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<DIV>bob,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>yes, we agree. and the materials you quote are gorgeous.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>i agree with you that life is a process. but a process made up of a
hierarchy of sub-processes, the way that you and I are made of hierarchies
of individual cells.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>the word I find most useful for the envelope, the flame that life
provides is "identity." when the first proton and electron got together
roughly 380,000 years after the big bang, their marriage produced something far
beyond adding one plus one particle and getting two. they produced a new
identity--hydrogen.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>stars, galaxies, and planets have identities. but those
identities are primitive compared to the identity of Enzo Tiezzi's deer,
of martin luther king, jr., and of you and me.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>and still, even knowing that life is a verb, not a noun, what the heck is
life?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>with warmth and oomph--howard</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Howardbloom.net<BR>author of : The
Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History
("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind
from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New
Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism
("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable."James Fallows, National
Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates
("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich), How I
Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a monumental,epic, glorious literary
achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The Muhammad Code: How a Desert Prophet
Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram--or How Muhammad Invented Jihad (“a
terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on Islam,” David Swindle, PJ
Media).<BR>Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting
Scholar—Graduate Psychology Department, NewYork University<BR>Founder:
International PaleopsychologyProject; founder and chair, Space Development
Steering Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding
Board Member, The Darwin Project; Board Of Governors, National Space Society;
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific
Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation.
<DIV><FONT face=Verdana></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/15/2017 8:29:52 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
ulan@umces.edu writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2
face=Arial>><BR>> bob,<BR>><BR>> i agree with you. the
Heraclitean metaphor of the whorl in a stream has<BR>> something to
say about life.<BR>><BR>> you're right that life is a
process.<BR>><BR>> another metaphor for life is the flame, an immaterial
thing that rises<BR>> from<BR>> material objects and that dances
within a self-carved envelope of<BR>> identity<BR>> that rises far
higher than the logs that feed it.<BR><BR>Howard,<BR><BR>Thanks for replying.
Yes, Karl Popper used the flame analogy in his last<BR>book, "A World of
Propensities". I cite it in my paper.<BR><BR>> the hebrews used another
metaphor--wind. the literal translation of a<BR>> line from genesis
is, "in the beginning was chaos, and the wind of god<BR>> blew<BR>>
over the faces of the waters." the king james bible translates
that as<BR>> "the<BR>> spirit of god blew." wind is another useful
metaphor for life.<BR><BR>I believe the Hebrew word is "Rukh", and the image
of God blowing over the<BR>waters is one of my favorite in the scriptures.
(Similarly for the whisper<BR>that Elijah experienced in 1Kings.) I also like
the 23rd (?) verse of the<BR>Navy Hymn, which goes something like:<BR><BR>"O
Sacred Spirit who didst brood<BR>Above the chaos dark and rude<BR>Who badest
the mighty tumult cease<BR>And gave us life and light and peace.<BR>O hear us
when we cry to Thee<BR>For those in peril on the sea!"<BR><BR>> and,
following your lead, i suspect that life depends on a hierarchy
of<BR>> processes.<BR>><BR>> but, apparently, life is a process far,
far over and above the processes<BR>> within it. a very unique
process. so unique that objects in this cosmos<BR>> divide into
two very different categories:<BR>> *
abiotic--without life<BR>> * and
biological--with life<BR>><BR>> so life is both a process and something
far beyond the sum of its parts.<BR>> how can we capture the nature
of that higher identity?<BR><BR>I respect your opinion that life is above
process. In my paper I identify<BR>it as "a configuration of processes", but
am open to higher<BR>interpretations.<BR><BR>> here's how I put it in a
proposal for a book i have to get back to writing<BR>> in nine months or
so:<BR>><BR>> What is life? When a bullet went through
the right cheek of Martin<BR>> Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, on the
balcony of the Lorraine Motel<BR>> in<BR>> Memphis, Tennessee,
very little changed. King was still the same<BR>> collective
of<BR>> one hundred trillion cells he’d been a minute ago. 99.999%
of those<BR>> cells<BR>> were still intact and totally capable of
going about their business. And<BR>> King was still in the same
location. Yet something profound had<BR>> disappeared. What was
it? Why does that mysterious something defy the<BR>> concepts
with<BR>> which we currently view nature—concepts based on
reductionism, the<BR>> principle<BR>> of least effort, and the
second law of thermodynamics? How can science<BR>> finally
confront that strange something?<BR><BR>I recount a remarkably similar
situation in my paper:<BR><BR>" In fact, life is itself process (a verb)
comprised of other processes.<BR>It is decidedly not a thing (a noun) (Popper
1990). Perhaps nowhere is<BR>this disparity better illustrated than with Enzo
Tiezzi’s (2006)<BR>description of a dead deer. The thermodynamicist Tiezzi
owned and ran an<BR>estate in Tuscany that was plagued by deer grazing on his
olive trees and<BR>grapevines. In frustration, he shot a deer and then was
transfixed as he<BR>looked down at the dead animal. He asked himself, “What is
different about<BR>this deer now than when it was alive only tens of seconds
ago?” Its mass,<BR>form, bound energy, genomes – even its molecular
configurations – all<BR>these things remain virtually unchanged immediately
after death. What was<BR>missing after death was the configuration of
processes that had been<BR>co-extensive with the animated deer – the very
phenomena by which the deer<BR>was recognized as being alive."<BR><BR>There is
remarkable parallelism in our thinking. That we come at the<BR>question from
opposite beliefs only adds consilience to what we hold
in<BR>common!<BR><BR>> with oomph--howard<BR><BR>With oomph back at you!
:)<BR><BR>Bob<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>