How Does Life Come From Randomness?

[Helio]

I agree about Ptolemy and Galileo but again, mixing apples and oranges. Galileo documented the small lights moving around Jupiter like his observations of Venus using his telescope. Others followed up and observed those same lights moving around Jupiter and Venus phases as well. Who has observed and documented abiogenesis at work in tidal locations today? And I add, abiogenesis at work undersea too. That is my problem when using Ptolemy and Galileo astronomical observations as a good parallel to abiogenesis observations.

What is true with telescopes is also true with microscopes. It's more red apple vs. green apple than it is apples and oranges. There is a great deal of scientific information related to establishing conditions that would favor abiogenesis.

I'm not, however, a microbiologist that can lay out the key evidence for one view over another, though I have seen one recent video that was very impressive in detail favoring the undersea (hot vents) location and noting the problems with the tidal area viewpoints. I did mention a few points earlier in this thread, IIRC.

 

[rod]

Helio, please cite the peer reviewed paper that shows microscopes observed abiogenesis at work that is a good parallel to telescope observations of the Galilean moons at Jupiter. I can still see these moons today more than 400 years later using my telescopes.

 

[Helio]

So where'd a creator come from? Perhaps it takes the mind of a creator to know. He/she may be able to tell us what was here before time as well.

Agreed. Interestingly, it is time that will get us to that point.

My point? Just because we do not know doesn't mean we're smart enough to and just don't get it yet. It may just mean that it is beyond our comprehension altogether. Repeating loop questions and other such paradoxes should not be used to discount or support anything. They are thought experiments and serve to induce "gotcha" moments, but just like the question itself, they neither prove nor disprove anything.

Yep. My mind doesn't work very well when it is blown by paradoxes, especially involving near-infinite units of any kind.

So, I ask again, where did the creator come from? The question is as relevant to us as - how many times can you divide the number one?

I prefer to use whole numbers in such cases.
But the question I'm addressing is whether or not one choice is favored over another - a Creator or a prior-creation/mechanism that made our universe? It's a subjective question since it is outside the purview of science. Multiverses only exist in the minds of those who think of them; they aren't testable ideas.

 

[Helio]

Helio, please cite the peer reviewed paper that shows microscopes observed abiogenesis at work that is a good parallel to telescope observations of the Galilean moons at Jupiter.

I think I've been very clear that abiogenesis is not a formal theory at this point. What I'm saying is that the use of microscopes, like the use of telescopes, has revealed information within the science of microbiology (for one) that gives us some clues of what would be more favorable conditions than others.

Are you suggesting there is no evidence of any kind that would allow a reasonable and intelligent mind to make a case that abiogenesis might have taken place? Even if you are, I think you would agree that modern science can make strong arguments for falsifying specific claims where evidence, such as intense UV conditions, thus denying abiogenesis views in specific areas or circumstances. This won't deny, of course, a future model from being developed that isn't falsifiable, but falsification is the key method to advancing scientific hypotheses.

"Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence." More evidence is needed to mature the idea of abiogenesis, IMO, but I suspect it won't always remain absent.

 

[rod]

Helio, you make a good effort here. "Are you suggesting there is no evidence of any kind that would allow a reasonable and intelligent mind to make a case that abiogenesis might have taken place?"

What I am saying is that the observations of Galileo using his telescope are not the same as observations of abiogenesis at work in nature. No one has documented abiogenesis taking place in nature today under natural law, however the Galilean moons are readily observable obeying natural law. There is a big difference here in the science between the two - my opinion. As you said, *mature the idea of abiogenesis* remains. That to me indicates observations in nature following natural law.

 

[Vincent Peri]

I found this article on abiogenesis that's pretty interesting:

The Improbability of Abiogenesis

 

[Helio]

What I am saying is that the observations of Galileo using his telescope are not the same as observations of abiogenesis at work in nature. No one has documented abiogenesis taking place in nature today under natural law, however the Galilean moons are readily observable obeying natural law.

