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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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Let me help you with your reading. Sentences within a paragraph tend to modify each other. Each one adding context and meaning to the next. Now, lets look at the preceding sentence to that statement:
"But also take into account that as atoms combine into molecules and more complex things, they react differently with the environment"
The reader at this point might be left wonder how exactly do atoms react differently. So I gave them an example:
"Sodium reacts explosively in water, but if sodium is bonded to chlorine, then there's no reaction in water."
Here we have what is called a comparison.
What is being compared? The reaction.
What is the reaction? Explosiveness in water.
Salt doesn't explode in water, therefore my statement is true. But since sometimes comprehension is difficult for you, and you lost track of the type of reaction in question, you are correct that salt does react with water. It dissolves to be more specific. The sodium ion that is created, does not react explosively with water.
Let me know you have any more misunderstandings, which I can gladly clarify.
Here we are talking about how senses emerged. Lest start that is not know yet how everything happened in the emergence of life, but there are not basic obstacles to a progression of better sensitivity to the environment. a tentative sequence can be: First, some chemicals got together an created structures that persisted in time, like different kind of molecules. These molecules, formed by atoms, reacted to the environment too. Then these molecules got together into more complex structures like coacervates which can "eat" and "reproduce", but do not have DNA. These coacervates, made out of chemicals, can also react to the environment,(both internal and external) and that is how they "eat" and "reproduce". Later on came RNA and DNA housed inside this coacervate sacs and they become proto cells. They can also react to the environment through chemical and physical processes. This capacity to react does tno have to get lost as you go from one level of development to the other, on the contrary, as complexity increases, the means to react to the environment also increase and become more and more sofiisticated. A coacervate, like a cell, has a membrane formed by lipids and proteins that are in touch with both the external an internal medium so they can transmit information, via chemical and physical reactions, in and out of the body of the proto cell or cell. There is no interruption in the capacity to react and sense the environment but an increase in the complexit of the means to do so. Only those chemicals and molecules that reacted in a beneficial way to the "organism" are retained by natural selection. Again, viruses are in the frontier betwen life and innanimate matter and have no sensory organs as such but can react to the environment, so they can "sense" it.
I have not come across coacervates before, and I couldn't find much information about them.
Here's the issue I have with these sorts of explanations. You say there are no basic obstacles to progression, but you didn't really describe progression. You described things which seem stuck at those various stages, not things which transition between one stage and another. I understand there are a lot of unknowns, but the only way to distinguish between categories which are set, and categories which can transition, is to show that they can transition.
This is a bad example, but consider sand. I can see sand as a basic units. Then look at small rocks, and see how rocks are made sand-like parts. Then find mountains, and see they are made of rocks. Each is built from the previous, and become progressively complex. That's what you've shown me, except that you connect each point, so that sand turns to rocks, which turn to mountains. In this analogy the opposite is true, and it can be demonstrated, mountains break down into rocks, which can break down into sand. So how can you show me that you aren't just connecting dots, and there is an actual progression there, and the progression exists in the direction you suggest? The best way to show you aren't just seeing constellations in the stars, is by producing transitions, not just finding the stages.
To focus back on sensation lets look at two types of bacteria. One has phototaxis and the other chemotaxis. That means one senses and responds to light, and other senses and responds to chemical concentrations. However, one is not the other, these are two separate types of bacteria.
So lets follow your scenario from coacervate all the way to some bacteria-style organism. What path does it take? Does it go the chemotaxis route or the phototaxis route. You can use your argument for either type. Did we evolve from phototaxic bacteria, and go on to develop eyes. Or did we evolve from chemotaxic bacteria, and go on to evolve a sense of touch, or taste etc?
You would almost have to suggest that the precursors for all our senses are traceable and present in some way from the very start, because if there is ever an interruption, the claims I made in the OP takes effect.
If what you want is a description of how a chemical reaction of a certain kind, for example photokinetic, moved from that simple reaction to become an eye, you will have to go to a specialist in the field and not even then they might have a step by step explanation yet. That is the nature of science, not to now everything but to know more every day. However, knowing how other characters evolve it is not difficult at all, if you understand how evolution works to see how one lower level can become more complex in time. The examples I cited are not static, no species is static, they constantly change as as response to environmental and other pressures. Have you read about how bacteria become inmune to antibiotics? That is evolution at work. In a popultation of millions or trillions of bacteria and gazillions events of reproduction, there is always the chance that a mutation happens that changes a chemical pathway just enough to render the atibiotic useless. Some times it just takes one change of an leter in the DNA for this to happen. As these changes accumulate oraganisms become more and moer different from their predecesors. There are no static species, they are in constant change.
