Don't forget the thick legs, man, thick legs! — Janus

Ok, to clarify, obviously I was wrong to say that they could have evolved in an environment like Earth's, having to compete for resources with other animals like hamsters. The small elephant would be, relative to the hamster, much slower, so it would have much greater difficulty to get to food compared to the latter.

However - I was not wrong in the sense that there is nothing contradictory physically with an elephant being the size of a hamster. In other words, provided that such a creature had access to food and didn't have to compete for it, it would survive and live.

bulk as it heart beats its body to death at ten times the rate of an elephant. — charleton

>:O >:O >:O

In your universe of medieval science maybe. You clearly have no understanding of what determines heart rate. The brain monitors if cells are getting as much oxygen as they need, and if they don't, heart rate increases. It's a negative feedback loop that balances it. The heart won't keep beating faster if all cells are getting sufficient oxygen. When the human body is at rest, the heart beats at 60bpm - when it is running for its life, the heart rate may be at even 200 bpm. How the hell does the body change that eh? Mystery no? >:O

It's because living things aren't mechanisms - that's why this ancient silly scientism is a joke. We're not in the middle ages when we think of things being the stupid dry mechanisms that this guy often portrays them to be in his videos.

So if the hamster gets enlarged to elephant size, its brain would detect that the now bigger heart (which pumps more blood in one go), doesn't need to pump as fast to fulfill the oxygen needs of cells. So it will slow it down significantly. This is almost 100% certain.

Err, bodily regulation happens with values within expected ranges for a particular animal's environmental niche - a change from mouse to elephant and vice versa would be orders of magnitude different. — StreetlightX

It is true that bodily regulation happens within limits - for example a human heart cannot beat at 100,000bpm - but it can beat at 600bpm in atrial fibrillation for example.

However, you are wrong that these limits are governed by expected ranges for a particular animal's environmental niche. More like they are functions of physical limits. If a heart beats too fast, the muscle will break for example. It's a mechanical limit that is under discussion, has zero to do with the environment. In other words, it's something to do with the material's physical resistance.

No amount of regulation would prevent near-instantaneous death. — StreetlightX

It would depend how fast or slow they are shrunk or grown (over what time period). However, even if they do die, it would not be from overheating or freezing, and that's almost guaranteed. Organisms can self-regulate those aspects of themselves quite easily.

Not to mention it wouldn't have those ridiculous heat expending ears — StreetlightX

It would not be optimal, but it wouldn't be ridiculous. Keep in mind that the ears aren't the mechanism via which the elephant regulates internal temperature (relative to metabolism rate, the ears are really insignificant). Hippos don't have giant ears. They have tiny ears. So this aspect of the video is another joke - they just imagine the ears have big surface area in order to release more heat. It's easy to think you know when you just imagine nice little solutions to all problems that you have, without bothering to check if your imaginings are also true, and how they fit in the larger context.

Now it is more likely that the elephant's ears have to do with the fact that elephants are often found in very hot climates and are exposed to the sun for a long time. If the elephants were found in more moderate climates, they would most likely not need big ears. In fact, I'm right.

It would not be optimal, but it wouldn't be ridiculous — Agustino

Not ridiculous but you are. The cells of a mouse the size of an elephant would be too big. The number, size and distribution of capillaries too few; for the elephant the size of a mouse the complete opposite would occur. You simply have not thought this out.

Not ridiculous but you are. The cells of a mouse the size of an elephant would be too big. The number, size and distribution of capillaries too few; for the elephant the size of a mouse the complete opposite would occur. You simply have not thought this out. — charleton

No, cells of all these animals are about the same size. Where did you learn biology? In the textbook of Medieval Sciences?!

If you enlarge a mouse then the cells would break down as you would be enlarging the cells too.
If you enlarge the mouse you would be enlarging the capillaries too, making it impossible for the healthy exchange of nutrients and gasses.

If you are suggesting that in this hypothetical machine you could proportionately increase the number of cells, you would also have to change the entire architecture of the microscopic level, and macroscopic level to accommodate this change.
But that is not on the table. If it were then you would simply be fudging the hypothetical.
Which goes back to a point I made earlier.
Which ever way to care to take it. How ever much you care to fudge the hypothetical to preserve your vision there is one conclusion that is inevitable.
A mouse the size of an elephant is a big dead mouse.

If you enlarge a mouse then the cells would break down as you would be enlarging the cells too.
If you enlarge the mouse you would be enlarging the capillaries too, making it impossible for the healthy exchange of nutrients and gasses. — charleton

I don't think anyone was talking of this kind of "enlargement"... Have you watched the video? They weren't talking of this kind of enlargement there. I suggest you pay more attention to the subject of threads in the future.