Okay, I see your point. But in the context of actual theories, there were no observations by Galileo, including his discovery of those four moons, that proved any theory. Galileo was adamant to a fault that the Copernican model was proved by him -- he, unfortunately, used tides as his best argument.

But what he did do was falsify the Aristotle/Ptolemy/Thomist model that was dogma for centuries. Although the phases of Venus were the final nail in the coffin, it wasn't the first evidence against the model.

Consider what his discovery of those Jupiter moons did to both opposing theories .. they gave evidence against the A/P/T model and also gave evidence (not proof) for the Copernican model (or Tychonic model as it turned out).

There were three discoveries Galileo made, though I can likely think of others, that led to the downfall of the model...
1) The mountains and craters of the Moon observed by his telescope. This damaged greatly the established view that all things were perfect beyond Earth.
2) The moons of Jupiter. This hurt the view that all things must orbit the Earth. Not allowing orbiting moons isn't all that illogical if one isn't aware that gravity is a force that acts freely through space. Crystalline spheres were there means to accommodate the planets as they orbited Earth, or even the Sun.
3) The crescent and gibbous phases of Venus (and Mercury). There is no imaginable way, though I'm sure extensive efforts were done, for Venus to orbit only the Earth and have both phases. Either one alone would be required, but not both.

No. 3 was such strong evidence against the A/P/T model that the Jesuits (best scientists in the world at that time, IIRC) were surprisingly quick to agree, though they did have one or more telescopes from Galileo to allow better analysis to verify the claim. [They quickly adopted the Tychonic model, however, as this too was a Geocentric model, which was sweeter for their tastes, but it was not near the elegance of the Copernican model, especially after Kepler introduced elliptical orbits]

So what I'm saying is that the discovery of the moons helped build a case for the Copernican model. Similarly, there is microscopic evidence that supports the case for abiogenesis. There appears to be no evidence, as in step 3, that would now greatly favor the idea that an abiogenesis model is close at hand. But I think it is plausible that a day may come that it will be found. For me, that would be cool as I would love to see other exoplanets having beautiful and natural garden-like environments.

 

[rod]

Helio in post #82 said "But what he did do was falsify the Aristotle/Ptolemy/Thomist model that was dogma for centuries."

There is the problem with abiogenesis and why the science of Galileo and the heliocentric solar system debate is superior to the science of abiogenesis.

 

[Ken Fabian]

Rod, I don't think there is any valid comparison; it isn't anything like the same kind of problem as planetary motion. That there don't appear to be observable examples of how life begins just makes it much harder to figure out than understanding planetary motions, that occur in open sight. How Life Began isn't something we can understand through direct observation so figuring out how to figure it out is challenging; more questions than answers perhaps, more thought experiment than lab demonstration but I think it is still Real Science.

The options appear to be abiogenesis in place, abiogenesis elsewhere with pan-spermia bringing it to Earth or the interventions of powerful intelligence(s) (as agents of pan-spermia or inducing a new abiogenesis) or acts of god(s), which leave other origins to account for in turn. Would any successful demonstration of abiogenesis under lab conditions risk getting called an intervention of a powerful Intelligence and disqualified on a technicality? And if somehow abiogenesis had occurred in Pasteur's experiments would he have had the means to detect it?

Even now telling a few bits of proto-life from chemical byproducts of existing life has to be a serious challenge; they'll probably be made of the same kinds of stuff. And I don't think we should assume that if abiogenesis did occur readily that the result must grow rapidly and be readily detectable, the way a highly evolved bacteria or yeast might: the conditions for that crucial merging of chemical components to make biogenesis won't necessarily be the conditions the resultant bits of proto-life need to do okay - a whole series of just-the-right different conditions may have to follow for it to take. A water rich planet has a great variety of different conditions and the hydrological processes and cycles to mix things around in different ways.

