Hmm.. the text wouldn't load for me. Anyone have a copy of the article?
It's Ghostery, it killed it somehow. Not sure if it's the site's fault or Ghostery's?
I just incognito when Ghostery messes up the page view.
First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
21–30 of 191 posts
Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#22This gives us four possibilities: 1. This geared creature must be considered part mechanical. A cyborg, if you will. 2. A "gear" is no longer (and was never) a "mechanical" device, but instead an organic one. Using gears is no longer (and was maybe never) doing mechanics. 3. Whether something is mechanical or organic depends on the process which created it. This is the "colored bits" or "patent" view. (If I build som…
An electric motor, complete with stators, etc. has been known for a while and it didn't change our concept of 'mechanical':
Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#23This gives us four possibilities: 1. This geared creature must be considered part mechanical. A cyborg, if you will. 2. A "gear" is no longer (and was never) a "mechanical" device, but instead an organic one. Using gears is no longer (and was maybe never) doing mechanics. 3. Whether something is mechanical or organic depends on the process which created it. This is the "colored bits" or "patent" view. (If I build som…
Organic vs. Mechanic is a false dichotomy. There is some latitude in how you define either of those terms, but I think you have to be rather extreme to put them in complete opposition.
Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#24This gives us four possibilities: 1. This geared creature must be considered part mechanical. A cyborg, if you will. 2. A "gear" is no longer (and was never) a "mechanical" device, but instead an organic one. Using gears is no longer (and was maybe never) doing mechanics. 3. Whether something is mechanical or organic depends on the process which created it. This is the "colored bits" or "patent" view. (If I build som…
5. The concepts of "organic" and "mechanical" are purely human inventions used to conveniently categorize the world, and there is no reason the world has to obey our desire to fit neatly into categories we devise. Any discussion of the meaning of "mechanical" and "organic" is a discussion of language, not of anything outside humanity.
"The map is not the territory"
Very well stated.
Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#25This gives us four possibilities: 1. This geared creature must be considered part mechanical. A cyborg, if you will. 2. A "gear" is no longer (and was never) a "mechanical" device, but instead an organic one. Using gears is no longer (and was maybe never) doing mechanics. 3. Whether something is mechanical or organic depends on the process which created it. This is the "colored bits" or "patent" view. (If I build som…
5) Organic creatures have mechanical systems as part of their physiology. "Mechanical" doesn't mean "made of metal", it means "uses movement and friction to achieve some effect". Some mechanical devices, such as levers and swivels, are seen frequently in the animal kingdom; others, such as gears, pulleys, and wheels, are almost never seen in nature. Discovering one of this latter category is a fascinating find.
Pulleys are not that rare. Block and tackle is, but you have pulleys in your hands.
Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#26Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#27This gives us four possibilities: 1. This geared creature must be considered part mechanical. A cyborg, if you will. 2. A "gear" is no longer (and was never) a "mechanical" device, but instead an organic one. Using gears is no longer (and was maybe never) doing mechanics. 3. Whether something is mechanical or organic depends on the process which created it. This is the "colored bits" or "patent" view. (If I build som…
5. The concepts of "organic" and "mechanical" are purely human inventions used to conveniently categorize the world, and there is no reason the world has to obey our desire to fit neatly into categories we devise. Any discussion of the meaning of "mechanical" and "organic" is a discussion of language, not of anything outside humanity.
Isn't this the same as #4?
Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#28This gives us four possibilities: 1. This geared creature must be considered part mechanical. A cyborg, if you will. 2. A "gear" is no longer (and was never) a "mechanical" device, but instead an organic one. Using gears is no longer (and was maybe never) doing mechanics. 3. Whether something is mechanical or organic depends on the process which created it. This is the "colored bits" or "patent" view. (If I build som…
There's never been a dichotomy between organic and mechanical. All things that move are mechanical. 'Mechanical' simply refers to motion. 'Organic' is a similarly blurry categorization.
The terms you're looking for are 'natural' and 'artificial,' as in "of nature" and "of artifice (created by man)." These are natural gears, which are so surprising because we'd long assumed the gear itself to be an artificial concept.
Notes:
1) I don't use 'artificial' in the more modern connotation, meaning roughly "fake" or "not genuine." Rather, I use 'artificial' in the original sense of the word, deriving from the Latin artificium, or 'craft.'
2) To be fair, 'mechanical' has increasingly taken on a connotation of artifice or man-make ever since the Industrial Revolution (cf. 'mechanic,' 'mechanism'), but in the truest sense of the word, this is not necessarily the case.
3) My semantical nitpicking aside, I admit you raise some interesting points. I want to acknowledge that.
Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#29Does that mean the patent for the gear is now invalid?
Re: First Mechanical Gear Found in a Living Creature
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
5. The concepts of "organic" and "mechanical" are purely human inventions used to conveniently categorize the world, and there is no reason the world has to obey our desire to fit neatly into categories we devise. Any discussion of the meaning of "mechanical" and "organic" is a discussion of language, not of anything outside humanity.
Isn't this the same as #4?
That occurred to me, but I think it's fundamentally different. "False dichotomy" still admits (and IMO implies) the possibility that these are real actual things, but that the same entity can be both.
This is not a false dichotomy, nor is it a true dichotomy, but a misunderstanding of just what concepts like "mechanical" are.