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Exploring Origins

Engage in discussions encompassing themes like cosmology, human evolution, genetic engineering, earth science, climate change, artificial intelligence, psychology, and beyond in this forum.
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ant

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Exploring Origins

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Hey this website looks pretty cool.
I haven't sifted through all of it, but check it out and let me know what you think


http://exploringorigins.org/
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Flann 5
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Hi Ant, The website looks interesting.I won't say much about it, as I seem to have the gift of conversation stopping at this moment. The B.B.C made an engaging animated program, about the war between viruses and the human body called,BBC Secret Universe:The hidden life of the cell. It's on youtube.It is not directly about origins, but you get a sense of the micro-world in action.It's quite exciting and dramatic actually.I'll give the link though they rarely come up complete for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GZXRMG5i_w
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Re: Exploring Origins

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That's a great site.

The implications of hydrophobic and hydrophilic ends of a fatty acid are fascinating. They're like little magnets, but with respect to water-based molecules.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Could a law of nature explain how life began? And if so, how is it conceivable that such a law could compel an enormous collection of atoms to follow a precise order?

Here is what Wike says about chemical structure:

"The theory of chemical structure was first developed by Aleksandr Butlerov, which stated that the chemical compounds are not a random cluster of atoms and functional groups but structures with definite order formed according the valency of the composing atoms..,"

If they are not random then they are information based; instructed complexity. Hence, for true explanatory power we must account for BIOLOGICAL information.

How would the laws of physics be adverse to a law that governs structured information based order?
And would not environmental "noise" be too much of a hurdle for information structure to develop with any consistency?
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Here is an aspect of the intelligent design argument.Leaving aside the fact that Stephen Meyer is a proponent of I.D. what is wrong with this argument? i.e that the information is extrinsic to the chemistry.Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLeWh8Df3k8 By analogy, perhaps imperfect or flawed;The link provided is based on a devised coded system.Someone devised this system of sequentially arranged letters,numbers and symbols for the purpose of locating specific videos from millions of possible candidates.No doubt, millions of endlessly typing Simians would accidently hit on lots of videos.I don't think they would be purposely looking for a specific one (The Simpsons episode 3457) and they would be working within a pre designed coded system.Hopefully I have copied this code correctly.
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Could a law of nature explain how life began? And if so, how is it conceivable that such a law could compel an enormous collection of atoms to follow a precise order?

A single law? I doubt it. The forces within physics become as complicated as the american legal system, when you start to increase in size. Consider the hydrophobic fatty acids. With the ability to sort water based molecules, these fatty acids are like computer components; microscopic switches. The number of available valence electrons control the various shapes each element is able to form. It's like a lego engineering setup, right there in the operating parameters of the elements. Charge a slab of prebiotic clay, and RNA polymers all line up like disciplined little soldiers.

Again, if you want a gap to insert god, it's to ask how the laws of physics came to be in the first place. It's currently still an argument from ignorance, but maybe something will pop up. :wink:
i.e that the information is extrinsic to the chemistry.
This is textbook argument from ignorance. How do we know information is extrinsic to chemistry? By coming up with every possible reason "why not"? Where is the evidence? We know there is information in chemistry. Every life is a testament to this. The question is, how was this information instilled into life? In a cumulative, progressive manner, the evidence suggests. The computerization building blocks are all there, the switches and gates and transfer mechanisms. And they store information intrinsically, as part of their placement - part of their internal structure.

