Human Beings Are Carbon-Based Robots
You Are A Product of Awesome Design
Up Front — A Quick Internet Summary
What you are about to read is one of two companion articles intended to awaken you to something obvious but not so widely known! This awakening applies to all humanity.
Briefly put, up-to-date scientific evidence reveals the seemingly improbable, but actually reality. This first article addresses a molecular machine in you and a second supporting article addresses molecular machine tools in you. The two put together lead to an awesome conclusion.
Think about what you read because evidence from science reverses long held thoughts and concepts taught within the scientific realm. Educators and students both need to take note of a resulting huge paradigm shift about who we are.
Science today identifies the most intimate details of the inner workings of each human being—specifically, molecules and information provide the revelation, a true awakening—such that the conclusion is inescapable and applies to everyone. You are in fact incredible, specific, and complex beyond what nature alone through random variations and chance could have ever caused, composed, or evolved!
To summarize in a few sentences, consider this: A complexity of instructions are built into and operate you. You are made up of parts including molecular machines and a multitude of molecular tools. These parts exist beyond any probable means to produce such molecular components through any stepwise evolutionary process. Information in your cells is so complex and specific as to reflect design features. There is no direct material or natural means for how any such information arose.
The presentation below uses an analogy and a careful stepwise explanation to help you assess the impact of this on reality. This points to your life’s origin in a way that requires deep reflection on who and what you are and what your life really is. Surprisingly, your life’s origin is furthermore exposed by the biology, probabilities, and design features.
Carbon-Based Robot Article:
Analogy or Reality
To help all readers, an analogy provides an initial way to illustrate this article’s main conclusion. So, what analogy helps?
How about this: You are a ‘carbon-based robot. The label carbon comes from the fact that carbon atoms are found throughout our life's chemistry.
Human beings are made of component parts.
Technically speaking, integration of functions from molecules, to cells, to organs, adds to the overall complexity of each human being. Physiology, metabolism, energetics all within the structure of each one of us makes an active moving, flexible, animated being. That might be obvious to you, but there is much more to this.
In less technical language, the analogy reflects deeper to something incredible … indeed, this digs into the detailed makeup of us … the conclusion comes to nothing is by chance—read on to see why!
Key Point: Many people are formally taught science in a way that misses or avoids the valid and unique perspective presented here. Keep in mind, this is written by a PhD biologist. With an open mind you will see something hiding in plain biological sight!
Classroom: Carbon-Based Robot 101
Mechanical metallic robots made by humans have numerous component parts made by the ‘minds and hands of man.’ This includes designing a structural framework, movable appendages, sensors, moving-integrated parts, energy systems (batteries, wires, etc.), computational hardware, and more. Robot production starts on a design drawing board and there may be prototypes, but the finished product is the result of comprehensive human effort.
Making A Robot
Component parts are designed and tested, refined, assembled in whole and with full function. Any version or transition type is developed further by the human mind and the skill of mechanical or electronic crafts persons. If a functional subunit has multiple parts, then all subparts must be present for full function. The final assembly is only possible with all necessary parts at the ready and then fully integrated upon construction of the whole robotic machine. Mini-machines and micro-systems are installed to make the total robotic machine.
Keep in mind that, for example, missing a gear in a watch renders the watch non-functional. The gears also must be specifically organized. The same principle applies to robot assembly and function. This may seem an obvious point but keep this in mind because there is a special added twist in applying the robot analogy to a biological ‘carbon-based robot’ (C-robot). Similar, but different!
A Functional Machine Part in You
The vital example illustrated, in this first article, is a biological system, a macromolecular machine that is part of the human body’s chemical energetics system.
EXAMPLE: ATPsynthase (ATP-S):
The picture above is a screen shot from the YouTube video presented below ( you may also use link provided here to watch the same video online Credit: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute):
Please watch the four-minute presentation on the structure and operation of the ATPsynthase (ATP-S). This complex of proteins, when spinning round opening and closing, is a molecular machine.
Simple Explanation: As the ‘machine’ turns, chemical components are joined and capture energy in the process. Later, the ‘energy molecule’ (adenosine triphosphate or ATP) moves to other locations where it splits apart releasing energy. That energy is delivered and is used by your body to run all biological operations keeping you alive.
A comparison of us with a mechanical robot leads us to understand how we are in a very real sense “carbon-based robots” (C-robots)—having numerous highly specified complex parts. And all of those parts are necessary for the “machine” to work. that make for a functional being. Think about this as you next read and watch a video about a most interesting example.
Awakening #1: Take note about your body’s energetics when the video’s narrator mentions 60 kilograms of ATP production in a day … that is 60 kg in you! [Amazing: 60 kg = 132 pounds] Yes, there is recycling of molecules, but the production rate and turnover is something fascinating and a multitude of humans have no idea this is occurring at this magnitude daily within their body!
Awakening #2: This interesting fact about energy production is dwarfed by the incredible macromolecular machine that makes the ATP. Absolutely every part of that machine must exist or there is no function, no coordination of moving parts, no energy, no you!
