Today, a completely crazy lecture. It is not about the subject I announced in my lecture on Tuesday, but something I happened to learn today.
We went through a Cold War, and other wars like in Ukraine are raging on today. Putin has already threatened to use nuclear weapons, and here we are back in the 1950s:
the threat of a worldwide nuclear war, the complete annihilation of human life, if not all life, on this earth.
Well, I have good news for you: just mix in your brain water with evolution theory and a shot of Darwin, and remember how it all began.
Then you ask the question: Can homo sapiens destroy all life on earth? The good news is: NO! And let me tell you why...
The bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans was discovered in 1956 by Arthur Anderson at the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station in Corvallis, Oregon.
Experiments were being performed to determine whether canned food could be sterilized using high doses of gamma radiation.
A tin of meat was exposed to a dose of radiation that was thought to kill all known forms of life, but the meat subsequently spoiled, and Deinococcus was isolated.
The red-coloured bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans can resist 1.5 million rads of gamma radiation, about 3,000 times the amount that would kill a human.
To put this in perspective, a whole-body dose of around 400-500 rads is generally considered lethal to 50% of an exposed population within 30 days without medical treatment.
Bacteria, the singular for it is bacterium, are microscopic, single-celled organisms that are found in vast numbers in almost every environment on Earth.
They are among the oldest life forms and play crucial roles in the planet's ecosystems.
Bacteria are a diverse and ancient group of single-celled LIVING organisms that are fundamental to life on Earth,
playing critical roles in ecological processes, human health, and various industrial applications, though some species can also be harmful.
Our Sun has been shining for approximately 4.6 billion years and is currently in the most stable phase of its life, known as the main sequence, where it fuses hydrogen into helium in its core.
It is estimated that the Sun has enough hydrogen fuel to remain in this stable phase for about another 5 billion years. That is plenty of time to restart the Darwinian evolution cycle.
While anatomically modern humans appeared around 300,000 years ago, that is after those 4.6 billion years, the development of more complex behaviors associated with "modern humans as we know them",
such as sophisticated tool use, symbolic art, complex language, and organized settlements, appears to have developed more gradually.
Significant evidence for behavioral modernity becomes more common in the archaeological record starting around 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.
So, don't worry. There is still plenty of time. After total extinction, mankind still has a chance and a future. Just imagine the wonders archaeologists of Mankind 2.0 will discover.
But you know, why I prepared this crazy lecture? I was really in awe about the fact that we can not destroy life, and moreover that we haven't the slightest idea what life is and how it came into being.
Thank you for your attention..... :-)
Main Sources:
MacMillan The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition
TABLE OF CONTENT -----------------------------------------------------------------
1 - 100 Philosophers 9 May 2009 Start of
2 - 25+ Women Philosophers 10 May 2009 this blog
3 - 25 Adventures in Thinking 10 May 2009
4 - Modern Theories of Ethics 29 Oct 2009
5 - The Ideal State 24 Febr 2010 / 234
6 - The Mystery of the Brain 3 Sept 2010 / 266
7 - The Utopia of the Free Market 16 Febr 2012 / 383
8. - The Aftermath of Neo-liberalism 5 Sept 2012 / 413
9. - The Art Not to Be an Egoist 6 Nov 2012 / 426
10 - Non-Western Philosophy 29 May 2013 / 477
11 - Why Science is Right 2 Sept 2014 / 534
12 - A Philosopher looks at Atheism 1 Jan 2015 / 557
13 - EVIL, a philosophical investigation 17 Apr 2015 / 580
14 - Existentialism and Free Will 2 Sept 2015 / 586
15 - Spinoza 2 Sept 2016 / 615
16 - The Meaning of Life 13 Febr 2017 / 637
17 - In Search of my Self 6 Sept 2017 / 670
18 - The 20th Century Revisited 3 Apr 2018 / 706
19 - The Pessimist 11 Jan 2020 / 819
20 - The Optimist 9 Febr 2020 / 824
21 - Awakening from a Neoliberal Dream 8 Oct 2020 / 872
22 - A World Full of Patterns 1 Apr 2021 / 912
23 - The Concept of Freedom 8 Jan 2022 / 965
24 - Materialism 7 Sept 2022 / 1011
25 - Historical Materialism 5 Oct 2023 / 1088
26 - The Bonobo and the Atheist 9 Jan 2024 / 1102
27 - Artificial Intelligence 9 Feb 2024 / 1108
28 - Why Am I Here 6 Sept 2024 / 1139
The Discussion
[13:19] Max Chatnoir: Why is the Deinococcus red?
