Like an unplugged toaster

"The individual body, so familiar to us on our planet, dit not have to exist. The only kind of entity that has to exist in order for life to arise, anywhere in the universe, is the immortal replicator." (Dawkins 2006, The Selfish Gene, p. 266)

"Despite the term selfish genes, genes do not have selves: true selves are cells; without proteins and metabolic networks of recursive amino acids and intermediary molecules genes are impotent, no more "selfish" than an unplugged toaster." (Schneider & Sagan 2005, Into the Cool, p. 111)

Het christendom tapt een gradiënt af

(zie ook: Filosofie als verbranding)

"The idea that nature abhors a gradient, one of the key ideas of this book, is very simple: A gradient is simply a difference (for example, in temperature, pressure, or chemical concentration) across a distance. Nature's abhorrence of gradients means that they will tend spontaneously to be eliminated-most spectacularly by complex, growing systems. The simple concept of collapsing gradients encapsulates the difficult science of thermodynamics, demystifies entropy (as important to the universe as gravity), and illuminates how all complex structures and processes, including those of life, come naturally into being." (Schneider & Sagan 2005, Into the cool, p. 6)

"Pas in de sofistiek en bij Plato wordt de schijn tot louter schijn verklaard en daardoor verlaagd. In dezelfde beweging wordt het zijn als ιδέα tot een bovenzinnelijk oord verhoogd. De kloof, χωρισμóς, wordt opengereten tussen het slechts schijnbaar zijnde hieronder en het werkelijke zijn ergens daarboven; die kloof, waarin zich vervolgens de leer van het christendom vestigt, door tegelijkertijd het ondermaanse tot het geschapene en het bovenmaanse tot de Schepper om te duiden, en zich met deze aldus omgesmede wapens tegen de oudheid [als zijnde het heidendom] keert en haar onkenbaar verdraait. Nietzsche zegt daarom terecht dat het christendom platonisme is voor het volk." (Heidegger 1997, Inleiding in de metafysica, p.131 [80])

Als met een kaars in 't open veld

 "What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, not warm breath, not a 'spark of life'. It is information, words, instructions. If you want a metaphor, don't think of fires and sparks and breath. Think, instead, of a billion discrete, digital characters carved in tablets of crystal. If you want to understand life, don't think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology." (Dawkins 1986, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 112)

Of toch?

"When you ligth a candle, the flame flares up but quickly settles into a steady state, burning as long as there is wick and wax. Life is a similar phenomenon - a controlled burning, a pattern of energy flow. This is not just an anology: animals derive their energy from oxygen reacting with hydrogen-rich compounds, much as a candle flame 'lives' as long as its hydrogen-rich waxes have oxygen fuel." (Schneider & Sagan 2005, Into the Cool, p. xi)

Een voortschrijdend vergeten

"De geschiedenis van de metafysiek is niet zonder meer het werk van de mens. Dit te menen is precies één van de vormen van het metafysisch denken. De geschiedenis overkomt de mens (Geschick). Zij is evenmin zonder meer vooruitgang, verrijking, toename van menselijke mogelijkheden of een zogenaamd dichter bij de waarheid komen, maar tegelijkertijd ook een voortschrijdend vergeten (dat precies geen act is van de mens maar hem overkomt), een verloren gaan en ontvallen van mogelijkheden (Enteignis), en een toename van het ongedachte. Het gaat hier om het gebeuren van onthullen en verhullen, dat de mens in vele opzichten overstijgt, dat principieel ongedacht is, en dat de verschillende posities die de mens inneemt toewijst en mogelijk maakt." (IJsseling 1986, Jacques Derrida, pp. 117-8)

"Imagine a box with four compartments with doors that open and close. One of these compartments holds 10,000 molecules of a gas, and the other three compartments contain nothing; they hold a vacuum. What we have then is a gradient or potential gradient blocked by the doors. Upon opening the first door, or constraint, the gas will spread into the next compartment. This part of the system will reach a local equilibrium of roughly 5,000 molecules in each of two boxes, with no perceivable gradient between them. The process repeats as we open the remaining doors until 2,500 molecules or so settle in each of the four boxes. Each time a constraint is removed, that part of the system approaches equilibrium. Once the whole system comes to equilibrium, you cannot determine the order in which the doors between the compartments were opened. From observing the final equilibrium state, it is impossible to determine the order in which compartments were breached. These principles of erasure of the path, or past, as work is produced on the way to equilibrium hold for a broad class of thermodynamic systems, from chemical kinetic reactions to a hot cup of tea reaching the temperature of the room." (Schneider & Sagan 2005, Into the Cool)

Uitstel van executie

"Why life? Does life, scientifically viewed, have an overall function? Our answer is yes. A barometric pressure gradient in the atmosphere, the difference between high- and low-pressure masses, leads to a tornado, a complex cycling system. The tornado's function, its purpose, is to eliminate the gradient. Life has a similar natural purpose. Only instead of quickly destroying a pressure gradient and then disappearing, it tends to reduce, over billions of years, the huge solar gradient between hot sun and cold space, growing in complexity as it does so. The growth of complex, intelligent life can be directly traced to the effectiveness of life as a cycling material system adept at reducing gradients. The original and basic function of life, as of the other complex systems that we examine in this book, is to reduce an ambient gradient." (Schneider & Sagan 2005, Into the Cool, p. 8)