Since you’re talking about Elephants….
Nothing like a good, old fashioned, extensive rambling.
So, to those who will muster the patience to read on
Could we please leave The Creator alone ? Who came first ? the Egg or the Chicken ? Who created the Creator ?
IMHO, the question is not the creator.
To some, the question only appears so because they deny that very possibility. And in so denying, they set themselves adrift in a sea of doubt and interrogations inside a storm of possible “rational”, “scientific”, “esoteric”, “metaphysical” - you name it, they’ll search it - explanations.
To others, the question only appears so because they accept it as the only possibility. And in so believing, they set themselves adrift in the comfort of one of several available theologies inside pre-explained, ordered – you name it, they’ll know it - explanations.
To confuse this even further, yes, Creation and Evolution are not incompatible. Meaning, what was Created can – and does ! – Evolve. One thing is to create Art, which is finite in itself : you paint, sculpt, write … and that’s it. It was created, and it will never evolve.
Differently,
Very differently,
Is Life.
For Life, to me, is “the Elephant”. That IS the question.
Was Life Created ? Surely.
Has Life Evolved ? Surely.
It takes no brainiac, I'd say.
Life was Created. And Life Evolves.
Stars are born (from where and how come ?), some die violent deaths and others turn themselves into Suns and other stuff. Some particles travel forever (?) with no apparent “meaning” (?) while others turn themselves into a few of the universal building blocks (carbon?) so as to make Life possible as we – till now ! – know it : from a blade of grass to a tree or a mosquito, to Man.
Was it Random ? Was it Nature playing Dice ? Was it an exceptional Fine Tuning of some Frequencies ?
Nope. Can’t be.
Why ?
Read on,
DNA,
Every living thing (as we know it, and we already know a lot) has DNA, from bacteria to grass blades to oak trees to mosquitos to humans. There ARE quite a few life forms that DON'T have DNA (but they have RNA, and THAT would take us down another rabbit hole), but they are all viruses and viruses aren't real life forms as they are not able to replicate independently among themselves, i.e. they have to use host cells and their biologic machinery to replicate.
A Poplar tree was “genomed” in 2006. Why ? because their DNA only has 485 million base-pairs, while, for instance a Pine tree has 50 times that much. Just for the record and to give some perspective, we, Humans, have inside our germ cells (man’s sperm) 3,3 Billion base-pairs that will join another germ cell with as much inside them (women’s eggs) to form the required 6 Billion base/pairs of the complete and final Human life form. If these were printed on a giant piece of paper, with 50 letters per square inch, the piece of paper you’d need would be 8 times the size of a football field!
[i]Then again,[/i]
less than 0,1 % DNA difference occurs among human genomes. But if we change that just “a bit”, say around 4 %, we get our closest “relative”, the Chimpanzee, which shares with Man around 96 % of its DNA. If we mess with DNA a bit more, say 18 %, we get the duck-billed platypus: part bird, part reptile, part mammal , and if we increase our messing with DNA just a tiny 2% more, to “just” 80 % sharing, we get … a Cow ! but we can get a mouse, too, depending on the 20 % “arrangement” of said DNA, for a mouse also shares 80 % of its DNA with Humans ! and if we, say, really hammer this stuff up and push it down to, say, a fecking aquatic sponge ferchrissakes !, we will still find that it shares with us 70 % of our DNA !!
What The Fuck ? …I say.
Don’t you ?
A few ticks here, and Man appears. A few ticks there, and a sponge comes up instead. Has Man been the same since ever ? No. Have sponges ? No. Both have Evolved. And will surely keep evolving, for it is in the nature of Life ….to Live.
Why?
Because we all Die. Everything Dies. Stars, particles, blades of grass, trees, sponges, Man and mosquitoes. We all were “created”, we all “evolve” and …. we all die. And that will keep on happening till Life finds a way – Evolves ? – to the point of erasing Death.
Again, was it Random ? Is all this the end product of Nature playing Dice ? is it just a Fine Tuning of some Frequencies ?
Gimme a break … really, gimme a break.
So,
Question comes up.
What is DNA ?
Simple : a code.
Same as our Alphabet.
Then again,
Our alphabet is a code with - it depends - but let’s settle on 26 symbols.
DNA has only a miserable 4 to play with.
“Our” code makes no Life. Just Beauty.
But “Its” code makes Life.
So,
Can We create ?
Can we “build” an elephant ?
We have been building software with just 2 symbols and look where that has taken us !!
We created it. And, after some point, it started to “evolve”. And it has now reached the stage that it can “evolve” just by itself to the point that one of these days we’ll wake up and “it” will have evolved to the point of maybe duplicating – all by itself – all that we can do or feel or think.
Lots of points, much lots more yet to breach lie ahead.
It is a question of “Interpolation”, meaning, the ability to construct new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points, meaning, to take something we know that can only achieve “that much” and make it achieve “much more”.
Like, for instance, by “interpolation” a software is able to produce almost HD quality images from low resolution ones.
“Nature” (Creator ?) knows about this. It has “interpolated” with us, and done it big time, make no mistake.
What the feck am I talking about ?
Cancer cells. That’s what.
Because “Telomerase” only exists in Cancer Cells and it is nothing more than the ability “Nature” gave it to “interpolate” our DNA and have it “reconstruct” a cell exactly like the previous one.
Normally, when ALL of our cells duplicate, they shorten Life’s telomeres, present in EVERY bloody feckin DNA. So Life ages. And dies.
But cancer cells are “interpolated”, meaning, by an UNKNOWN process they are able to “replenish” the missing code, and turn a low res image into the original HD one.
Enough.
I haven’t said my peace, just my feverish war. But enough.
So,
Can “we” create ?
I’d say Yes.
One day.
Credits
Myselfatwackoletloose
http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/cellbio/ ... facts.html
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 106AA9JaR8
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5348438.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome
http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-genet ... on.mammals
http://kgov.com/list-of-genomes-that-ju ... erpolation