I'd like to read Stephen Meyer's 'Signature in a Cell'.
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Re: Exploring Origins

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I think it has a lot to do with the nature of codes and information.Either Crick or Watson,I forget which,was a codebreaker for the British during the second world war, when he had to decipher the German codes.Yes the codes exist in the material components.The question is where the code came from.In that case the Germans designed the Enigma code.
The greater the complexity of the code the more likely it came from an intelligent source rather than some confluence of random events and laws. We are constantly told that all the appearance of design and purpose is illusory. In the B.B.C.,program The hidden life of cells,where the body is invaded by viruses, all the experts explain it all in evolutionary terms.Yet when you look at what is actually happening,the strategies seemingly employed,the apparently purposeful actions of defenders and attackers, the complex interrelatedness,you cant help thinking there must be a mind behind all this. Even the experts lapse into this kind of language unwittingly, while assuring us they have a better explanation.
In the example I gave of the codes for the youtube videos,we all know that the reason the code finds the specific video, is because someone designed this coded system for that purpose.That's what it comes down to.How do these codes come about?
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Re: Exploring Origins

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.
We are constantly told that all the appearance of design and purpose is illusory
That is an opinion based on ignorance and simply a rebuttal to theist's inference to an intelligence behind Creation itself.

The atheist will always deny God's existence when there is no scientific, natural explanation. Their response is ad nauseam:

"But saying God did it is wrong. God didn't do it because the deep intelligibility in nature is illusory!"

And of course, one of the blindest of blind spots for the atheist is their own argument from ignorance:

There is no evidence for P: therefore not P. = TOTAL Argument from Ignorance.

And then we have THIS tired old atheist argument:

We can't explain something with something else that is ultimately more complex. God would demand an explanation himself!


That of course is arrogant presumption on the part of the atheist (also very common trait).
Why does nature need to submit to demands of simplicity? Why does nature NEED to be simple rather than complex?


What can not be denied is the more we peel away at Nature, the more complex it becomes.


Putting all these arrogant demands and presumptions by the atheist aside, Flann, we need to keep putting to task the explanatory ambitions of Science.

Science overshoots itself all the time. Nevertheless, it is the worldview of atheists that claims Science has disproved the existence of a divine intelligence behind Nature. Science itself is not in the business of hypothesizing the existence/non existence of a God.
People like Robert Tulip will be direct and vulgar in their approach; Science is a prostitute for an ideology.
And then you have people like Interbane who are much more subtle in their approach.

We are naturally, all of us, inferential creatures. No one lives their lives strictly by evidence.

Science attempts to uncover Laws that hold firmly to our experience. As to the question of Origins, we must ask what is the Law that governs the organization that is apparent in molecular structure? Without semantic meaning, there is no complexity.

The laws of complexity that lead to consciousness seem to be local laws. In the vastness of space we seem to be in a highly peculiar spot that allows conscious life to exist, however finite.

If "dumb nature" rolls the dice enough we are bound to get lucky here and there.
But it's all illusory.

The real whooper here is that as a product of nature, our naturalistic explanations may themselves be illusions.
But of course atheists are not fooled by these evolutionary forces. They have logic and reason on their side.
They don't believe in demons and fairies. Evolution has ceased to blindfold them. It's no longer illusory to them.
The unfortunates that suffer from belief (aka "cancer of the mind") are illogical fairy tale lovers that do not live their lives by evidence only.

:lol: :mrgreen:
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Re: Exploring Origins

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The theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist Paul Davies, who doesn't believe in unicorns, has written this about self organizing systems:
There is however a deeper problem of a conceptual nature. Life is actually not an example of self-organization. Life is in fact specified - i.e., genetically directed organization. Living things are instructed by the genetic software encoded in their DNA (or RNA).

There is a tremendous difference between specified organization of living systems and the organized complexity of a spiral galaxy, or a rainbow.
Is that statement false?
If so, what is the evidence that proves it to be false?

How do the laws that govern genetic code organization ultimately achieving conscious systems surpass those that govern nonliving systems?
Which of the several aBiogenesis hypothesis addresses this?

Could science even define such a law AS a LAW?
Would any law governing the specified organization of cells be a Law for other "living" systems throughout the cosmos?
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Flann
Yes the codes exist in the material components.The question is where the code came from. In that case the Germans designed the Enigma code.
The difference here lay in the distinction between a plan and a function. People make codes, or create machines with a plan, some purpose in mind.

Nature’s complexity arises because of the function of its elements. For instance, water vapor in our atmosphere functions to regulate the temperature of the planet. That is not the purpose of water vapor… that’s a property it has.