It's you who have failed to think of all the possibilities.

I don't think anyone was talking of this kind of "enlargement". — Agustino

What kind of enlargement? I posited TWO. Neither of which leads to a living giant mouse.

What kind of enlargement? I posited TWO. Neither of which leads to a living giant mouse. — charleton

>:O Yeah, you posited two and dismissed one because "it's not on the table" >:O - give me a break.

There is no implication in the video that the number of cells or the internal structural architecture necessary for that to occur is in the video.
As no such machine exists in reality then the field is open for discussion. this is one of the first problems that was chewed over at the top of the thread. You really must pay more attention as you keep making a fool of yourself

There is no implication in the video that the number of cells or the internal structural architecture necessary for that to occur is in the video.
As no such machine exists in reality then the field is open for discussion. this is one of the first problems that was chewed over at the top of the thread. You really must pay more attention as you keep making a fool of yourself — charleton

The video discusses at length the fact that animal cells of both elephants and mice are around the same size. They do not say that the animals will die when enlarged because of their cells becoming too big. So where have you invented that idea from? When you're proven wrong do you always cower and move goalposts and stomp your feet? :s Or is that only sometimes?

Yes, that's along the lines of what I was referring to by "thick legs", although it seems I didn't read carefully enough; I read Agustino as saying that a creature the shape of a hamster, but the size of an elephant could have evolved. An ordinary-sized elephant-thicklegged hamster. Problem? — Janus

Yes. I don't see the problem with a mini elephant. Or a mouse with thick legs. It would not be very agile but I do not think per se it would be a dangerous impediment to living.

The brain monitors if cells are getting as much oxygen as they need, and if they don't, heart rate increases. — Agustino

I'm not sure it does. Given the amount of cells in a human body, the size of that information would be absolutely staggering, and would constantly need adjusting. It's more likely that the monitoring function of oxygen levels is emergent from normal individual cellular operations.

The brain "tells" the body to heat up its metabolic at birth because it's flushed full with a cocktail of hormones naturally released during birth, and which kickstart a lot of other organic function such as autonomous breathing and possibly even consciousness.

A contrario, we can observe that some living structures can be adapted (within reason) to multiple scale orders. Monkeys can be the size of mice or bigger than most humans. Feline will vary between 4 and 650 pounds. Yeah there are elephant species which are smaller than others, but you don't see any of the degree of variation present in, let's say, caniforms, feliforms or even ursidae — Akanthinos

+ @Augustino

But you're severely underestimating the significance of such a change here, I think. With respect to metabolism, we're talking about two creatures at almost the opposite end of the animal kingdom. The Etruscan shew spoken of in the video has a metabolic rate of about 6 Liters of O2/hour/kg; And African elephant has a rate of 0.164 L of O2/h/kg. That's a 36 fold difference, or a difference of 3600%. More numbers: an elephant on average weighs 250,000x that of a mouse/shrew; but following the scaling laws of surface/area to volume, a shew blown up to the size of an elephant would only have 5000x more surface area by which to expel the same amount of heat: thats a 50 fold difference. There is simply no conceivable way any kind of regulation would overcome the disparity in metabolism and size. It's just fantasy.

And this isnt' even to speak of the phyisological differences. As a furter instance, an elephant's skeleton makes up about 16.5% of an elephants total weight. This is a huge proportion - just under a sixth of it's body mass - one that is necessary precicely in order to support the elephant's giant weight. A mouse's skeleton by contast makes up about 8% of it's body weight, reflective of the fact that it simply doesn't need the kind of supportive structure that an elephant has. And this necessity carries over into other aspects as well: the musculature of an elephant would simply never develop in that way in a creature as small as a mouse or shrew. source (worth a read - covers the same ground as a video, possibly even inspired it. Actually, it's got a great gif of what the surface area of an elephant must look like in order to dispel the heat produced by the shew's metabolism:

).

Among the closest analogs of what an elephant might look like would be something like a mouse deer, which has a similar leg to upper body proportion to an elephant:



But notice the tiny, tiny girth of it's legs: which enable it to be both nimble, and are all that is necessary to hold up it's similarly tiny tiny weight. The girth of elephant legs on a small creature would be idiotic - without the nibleness they provide, they'd be hunted down and eaten in no time. They're evolutionary nonsense. And with respect to ears, Aug spoke of hippo ears, and seemed to forget that Hippos spend most of the time in water, which does the majority of their cooling for them, so have no need for the massive ears of elephants: in fact another testament to the fact that form is intimately bound up in the immanent conditions which give rise to it (and the engineering of a hippo in general also reflects it's aqueous nature: it's eyes, ears and nostrils are all located as far 'up' on it's body as can be, allowing their senses to be operative while underwater).

