MORE ESKOM WOES... is that possible?

[DeepBass9]

I think I must start another thread on sustainable farming practices.

[___]

1 minute ago, Gabriël said:

cell mutation

Most mutations are deleterious and lose information. Two things happen, redundancy saves you, or the mutation is eliminated (by your immune system preferably, but could also be death of the organism). So in the bulk of cases mutation does not create new information.

Then there's some cases where the mutation is neutral. A bit is flipped in the code, so to speak, but thankfully the code still ends up building an acid (for example). Again, no new information is created.

Then there are cases where new information is created. This then has to survive long enough to reproduce, and in cases of sexual reproduction, is subjected to another round of half-chance.

1 minute ago, Gabriël said:

therein the problem, the vast majority of so-called scientists [which include the at stages totally illogical dawkins] EXPERIMENT - ie, they don't really have a clue - they may have a grant - but a clue???

I would not go that far. Scientists are very clever people. But let's branch onto a side track: Genetic modifications. Apparently we have ventured into that area already where we have made inheritable modifications. Now imagine that 50 years down the line we discover we made a mistake... and now we have entire populations carrying the mistake. Conversely, if you can fix someone's DNA and remove say Cystic Fibrosis... why would you not do it?

Let's not pretend this is an easy question.

That is why I love post-apocalyptic science-fiction movies so much. It's the perfect vehicle for telling a story, for saying: If we continue on this path, this is where we are heading!

[Gabriël]

Just now, DeepBass9 said:

I think I must start another thread on sustainable farming practices.

the 'power farming' thread 

[Gabriël]

1 minute ago, plonkster said:

Then there are cases where new information is created.

WHAT?

[DeepBass9]

You guys are now moving into the metaphysical. Dawkins touches some people on their studio.

[Gabriël]

1 minute ago, DeepBass9 said:

You guys are now moving into the metaphysical.

pass the weed 

[___]

Just now, Gabriël said:

WHAT?

Depends on how you look at it. I'm a theistic evolutionist (but a limited one), so for me ongoing creation (of information) is something I don't rule out. I don't think mindless mutation has the capability of creating information. Besides, there is one thing about the entire theory that fails for me: The goal function.

When optimising any system, you generally have multiple constraints (not always linear) and a goal function. You search the solution space (vary the parameters) and evaluate the goal function until you find an optimum point. Evolution is essentially such a search for an improvement, or an improving trajectory. What many many people never bother to think about is whence come the goal function?

[DeepBass9]

But neither god nor mutation created glyphosate, so humans can just hope that they mutate to the same degree as a GMO mielie. Maybe if we eat enough glyphosate, by natural selection the strong will survive and the rest will die from terminal gluten intolerance...... (https://returntonow.net/2018/09/04/were-not-gluten-intolerant-were-glyphosate-intolerant/)

Edited July 11, 2019 by DeepBass9

[Gabriël]

1 minute ago, plonkster said:

Depends on how you look at it

indeed, i would require proof of such instance/s - which has nowhere been found AND would also be a violation of for instance the 2nd law of thermodynamics; things are winding down, not up  - take eskom for one 

[Guest]

GM - Genetically MODIFIED - a rabbit hole the human race has dived into with gusto! And we are so not finished seeing that gene splicing using the CRISPR technique is becoming commonplace.

Chinese Scientist Who Claimed to Edit Babies' Genes May Be Under House Arrest ... the one who got caught.

Roundup ... Anyone who wants to debate the merits of Roundup, do yourself a favour and do some serious research on the matter

Maybe the people that have died or are dying having sued / or are suing Bayer, previously Monsanto, have it all wrong. The scientist backing their claims, maybe that is also fake news.

 

[___]

1 hour ago, Gabriël said:

things are winding down, not up

Overall yes. But you can have pockets of things going the opposite way as long as it is accounted for elsewhere. The second law of thermodynamics only require that OVERALL it must be winding down.

My further objection to simplistic unguided models of such progress is that it fails the moment your constraints are non-linear. With linear constraints, the optimum point is always at a vertex, so "dumb" optimisation where you keep doing more of the same until there's no more improvement will work. But with non-linear stuff, you have local maximae and you don't know the global maximum unless you keep searching.

Picture a landscape of hills and valleys, with water covering everything halfway so you cannot reach another hill without going through water. Suppose you are halfway up such a hill. You can randomly take a step in any direction, and turn around when your feet touches water, and this method might likely get you to the peak of your own hill after some iterations. But you can never reach a higher hill than your own. Pure Bee-Gees-ha-ha-ha-ha-staying-alive! tactics isn't going to get you past that.

So in assuming unguided mutations can get us anywhere, I sort-of feel we also have to make assumptions about the solution space, and I think such assumptions are unwarranted or at least post-hoc. So frankly the best answer the other side (metaphysically speaking) has is the anthropic principle

[DeepBass9]

The universe may be winding down, but the Earth is not a closed system. The Earth has the sun pushing billions of watts of energy into the system, so things will get more complex over time. Hence life.

