Inherent Viral Purpose

[timeparticle]

Life in of itself is a great struggle. In order to survive, a life form must fight to maintain it's position, it's purposefulness in the natural order of the universe. It's place in nature secures a continuation of the species. Each life form on this planet has a position, a post if you will, to secure with great purpose. Happenstance and accidents may occur in our biosphere but are without continuance and soon die off. Purposefulness extends a life form's duration as the biosphere supports it's survival...

So, what of a virus? What is the purpose of each virus strain and why is it surviving in our biosphere? Does each strain maintain a self awareness toward a specific purpose, just enough to be heard? Does each strain help support ethics in our biosphere so that larger plants and animals don't over extend their boundaries?

For example, would the HIV have a purpose of maintaing ethical standards in other species procreation? ... Sex?

Would the Ebola Virus have a purpose of maintaing ethical practices in the fragile Rainforest?... intrusion, deforestation, destruction?

I would think this is a probability. Understanding the purpose of each viral strain would then be important. We may begin to live in greater harmony with our environment rather than trying to eradicate, with great effort, a particular virus.... and during this assault, we learned nothing...

[Graybeard]

Purposefulness extends a life form's duration as the biosphere supports it's survival...

You don't attribute the quotation so I can't be sure. But in my opinion the 'purpose' described here is not mapped out for the life form to follow, but is simply the 'jig-saw' piece of environment that that particular life form finds itself in and reacts accordingly, as all its ancestors did with slight variation as the environment varied.

For example, would the HIV have a purpose of maintaing ethical standards in other species procreation? ... Sex?

Would the Ebola Virus have a purpose of maintaing ethical practices in the fragile Rainforest?... intrusion, deforestation, destruction?

Purpose in this case does not imply cognitive awareness of cause and effect. Nor are these cause and effects monitored and chained together to achieve a pre-imagined 'goal'

Certainly he is a cause that leads to an undesirable effect on humans ....... but he is just doin what he can't help doin because he has been shaped that way by his environment. Far from trying to maintain ethical standards to balance the ecology he is as dumb as a doorknob.

Life has no purpose at its base, just the Universe evolving.

cool bananas ... greg

[timeparticle]

Over the past one hundred years, science taught us that the lower levels of life forms are basically dumb as a doorknob. They are not aware and only react to stimulus. Is this really true, or are scientist actually the dumb ones, concerning the purposefulness of the lower levels of life?

Unfortunately, this theory is difficult to prove. It is especially difficult because people don't really want to hear that all life forms have an important purpose... even the lower ones, as many people haven't found their own purpose. Purposefulness
is a concept not accepted by todays scientists.

The HIV came from the rainforest. But how did it first come into contact with humans? The CDC says this:

The earliest known case of HIV-1 in a human was from a blood sample collected in 1959 from a man in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. (How he became infected is not known.) Genetic analysis of this blood sample suggested that HIV-1 may have stemmed from a single virus in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

For many years scientists theorized as to the origins of HIV and how it appeared in the human population, most believing that HIV originated in other primates. Then in 1999, an international team of researchers reported that they had discovered the origins of HIV-1, the predominant strain of HIV in the developed world. A subspecies of chimpanzees native to west equatorial Africa had been identified as the original source of the virus. The researchers believe that HIV-1 was introduced into the human population when hunters became exposed to infected blood.

However, I have heard that it was transferred during sex from a lower primate to a human, as other VD strains with animals to humans were transferred. This would be difficult to prove.

There is also the notion that there is no HIV and it is a purposeful misdirection from the medical community to have us believe the virus exists....

See Mikal on this.

Nevertheless, the very basics of life exist for a reason. Isn't it too easy to dismiss them as invasive to humans and therefore should be exterminated?

[Graybeard]

Over the past one hundred years, science taught us that the lower levels of life forms are basically dumb as a doorknob. They are not aware and only react to stimulus. Is this really true

In my opinion ... Yes.

Unfortunately, this theory is difficult to prove. Purposefulness is a concept not accepted by todays scientists.

