What good can come from this? What devilry is this? you know that man should not be playing god and nothing good can come out of such things, that it only leads to sin and hell and blah blah blah..you guys know the rest. But seriously sounds cool.

Yeah but it might turn you into a super-villain like The Lizard from Spiderman.

It could have something to do with sex - you could date the crazy bitches - if she cut your dick off it wouldn't be a disaster like normal - just a temporary inconvenience.

I remember this well. If I recall, two primary explanations have been put forth as to why we cannot regenerate limbs:

Explanation 1: Evolution is the result of trade-offs. It takes a huge amount of free energy for evolution to go through the amount of trial and error to construct new mechanisms. Does a burrowing mole need vision? No. Are the pressures of natural selection going to give it vision? Will it give the mole an advantage? No. Evolution works with trade-offs. For instance, if you rip off a salamander’s leg, it will grow back. Within the active genetic code of the salamander, or indeed any amphibian, are strands that encode for a protein cascade that will create a new leg. 

The example of amphibian regeneration is an example of such a trade-off. Mammals cannot do this. They cannot even regrow the tip of a finger if severed. Regeneration is a biological feat that belongs to the amphibians. The reasons, when we think about it, are obvious. Take man for example. We have some patchy trauma responses given to us by evolution. In the event that a limb is severed, chances are that the Paleolithic man on the African Savannah would bleed to death. But if not, some ancient mechanisms kick in. Blood pressure lowers allowing the fibrin meshing to patch the spurting arteries, body temperature lowers to keep metabolism low which prevents necrosis and apoptosis of cells starved for oxygen as blood is diverted to the most vital functions (hence the pale pallor of the face, skin is not important for the time being). In time, the wound heals and the skin grows around it, and a stump is formed. For a mammal, the evolutionary-trade off of re-growing the leg would be too great a price. It would take utterly vast reserves of energy to do so, probably more than an animal in the Spartan world of the Paleolithic could spare, the animal would need to rest for weeks, an easy target for predators, and it would probably not regain full function of the leg until axongenesis fully formed. Then an entirely new synaptic network would need to form around motor coordination of the leg, which would take months. In short, it is not a worthwhile path for evolution to pursue. On the other hand, in low-metabolism small Poikiothermic animals, it works quite well. Since reptiles are poikothermic, there is a limit to their size, large animals cannot survive without homeostatic mechanisms which poikothermic animals do not have.

Explanation 2: There is actually another explanation which I will pursue because I like this example and because it is relevant to the thread. A few years ago, molecular biologists tagging mice for transgenics were using a holepuncher to punch a hole in their ear to tag. When they came back, they noticed that the mice in question had filled the gaps in the ear with cartilage. That was odd. Mammals should not be able to regenerate. A quick check revealed that these were no ordinary mice…they were MRL mice, specially bred with no immune system. This led the researchers to hypothesize, could the immune system represent a trade off between regeneration and survival of the fittest? It makes sense, the Immune system, led by the hunter killer T-cells, is extremely ruthless and kills everything that is not tagged by MHC tissue, even it’s own cells if it is convinced it is foreign. MHC, or major-histocompatibility complex, is a large, ultra-dense region of the mamallian genome, and encodes a specific antigen set expressed on the surface of cells, which play a crucial role in the cell-cell communication that occurs between T-cells and other cells inside the body of a mamall, is a central functioning part of the immune system. Because an MHC antigen set anchored to the extracellular matrix needs to mature, it is very difficult for the immune system to protect the body from foreign objects whilst simultaneously distinguishining them from the vast numbers of new cells rapidly proliferating in the regeneration of a limb.  Undoubtedly, the immune system would need to shut down such regenerative projects. We have traded our ability to grow limbs back with the ability to fight pathogens. It is probably a combination of these effects as to why we (mammals) cannot regrow limbs.

Some people drew the conclusion on basis of this experiemnt that it is possible that in the vast stretches of silent, non-coding DNA that inhabits the human genome, it is possible that the sequences allowing for these protein cascades allowing for regeneration are still in place, they merely have been silenced since the mammals and reptiles diverged from their common ancestor and mammals lost the ability to regenerate. This is a foolish hope, however. In evolution, there is no such thing as "dormancy". If a sequence is totally unconserved, because there is no selective pressure acting on it (which there won't be since it isn't active), then it will mutate out of existence, solely on the basis of random frequency of mutation.