All in all: form is only ever the product of immanence.

But you're severely underestimating the significance of such a change here, I think. With respect to metabolism, we're talking about two creatures at almost the opposite end of the animal kingdom. — StreetlightX

I agree, the overlap of forms between scales is an exception, and seems to be possible within about only 2 or 3 scales (mostly dog-sized and human-sized). It should not be overstated. Elephants are parts of the Probosciae, but this is misleading, there is nothing common between an elephant's "prosbocis" and a flie's. They belong in different worlds, as per :

Ah yeah, I saw that video when it came out but didn't remember it when writing this thread. But yeah, it basically gets at the thrust of one of the central planks of comparative physiology: big things are generally affected by gravity and not so much by surface tension, while little things are generally affected by surface tension and not so much gravity: and that this inverse relation has corresponding effects on morphology - the proboscis being something to keep an insect far away from liquids, something that isn't a consideration for a trunk.

But you're severely underestimating the significance of such a change here, I think. — StreetlightX

It might be possible, although it's difficult to state for sure. Bodies are self-adapting organisms. Take the human heart. It usually beats at 60bpm - it can beat at 200bpm when you're running for your life. And it can beat at 600bpm if you have an illness like atrial fibrillation which interferes with your heart's electric systems' ability to control heart contractions. So, that's a x10 difference. And it can be handled. Now when the human heart is smaller (when you're a baby), your resting pulse can be as high as 150bpm. As the heart grows, its capacity to pump blood improves significantly faster, so pulse generally reduces. Controlling pulse (and blood pressure) is an integral part of your body's self-regulation mechanism, and it usually can control it over a very wide range, which is only limited by the mechanics of the situation.

And this isnt' even to speak of the phyisological differences. As a furter instance, an elephant's skeleton makes up about 16.5% of an elephants total weight. This is a huge proportion - just under a sixth of it's body mass - one that is necessary precicely in order to support the elephant's giant weight. A mouse's skeleton by contast makes up about 8% of it's body weight, reflective of the fact that it simply doesn't need the kind of supportive structure that an elephant has. — StreetlightX

Yes, this is a more likely cause of failure than too high internal temperature, or other self-regulation failures which are unlikely to take place. But again, you don't understand the reason why - you're relying on the somewhat blind intuition that the proportions are not right. This is a mechanical issue. So following Euler's buckling formula and modelling the mouse's leg as a cylindrical column, when we increase both radius and length by a factor of n, then Euler buckling load will increase by a factor of n². (data from here and here).

So the maximum load it can withstand before it buckles increases at a rate of n² while the mass (and hence load the column has to carry) increases at a rate of n³. So clearly it will fail at some point. If the length + radius increase at x60 (as in the video), then the real load will increase 6000% more than the buckling load.

The main point is once again that failures are unlikely to come from the organisms inability to self-adjust its functioning - they will rather be due to mechanical reasons.

The girth of elephant legs on a small creature would be idiotic - without the nibleness they provide, they'd be hunted down and eaten in no time. — StreetlightX

Sure, but there's nothing contradictory in it. It's just a waste of material. Scaling an elephant to the size of a mouse would be more plausible than the other way around.

And with respect to ears, Aug spoke of hippo ears, and seemed to forget that Hippos spend most of the time in water, which does the majority of their cooling for them, so have no need for the massive ears of elephants: — StreetlightX

Did dinosaurs have massive ears? :B This ears argument is nonsense. Sure, hippos spend PART of the time in water. But not all of it - they also spend part of the time in the sun.

All in all: form is only ever the product of immanence. — StreetlightX

This is probably wrong - the "only ever" is probably wrong. What you should say is that immanence restricts the possibilities of form, not that it outright determines them. There are some forms that, given immanent conditions (such as Earth's gravity, temperature, etc.) are impossible.

Controlling pulse (and blood pressure) is an integral part of your body's self-regulation mechanism, and it usually can control it over a very wide range, which is only limited by the mechanics of the situation. — Agustino

So if the mouse gets a bigger heart, then of course pulse rate will change. Likewise, if the mouse grows much bigger through the resizing, with more cells, etc. of course the metabolism rate will be adjusted, some of the mitochondria will stop working or slow down, etc.

Did dinosaurs have massive ears? :B This ears argument is nonsense. Sure, hippos spend PART of the time in water. But not all of it - they also spend part of the time in the sun. — Agustino

If by 'a part' you mean about 16 hours a day, sure. Long enough, in other words, that water would function as the environmental niche driving hippo morphology. And while the dinosaur question is still open, the evidence is that they were mesotherms (if not simply exotherms out-and-out), which means they employed a mix of hot and cold-bloodedness to regulate their temperature, which is (one of) the reasons they could get so big. They can't then be meaningfully compared to either the hot-blooded (endothermic) hippo or elephant.

