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Mitochondria Are Alive

asimov.press

161–170 of 412 posts

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mitochondria seems to have been an 'accident', yes. That does not mean that other lifeforms in different planets require mitochondria or equivalent organelles. As long as they can perform the necessary chemical reactions (which could be different in a different environments) and extract enough energy, they should be good. How did mitochondria evolve in the first place? Could they have remained as independent organism…

It’s so pathetic to keep hearing that dna is an accident , life is an accident, mitochondria is an accident. What is an accident that natures says “oooops”. When will we take our heads out of the sand and realize the universe is alive and creating everything. There are no goddamn accidents !!!!

What? When saying that "X" is an accident, nobody means "nature says 'oooops'. Nature is neither conscious nor alive, if universe were alive and creates and shapes life, why is there so many errors happening in the universe?

Everything exist by " accident", and that means that is the result of random events that happen unexpectedly in unimaginable places, leading to an environent were the outcome of this events causes more random events.

Why universe insist in making life so uncommon if it has the secret to create and replicate?

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If reality can emerge out of nowhere I don't see it unlikely for life to emerge in some other planet If everything however unlikely is likely because creation is unfathomable, sure.

Not everything. Life in particular. Because without life (a conscious observer) reality cannot exist. So it should be a property of reality for life to emerge.

There is no known scientific principle or theory with experimental support that without a conscious observer reality cannot exist. It's not something that can be tested, and lies in the realm of philosophy, not science.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#163

It's such highly unlikely chance events that make me think we really are alone in the universe (we = a sentient civilizational lifeform). There's just no way the long series of extremely improbable events that led to our rise was replicated anywhere else, and it took the sheer vastness of this universe for it to have emerged even once.

The universe seems so ridiculously big to me that I can’t imagine anything major happening only once.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#164

Mitochondria are why I’m a Rare Earther. In Earth’s history, mitochondrial endosymbiosis occurred once. Without that you don’t have the energy budget for complex life. Moreover, there may be a narrow window where it can happen: modern microbiology has defences and selection pressures that it make inhospitable to the hobbling chimeræ the first mitochondrial cells would have been. Until mitochondria, the emergence of l…

In addition to what others have pointed out (chloroplasts), I think this makes another mistake. Although only the mitochondria and chloroplast lineages remain, it is possible it happened other times but those lineages were out-competed, for whatever reasons, and are now extinct.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#165

Mitochondria are why I’m a Rare Earther. In Earth’s history, mitochondrial endosymbiosis occurred once. Without that you don’t have the energy budget for complex life. Moreover, there may be a narrow window where it can happen: modern microbiology has defences and selection pressures that it make inhospitable to the hobbling chimeræ the first mitochondrial cells would have been. Until mitochondria, the emergence of l…

Chloroplasts also evolved from separate organisms and are now effectively organelles. So this is t a one off event.

And even if those hadn't become organelles, who knows if they (or mitocondrias) could have evolved towards multicellular life on their own? They were already organisms to begin with.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe! That could also suggest that any other strategies were just out competed by this one and lost the opportunity to develop further.

> other strategies were just out competed by this one and lost the opportunity to develop further Absolutely. It also means--however--that any niche where alternative did exist, when exposed to mitochondrial life, they lost. Now that I think about it, it would be pretty funny if we're this universe's cheela [1], a freakishly overclocked biosphere that runs faster not because it had to but because it happened to. [1]…

Evolution is path-dependent. Notice that mammals were comprehensively outcompeted by dinosaurs till asteroid removed them and gave mammals time and niches to develop in. If you recreated dinosaurs right now they would lose to mammals (for example to homo sapiens).

It's perfectly possible that mitochondria are the dinosaurs of "cell powerplants" that just haven't encountered the asteroid to let other (ultimately better) solutions develop.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be wrong, but I recall reading recently it had been found the same event had occurred again, fairly recently (hundreds of thousands of years, could be millions) in some species of bacteria or something like that. Here's a thought, also; maybe once this has happened, it tends to crowd out needing to happen again.

> it had been found the same event had occurred again, fairly recently Would love to know the source if you have it.

[deleted]

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#168
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything. Life in particular. Because without life (a conscious observer) reality cannot exist. So it should be a property of reality for life to emerge.

Isn't that kind of mixing up the chain of causation? Without a winner, a lottery cannot exist (or at least, at p=0, it's nonsensical). That doesn't automatically imply there are a lot of winners, however.

I think what I am trying to say is consciousness (life) is reality. And so all kind of planetary experiences can exist inside consciousness as it's contents since consciousness is capable of generating all kind of content.

There is nothing specific about our consciousness that makes it unique to earth.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#169
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything. Life in particular. Because without life (a conscious observer) reality cannot exist. So it should be a property of reality for life to emerge.

There is no known scientific principle or theory with experimental support that without a conscious observer reality cannot exist. It's not something that can be tested, and lies in the realm of philosophy, not science.

I don't think reality has this property that what cannot be tested through scientific method is not true.

Re: Mitochondria Are Alive

#170

This article managed to hit two classic science journalism cliches in just the first few paragraphs. (1) “Someone hypothesizing a very dramatic theory with weak evidence was considered wrong by most colleagues but later vindicated when strong evidence emerged”. (No mention of thousands of other dramatic hypotheses that turned out wrong.) (2) “You may have heard in unsophisticated popularization that [philosophical cl…

For #1, I disagree with how you assess this.

Firstly, the one who makes the logical fallacy inference that this implies all or most dramatic hypotheses are true is ... You. Not the author of the article. The author of the article is only talking about one specific theory. If I tell you a story about a chicken crossing the road, I'm not obligated to tell you about all the chickens who don't cross any roads.

Second, there are plenty of examples of established theories that started this way, and so it is important that scientists consider controversial hypotheses with an open mind. Speaking in any context, it's very easy to dismiss evidence that contradicts your views prematurely. It's sort of a defense mechanism we all do. It's important to recognize such a bias and be willing to acknowledge where your own theory could fall short when you see it.

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