[13:20] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): Maybe it happened million years ago, who knows?
[13:20] herman Bergson: Why are you white. Max...well ..in SL
[13:20] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): are we the first humans?
[13:20] Max Chatnoir: It isn't photosynthetic, is it?
[13:21] herman Bergson: IT was something else..plykao....something....
[13:21] herman Bergson: polykayo....
[13:22] herman Bergson: Nice observation Beertje....Maybe we are even version 3.0 then
[13:22] herman Bergson: Do you remember all those mysterious artefacts they have found....
[13:22] herman Bergson: and said...must be aliens who made them...:-)
[13:23] herman Bergson: Lots of such stories around :-)
[13:23] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): yes
[13:23] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm i guess so
[13:23] herman Bergson: It is a funny thought...us version 3.0 :-)
[13:23] Max Chatnoir: I think the big trick, if life goes back to bacteria, will be reinventing eukaryotic cells or the equivalent.
[13:24] Max Chatnoir: I think it took a couple billion years the first time.
[13:24] herman Bergson: yes, fascinating.. as Spock used to say :-)
[13:25] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): were does this red pigment come from?
[13:25] herman Bergson: May be a little faster with the remnants of version 2,0
[13:25] herman Bergson: gens
[13:26] herman Bergson: genes
[13:26] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): it must have started somewhere
[13:26] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): aha
[13:26] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes
[13:26] herman Bergson: like your skin colour is a genetic result
[13:26] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): somewhere
[13:26] herman Bergson: Well...in fact WE invented colours
[13:27] herman Bergson: MAybe you know all those coloured pictures of nebulae in the universe...
[13:27] Max Chatnoir: What do you mean, Herman? You mean giving them names?
[13:27] herman Bergson: They are in a way fake...the universe is colourless
[13:28] Max Chatnoir: But Deinococcus does have a pink or red pigment. I just don't know what it is.
[13:28] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): i heard that in earlier years poeple coouln't see the color blue
[13:28] herman Bergson: we observe gasses and in our earth environment they can reflect a colour
[13:29] herman Bergson: as such a colour is only a refraction of light that out eyes register
[13:29] herman Bergson: A Stranger landed
[13:29] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hi Stranger
[13:29] Max Chatnoir: Hi, Stranger
[13:30] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): hello Stranger
[13:30] herman Bergson: You missed the fun, Stranger
[13:31] herman Bergson: This was my crazy lecture of the year :-)
[13:32] Max Chatnoir: OK, I found an article about chemical analysis of the pigment, but no comment about what it does in Deinococcus.
[13:32] herman Bergson: In which I claim that life is indestructable
[13:32] herman Bergson: It makes it show up red under the microscope, I guess
[13:33] herman Bergson: But only if your eyes can see the color red
[13:33] Max Chatnoir: They are talking about maybe using it as a fabric dye.
[13:33] herman Bergson: That would be fun....
[13:33] herman Bergson: It would mean that your red dress can be alive, Max :-)
[13:34] Max Chatnoir: A nice little mystery!
[13:34] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): no wonder it tikkels sometimes, all those little legs
[13:34] herman Bergson: It really is :-)
[13:35] herman Bergson: Indeed Beertje.. MAx can't hardly sit still :-))
[13:35] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): :))
[13:35] Max Chatnoir: Oh, dear, have I been vibrating?
[13:35] herman Bergson grins
[13:35] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): ツ
[13:35] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hahah
[13:35] herman Bergson: We tickled the biologist in you, I guess, Max]
[13:36] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:36] herman Bergson: But to look at it in a more serious way for a moment.....