I don't think we have any reason to expect to see repeated incidences abiogenesis at work in tidal locations filled with existing life or in jars of sterile organic soups made from existing life on a lab bench; in a tidal pool with existing life a fragile bit of proto-life is a bit of food for a filter feeder and if it does happen in apparently organic soups we may not be able to detect it. But if abiogenesis in place is going to explain the existence of life on Earth about the only thing we can be confident of is it didn't happen with conditions like those.

 

[rod]

Very interesting post #84 by Ken Fabian. I note this from the NASA astrobiology site, "How those and other organic compounds might organize into self-replicating forms, and ultimately organisms, has been among the most challenging fields in astrobiology. By both digging into the genetic infrastructure of life as well as trying to recreate it in the laboratory, scientists have pushed back the mystery of life’s origins to an early RNA world and even a pre-RNA world. But the process through which non-living substances took on the attributes of life remains elusive.", https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about/history-of-astrobiology/

That is a good description of abiogenesis science today - "elusive".

 

[Helio]

There is the problem with abiogenesis and why the science of Galileo and the heliocentric solar system debate is superior to the science of abiogenesis.

That's certainly true today because we have the cleaned-up version of the results of Galileo's work. Hindsight is 20/20.

If abiogenesis is discovered and verified, the stories in the future will be that we "knew it all along", more than would be justified. [I tried to find the quote that goes something like. 1) It's absurd 2) Well maybe 3) We knew it all along!]

Reading about Galileo and his life, one sees just how hard it was on him and his followers. The idea that the Earth might not be the center of the "world" (universe) was a tough pill to swallow, especially for the Church, but not all the Church since many, including some cardinals (e.g. Cusa), respected his work enough to remain open. [It probably helped that Copernicus was a Church canon, scholar and doctor, living in a remote location (Poland) away from Rome's oversight.]

The biggest mistake Galileo made, IMO, that got him into so much trouble was not taking seriously enough Cardinal Bellarmine's -- arguably the leading theologian -- instruction (1616) that if he wished to pursue new ideas (Copernican) that he be fully prepared to provide "necessary demonstration". This is another way of phrasing your argument, namely that we won't have abiogenesis without the same requirement, and that's easily justified.

Are we, nevertheless, increasing our level of understanding for all that might be required for proto-life formations that would, eventually, bring about "necessary demonstration"? The answer is yes, IMO.

 

[rod]

Helio shows much zeal in post #86 - my view "necessary demonstration", this is critical to the paradigm of abiogenesis to be shown as a fact of science and the true explanation for the origin of life. The NASA astrobiology website shows studies into the pathway(s) of abiogenesis remains *elusive*, post #85 reference. I did search the NASA astrobiology website and found no reference to abiogenesis as science that is a falsifiable hypothesis. There are reports of false positives concerning life identification markers, exoplanets, etc. but abiogenesis as something that can be falsified as an explanation for the origin of life on Earth is not there. Today we have about 1000 kg of meteor matter burning up in our atmosphere every day, https://phys.org/news/2020-11-radar-abilities-optical-meteors.html, and meteorites recovered in field studies on Earth, a number are in museums.

Concerning "necessary demonstration", as far as I am aware, no one has demonstrated abiogenesis obeying natural law today converting this meteor matter content into proto-life or life. Meteors play an important role in delivering the chemical stuff of life from space to earth and perhaps other exoplanets too for abiogenesis obeying natural law to create life from non-living matter. I like the description "elusive" for abiogenesis model(s).

 

[Helio]

Concerning "necessary demonstration", as far as I am aware, no one has demonstrated abiogenesis obeying natural law today converting this meteor matter content into proto-life or life.

Right, but I'm not sure meteors are likely to be directly involved. They certainly deliver a number of important chemicals, but meteors come from the same "bakery" as planets, so Earth would likely have them already, I suppose. The underwater location for abiogenesis might not benefit much from meteoroid events, though meteorite erosion and ablated dust would settle down below, which could make a difference, perhaps.

Here's a list of the discovered molecules found in space. This looks more and more like we could have the ingredients, at least, of what we need for that super "ham sandwich".

Abiogenesis is an idea that is very unique and no normal theory will work. Most theories are universal -- they are regularly occurring. This is more like the BB event, which happened just once, fortunately for us as new ones now would not be kind to us.