This Cartesian notion has been refuted for nearly 200 years. The conscious mind is not analogous to the driver of a vehicle. There have been so many scientific and philosophical objections to this notion that it has long since collapsed. And if you want to go head-to-head on the matter and see who knows more about it...be my guest. The conscious process and the mind are inextricably bound up in the physical workings of the brain, and ultimately can be understood in terms of the physical brain. It is incoherent to assert that it constitutes a ghost in the physical machine. It is a primitive, silly, and refuted view that is overly simplistic and entirely ignores the successes of the neuroscientific disciplines in explaining cognitive processes in terms of the functioning of the physical organ and the neural computing it accomplishes.

 

Maybe you should take the time to study developmental biology before making things up. Once differentiated, cells stay that way. As for "biophotons", I suspect you just like the word because it sounds nice. It is true that they are involved in cell-cell communication, but only a small role. The largest roles in cell-cell communication are performed by G-protein linked receptors, Enzyme-linked receptors, steroid hormones, and intracellular small molecular ligands and ions(cAMP, IP3, cGMP, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+ and K+). A  cell needs a precise combinatorial control pattern to maintain its current state, or to switch phases in the cell-cycle, or to change its transcription pattern, etc. The manner in which a cell responds to external combinatorial control depends on its differentiation. You can't just switch cell states or its transcriptome at will. This prompts the question, do you actually know anything about cell communication? I mean, really know anything, not just know how to spin vague and soft language to sound nice? For example if I asked you a real question, such as: What is the rate function which describes the dose-response of a cell to an extracellular ligand with respect to binding sites on the receptor protein? Would you be able to answer?

Ah, so you've employed a bait-and-switch. This is a totally different matter. This, we will be able to do, but it requires stem cells, since they are undifferentiated. You can't just remove a mature and differentiated cell from the body and coax it to undergo proliferation to form an organ. Due to cell specificity, some organs have a partial form of this ability, the liver can regenerate from only a piece of it, only because hepatocytes have a property called unipotency, and, I am pleased to report that for the first time in a long time, you've said something correct, children who are 10 (not 12) can regrow finger tips under certain conditions. 

Oh, please. You just aren't versed in the relevant areas of discussion thus this is the ad hoc argument you turn to. Whenever you are refuted, you accuse your interlocutor of being part of this "financial-political interest group". You have no right to make this unsubstantiated claim because you know nothing about the subject under discussion. You are ignorant of matters, hence you get refuted. That's how it works. Just because you are ignorant of the subject manner doesn't mean you can accuse those who aren't of being biased against your position. This is immaturity at its peak.

Essentially every organism on the planet has an immune system. Bacteria have ionopheres and surface-expressed extracellular proteins as a method of defense. We have B-cells, T-cells, cell memory, innate immunity, etc. Reptiles have immune system, and MHC tissue, but the mamallian immune system has extra features and greater complexity that allows for more enhanced immunity, requiring more precise communication between immune system cells and the rest of the body's cells.

Of course, I don't mean a conscious mind. I mean the observer, what remains when a thought process is completely calmed down by meditation, for example. Thinking is a process ran by brain. It's not an identity. Our personality is just a set of character traits and memory, it's data and process, it's expendable, we are more. Some individuals among us are able to control their brain or body beyond what is considered possible. Conscious endeavour can control the brain, change it's waves, but keep a full consciousness. Delta waves, where people usually sleep, are not a problem for trained people to stay fully awake. (probably by keeping a bit of different brainwaves among delta waves) Psychosomatic loop influences the body without known limits. I've seen some faster reactions on myself than I would think they're physiologically possible. I see we're already not quite like the mammals who roamed a savanna, we're able to take the evolutionary effort to our hands and speed it up immensely. Biochemical mechanisms are not an impassable limit, there are possibilities superior to them, to get things done.

 

No I would not be able to answer. My area of knowledge and experiences is different. I see the problem from the other side. If I would ask you to "focus your energy" in a specific "chakra", you couldn't do it, though for me it's easy and produces a significant sensoric response. There is more what I can do than I can describe by words known to me, and to you at the same time. It's an intuitive approach, equally important as cognitive, and equally incomplete in it's opposite polarization.