[13:37] Stranger Nightfire: Well having arrived late And seeing what the subject was today I will simply say that it does seem that destroying all life on Earth would be a pretty difficult thing to do Seeing as at one point the entire Earth was covered with ice that was miles thick and at another point the entire surface of the plant it was nothing but molten lava and that life survived both of those events
[13:37] Stranger Nightfire: Human life on the other hand may be extremely fragile
[13:37] herman Bergson: I really was imressed by the fact that life is so strong...
[13:38] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): in short, we can destroy ourselves but not end ALL life
[13:38] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): why want life survive?
[13:38] herman Bergson: Like the Dinosaurs were, Stranger
[13:38] herman Bergson: that is the point Beertje...it doesnt want anything..it is just there
[13:39] herman Bergson: Right, Bejiita
[13:39] herman Bergson: and I find that a very positive thought
[13:39] Max Chatnoir: My point is just that there were two big jumps to complex life forms: the eukaryotic cell and multicellularity. That might not happen again.
[13:40] Max Chatnoir: However, other interesting combinations of bacteria might develop.
[13:40] herman Bergson: yeah Max....
[13:40] herman Bergson: And add that statistic to the entire universe....
[13:41] herman Bergson: and the question...is there alien life outthere
[13:41] herman Bergson: ?
[13:41] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): it would be strange somehow if we are all alone,
[13:41] Max Chatnoir: Well, given how quickly it appeared on Earth, it seems likely that it would appear in other places.
[13:42] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): someone however state the theory of the big filter = every advanced race is doomed to destroy themselves with nukes or something similarly horrible before they reach into space
[13:43] herman Bergson: If it appeared at other places...then why are those places so far away, Max
[13:43] Stranger Nightfire: Well there are quite a few scientists who do not believe that life likely appeared on Earth or emerged on Earth but was scattered here through space
[13:43] Max Chatnoir: But "advanced" in that sense means manipulating the environment. How many species with opposable thumbs are there?
[13:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and that is why we have not met aliens because only we are left
[13:43] Stranger Nightfire: they call it Panspermia I'll get this And increasingly accepted scientific theory
[13:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): a quite insettling theory
[13:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): unsettling
[13:44] herman Bergson: Yes Stranger...it may have arrived here on an impacting meteorite
[13:44] herman Bergson: meteorite
[13:46] herman Bergson: Well...at least I know I am not alone in the universe....you are here :-)
[13:47] Lukkie Sands: Yes, and I am too :)
[13:47] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): yay
[13:47] Max Chatnoir: And I suspect that some life forms may not have genomes -- ways of packing up their abilities in reproducible archives.
[13:48] herman Bergson: yes Max, so many possibilities of development....
[13:48] herman Bergson: We are just too willing to think antropomorphic
[13:49] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): our brain is just too small to know it all
[13:49] herman Bergson: That is for sure, Beertje
[13:49] Max Chatnoir: That's why written language is our superpower!
[13:49] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): yes Max
[13:50] herman Bergson: Indeed it is....and now we add Artificial Intelligence to it
[13:50] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): is that a blessing?
[13:50] Max Chatnoir: And if THAT becomes self-reproducing, look out!
[13:51] herman Bergson: There is your blessing Beertje :-))
[13:51] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): hmm..not sure
[13:52] Max Chatnoir: I don't know how it could become self-reproducing, and I also don't know why Deinococcus is read.
[13:52] Max Chatnoir: red
[13:52] herman Bergson: The color of Love, Max :-)
[13:52] Max Chatnoir: Maybe just for us. A lot of animals can't see red.
[13:52] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): here he goes:))
[13:53] Max Chatnoir: Awwww.
[13:53] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:53] Max Chatnoir: Oh, maybe being red makes Deinococcus invisible!
[13:54] herman Bergson: Well, my dear friends, this was my fun of today and a show of how I was struck by this bacterium and its power oflife.
[13:54] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): in any case red is a nice color including these chairs
[13:54] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[13:54] Max Chatnoir: Yes, the chairs are quite lovely!
[13:55] herman Bergson: Thankyou all again.... I hope you enjoyed my crazyness of today :-)
[13:55] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): ツ thank you Herman
[13:55] herman Bergson: Class dismissed....
[13:55] Max Chatnoir: It was a very stimulating lecture!
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