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Nonphysical.org
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The Issues
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Dedicated to a Revolution in Biological Theory
$5,000 Prize for a Material Mechanism
To encourage debate, Nonphysical.org challenges conventional science to provide a material mechanism that could explain the actual mechanics of life, the mind, or memory. The mechanism need not be the actual physiological mechanism that occurs in the living body. It can be as fanciful and creative as one likes. A $5,000 prize shall be awarded for such a mechanism published in reputable scientific journal. The mechanism must rely solely on the currently acknowledged laws and forces of physics. The mechanism must be able to identify the direct chain of interaction between events in the manner (like the sequential fall of dominoes in a line) that an engineer can explicitly describe the chain of forces that move through a car, computer, or other manmade machine. Since the electromagnetic force is the only force acknowledged by science to organize the molecular world, such a model must explain the organization of life in terms of this force. Vague, descriptive concepts such as the "theory of emergence" are specifically not allowed since they provide no actual mechanism of events. Should the scientific community be unable to supply a conceptual mechanism for what occurs, textbooks should clearly identify this failure. If conventional science's material theory of life cannot explain the mechanisms of life's chronological organization, memory, or instinctive behaviors, then alternate theories need to be considered.
A prize shall be awarded for a purely material mechanism for any one of the following: The Organization of Life's Molecular Motion Challenge: Provide a material mechanism for life's perpetual molecular dynamic. In the fluid environment of a cell, explain how molecules not only sustain chronologically organized currents of motion, but expand the intricacy of this dynamic in the growth of a creature. Current scientific theory asserts that the molecular dynamic of life arises from the interactions of independent molecules. The physical chemist models the molecular world as a collection of magnetic spheres that represent the complexities of atomic bonds. Atoms are tiny magnets that link together as molecules from the force of electromagnetic attraction. The challenge is explain how this force acting between molecules sustains life's chronologically organized motion. Problems to overcome: It is easy to model why organized currents of molecular motion become disorganized. Any textbook of physical chemistry explains this happens because states of disordered motion are far more probable than those of organized motion. When one puts pen to paper to draw arrows of interaction between moving molecules, it is easy to see that the molecules can interact in so many ways it is extremely unlikely that they will, by themselves, sustain highly organized motion. For example, in the game of pool, it is far more likely that the balls will become increasingly scattered than assemble as an ordered triangle in the center of the table. Or when cream is poured into coffee, the organized streams of cream quickly become dispersed. Once dispersed, the streams do not reappear. Yet, this process of coherent form appearing amidst the chaos of the nonliving world is exactly what happens in the organization of life. It is easy to model organized life's organized molecular motion with a global field that acts on a group of particles. For example, the global field of a magnet readily organizes the shape of iron filings on a sheet of paper. The particles conform to the size and shape of the magnet's external field. Motion of the magnet causes coordinated motion of the filing. However, current scientific theory specifically excludes the possibility that a mysterious, global force organizes the molecular contents of a cell. For the challenge, the popular computer simulations of "virtual life" are not appropriate since "virtual life" exists only in the rigid confines of the computer. The computer's highly structured environment does not reflect the true fluid environment within a cell. Further, since the computer structure and software which generates "virtual life" is the intelligent design of the conscious mind, "virtual life" proves the need for a Designer to create such complexity.
Genetic Theory Challenge: The model must explain how the substance of DNA might actually direct the chronology of individual molecular events to produce the structures and behaviors of a cell or living body. The experimental observation that master genes plus various gene promoters and inhibitors are associated with the form of an organism is not a model of events. An actual mechanism needs to propose how DNA and associated RNA strands and proteins, might actually direct the overall flow of individual molecular interactions to produce the ever-changing four-dimensional forms and behaviors of a life. Problem to overcome: As Erwin Schrodinger concluded in his famous book, What is Life?, the physical chemist cannot explain how a single strand of molecules might rigidly direct an enormous volume of molecular events with the certainty that produces the incredibly regulated living structures and behaviors. Further, the physical chemist cannot explain how life directs its perpetual dance of molecular motion.
The Chronological Organization of Memory Challenge: The model must explain how the brain's material substance might hold the chronological organization and permanence of human memory. How might the brain's watery neurons hold our memory of people, places, and events? How might the brain's fluid tissues sustain the chronological organization of human memory? An additional question to consider, how is this memory recalled? Further, how might memory organize the brain's sensory impulses into our perception of the objects and events in our world? Problems to overcome: There are innumerable problems. For one, to hold its permanence, memory needs an unchanging medium such as a computer's hard drive. How might the ever-changing, fluid-filled interior of the brain provide such stability? Second, how might the brain's memory data become chronologically organized? A computer has no grand sense of time. The conscious mind observes the computer's data in relation to the spectrum of life's experience to provide a sense of time.
DNA Directs Instinctive Behaviors Challenge: The model must explain how DNA's nucleotide sequences might carry and manifest the chronological behaviors of an animal's instinctive memory. For example, how might DNA direct the construction of a spider and then direct the construction of the spider web? Or put another way in mechanical terms, amidst the anarchy of the nonliving world, how might molecular string (DNA) direct the four-dimensional construction of a computer and then direct it's operation? Problems to overcome: All the above. More generally, how might DNA direct the fluid anarchy of reactive forces of the nonliving world become the the four-dimensional movie of life? highly regulated forms and forces?
Note: Determination of the adequacy of a mechanism and award of a prize shall be the discretion of Nonphysical.org.
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