The main point is once again that failures are unlikely to come from the organisms inability to self-adjust its functioning - they will rather be due to mechanical reasons. — Agustino

Sure, but the very limits of the mechanics would be themselves evolutionarily derived: that a heart wall is this thick and not that thick, that bone density would be such and not so, is not just an accident of mechanics but a function of evolutionary honing. The case is the same with respect to metabolic regulation; again, consider the numbers: the scaling difference in weight is 250,000x up or down, while the corresponding difference in surface area is a 'mere' 5000x up or down: any metabolic regulation would have to keep up with this 50 fold increase/decrease, which is just insane. It's literally nonsense.

As the gif above shows, an elephant would have to deform in an unimaginable - nonsensical - way for any such metabolic regulation to keep pace. You keep discounting the disproportion in rate of growth between surface area and volume. And let's further keep in mind that we're not just talking about a temporary limit-situation as with an atrial fibrillation event, but a permanent change. Even if it is granted that metabolic regulation might be able to kick into gear during a such a stress-event, no regulation would be able to keep up in the face of such permanence stress (and let's be clear: it's an understatement to even call 'stress' itself an understatement in the scenario we're talking about).

You keep leaning on 'regulation' as though it were some magical instrument that can simply alter metabolic and other rates willy nilly: but this simply flies in the face of any understanding of evolution and doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. Regulation is not magic, it is limited by 'expected' evolutionary ranges (which in turn, determine biomechanical limits), and would fail catastrophically in what could only really be described as a catastrophic biological event. Considering that a two degree difference is enough to set hypothermia at work in a human (and .5 of a degree change for hyperthemia), again, I simply can't take your recourse to regulation seriously. It's be like arguing that an oar could steer an oil tanker. It's magical thinking.

Sure, but the very limits of the mechanics would be themselves evolutionarily derived: that a heart wall is this thick and not that thick, that bone density would be such and not so, is not just an accident of mechanics but a function of evolutionary honing. — StreetlightX

That's not exactly true. If you look at the process of evolution theoretically, then... well let me draw a diagram.



Above is an evolutionary space with only one variable (in reality there will be a multitude of variables, so the graph will be multi-dimensional). If the organism starts at the red point, then through mutation and other evolutionary mechanisms, it (well, really, its children) will travel towards the first peak. Once it reaches the first peak, it can only get to the next, higher peak if through a single mutation it can breach that gap marked on the graph. If it can't, then future mutations will get undone over time, making it remain at the first peak. So depending on the size of that gap, the evolutionary process may not actually yield optimal results.

So evolution is only good at locating LOCAL peaks in fitness, not necessarily global ones. Depending on the topology of the evolutionary space, this may not be the best strategy.

The limits of mechanics are constraining factors in the process of evolution, they are not themselves evolutionarily derived. That a heart's wall is this thick is the result of evolution BUT that a heart's muscle can only bear this much in shear stress before it breaks, etc. - that's not a product of evolution, that is a physical limitation which constrains what is evolutionarily possible.

This is a good book on similar topics that I first read when I was a student (it deals with biological structures and how materials set limits to it, amongst also dealing with man-made structures).

. Even if it is granted that metabolic regulation might be able to kick into gear during a such a stress-event, no regulation would be able to keep up in the face of such permanence stress (and it would be an understatement to even call 'stress' itself an understatement here). — StreetlightX

Don't forget that the mechanics of the situation do change when the animal changes size. They have bigger hearts, more cells, etc.

You keep leaning on 'regulation' as though it were some magical instrument that can simply alter metabolic and other rates willy nilly: but this simply flies in the face of any understanding of evolution and doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. — StreetlightX

Sure, there are some mechanical limits to what regulation can do, as I said. I haven't found a mechanical limit with regards to temperature, just your assertion that the difference seems to be too big.

But that evolution locates local peaks in fitness is precisely the point! A mouse's metabolism along with its regulatory mechanisms is optimised for it's local evolutionary niche, and blowing it up to an elephant (or vice versa) and expecting it to work is precisely to ignore that local optimisation.

Sure, there are some mechanical limits to what regulation can do, as I said. I haven't found a mechanical limit with regards to temperature, just your assertion that the difference seems to be too big. — Agustino

Well given that the internal temperature tolerance range of mammals lies within the range of a single degree or so, and given that the kind of 'regulation' you're talking about would need to alter metabolic rates by 3600%, in comparison to the usual 2-11% intra-daily resting metabolic variation, again, you're basically arguing for magic.