Not so difficult to prove. Ants have limited responses to any given situation. Their brain patterns are simple and consistent compared to a humans. Their strategy is simple and effective. Ants are EXTREMELY complex compared to Virus's

It takes nine months and a huge amount of energy to produce you. You are capable of imagining purposes, feeling pain, predicting outcomes, loving, working, etc. You need all this complexity to make sure the huge investment of energy and time placed in you by your parents has time to mature and procreate.

It does not take as long for an ant. His strategy is to have minimal response, no awareness, unable to interpret more than a few textures, light. He is easily conceived and he will die shortly. It does not matter if a million die at once. His survival strategy can easily cope with that. His attitude is that he is a throwaway object, not worthy of repair, and easily replaced.

In order to bring about genetic change in you would take many hundreds, thousands of generations. So it would for an ant, and so it would for a virus.

200,000 thousand generations would probably cover Hominids entire span of existence as a species back as far as Lucy.

200,000 thousand generations of Ants would probably only take a few years

200,000 thousand generations of a virus can occur in a single night.

Thats why they are so difficult to fight. The genetic code you have striven to overcome today has totally changed by tomorrow. In other words the amount and degree of change from Lucy (hominid) to us a virus can achieve in a single night

cool bananas ... greg

[leskey]

Ants have limited responses to any given situation. Their brain patterns are simple and consistent compared to a humans. Their strategy is simple and effective. Ants are EXTREMELY complex compared to Virus's

Ants? Or ANTagonists???

NOT SO DUMB: WHAT IS A VIRUS?

http://www.physorg.com/news153685639.html
In an essay in the journal Science, Donald Stoltz, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and James Whitfield, a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois, report that a new study also appearing in Science shows how the diverse ways in which viruses operate within and among the organisms they encounter may not be fully appreciated. The study, from a team of researchers led by the Université François Rabelais, in Tours, France, found that the genes that encode a virus that helps wasps successfully parasitize caterpillars are actually integrated into the wasps’ own chromosomes. These genes, which they show to be related to those from another known group of viruses, are an indivisible part of the wasp’s genetic heritage; they are passed down from one generation to another of parasitoid wasps.
While it is not unusual for virus DNA to become embedded in the chromosomes of their hosts, in this case the wasp is not the only “host” of the virus. The viral genes do replicate (copy themselves) inside the wasp (the permanent host), but they actually target - and act upon - the immune system of the caterpillar (a more transient host).
“The unique thing about these viruses is that the organism into whose DNA their genes are embedded in is not the same one that their genes are actually targeted to operate on,” Whitfield said. “So it’s sort of like having two hosts, except that there’s not a complete life cycle in either host.”
The virus is beneficial to the wasp and depends on the wasp for its own survival, suggesting a kind of obligate mutualism that is not normally seen in viruses, Whitfield said....
“Many virology texts won’t even mention polydnaviruses,” Whitfield said. “The issue we bring up is: Do we want to call these viruses? And if not, why not? Because they certainly started out as viruses. And if so, then we have to change the definition of viruses to somehow specify what it is that a virus has to contain, and what it has to do, to be considered a virus.”
Provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

[Graybeard]

And what part of your quote do you feel disagrees with what I said ??

cool bananas ... greg

[Mikal]

Ants? Or ANTagonists???

NOT SO DUMB: WHAT IS A VIRUS?

http://www.physorg.com/news153685639.html
In an essay in the journal Science, Donald Stoltz, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and James Whitfield, a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois, report that a new study also appearing in Science shows how the diverse ways in which viruses operate within and among the organisms they encounter may not be fully appreciated. The study, from a team of researchers led by the Université François Rabelais, in Tours, France, found that the genes that encode a virus that helps wasps successfully parasitize caterpillars are actually integrated into the wasps’ own chromosomes. These genes, which they show to be related to those from another known group of viruses, are an indivisible part of the wasp’s genetic heritage; they are passed down from one generation to another of parasitoid wasps.
While it is not unusual for virus DNA to become embedded in the chromosomes of their hosts, in this case the wasp is not the only “host” of the virus. The viral genes do replicate (copy themselves) inside the wasp (the permanent host), but they actually target - and act upon - the immune system of the caterpillar (a more transient host).
“The unique thing about these viruses is that the organism into whose DNA their genes are embedded in is not the same one that their genes are actually targeted to operate on,” Whitfield said. “So it’s sort of like having two hosts, except that there’s not a complete life cycle in either host.”
The virus is beneficial to the wasp and depends on the wasp for its own survival, suggesting a kind of obligate mutualism that is not normally seen in viruses, Whitfield said....
“Many virology texts won’t even mention polydnaviruses,” Whitfield said. “The issue we bring up is: Do we want to call these viruses? And if not, why not? Because they certainly started out as viruses. And if so, then we have to change the definition of viruses to somehow specify what it is that a virus has to contain, and what it has to do, to be considered a virus.”
Provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Hi Lesk...do you think this mutualism mentioned in this report between the wasp and the virus suggests "purpose" as TP was discussing to begin this thread....???