[___]

Again, I may just be completely wrong in looking at this as if it is some kind of optimisation problem. You tend to look at the world from your area of training and/or experience

 

[DeepBass9]

You see, you are just trying to dissipate excess energy through optimisation, but thermodynamics is making it an uphill battle! LOL.

[___]

15 minutes ago, plonkster said:

dumb" optimisation where you keep doing more of the same until there's no more improvement will work

That just made me think of an old movie. Anyone seen Idiocracy? Some people will try to solve all problems using "water from toilets", but it only gets you so far...

 

[DeepBass9]

I haven't, but I see it is on netflix.

[___]

 

[DeepBass9]

You know that they are busy ripping Monsanto/Bayer there of course?

And it is a true story : https://ivn.us/2013/02/11/the-revolving-door-fda-and-the-monsanto-company/

                                    https://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-controls-both-the-white-house-and-the-us-congress/5336422

Get your tin foil hat out for this one : 

https://althealthworks.com/17296/a-travesty-for-our-nations-wildlife-former-monsanto-executive-appointed-by-trump-to-lead-prominent-u-s-wildlife-position/

 

Edited July 11, 2019 by DeepBass9

[Gabriël]

1 hour ago, DeepBass9 said:

Hence life.

hence different world views... billions of watt, billions of years but a speck of existence? would the forces of nature be so cruel and or idiotic as to not also generate eternal life; and if so why do we not see it?

ok, just frolicking with the angels on the pin-head... nothing serious, just pop a ritalin or two and swallow it with some serotonin... hehehe, see, it already works 

[Gabriël]

1 hour ago, DeepBass9 said:

Get your tin foil hat out for this one : 

https://althealthworks.com/17296/a-travesty-for-our-nations-wildlife-former-monsanto-executive-appointed-by-trump-to-lead-prominent-u-s-wildlife-position/

something fishy there...

[Bobster.]

18 hours ago, plonkster said:

In the GM debate, this is one place where I find myself agreeing with Richard Dawkins. Which is a rare occasion, as I normally find the man insufferable (along with several others who have never heard of logical positivism and why it failed).

He explains quite rightly, to Prince Charles too I think, that as humans we have been messing with nature for literally centuries, making things better for ourselves. Brocolli and Bananas just being two of the things that would not exist in their present form if we didn't mess with them.

Being insufferable (which he often is) and being wrong (not so often) are not the same thing. In one of Dawkins books there is a picture of the ancestor of the modern cabbage, what we'd still have if nobody had ever messed with the crop in the first place. It wouldn't feed nearly as many people per acre, and it looks like a weed.

[Bobster.]

18 hours ago, DeepBass9 said:

Hmmm. GM is not necessarily the problem. The problem is specifically what the plants are genetically modified to be resistant against. The flaw is that the third part of the triangle being humans who are not genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate poison (similar to the weeds and insects that it kills off). 

That's what one company does. 

I recently saw a documentary about how scientists in Asia are modifying rice so that it will grow in salt water. This is because rising sea levels are starting to cause flooding by sea water of paddy fields. Sure, they could just give those paddys up, but then they reduce the area available for growing their staple. So the only way forward is to create salt water tolerant rice.

Crops may also be modified to be resistant to certain pests.

[Bobster.]

Eskoms's new big problem is the Carbon Tax that was introduced effective 1st June. That is going to saddle them with 100s of millions of rands in extra tax.

Though not such a problem. Auntie NERSA will recognise this as an unavoidable increase in the cost of doing business and pass it on to us.

Good news: The payback time on your solar system has just been shortened.

[DeepBass9]

5 hours ago, Bobster said:

That's what one company does. 

I recently saw a documentary about how scientists in Asia are modifying rice so that it will grow in salt water. This is because rising sea levels are starting to cause flooding by sea water of paddy fields. Sure, they could just give those paddys up, but then they reduce the area available for growing their staple. So the only way forward is to create salt water tolerant rice.

Crops may also be modified to be resistant to certain pests.

As I said GM is not necessarily the problem, but if you eat wheat, maize, sugar or soya you are ingesting a whole lot of glyphosate, and you are not genetically modified to be tolerant to it.

It may be one company, but it is the company that supplies all of the GM grain seeds and poison in SA, and it is their poison you are eating. That is my objection to the whole industry.

As an alternative imagine you could GMO a crop plant so that it flouresces under a specific light frequency. You could the have solar powered weeding robots that just snip the weeds and leave the remains as mulch on the land surface, conserving nutrients and water. That would be a step forward, similar to the salt tolerance example. Instead you have vast areas of the landscape poisoned so that a single species can survive. many countries have banned Roundup as other glyphosates, South Africa has not.

Edited July 12, 2019 by DeepBass9

[Gabriël]

5 minutes ago, DeepBass9 said:

imagine you could

for more on the interesting prospects of also 'date-stamping' crops and nano-tech see