A person, who masters both congitive and intuitive functions, is historically defined as a genius. This is why I'm sure a synthesis of these opposite qualities is important, and this is why I'm trying to demonstrate them in public (though the internet isn't maybe the best medium for that) and to absorb some cognitive qualities.

I'm sorry, did I create the impression I expect all humans to grow back their limbs? I had heard about some cases when it happened (always when there was no psychosomatic blocade like "humans can't do it&quot but this is where I agree. For a mammal, it's quite an effort to grow back a whole limb, and as our fast tempo of civilization commands, the limb grown in laboratory and transplanted afterwards would be faster. Playing with human genome could offer us a greater control over our immunity system, allowing a better regeneration, but I wouldn't expect us to gain fully the amphibian regenerative ability. In evolutionary times it was too slow, and in future times as well.

Of course I am "biased", just as everyone else, mabye except of a young child. I just represent one of many different, but equally important points of view. A painting must be painted by many colors to fulfil it's function, so I'm adding my color to the painting. Reality can

never

be sufficiently described by one point of view, we need all of them. This is why I'm making mine available and hope others will take from it what is beneficial for them, nothing more. Sorry if I don't emphasize it enough, I actually don't want to shove my "immaturity" down anyone's throat. The development of intuition allows people to differ what is good for them and what not

yet

or not

already

, and this, as I wish, should be one of criteria to consider what I write.

The "financial-political interest group" is a very logical thing to explain what is happening in the world. Such stuff happens. Thinking it doesn't is like considering my government as trustworthy, while it is obviously corrupted just like a banana republic administration and every year there are great scandals. There's an archetype of such behavior, and it's present among many such people in many positions of power. Archetypes, this is something I may very well know a lot about. This is like a question about the sense of life, it has exact answer, and many levels and  parallel meanings, suited for every living person. The perceived truth isn't here the highest truth, but a truth closest to the person at this moment. We can't all recognize the highest truth, this is why must have a respect to what other people perceive and use it to complete the image, through the inquiry of intellect and intuition.

 

It sounds like you've made a distinction without a difference. You've admitted consciousness, mental processes, personality, character traits, thoughts, etc. are processes executed with the brain. Yet you hold there is something "left over". This doesn't seem to make sense. What precisely is the constituent of a person when these things are gone, and furthermore, if such a thing itself is not a process executed by the brain, then it logically follows that such a thing could exist irrespective of the runnings of the brain. But if this were the case, then a person's "identity" would be innate and unchanging and unto itself. This appears problematic because it leads to the homunculus fallacy, the concept of a mental control room, the fallacious nature of this argument has been thoroughly dealt with by philosophers and neuroscientists.

I actually deliberately crafted the question to sound more complicated than it is. It is actually a really simple chemistry question. We can consider some ligand L and some protein P forming a bound protein-ligand complex which activates the protein and hence activates it in the form of allosteric control. For some ligand L, let n be the stoichiometric coefficient for the ligand, which determines how many of them bind to a protein to activate it in the form of an active complex and hence relay the signal. Then we can rewrite the binding in the form of an equation analogous to a chemical reaction:

P+nL<=>P(nL)

Then it follows that we can rewrite the rate equation in a manner analogous to a chemical reaction:

We can consider "activity" as the number of activated complexes formed per second. Then:

Rate=k[P][L]^n

Let [Ptotal] be constant, where [Ptotal]=[P inactive]+[P(nL)]

Then we can express rate as a partial differential with respect to the concentration of L.

Thus it follows that the binding reaction is nth order since we have held P constant. Then, for some change in concentration by a factor x it follows that the change in rate of formation of activated complexes is x^n. Thus, for example, for a protein complex which requires 8 identical ligands to activate, a doubling of concentration of the ligand will increase the response by 256 times.

(Note that when P is not constant, then this still generally holds since the ligands are typically the limiting molecules (not "reagants" since this is binding, not a chemical reaction). If this is not the case, then receptor proteins are generally order 1 unless they are part of a protein complex formed from multiple identical protein subunits that must be assembled for the signal to be relayed in which case, for n subunits, the binding will then be order n with respect to rate of formation, but only if P is limiting).