I'm not really looking for a description necessarily, more like a demonstration. I'm sure you can demonstrate how coacervates are formed, I saw a few places online that show how. If your next step is the addition of genetic material, why should it be a mystery how to do that?
So, isn't it more appropriate to say its unknown, rather than assume and suggest a transition is possible? I can take each stage you mentioned and explain them in reverse, and you have to admit, it becomes way more probable. Some simple multicellular organism, breaks apart into single cells, then those cells can lose their organelles and genetic material, and lastly end up with a coacervate of sorts.
It is indeed difficult to demonstrate how each of these steps happened. If it were easy, it would have been already done. Besides, it requires a level of knowledge of biochemistry, physics and chemistry that I do not have. However, If you know the fossil record and how genetic studies show how organisms are related, radiate and differentiate, the facts from animal distribution and the myriad of facts that support evolution, it is easy to infer that these same rules work everywhere. I suggest that you read the book Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coine and then you will have a better understanding of the processes involved that can explain how organism acquired senses. you can also go to
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
and many other sites for an explanation of evolution mechanisms and probably then you can clarify your doubts.
So in conclusion. Your suggestion is that there never was a time in our ancestry, where we technically weren't aware able to "sense" our surroundings. These sensations can be traced from us, down to simpler organisms, and so on down to the very atoms. So that each step has its own way of "sensing" the environment. Its not something we evolved from scratch later on, but rather, that it was there in simpler form, from the beginning.
Yes. the foundation of the capacity to sense our environment is based on the laws of chemistry and physics. Reflection is an intrinsic property of matter so it is carried out from the most simple quantum particles up to the most complex structures in the universe including living ones. An organism that cannot react or sense the environment does not has a good chance to survive.
i think the original posts offers a very narrow prescriptive parameter to work with,
with the impression that the first organisms had these traits and developed from there.
I don't think any biologist worth their salt would agree there.
but anyway I wanted to offer a slightly different take on this opening posts argument/position,
and ask, do you actually touch, interact or sense anything?!
everything we sense or interact with is made up entirely of atoms, small parts of matter and quantum physics
gives us plenty to debate and discuss regarding this.
quantum mechanics tells us that we are made up of particles, this means at a microscopic level all manner of
perceivable events are occurring and are possible that are not perceivable to our vision nor our senses.
if you understand how electrons functions in that it has particle-wave duality (characteristics of both wave and particle)
and that they have a negative charge, you know that they repel other similary charge partcles.
therefore electrons are prevented from ever making true contact.
so when you lay on a bed, your body and the bed repels one another at an atomic level and you are in actuality hovering above it
by an almost incalculable distance.
so how do you perceive touch? it is how the brain interprets the physical world.
Yeah that is interesting. In one sense a nucleus of one atom never touches the nucleus of another, and yet a knife can slice through me just the same. Maybe we just need to think of the forces around atoms as physical and tangible as the nucleus itself. So that the moment the negative charge of one, interacts with the negative charge of another, they have by definition made contact.
How the brain interprets the word gets crazy sometimes. As far as touch goes, depending on where on your body I press two pins at, you can sometimes perceive them as two separate pins, or as a single pin.
Breezy,
So from what you said in response to me you understand that our common ancestor that had a lack of senses was microscopic? So your question of a human suddenly losing their senses doesn't work... So only through dishonesty can you continue to reverse engineer evolution to fit your OP's question. Your objection is irrelevant to actual science.
Clearly my question does work if the only away to avoid the problems I presented is to push all the way down into the microscopic.
Q1 - "How did our ancestors avoid death and injury before these sensations evolved?"
A1 - They avoided death by either not moving (sponges) or being so microscopic that you can't encounter injury; or perhaps they do encounter it, but its offset the amount of replication.
I am not avoiding... for the last time in order to speak about our ancestors that didn't have the sensations you have to go back so long ago that we were still in the micro organism phase!
LIKE I SAID YOUR OP's "PROBLEM" does not work its irrelevant...you are asking a question that only correlates with microscopic organisms! If you trace humans all the way back to apes we still have fucking nerves!!!!