It somehow seems like that.....


Mikal

[leskey]

...do you think this mutualism mentioned in this report between the wasp and the virus suggests "purpose" as TP was discussing to begin this thread...

Hi, All.
This is an interesting topic, TP and Mikal.
IMHO, the following information (from Wiki) does seems to support purpose.
The polydnaviruses (PDV) are a family of insect viruses that contain two genera: Ichnoviruses (IV) and Bracoviruses (BV). The genome of the virus is composed of multiple segments of double-stranded, superhelical DNA packaged in capsid proteins and a double layer (IV) or single layer (BV) envelope.

Both genera of PDV share certain characteristics:

• the virus particles of each contain multiple segments of dsDNA with each segment containing only part of the full genome (much like chromosomes in eukaryotic organisms);
• the genome of each is integrated into the host wasp genome;
• the virus particles are only replicated (produced) in specific cell types in the female wasp reproductive organs.

However, the morphology of the two genera are structurally different...Also, as their names suggest, the ichnoviruses occur in ichneumonid (IV) wasp species and bracoviruses (BV) in braconid wasps. Little or no sequence homology exists between BV and IV, suggesting that the two genera evolved independently.
In wasps, sexes are significantly genetically different. Females have a diploid (2n) number of chromosomes and come about from fertilized eggs. Males, in contrast, have a haploid (n) number of chromosomes and develop from an unfertilized egg. Wasps store sperm inside their body and control its release for each individual egg as it is laid; if a female wishes to produce a male egg, she simply lays the egg without fertilizing it. Therefore, under most conditions in most species, wasps have complete voluntary control over the sex of their offspring.The virus is beneficial to the wasp and depends on the wasp for its own survival, suggesting a kind of obligate mutualism that is not normally seen in viruses, Whitfield said.
Researchers have known for about 40 years that some species of parasitoid wasps inject these viruses, known as polydnaviruses, into the body cavities of caterpillars at the same time that they lay their eggs in the caterpillars. Because these “virus-like particles” have become an integral part of the wasp genome, some researchers have suggested they should no longer be considered viruses.
“It’s true that the wasp DNA and the viral DNA are now combined into the same genome, so maybe it’s not productive to think of them as separate entities,” Whitfield said. “But on the other hand, if you really want to understand them well, it does help to know where things come from.”
At first glance, it could be said that the wasp controls the outcome of the caterpillar. Intelligence/purpose is exhibited in each stage of the process. However, the agonist/antagonist relationship is being simultaneously controlled by two separately evolved genera of virus in two different (and in the case of the caterpillar, genetically modified) hosts. Extrapolating this scenario and it's inextricable inter-connectivity into the wider environment, it would be productive if we could stop thinking of ourselves as separate entities and learn to take better care of our host planet. Purpose could then be defined as the continued refinement of harmony within our environment.
Much of scientific assumption is symptomatic of an attitude to nature that carries over into every aspect of human existence; allowing only for the exercise of extravagant dominion over expendable and sacrificial resources, rather than nurturing a process of environmental reconciliation toward an holistic and sustainable outcome. We have evolved: we are capable of the latter.

[timeparticle]

Very cool, Leskey. Inherit purpose needs no awareness nor understanding. It just is.

[Mikal]

Hi TP...this should be a good read concerning "accidents in ecosystems"


Listen to the lionfish: what invasive species are trying to tell ...There are unconfirmed reports of lionfish from Puerto Rico, ... These tiny juveniles are the stuff of biodiversity, and lionfish are apparently eating four ...
http://www.articlearchives.com/envir...2300135-1.html - 63k -



Mikal