The "impression" you created was that given purely by your words. You stated that it would be possible to use cell-cell signalling to manipulate cells to regrow organs, etc. This is only partially true, as I pointed out.

I never said it didn't. I said it was an ad hoc response to refutation, hence unsatisfactory. It should not be part of the discussion.

What is it with you? Research science is not some secret society with decoder rings and passwords. Everything about anything in research science can be read by anyone (provided they are prepared to subscribe to a research journal). The only obstacle in the way is that the technical contents of such journals require a high degree of prerequisite knowledge, which is why such journals usually only have limited reading.

To my best knowledge, the 'leftover' actually participates on most of conscious processes, which are attributed to brain. They have always a response in brain, but it's rather a response and participation on the process, not a complete image of the process (like a memory) in form of neural synapses.
According to the research of Robert Allan Monroe, when a consciousness travels out of body, it keeps the memory, cognitive functions, ability to communicate, etc, without a brain. Maybe it uses the brain computing power remotely by some sort of connection (seen as being connected by 'silver line' as explorers says), but is not necessarily dependent on it. A function of brain is also to emulate (and limit) the consciousness in form of neural impulses, capable of moving the body.
The homunculus fallacy is really interesting, (thanks for telling me about it) but I think it's not the case, I'll try to explain it. As for my best knowledge, physical body and the 'leftover' (which is a set of complicated body-like structures) are all just a seats of consciousness, which is focused on physical body most of the time, but this focus may change. We can't find a homunculus within, just as we can't expect a brain to be inside of the eye. The eye is connected to a brain remotely, it's external. Also, we can't search for a homunculus in a remote part of the homunculus itself. We will find only semi-autonomous, semi-mediated consciousness, but only a look at the whole will reveal a sufficient part of the 'homunculus' itself. Till that moment, there is a long period, when we will gradually reveal more and more subtle remote and/or external parts of the 'homunculus', which will evenually lead us to the source, it's important to find the direction. 
I mean, scientific approach was always to look inside, to divide an object on the smallest parts, to look what it consists of, but here this concept isn't working so well, a holistic approach could be better.
For example, a newly considered idea of the brain working as a hologram, I googled up somewhere. When you divide a hologram, you get only a smaller hologram with the same picture. Dividing things doesn't always have to lead to a success.

Fascinating. I think I understand the basis (not all terms, like ligand), at least for this moment, which passes quickly.
 

  The society around my parents and their friends (and this kind of people as such, loosely organized) had a few times something to do with scientists. With all respect to you, as for their experiences, the contacted scientists (of this country usually, or czechoslovakia at these times) generally behaved like a conservative, closed society and monopolistic community of arrogant, self-righteous smartasses. It's adequate evaluation of what we saw to happen around here. This also includes Sisyfos, a club of so-called sceptics. They're so known for their blind, nihilistic attitude, that a "golden boulder", anti-prize given by them, is carried with pride, for people to see, who's the hero who managed to piss off the members of Sisyfos the most. Such people, if they have such a power, sometimes doesn't even read what they then judge publically and on what depends a well-being and public relations of the author. Shortly said, they can ruin people's lives and I've seen it happen.
Maybe you live in a happy land where ain't such people, but as for my experiences, it's quite widespread, it's like academic archetype, or role model. This is exactly why some people says, that science is religion, it has it's priests, dogma, heretics, inquisitors, temples and ceremonies, besides a serious research itself. And don't forget the rivalry. This conservativity is, what researchers of unusual phenomena has to fight with, besides their own problems. It's easier to skip the official scientific blessing (or more probable curse) and offer the results directly to laic, open-minded public. (which is already flooded by usual amount of scams)
It may seem as another ad hominem attack, and it probably is, however, it's necessary to describe why I have such untrust in most of today's science representatives, when it comes to edge phenomena. I trust them with most of common things (like the chemistry, for example) but I don't consider them as automatically competent for everything they think they are.