But BBT is a theory because it presents testable outcomes. The CMBR test was the final straw that converted most of the opponents. BBT was derived by rewinding the clock for an expanding universe and applying known physics to allow the many tests of the theory.

BBT was rejected when first introduced. Einstein called the physics "abominable", but he eventually applauded Lemaitre once he learned more about the latest in cosmology (likely from Eddington).

Abiogenesis isn't that easy. We can't rewind the clock and get to that unique event. But we are learning how chemicals and biology work together. I don't understand it -- I even skipped all biology classes -- but I do believe taking a zinc pill (and vitamins) will help me if Covid comes my way. And, for that matter, Covid is primarily just a multi-layered sphere of proteins and other molecules, not a living organism.

 

[rod]

Very good Helio in post #88 I did find this recent report on lab work creating self-replicating molecules, perhaps considered *artificial proto-life*. Life-emulating molecules show basic metabolism, https://phys.org/news/2020-06-life-emulating-molecules-basic-metabolism.html. I note this near the end of the report, "Artificial life However, Otto's artificial system shows both replication and a primitive form of metabolism. "Furthermore, from this point, compartmentalization is a relatively small step." So, is he close to seeing artificial life evolve in his test tubes? "Not quite," admits Otto. "That would require the system to be capable of open-ended evolution, which means it can evolve capabilities that are not present in the system. And we have as yet no clear idea how to accomplish that. But our system appears to be a sound basis from which we may get there."

The more detailed paper is at Emergence of light-driven protometabolism on recruitment of a photocatalytic cofactor by a self-replicator, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-020-0494-4, "Abstract Establishing how life can emerge from inanimate matter is among the grand challenges of contemporary science..."

Abiogenesis and "necessary demonstration" is a work in progress, including showing how abiogenesis obeyed natural law billions of years ago on Earth compared to the present world we live in.

 

[David-J-Franks]

So you know enough about our laws of physics that you can categorically deny the existence of being(s) unlike ourselves? And our laws of physics can never change, like near or in a black hole or the quantum universe? By "creator" I mean an intelligence behind everything we perceive in our very limited way. And you absolutely nailed it when you used the word "currently".

Where did I deny the existence of other beings? I'm denying the existence of a creator, not other beings, a big difference! Please.

Our laws of physics may change but The laws of physics won't. Overall I think we've got a good handle on things, we know how many things behave even if we haven't pinned down an exact law for them yet. I don't think finding exact laws for black holes and the quantum world will suddenly allow beliefs in spiritual things or creators to become realistic IMO.

 

[David-J-Franks]

I assume then you have never seen a living cell operate with it's many parts intelligently knowing just what to do? That doesn't happen randomly. It's coded behavior - yes, a single cell needs billions of lines of code to do what it does. Even the most primitive. A rock cannot "know" to take fuel and transform it into energy. But an ameba does. Have you ever coded a simple webpage?

You've touched on something deep and fundamental going on here when you say "with its many parts intelligently knowing just what to do?". However, parts don't have intelligence or knowledge, if you could dig deeper and say what you're getting at without using those words it would be fascinating.

I'm not convinced billions of lines of code are needed for the first life. I think it would have started more simply and built up. It's too much to expect billions of lines of the right code to appear spontaneously.

 

[David-J-Franks]

I have come to see spirituality as an unexplored branch of a science that we lack the tools with which to explore. It ties into our consciousness and who we are.