NOTE: There is more than one biological structure for the reason to saying we humans are C-robots. There is additional compelling evidence, such as:
Awakening #3: There are thousands of other biological protein molecules acting as machine tools—we depend on these every moment of every day—in every cell of our bodies. The specific shape and function of numerous proteins makes each one a tool for a specific job. More on the incredible improbability that these proteins even exist is described in the second companion article.
Robot Analogy Quick Overview
The video is narrated in a monotone ‘matter of fact description’ of parts, position of molecules, and function. This is a textbook approach. The mono-tone undermines the truly spectacular existence of this wonderful machine—which is very much like a smaller integral component part of a larger robot.
Again, this is a machine mechanism that is analogous to component parts used to build a traditional human constructed mechanical robot. HOWEVER, humans didn’t build this biological machine. The video only starts with a fully assembled ATP-S.
Awakening #4: Taking a technical look at the bigger picture reveals a long list of complex and key issues, including: 1) origin of ATP-S, 2) other biological appearances in other species, 3) similar spatial placements of ATP-S complexes, 4) sequence of the synthesis of parts of this molecular machine, 5) chemical-environment (a matrix of cytoplasm ingredients) and 6) mode of assembly of the machine. But also 7) the specific information that codes for making the machine, 8) the origin of that specified information, and 9) factors sustaining the integrity of this code and machine over hundreds (even thousands) of human (biological) generations.
Wow! Okay, you need to stop and think about this because every part of what you just read says the ATP-S is the result of incredible complexity, information specificity, and requires an origin that just doesn’t come about by chance—perhaps a couple more pages of explanation are needed to fully explain, but in brief summary the ATP-S is quite improbable.
Awakening #5: Not only does the machine turn and that motion assists in making the energy molecule (i.e., ATP), the machine is powered by a buildup of protons on one side of a membrane. The protons ‘fuel’ the motion of the rotating ATP-S. Think of the protons as ‘pushing’ the rotor to turn the machine. AND those protons are present only because of a series of chemical reactions that are also vital to your physiology. Bottom line here: ONE system is entirely dependent on ANOTHER system, because both TOGETHER make a functional coupled system. This is an interlocking of components that increases the complexity of you!
Placement: Where is this molecular machine?
Historically, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, Charles Darwin, and others when looking through early light microscopes thought cells were filled with something like ‘goo.’ In recent decades, high resolution imaging led to an acceptance of fine-structure in relation to function, but something remarkable was left unappreciated and not incorporated into scientific thinking for well over a century.
Key Point: Students of science today would just readily accept ATP-S placement as mere basic fact, yet spatial positioning is of high importance to function. Specifically, not until the advent of Transmission Electron Microscopy (for example, the work at Harvard University by Ledbetter and Porter in 1970, was the detailed fine structure, organization, and compartmentation within cells adequately visualized.
Today scientists can further visualize cell components with animations, thus illustrating how ’nature’ reveals something spectacular in ultra-fine detail—all looks intricately designed with key placement of parts.
Awakening #6 (technical note): ATP-S machines occur in bacteria, chloroplasts, as well as mitochondria (you can search the Internet for full descriptions of bacteria and cell organelles). Think of the chloroplasts or mitochondria as modules that are installed in various biological compartments for the same energy role.
The video above states that most of a human organism’s ATP energy is produced by the ATP-S. Let’s briefly note that this biological-machine has a specific placement in a cell, in a specific compartment, directionally oriented on a specific membrane, thus the organization and placement is not random.
Comparative Point: Mechanical robots might easily be designed to use interchangeable parts. Similarly, the appearance of a molecular machine in more than one life form, including C-robots, is analogous to the use of interchangeable parts in mechanical robots. Interchangeable parts are essentially a designed feature. You as a ‘robot’ have working machine parts at the micro level shared with other life forms, much like a robot has micro-circuits and miniature mechanical parts that might well be used in various other robots!
Complexity and Specificity
The ATP-S has a number of precision macromolecular parts that need to be put together—like the watch fully assembled with its gears, spring, and other parts—to work, function, be of biological utility.
Key Considerations: Complex Assembly
We might sit at a watchmaker’s bench and witness the assembly process in real time. The watch is built in stages. The assembly of the ATP-S may be surmised or even determined in part by researchers, but the fluid-like cytoplasm where the assembly occurs is not simply analogous to a watchmaker’s work bench. What guides this process is not human hands but as yet unknown cell and organelle coordination.
Information is key: A close look reveals organelle-based instructions and the instructions in the cell where the organelle is located both have a role here. Simply stated, remarkably, instructions from different sources are coordinated.
[In technical terms this takes complex eukaryotic plus prokaryotic genetic-coded information inside of us—and that adds complexity to the assembly of this molecular machine—and further this does not even include the mechanisms that do the assembly.]
Awakening #7: What could be the origin of biological information? Science just accepts this kind of complexity and specific information that exists in our cells. However, science has no accounting for the origin of biological information!