This is directly contrary to the understanding having been overwhelmingly assembled by the neuroscience community. I think you need a slight crash course before we continue:

Neuron: A neuron is the fundamental unit of the brain. It accounts for 10% of the cells that constitute the organ, the rest being glial or support cells. A neuron propagates an electrical charge via voltage-gated ion channels across a stretch of thin, long cell called the axon towards a junction with the receptor unit of another neuron (called a dendrite) at which point it performs a signal transduction by converting the eletrical signal into a chemical one into the release of exicatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters which determines whether the signal recieved by the receptor neuron is depolarazing (increase the signal) or hyperpolarizing (depress the signal). All neurons generate a binary signal by firing in a threshold all-or-nothing style called an action potential, also sometimes shortened to AP.

Neural cluster: A neural cluster is a group of closely related neurons forming a "pack" or a "unit". These neurons can be designated in terms of distinct functions (which depends on the speciality of the neuron in question, since they are type-grouped)

Synapse: A synapse is a junction between the end of the axon of one neuron and the dendrite of another. THe synapse is the point at which the two neurons are separated via a cleft which must be crossed by the transmitter signals. The synapse is the point where a signal is decoded and recoded for determining the overall membrane potential of the post-synaptic neuron. This in turn is directly proportional to the number of action potentials the neuron generates per second. This in turn codes a signal for the neuron to pass on to its linked

Synaptogenesis: Synaptogenesis is a combination of synapse and genesis. It is the formation of a synapse The -genesis suffix is common in biology to indicate the formation or creation of something. Neurogenesis is neural formation. Embryogenesis is the formation of an embryo. Spermatogenesis is the formation of the male gamete, and Oogenesis is the formation of an egg cell, etc. Synaptogenesis is the foundation of memory formation. The linking of two hitherto unassociated neural clusters is the basis for association which is the basis of memory, thought and language.

Association: Association is the foundation of memory. It is where the subject associates certain concepts, abstracts or entities with other concepts, abstracts or entities. This is central to language, memory and thought. The thing which sits in front of me is associated the word computer. It is also associated with the words black, grey, blue, etc. etc. The complexity and degree of associative links that a brain forms is a reasonable reflection of their cognitive ability. Cognitive scientists do not speak of cognition in terms of brain size, which is an unhelpful measure past a certain point, but rather synapse formation, for it reflects the ability of the subject for abstract thought. The impairing of the formation of synapses is an effect which can be induced by many different drugs which act as depolarizing agents which rapidly shut down the stimulus received by neurons, and some which do the opposite and overload the neurons with stimuli by acting as depolarizing agents. The latter case is called "tripping" and severely impairs the subject's capacity for abstract, reasoned thought.

With this crash course in mind, hopefully you can see the degree to which your simplification fails. Ultimately, this should be sufficient to understand the degree to which our mental states, and physical ones, are linked, and, more importantly, to stress, the complexity of this relationship. If you can find some room for a separate ontological entity with no causal powers (to state that a non-physical entity has causal powers in the physical world resulting in mental states once again leads you to internal contradiction as it requires you to assign to this non-physical entity a physical attribute), somehow “fits in” with the interaction between the external objects responsible for our perceptual experience and our neuronal networks, then demonstrate.

Second, perceptive experiences form the basis for memories, this in turn determines the response of organisms to certain external stimuli, this response taking the form of mental states. This is aptly demonstrated, and is well-established on a neurophysiological basis. Neuroscientists speak of plasticity in terms of the ability of networks to shift and overwrite each other in terms of their synaptic formations and connections. The whole concept which I just outlined above is usually summed up by neuroscientist as follows: Thought is a combination of sensation and memory.

This sort of reminds me of when Descartes was explaining to Elizabeth how the soul (according to him, located in the pineal gland) managed to induce the causal processes of thoughts. She, rightly, found his answer ridiculous. The problem comes from the notion of how a separate ontological category could causally influence another ontological category of a fundamentally different kind. From your point of view, this leads to internal contradiction since the assertion that such an entity is non-material effectively violates the closed causal processes of physical systems. You are trying to reconcile the fact that a physical brain is a necessary entity for the conscious process with your belief that some other ontological category is equally necessary. You shoot yourself in the foot precisely because of this. You are furthermore making an incoherent assertion that consciousness can "leave the body". The internally contradictory nature of this assertion has been outlined by me in the following essay:

If you don't understand the concept of a ligand, you won't understand any of it. In general, all proteins bind to other molecules, whether those other molecules are other proteins, or are particular small organic molecules being operated on, or polynucleotides, etc. For example, all enzymes will bind to molecules to be catalyzed at the active site, such are called substrates. In addition, most proteins are allosteric. They can flip between multiple distinct confirmations which act like on-off switches (this is what allows cells to compute responses to the environs, a phenomenon called signal integration). Thus, most proteins have multiple sites to bind to molecules, some of these molecules being those that the protein operates on, others being molecules controlling the activity of the protein, in the following manner:

The point is, in these cases, the activity of a protein will depend solely on the respective concentrations of its regulatory molecules, and as such, a rate equation can be written as analogous to chemical reactions, except in this case we are discussing binding equilibria (which is perfectly analogous to chemical equilibria). Any molecule that binds to a protein, whether a substrate, a regulatory molecule, an activator, inhibitor, another protein, etc. is said to be a ligand.

You've just defeated your own argument. Most members of the public are incapable of evaluating the truth or falsity of assertions pertaining to these matters because they require a great deal of competence in a particular technical field. Most creationists, for example, are non-scientists whose knowledge of evolution is sorely lacking, indeed non-existent. Most "quantum mysticists" are members of the public whose knowledge of quantum mechanics is so lacking they can't even interpret Feynmann diagrams. What someone needs, in rational evaluation of a claim, is not an open mind, or at least, not the way you define it, but a rational mind, a mind which is both willing to accept new claims but also to reject them, on the basis of their evaluation.

 

If modern science is insular, it is only because the cutting edge of science is so complex, so massively technical, that a great deal of study is required to acquire the necessary knowledge to participate in it. All professional scientists, in my opinion, have the right to be extremely angry with pseudoscientific ideas that crop up whose foundation is a handful of abused technical terms taken out of context combined with vague and confusing principles. Theoretical physicists and quantum physicists are and should be deeply embarassed by the rise of quantum mysticism. It makes their rigorous discipline look like empty, vague nonsense. They ought to be angry because they spend their lives toiling in obscurity because the work they do involves such complex concepts, and as a result they get called closed-minded for correctly recognizing that the watered-down and vague nonsense being presented to the public is absurd, and that as well those people accusing them of close-mindedness are equally clueless about quantum mechanics. Do you recall our previous conversation in which I stated point blank that if you are mathematically illiterate, you close every possibility of you ever being able to make a meaningful comment about physics? Well, I stand by that still. One of the easiest ways to find out people who are competent and have a highly technical understanding of a subject is to ask them a question pertaining to that subject which cannot be given by means of using vague terminology or without the application of some highly technical principles pertaining to that discipline. For example, since you started running your mouth off about cell-cell communication, I decided to test your "real" knowledge of cell communication by giving a question that could not be responded to by using vague terms and metaphors. This is the ultimate litmus test. It works really well too. Let's say I have some New Age con-man spouting about how quantum mechanics demonstrates that telepathy is possible. I just smile and ask him the following question:

Can you generalize the product Hilbert Space of two non-interactive systems (and by extension can you give the tensor rank)?

If the answer is no, this pretty much shuts down any ability (and hence credibility) the fellow might have to talk about quantum entanglement.

If the pseudoscientific idea in question attempts to exploit neuroscience concepts, I ask an even easier question:

What is the set of VGIC (Voltage gated ion channels) and TGIC (transmitted gated ion channels) employed in LTP (long term potentiation) with respect to a particular neuron?

If they can't answer, it pretty much shuts down any ability they might have to talk about memory from a scientific standpoint because it indicates they don't understand the physical/chemical basis of memory (in turn nullifying their ability to assert that memory doesn't have a physical basis).

There is endless fun one can have doing this. Consider a creationist abusing the concepts in thermodynamics. Try asking him the following:

Given a reaction with a ΔH^Θ of -440kJmol^-1 and a ΔS^Θ of 800Jmol^-1K^-1 at 500K, what is ΔG^Θ and is the reaction spontaneous?

You get the idea. And since there are so many suckers for pseudoscience, one can get vast amounts of quick amusement in this way.