What is your understanding of spirituality, what is it? Is there even the tiniest bit of evidence for it? Not only are there no tools, there isn't a hint of any behaviour or phenomena to start investigating, apart from the traditional ways of leaving cameras to see if ghosts appear etc. (OK I'm probably leaving myself wide open with this one )

 

[Wolf28]

What is your understanding of spirituality, what is it? Is there even the tiniest bit of evidence for it? Not only are there no tools, there isn't a hint of any behaviour or phenomena to start investigating, apart from the traditional ways of leaving cameras to see if ghosts appear etc. (OK I'm probably leaving myself wide open with this one )

Not at all - good question. Cameras will never answer it. When you explore spirituality you can not count on the physical. Ever get the feeling someone's watching you based on nothing but a feeling? And it turns out to be true? Ever hope for something? Why? Hope is a human concept based on nothing more than wishful thinking - but it helps us strive. We will never teach a computer to do those things and a whole host of other behaviors and phenomena like them until we understand them better. That's why we'll never be able to upload our consciousness - what makes us the real thing - until we understand what makes us alive, who we really are, and not just a some collection of archived memories and experiences. The spiritual portion of who we are allows us to navigate where machines would be lost. And you're point is spot on about not having a clue as to how to go about studying it because mainstream science discounts it altogether - which makes my point exactly. Thanks.

 

[Wolf28]

You've touched on something deep and fundamental going on here when you say "with its many parts intelligently knowing just what to do?". However, parts don't have intelligence or knowledge, if you could dig deeper and say what you're getting at without using those words it would be fascinating.

I'm not convinced billions of lines of code are needed for the first life. I think it would have started more simply and built up. It's too much to expect billions of lines of the right code to appear spontaneously.

This simple line of code tells a webpage to display a picture:
<!-- <img src="dinosaur.jpg"> -->
But it does absolutely nothing alone. It needs structure, formatting, an operating system to run on, an architecture to process it, a source, and that takes billions of lines of coding. So the "first life" you refer to is not really life at all. It would be an undefined chance occurrence that could not become anything and ends up falling apart. It would need to start all over again once a format became available, once an operating system happened, etc. And where would those come from?

I never really said parts were intelligent. I said they intelligently know what to do. That intelligence comes from the collective, not the part. Once again emphasizing the need for a whole system before life could begin. It could not happen piece meal because those pieces would be in limbo and natural forces would tear them apart before the other needed parts could come along - from somewhere.. So everything would need to come together at once, the physical and the code with which to operate would be needed at the exact moment of creation.

I can create something a piece at a time - write a line, save it until tomorrow, add to it, etc. But that would make me the "intelligent designer" of the creation. But that's not how nature works. Nature works in the opposite direction. Leave a 1950s jeep in a field and it doesn't become a 2020 Grand Cherokee over time. It atrophies into a pile of rust and other basic elements. So to say that little things were made, then stored somehow until other parts came along is illogical.

 

[Wolf28]

Where did I deny the existence of other beings? I'm denying the existence of a creator, not other beings, a big difference! Please.

Our laws of physics may change but The laws of physics won't. Overall I think we've got a good handle on things, we know how many things behave even if we haven't pinned down an exact law for them yet. I don't think finding exact laws for black holes and the quantum world will suddenly allow beliefs in spiritual things or creators to become realistic IMO.

But a creator IS an "other being". We create things every day and we're simple humans. Programmers write huge game worlds and they are very realistic in a gaming sort of way. Not bad for decades old programmers. But what about millennia old programmers? Why couldn't we be living in a perfect simulation created by some incredibly intelligent other being? Then The laws of physics we're trying to discover are simply the simulation's creator's parameters he set up for his creation. Maybe those laws break down in extreme environments like black holes and the quantum world because it isn't so perfect. Maybe our creator (which is what that would make him/her/it in my hypothetical) hasn't quite figured out a unifying theory yet either. Why couldn't that be true? Why would you deny that possibility? Why did all this have to come from nothing? It makes no sense, IMO, when other equally logical possibilities can also be true. And my hypothetical is only one possibility. I am positive that there are others we've never even thought of. Abiogenesis, intelligent design, advanced programming, Hogwarts ? Nothing should be discounted when we know so little about it. Science is about enabling thought, not denying it.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"That there don't appear to be observable examples of how life begins just makes it much harder to figure out than understanding planetary motions, that occur in open sight. How Life Began isn't something we can understand through direct observation so figuring out how to figure it out is challenging; more questions than answers perhaps, more thought experiment than lab demonstration but I think it is still Real Science. " - Ken Fabian

