Is an egg a chicken?

Darth Omar said:
And Berlinski dispensed with Dawkins in Devil’s Delusion.

There are two problems with the origin of life: one is complexity and the other is the origin of biological information. Both problems are formidable but the latter is intractable. You could maybe get to complexity with a billion tornados but not so much with the origin of information. Actually, information is just part of the problem: it’s the origin of *an information system*.
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The error in your thinking is that the "complexity" just happened to show up after billions of tornados.
 
Darth Omar said:
On the Google button I see lol.

A reducing atmosphere [assuming there ever was one] could conceivably account for RNA or some other precursors but in terms of biological information [information is required to construct proteins to build cellular structures] it gets you exactly nowhere.
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LOL. You think it's wrong to look things up and learn something new? Wow. That explains a lot.
 
AProudLefty said:
The error in your thinking is that the "complexity" just happened to show up after billions of tornados.
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Agreed.

Whatever life is, conditions would have to be something humans have never replicated. Scientists have created amino acids using an artificial environment, but the entire ocean might be involved to generate that first spark where a bunch of goo became alive.

Complexity comes later. Did you ever read Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"? Mike the computer?
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Agreed.

Whatever life is, conditions would have to be something humans have never replicated. Scientists have created amino acids using an artificial environment, but the entire ocean might be involved to generate that first spark where a bunch of goo became alive.

Complexity comes later. Did you ever read Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"? Mike the computer?
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No I haven't.

As to how life (complexity) arose, it's quite simple. It's like with anything.... it goes from basic to more advanced. With laws of physics and such, it goes through the paths. (Edited - I forgot to include the reproductive ability.)

That is why I was referring to the smooth pebbles and stones. Where did they come from?

Also a coin sorter can be used to explain natural selection.

And yes I am a believer in souls and spiritualty, but like you, I am a skeptic.
 
AProudLefty said:
No I haven't.

As to how life (complexity) arose, it's quite simple. It's like with anything.... it goes from basic to more advanced. With laws of physics and such, it goes through the paths. (Edited - I forgot to include the reproductive ability.)

That is why I was referring to the smooth pebbles and stones. Where did they come from?

Also a coin sorter can be used to explain natural selection.

And yes I am a believer in souls and spiritualty, but like you, I am a skeptic.
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The complexity issue would have to start, as you said, from the basic and then, over billions of years, became more complex.
 
AProudLefty said:
The error in your thinking is that the "complexity" just happened to show up after billions of tornados.
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Then matter arranged itself to produce increased complexity over time. The problem is all known systems tend toward disorder over time: the car breaks down over time; the computer code becomes corrupt over time; mountains erode and turn to dust; satellite orbits decay and they crash to the earth.

In spite of our experience we are to believe that somehow lifeless matter arranged itself into living things. Is there some way I can accept that without exercising my faith?

Do you have an example of this process occurring anywhere else in nature?
 
Dutch Uncle said:
The complexity issue would have to start, as you said, from the basic and then, over billions of years, became more complex.
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You get points for understanding *part* of the problem lol.

Nature not only would have to produce something from nothing in terms of complexity but it would have to contrive an information system that’s so complex we/they still don’t fully understand it.

I lack the faith. I’m a doubting Darth.
 
Darth Omar said:
Then matter arranged itself to produce increased complexity over time. The problem is all known systems tend toward disorder over time: the car breaks down over time; the computer code becomes corrupt over time; mountains erode and turn to dust; satellite orbits decay and they crash to the earth.

In spite of our experience we are to believe that somehow lifeless matter arranged itself into living things. Is there some way I can accept that without exercising my faith?

Do you have an example of this process occurring anywhere else in nature?
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The second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems.

Spontaneous forms of complexity in open systems do not violate the second law of thermodynamics.

At cosmic scales, energy is not being diffused in the universe. Energy went from a state of diffusion at the time of the cosmic background microwave radiation to a state of structure manifested as galaxies and galaxy clusters.

One cannot blindly invoke the second law of thermodynamics without being aware of it's limitations and caveats.


That said, the processes of how energy and matter jumped the threshold from non-biologic to complex living cells is something we fundamentally are not even close to understanding, and perhaps never will.
 
Hello Cypress,

Cypress said:
I accept your tacit confession you would not lift a finger to save a petri dish of blastocysts from a burning fertility clinic -- demonstrating you do not actually believe a human life begins at conception. It shows unequivocally even you have doubts about when a human life begins.

I acknowledge your tacit admission that there is no consensus on when a human life begins, and it is left to metaphysical speculation rather than rigorous scientific definition.
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What an excellent, excellent point.

Imagine the scene. A fertility clinic is on fire. An hysterical woman is outside screaming: "There are people in there!" A fireman gears up, rushes in, searches the whole place, finds no one, comes back out and explains to the woman that he didn't see anybody. The fire is progressing rapidly and getting ever more dangerous. Then she says: "They are too small to see! All those petri dishes contain fertilized human egg cells! They are PEOPLE! PLEASE SAVE THEM!!!" The fireman turns and looks at the building again, now with flames coming out of nearly all the windows and doors. He thinks if there was a baby in there he would go in, but this is different. There is no baby in there.

If he refuses, is he shirking his duty?
 
Cypress said:
The second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems.

Spontaneous forms of complexity in open systems do not violate the second law of thermodynamics.

At cosmic scales, energy is not being diffused in the universe. Energy went from a state of diffusion at the time of the cosmic background microwave radiation to a state of structure manifested as galaxies and galaxy clusters.

One cannot blindly invoke the second law of thermodynamics without being aware of it's limitations and caveats.


That said, the processes of how energy and matter jumped the threshold from non-biologic to complex living cells is something we fundamentally are not even close to understanding, and perhaps never will.
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That’s begging the question.

A complex system can only sustain itself with more inputs of complexity from outside the system. A putative ‘first replicator’ or replicator system could only increase its complexity with inputs from somewhere[?] otherwise the system would degrade over time. Or at best, reach a point of equilibrium but that would represent a static state and a dead end in terms of increasing complexity.

And as pointed out, that ignores the information problem.
 
Hello Dutch Uncle,

Dutch Uncle said:
Thanks for the link.

A billion tornadoes over a billion junkyards over several billion years might produce a Boeing. We know life began at least once!

It's odd that there's no signs of life elsewhere. The junkyard tornado shows that life would be rare due to the low odds.
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Just because definitive signs of extraterrestrial life have not been found does not mean it does not or did not exist.
 
Hello Dutch Uncle,

Dutch Uncle said:
I was going more basic; when the seawater became alive. The physics of our universe allow this process to happen, but no one has ever replicated it. Nor have any other signs of life been discovered, although several nations are racing to find life on Mars. Even proof of ancient life.

Wasn't there a theory that life in our solar system began on Mars and then moved to Earth when it began dying?
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We are not done exploring Earth. There is a theory that life might be created at deep underwater vents.
 
dukkha said:
where did self replicating RNA come from? answer that and you'll know how life starts
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How is it even possible to get matter to arrange itself into an RNA molecule lol?

RNA/DNA is notoriously unstable and can only exist [without breaking into fragments] inside the cell. It’s why they are forced to postulate the existence of a reducing atmosphere early in the earths history.

At some point it becomes an exercise in appealing to miracles as an explanation.
 
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