"Michael Gray" wrote in message
...


What a huge effort to go to for an argument from ignorance.
Do you think that you can swamp your audience with sheer bulk of
ignorance?



This is a legitimate criticism. And yes I think I can.

But you'll have to play fair and give me a chance to make it.
It's not a small effort to argue from ....uncertainty.

A more accurate description of the argument I'm making is to base a
conclusion based on the total system ...uncertainty...displayed by the s
pheres. While classical means search for certainty, the non-linear
mathematics I hobby in do just the opposite. And if you'll bear with me
for a moment as I have to intro an entire science few are familiar with
to make this point.

The chaos and complexity sciences are all about studying the
properties that exist when a system stands poised at a phase
transition between it's own possible extremes in behavior.
Much like a cloud stands critically poised between it's condensed
and evaporated forms.

To quote Cambridge physics lecture notes.

"The word criticality has a very precise meaning in equilibrium
thermodynamics. It is used in connection with phase transitions
(strictly speaking continuous transitions). When the temperature
of the system is precisely equal to the transition temperature,
.......something extraordinary happens..........."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052...lance&n=283155


It's those extraordinary properties I study, and I strongly believe
to be displayed clearly by the spheres.

Briefly, the primary properties that appear at these dynamic
states provide the source for self-organization. This is where
systems spontaneously begin organizing to higher levels
from within. This is where systems self tune to the optimum
and emergent properties appear.

The source of all order.

These properties are nothing short of the underlying
source for evolution, and I mean for both living /and/
physical systems. Darwinian evolution is now considered
a special case of a far broader concept of self organization
that is universal.

Imo, this is a breathtaking concept and advance in
understanding order of all kinds.

Systems that stand persistently poised at a critical state
or phase transition generate emergent properties. These
are properties that ...cannot...be understood by an
examination of component details. This is because
criticality, also called an 'edge state' or 'edge of chaos'
is when the system components behave simultaneously with
the very least predictability and greatest volatility. Their
trajectories are intractably entangled in phase space, to use
the parlance. Like a cloud, a continuous sequence of
step changes, chaotically or randomly changing from
water to air and back.

To quickly judge whether a system is in fact at this
critical edge state, one merely needs to analyze the
primary system variables in terms of their relative
complexity. In short when the primary system variables
display maximum....uncertainty... all at once, the system
is at the edge state.

It is at this edge or uncertain state where self organization and
emergent order is expected.

The spheres at first glance are simple mineral concretions
to a geologist. A very well known science. Yet their structure, their
self similarity or uniform shapes prevent the geologists from
nailing down the precise process that would create them.

On earth only life creates such emergent order.

The spheres at first glance appear to be microbial concretions
to a biologist. But their simple composition and lack of internal
structure or biosignatures prevent the biologists from coming
to that conclusion.

Both sides have equally good arguments for their case.
Both sides come up just short. If they were either after
two years of intense study ...we'd know...as both cases
represent rather simple forms of each respective discipline.

Mineral or microbial concretions are NOT rocket science.
But in fact represent the very simplest forms of order for
both disciplines.

It the spheres are EITHER we'd know right off the bat guys!

I mean COME ON, use just a little common sense please!!

The spheres display a maximum level possible of total system
uncertainty. They are at an edge state. They display emergent
order, they are self organized.

The spheres stand poised at a persistent critical threshold between
their own extremes in possibilities.

And in the case of the spheres the two opposite extremes just
happen to be geology and biology. They are both and neither
at the same time. They take the abstract form of cloud, and
perfectly so.

And this amidst an environment that clearly qualifies as
the 'primordial soup' life is thought to have evolved from.
Mineral rich hydrothermal systems.

And this amidst an unexplained deposits of iron that on
earth almost always are deposited by microbes.

The type of microbes that feeds on sulfates Meridiani is rich
in, and leaves behind iron deposits Meridiani coated with.

The ...very same...types of microbes thought to have been
one of the first, if not the ...very first....life to have evolved
on earth.

The environmental context is nearly perfect for the conclusion that
the spheres represent how geology transitions to biology.

Creation!

Arguing from uncertainly a legitimate one now that chaos theory
and the complexity sciences are finally maturing.

For those that read this far, thanks.


Jonathan




Lunar and Planetary Science XXXV (2004)

"It is this common association of microbes and iron
deposition on earth that has spurred hopes that robot
crafts exploring the hematite anomaly of Mars' Meridiani
Planum might find evidence for ancient life. The
hematite deposits of Meridiani Planum [7], regardless of
their exact origin, are considered to be a favorable host
for microorganisms that might have been associated
with their formation [8]."
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/1369.pdf


An astrobiological perspective on Meridiani Planum
(perhaps the defining paper so far on Meridiani)

3.1. Acidity and biology

Acidic environments where jarosite and other sulfate
minerals precipitate in association with iron oxides
occur in acid-mine drainage worldwide. The Rio
Tinto river system in southwestern Spain has been
well studied [e.g., [27] and references therein], and
while it has been exacerbated by mining, this system
is natural and includes diagenetically stabilized deposits
up to two million years old [27]. Rio Tinto and other
strongly acidic environments on Earth contain diverse
microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, and a sur-prisingly
large variety of microbial eukaryotes [33-35].
(These acid drainage systems are not, in general, close
process analogs of martian environments [27], but min-eralogy
and water chemistry suggest that they are in-formative
as state analogs,"
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~kaufman/ppt...y/Knoll_05.pdf


Morphological Biosignatures and the Search for Life on Mars

"Determining the location of potential paleobiological repositories
on Mars requires an understanding of the martian surface in
terms of elemental abundances and mineralogy. This variety
of hematite on Earth forms only in the presence of large amounts of
water, and typically at elevated (hydrothermal) temperatures
(Christensen et al., 2000)."
http://geology.asu.edu/jfarmer/pubs/pdfs/morpho.pdf


ps.

Stock charts display such total system variable uncertainty
very well at times. And when they do universal or self
organized behavior erupts. Internal order begins that is
not ...at all.. dependent on any system specific details.
I'm trying to hint that I'm very successfully testing this
concept in the real world. I know it's valid. And if
your interested in how to play the market using chaos
theory...I'll tell you all about it. And you can see for
yourself how this concepts manifests itself.




s