"By both digging into the genetic infrastructure of life as well as trying to recreate it in the laboratory, scientists have pushed back the mystery of life’s origins to an early RNA world and even a pre-RNA world. But the process through which non-living substances took on the attributes of life remains elusive.", https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about/history-of-astrobiology/ " - Rod.
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Why is life and the creation of it so mystifying? Why don't we even know how to study it? It seems beyond our comprehension. IMO, it's because of our stubbornness to try and pigeon hole it into a physical science, when it may be better approached through other means. Not religion, as it too seems to miss the mark. But we're missing something.

 

[Wolf28]

What is your understanding of spirituality, what is it? Is there even the tiniest bit of evidence for it? Not only are there no tools, there isn't a hint of any behaviour or phenomena to start investigating, apart from the traditional ways of leaving cameras to see if ghosts appear etc. (OK I'm probably leaving myself wide open with this one )

What constitutes the "supernatural" to you? Would it be something outside our laws or The laws of physics? One of the strangest aspects of quantum physics is entanglement: If you observe a particle in one place, another particle—even one light-years away—will instantly change its properties (breaking the speed of light law), as if the two are connected by a mysterious and Instant communication channel. Scientists have observed this phenomenon in tiny objects such as atoms and electrons. But two research groups have now scaled up entanglement to engineered objects barely visible to the naked eye. So it's not just happening in the quantum world.

It's real, yet seemingly, entanglement breaks the known and what we think are the unknown laws of physics. Is it supernatural? Probably not. Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. That, my friend, is my entire point, entirely! I don't care what you may call a "creator"; supernatural, supertechnological, hyperphysical, hyperuniversal, I know I made up a bunch of words, but you know what I mean. You can look at it from any angle that makes you comfortable, but IMO, the most obvious answer to the question of where did we and life come from is that it was created. The alternative needs more magic than any notion of a creator.

 

[David-J-Franks]

Not at all - good question. Cameras will never answer it. When you explore spirituality you can not count on the physical. Ever get the feeling someone's watching you based on nothing but a feeling? And it turns out to be true? Ever hope for something? Why? Hope is a human concept based on nothing more than wishful thinking - but it helps us strive. We will never teach a computer to do those things and a whole host of other behaviors and phenomena like them until we understand them better. That's why we'll never be able to upload our consciousness - what makes us the real thing - until we understand what makes us alive, who we really are, and not just a some collection of archived memories and experiences. The spiritual portion of who we are allows us to navigate where machines would be lost. And you're point is spot on about not having a clue as to how to go about studying it because mainstream science discounts it altogether - which makes my point exactly. Thanks.

WOW, such a lot to get through, might to take a few days, so I'm not ignoring you.

Hope is a human concept based on nothing more than wishful thinking

All thoughts including hope are real. They are specific arrangements of molecules and electric charges in the brain.

Our brains are made from ordinary matter and every part right down to the last electron is obeying the laws of physics and cause and effect. It's a machine. Until someone finds something else in the brain it must be concluded that consciousness and feelings can only be a result of these interactions. What's more, due to the deterministic nature of everything your brain is doing what it wants and sees best, automatic in other words, the belief you are in control is an illusion. It feels to me that consciousness is just an awareness of this automation and not a controller. Enjoy the ride.

The spiritual portion of who we are allows us to navigate where machines would be lost.

The closest I could get to spiritualism would be to say it's our connection to and the mirroring of the laws of physics, which some say are beautiful in there own right. Perhaps that's what your feeling?

And you're point is spot on about not having a clue as to how to go about studying it because mainstream science discounts it altogether

I don't think it's quite fair to say that, there are still many people who try to research it, e.g. mind reading, measuring energy fields round bodies and telepathy etc. All to no avail.

 

[Wolf28]

WOW, such a lot to get through, might to take a few days, so I'm not ignoring you.

I appreciate your interest.

All thoughts including hope are real. They are specific arrangements of molecules and electric charges in the brain.

