Originally Posted by analog 
Hey Dave,
You may view yourself as "ignorant" in the traditional scientific field of emergence, but you are far from "ignorant" within your own framework, and that's where the traditional scientific field of emergence possibly hasn't yet looked; but you can.
I remember reading an old quote once, I think by Franklin or Edison, which said something to the effect of: “The key to success is realizing that we can’t make opportunities happen; all we can do is ready ourselves by gaining knowledge; that we may recognize them when we see them; whereby we're then able to take advantage of them.” That isn’t exactly word for word, but you get the point.
This represents how I view discovering the mechanism for emergent life. Once the correct framework is acknowledged; thus we have readied ourselves; perhaps the mechanism for life will then become apparent. Have we acknowledged that framework, which incorporates emergent life as a fundamental? I don’t know, but I do know that it wouldn’t hurt us to look within the frameworks we do acknowledge.
It would seem that we’ve approached our models as a bottom-up design; building from the fundamentals. Now that we've acknowledged the fundamentals, for some reason, I feel the need to use a top-down design approach. I’m more tempted to start with a block diagram; which describes the cycle and defines the function; and work my way down to a schematic and layout diagram; which will describe the actual mechanism that allows for the form.
If we agree that life has a function in all of this, then it must assist in giving direction to the directionally challenged ever moving universe. Somewhere between the time of the initial impact that set your fundamental substance in chaotic random motion, and the time it fully regains its total uniform motion; hides the mechanism of life. Somewhere within that cycle is our needed presence; but where?
For some reason, I prefer a cycling framework. I guess it makes more sense to me. I’m currently entertaining the thought that life is an apex formation which represents the turning point of a cycling universal framework; the point where the universal motions of the fundamentals that form galaxies, and solar systems, are prevented from becoming static or one directional (inward). I’m trying to build a cycling framework within my mind; which perhaps doesn’t need an initial collision; one that allows the fundamentals to propagate back outward; perhaps as stars and planets. It seems interesting to think that perhaps the mechanism for such a framework would require a seemingly unpredictable entity (us) with its own ability to give/distribute direction to the massive formations of the fundamentals, possibly without even knowing/acknowledging it. Then all of the social sciences become a study of not how complex our lives were, but how blind we were to what we were fundamentally doing to assist in the direction of our universal system.
For some reason, I picture the motions of the fundamentals (as seen within a galaxy) like an hourglass joined end to end (eternal), as they funnel down (due to the increasing medium density) from the broadened galaxies and down into the compact massive formations of stars (the throat) and then redistribute back without by way of planets perhaps. Perhaps, the inward motions of fundamental matter, which forms galaxies are accomplished as individuals (more random), and the fundamentals must further their increasing uniform motions (collectively) as stars and planets (thus their massive size); whereby to propagate back outwards against the galactic inward flow of the less dense medium of the fudamentals.
While the rest of our universe instantaneously reacts to the direction imposed upon it, as seen by all of the cause and effect of the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets; living beings somehow store this potential for giving direction and apply it seemingly at random, as if out of phase (kinda like a capacitor).
Sorry if I’m not making sense, I’m just speaking from a conceptual block diagram.
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05-10-2008 02:08 PM 
