on matter, consuming energy to interact with its environment, generally to further its own continuation.
Component observations:
-- Most living entities are/contain information capable of interacting with environment. How complex the interaction has to be... is a matter of debate... possibly also perspective.
-- Life frequently adapts... acts in support of its continued existence. When life fails to accomplish this... it generally disappears. How capable a form of life must be to continue... depends on environment.
-- Beyond some quantity and complexity of information... life is considered conscious. What to consider conscious... is a matter of debate.
-- Beyond some quantity and complexity of information... life is considered sentient/self-aware. What exactly to consider sentience/self-awareness... is a matter of debate.
-- Life may reproduce... but not every form of life actually does. Instead of reproducing, forms of life capable of this... may instead be envisioned to prefer repairing themselves. However, when life does reproduce or repair itself, evolution generally occurs.
Thermostat scenario:
-- A thermostat contains preciously little information. Its array of interactions with environment... is severely limited. Warm/cold. On/off. Most systems and processes considered truly alive... can demonstrate more.
-- In most environments, a thermostat cannot survive: cannot adapt to maintain itself against time... and cannot evolve via offspring. However, in an imaginary, ideally favourable environment (a fully automatic thermostat factory?)... eventual mutation and replication of thermostats might, given sufficient time, yield proper life.
-- A thermostat doesn't contain much of a world-model... but neither does a bacterium. So neither is particularly conscious... one simply way unconcious, while another fairly so.
when does it start[/quote]
Life rarely starts. It generally continues. However, to sustainably continue in face of time and entropy...
...known forms of biological life must unfortunately take a *huge* step backward in complexity... repeat a difficult process of assembly, while holding the narrow end of evolutionary chance.
However, this observation may not apply to all strains of life. Some step back far... others only a little. Really flexible forms of life... having more control over themselves... might preserve nearly everything, stepping back only a tiny bit.
[quote]More importantly, by what real virtue do humans have rights? [/quote]
I would be inclined to suspect... that by the virtue of wanting them.
A creature which wants to live... ought be permitted to. A person who wants to make their own choices... ought likewise be permitted to.
Only when one desire contradicts with another... does it get complicated. Bacteria wish to live... but when their growth hurts me... I may be justified in forcing them to withdraw. Plants and animals wish to live... but when my only opportunity for preserving myself is to eat them... I may have a little, incomplete justification for eating them. However, I should not hurt them in wanton fashion, and should strive to cause minimum possible harm.
[quote]ultimatly some form of belief based on non rational imputs, in a sense a form of religion. [/quote]
It might depend on whether seeking efficiency (achieve more while wasting less) or independence (manage with minimum external help)... can be considered a "rational" input or feedback. Not sure about it.