Agreed. And it's not like we haven't tried to recreate a neuro nets that can learn and think. But we're a long way from getting them to hope and feel.

Our brains are made from ordinary matter and every part right down to the last electron is obeying the laws of physics and cause and effect. It's a machine. Until someone finds something else in the brain it must be concluded that consciousness and feelings can only be a result of these interactions. What's more, due to the deterministic nature of everything your brain is doing what it wants and sees best, automatic in other words, the belief you are in control is an illusion. It feels to me that consciousness is just an awareness of this automation and not a controller. Enjoy the ride.

Again, I agree with you. I don't dispute that we are a marvelous invention! One we can only hope to simulate (barely) for now, but we're miles away from duplicating. To just say what it is does not explain how it works. That "something else" is what I'm talking about. More later.

The closest I could get to spiritualism would be to say it's our connection to and the mirroring of the laws of physics, which some say are beautiful in there own right. Perhaps that's what your feeling?

That's part of it. What I feel is my spiritualism. It's every time I hope or hurt or cry. Every time I find joy in something. My feelings of curiosity, pleasure, laughter, intrigue, worry, and on and on. It's all those things we can say are chemical s in our brains creating the illusion - but in the end - it's who we really are. If you took away those things and leave only the physics, then all you have left is the bland data. The person is gone. An autobiography minus the spirit, the ego, the consciousness. The life of the person is gone.

And that plays right to my point; that unless we begin to better understand what this thing that makes us truly who we are is (I call it spirituality - you may call it what you will; illusion?), uploading ourselves to a mainframe so that we can remain "alive" after our bodies are gone is out of the question. Which ultimately means that beyond the physics - we do not know what life is.

I don't think it's quite fair to say that, there are still many people who try to research it, e.g. mind reading, measuring energy fields round bodies and telepathy etc. All to no avail.

Because we are missing something. I agree that all our methods have failed. Even religion fails to "explain" it. But we seem to agree that it exists, "...cause and effect", "...what your feeling", "...illusion" and that we can't understand nor duplicate it, "All to no avail".

I'm not trying to trip you up. And I don't think I have. You honestly believe that physics will solve it eventually and I can understand that. But I'm of the notion that we are missing a large part of the picture. Just like quantum mechanics was needed to help us understand the microscopic world. It was an alternative set of rules to help us explain a part of the world where general relativity and other physics could not explain. It needed that "something else" you mentioned above. Well, same thing; I think we are missing another set of "laws" that can help us explain why certain chemicals and neurons and connections create our spirit/illusion/reality what-have-you. To just say that they do is no explanation. It's just an observation. We're missing it. Not using the right tools for the right job and no one is looking for it. Mind reading? Energy fields? That's useless! We don't even have a basic understanding of the rules, the laws. How can we hope to use the right tools??? Perhaps it's in the unifying theory of everything where we'll find some clues. But first we need that unifying theory of everything. Many candidates, but alas, to no avail.

Hey, I really appreciate the discussion!

Theory of everything - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

 

[Wolf28]

WOW, such a lot to get through, might to take a few days, so I'm not ignoring you.

All thoughts including hope are real. They are specific arrangements of molecules and electric charges in the brain.

Our brains are made from ordinary matter and every part right down to the last electron is obeying the laws of physics and cause and effect. It's a machine. Until someone finds something else in the brain it must be concluded that consciousness and feelings can only be a result of these interactions. What's more, due to the deterministic nature of everything your brain is doing what it wants and sees best, automatic in other words, the belief you are in control is an illusion. It feels to me that consciousness is just an awareness of this automation and not a controller. Enjoy the ride.

The closest I could get to spiritualism would be to say it's our connection to and the mirroring of the laws of physics, which some say are beautiful in there own right. Perhaps that's what your feeling?

I don't think it's quite fair to say that, there are still many people who try to research it, e.g. mind reading, measuring energy fields round bodies and telepathy etc. All to no avail.

WOW, such a lot to get through, might to take a few days, so I'm not ignoring you.