What part of this do you STILL NOT UNDERSTAND??!!??
At this point your OP is invalid!
I didn't say you avoided anything. I'm not like you or Sheldon.
The external world poses many problems, we (humans) avoid some of those problems with our senses. Without these sensations however, the best way to avoid the problems of the OP is to be so small that those problems don't have much effect.
You said one thing that I agree with you are not like myself or Sheldon when it comes down to answering questions.
Ok, lets see if that's true. I asked two questions in the OP. What were your answers?
1. How did our ancestors avoid death and injury before these sensations evolved?
2. What did they rely on before these bodily sensations evolved?
1) they did not have too ( see my answer that I kept repeating
2) biochemical reactions
They didn't have to avoid death and injury?
Not in how you described it in your OP
I don't recall describing death and injury, only that they occur when we lose sensation.
You painted your op to speak on early man, or "ancestor" yet you bring up senses that would be detrimental to lose if we as humans lost them, now I believe that you are saying this because you do not understand that evolution is not a ladder. ( you may say you think it's like spilt milk, yet your answers say otherwise) from your Op it seems like one day a blob grew arms and then eyes all while having no nerves so for sure it would die... see god made us!
And before you reply I know you have not mentioned GOD, but this is a atheists forum, your are questioning evolution, you are a Christian, so I can honestly say there is some god motivation behind your questions...
Oh and one more thing to go way off topic.......
When are you going to write slavery part three???
When I say ancestor, then anything that qualifies as an ancestor is included. You decide which ancestor you wish to focus on, you got a few billion years of ancestors to choose from.
As far as the slavery post I plan on posting it towards the end of the month.
Well breezy you are the one posing the "hard" question... what ancestor are you referring to that didn't have sensations? Is this just a question about regression? Do you believe that humans evolved from a great ape ancestor?
Being microscopic does not make you immune to the environment because the environment is not static. There will always be physical and chemical changes you have to deal with and also, other organisms, micro and macroscopic, ready to have to as lunch or host. The core of the thing is that there never was a discontinuity in the reactions to the environment because reflection it is inherent to matter. The very first organism that ever existed had to be able to keep its internal medium between certain parameters to be able to carry out its biochemical reactions. In order to do so, it has had to be able to self -regulate to compensate for changes in the surrounding environment, so it had to be able to "sense" these changes and react to them. Those who did not excel in this field, simply did not survived. EX: Archaea (very old unicellular organisms) do not have eyes or ears for example, but they can control their internal environment and respond to changes in the external media. With time, organisms evolved more sophisticated methods to sens and react but the capacity was there from the beginning.
I like this answer the most. It also seems to imply there are real obstacles, which need to be addressed before things can evolve further. A sponge will never evolve legs and walk, until it evolves a sensory system first, that can make sure its not walk into boiling water for example. Sensation becomes a prerequisite for further development.
Animals evolve as whole systems. It is not that a sponge first grows eyes and only then starts to catch things in a new way. Evolution works with what is already there and changes things a little at a time and sometimes many things in synchrony because as organisms are interconnected systems when you alter one thing many other things can be affected.
A sponge is able to swim as a larva, and only after settles to the bottom so all sponges can move around, as a larva. Some species can also move along the bottom using specialized cells. They move in response to stimuli in the environment. In evolutionary term, a sponge-like animal could become more and more specialized in moving and these specialized cells can get together and start coordinating better and better, creating muscle-like structures. It will be a whole new kind of animal, Maybe it can sense the environment not better than its predecessors but it can move better so it is more successful. So an improvement in the sensing mechanisms is not always required to evolve. Organisms can evolve by changing reproduction patterns like passing from egg-laying to live-bearing or using lungs instead of gills and that will not have to involve a change in the sensory mechanisms.
Well I came across an interesting thing about sponges the other day. They don't move or have a sensory system as adults, and they do swim around as larva, as you pointed out. But they also seem to have photosensitive pigments as larva, to help them swim around.
Movement seems to need information. Larva move, and therefore have ways of sensing. Grown sponges don't move, and don't need such sensory systems.
Movement is not required for a living thing to have sensory systems,
I'm said the complete opposite. A sensory system of some form, is required for movement evolves.
“I’m said the complete opposite. A sensory system of some form, is required for movement evolves.”
I don’t understand. Are there typos in your response? It doesn’t make a ton of sense.
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