Yes, that’s right, the information is too complex to assume as evolved by random chance—as in Darwin’s general theory of evolution.
Recent scientific analyses cast extensive doubt on the adequacy of time to provide a stepwise origin and subsequent transitions leading to diverse species of life. This topic is explored further in books by Dr. Behe (see Behe 2008, Edge of Evolution, and Behe 2019, Evolution Devolves)
The real issue boils down to the origin of the information that makes life possible. Where did that come from? (for example see Meyer 2009 book link: Signature in the Cell)
Awakening #8: The confounding issue regarding biological origins is not chemicals assembling to make the first cell. Instead, the critical issue is where the information comes from in the first place! Furthermore, information in a bacterium or a human being is quite comparably complex and very specific.
In a world of potential biological mutations and alteration of coded information, the ATP-S needs true conservation of information to make every protein subpart exist (and functional). Where information is not disrupted, every protein required to compose the ATP-S structure needs to be made, positioned, and assembled to make a functional ATP-S complex. What moves the proteins into place would be interesting to know. And any disruption of the information (e.g., by mutation of genetic code) potentially ruins the machine.
Awakening #9:The entire ATP-S structure is not reducible to some partially assembled structure. It simply wouldn’t work and there would be no energy – no life.
Some controversy exists over the term ‘irreducibly complex’ structure. However, there are many examples in nature for biological structures, pathways, signaling mechanisms, and functions that cannot withstand missing parts and still retain function. But specific irreducibly complex features requires an ‘all or none’ aspect at their very origin—with barely any feasible explanation for an origin. That is, there is extreme difficulty in arriving at how this structure could have evolved step at a time.
There is no alternate source of energetics function for the ATP-S. Because of the complexity and all necessary parts are required for function, there is no obvious path for development of this machine over time. Simply put, all parts must be present and the ATP-S is a machine much like what a human might engineer with motor, rotor, stator, and assembly site for chemical reaction. This is and irreducibly complex.
Key Point: For more examples of biological irreducibly complex features in life, read Behe 1999, book link: Darwin's Black Box.
Another important issue is the other related cellular machine components that generate a proton gradient. The concentrating of protons is the fuel that drives the ATP-S machine. Like a mechanical robot, the C-robot has an integration of processes. Many of the driving chemical processes also operate at rates magnitudes faster inside a cell compared to the laboratory flask. Operating conditions for the machine and related physiological integration are highly specialized in a way that makes a biological system even more efficient and remarkable than a dry account of chemistry or physics.
Because we are focused on the one ATP-S machine, let’s at least acknowledge there is a greater context and bigger picture to integration across cell and entire organism than just at the placement of the molecular machine itself. Human mechanical robot building may lead to prototypes and test cases at every new version. The human energy invested in new stages of mechanical development generally employ working subunits added to the new overall robot. The ATP-S does not lend itself to early stages of development. It does come with the appearance of an all-or-none functioning machine. The cell investing energy in producing an intermediate non-functioning machine is destined to fail.
There is no present explanation for the creation of a code that directs the existence of the machine. And this point is critical element because most students of science think of life’s origin as being a union of chemistry and Earth events, not starting with base code directing origins.
Design
Since the days of the Greek philosophers and later William Paley, who wrote his ‘watchmaker argument’ for design in nature, there have been those who have debated this concept. Darwin was unsettled by the concept of design in nature and developed rebuttals to the idea. But Darwin also admitted to the appearance of design in nature. Richard Dawkins’ book “The Blind Watchmaker,” is the more modern rebuttal to design as a guiding principle to the study of life forms. But his view rests heavily on Darwin’s approach to evolution. Scientific data needs objective assessment to further the discussion on design.
One major problem to considering design comes down to intellectual approach. Some thinkers are material naturalists and thus everything must be explained from within nature—that is, to their thinking there is no origin but what occurs in nature. Elsewhere, other analyses indicate insufficient time on Earth conflicts with the principles of natural selection, population genetics, and other underlying approaches to the material natural thesis. Again, this is an area covered by Dr. Behe (Behe 2008, Edge of Evolution).
There is a move along the lines of ‘intelligent design,’ which builds momentum on the examples referenced above. The human developed robot starts with the intelligence of a human being developing design. The analogy of design as a definite feature to life brings the question: ‘if design, who is the designer?’ There is considerable debate over this approach, yet more and more evidence for design appears—even absent any acknowledgment of who or what the designer might be.
C-robots, at the very least exhibit complexity, specificity, integration of non-random systems, and informational instructions that guide life processes that far exceed many theories proposed thus far. So we are just robots? One last thought is that humans think and we house something that is not material—spirit, mind, free will. To ponder existence, having thought process, and intellect is orders of magnitude more than material being, more than being mechanical—and that realization is a next step that goes way beyond the example presented here!
To buttress the idea that we are not mere chance beings, read the next companion article about machine tools and the implied evidence for the sheer improbability for our being here!