All thoughts including hope are real. They are specific arrangements of molecules and electric charges in the brain.

Our brains are made from ordinary matter and every part right down to the last electron is obeying the laws of physics and cause and effect. It's a machine. Until someone finds something else in the brain it must be concluded that consciousness and feelings can only be a result of these interactions. What's more, due to the deterministic nature of everything your brain is doing what it wants and sees best, automatic in other words, the belief you are in control is an illusion. It feels to me that consciousness is just an awareness of this automation and not a controller. Enjoy the ride.

The closest I could get to spiritualism would be to say it's our connection to and the mirroring of the laws of physics, which some say are beautiful in there own right. Perhaps that's what your feeling?

I don't think it's quite fair to say that, there are still many people who try to research it, e.g. mind reading, measuring energy fields round bodies and telepathy etc. All to no avail.

Some fascinating similarities - things that make me go hmmm. And yes, I know that nature tends to use the same patterns. But it's still interesting.

Universe

Neural networks in the brain

Microwave background radiation

Brain activity

We could be the very things in the brain that makes the thing we call life what it is. Are we the universe's Self-awareness? Might we be the "something else"? The eyes, ears, and other senses of the universe? The part that gives it feelings? The very thing I'm talking about? I know I'm reaching here but I really like to go extreme with my thought experiments sometimes so here I go... what if the creator is the Universe and we are what gives it the thing of life, consciousness? The fabric of the universe looks an awful lot like a neuro network. It's activity looks a lot like brain activity - on a grand scale. Ok, I'll stop - I'm out into science fiction now. lol.

 

[David-J-Franks]

This simple line of code tells a webpage to display a picture:
<!-- <img src="dinosaur.jpg"> -->
But it does absolutely nothing alone. It needs structure, formatting, an operating system to run on, an architecture to process it, a source, and that takes billions of lines of coding. So the "first life" you refer to is not really life at all. It would be an undefined chance occurrence that could not become anything and ends up falling apart. It would need to start all over again once a format became available, once an operating system happened, etc. And where would those come from?

I never really said parts were intelligent. I said they intelligently know what to do. That intelligence comes from the collective, not the part. Once again emphasizing the need for a whole system before life could begin. It could not happen piece meal because those pieces would be in limbo and natural forces would tear them apart before the other needed parts could come along - from somewhere.. So everything would need to come together at once, the physical and the code with which to operate would be needed at the exact moment of creation.

I can create something a piece at a time - write a line, save it until tomorrow, add to it, etc. But that would make me the "intelligent designer" of the creation. But that's not how nature works. Nature works in the opposite direction. Leave a 1950s jeep in a field and it doesn't become a 2020 Grand Cherokee over time. It atrophies into a pile of rust and other basic elements. So to say that little things were made, then stored somehow until other parts came along is illogical.

I never really said parts were intelligent. I said they intelligently know what to do. That intelligence comes from the collective, not the part. Once again emphasizing the need for a whole system before life could begin.

Just a thought, maybe you don't need the whole system first. Consider a snowflake, an extremely intricate and beautiful thing. The whole thing was built from only a few simple properties and rules of engagement of a simple 'part' a water molecule. This didn't need a "structure, formatting, an operating system to run on, an architecture to process it, a source," and billions of lines of coding. It built itself from the bottom up. It's complexity from simple.

There are other examples that do this eg fractals and cellular automata, but these do need a computer.

I prefer to believe that life built itself up to great complexity from just the relatively simple rules of engagement of the initial ingredients - just like the snowflake. If you can get something as complex as a snowflake from a simple water molecule, what can you get from all the 92 elements and the already pre-existing organic molecules with all there multitude of rules of engagement? These original organic molecules also formed without code etc, they self-assembled, so why not keep getting more and more complex from the bottom up until life arises?

As for any coding I suggested in post 8 that 'order' is inherent in the environment and has always been there.

I'm working my way down the page, so I won't reply to your latest posts until I get there. Agreed, great discussion