Mercury has no atmosphere to speak of and the temperature swings there are wide and staggering, from 400C in the day to -185C at night. Atmosphere stabilizes temperatures, but that isn’t what its for-. That is just a function of its electromagnetic properties.

In the case of life you’ve got a molecule which reproduces itself. Surrounded by some certain set of other molecules it will reproduce itself more readily. That’s what it does as part of its electromagnetic properties. Just like iron when put next to oxygen will form iron oxide. There isn’t a plan there, its just oxygen snatching up valence electrons.

It only stands to reason that the set of molecules which function together to more readily make copies will be more successful at doing that than other arrangements of molecules which do not lend themselves to easy reproduction.

Iron and Helium don’t make chemical compounds the way that iron and oxygen do… so, there’s no occurrence of that chemical compound while iron oxide can be found easily!

Flann
The greater the complexity of the code the more likely it came from an intelligent source rather than some confluence of random events and laws.
That is unfounded. The only examples we have that we can confirm are indeed codes designed by intelligence are those produced by people and things like… whale songs. Those are confirmed, reliable facts.

Everything else you might want to site as evidence to support this is in fact a naturally occurring pattern with no indication of intelligent intervention. You can’t claim DNA as part of your evidence. You can’t claim stellar spectrum patterns, you can’t claim the arrangement of nuclear particles and the resultant changes in electromagnetic properties, you can’t claim gravitational tidal resonances. Every one of those has a natural explanation that does not require god. And every one of those is more complex than the enigma code.

Those are all examples of complex codes which we know for certain none of the intelligent agents we can confirm exist could have manufactured. You are assuming the existence of a god, and assuming that his having created these codes is a foregone conclusion. It is not.
Flann
We are constantly told that all the appearance of design and purpose is illusory.
Nature does not have purpose. Intelligent agents design a purpose for things.

The elements of nature do have properties, though. Properties that let some substances function better than others. Oxygen has chemical properties that allow for relatively easy formation and breaking of bonds, whereas Fluorine isn’t letting go of its acquired electrons for nothing. Components in life which utilize oxygen will function more efficiently than those that use fluorine, because fluorine’s chemical properties make it a dead end for life.

Flann
In the B.B.C.,program The hidden life of cells,where the body is invaded by viruses, all the experts explain it all in evolutionary terms… Even the experts lapse into this kind of language unwittingly, while assuring us they have a better explanation.
Language is difficult. Changing the vocabulary means other have to be aware of the changes. I try to avoid saying “sun set” and “sun rise” because that is not an accurate presentation of what is really happening. But what would you say in its place? Sun occlusion, for sun set? It’s correct, but would people know what you are saying?

Saying that oxygen is “greedy” for electrons assigns human characteristics to a clearly inanimate gas. That is a fault of our imagination for not having a better word ready to describe oxygen’s tendency to attract valence electrons more strongly than many other substances. But look at the verbiage I have to put down to say the equivalent of “oxygen is greedy”. It doesn’t give any validity to oxygen really having anthropomorphic characteristics.
Flann
How do these codes come about?
Image
The lines in saturn’s rings are the result of gravitational tidal resonance. When objects line up on the elliptical plane and pass eachother at regular intervals they are tugging at eachother in specific ways that pull each other from their previous orbits.

These resonances are what pull the ice particles out of certain orbits in saturn’s rings, and why there are empty black spaces between the rings. Saturn’s moons are in orbital resonance with those patches of space and they are flinging material out of that orbit with their gravitational influence. That’s also why the planets are where they are.

In other orbits there are chances of tidal resonances which mean objects can’t stay there for long!

Image

This pattern of missing rainbow colors corresponds to the absorption patterns in the elements of the sun. It is a quantum effect where electrons are collecting electromagnetic energy in the wavelengths and energies where the black lines appear. It corresponds to the energy levels of the electron shells.

These shells are at different levels due to the pauli exclusion principal which “forbids” two electrons to exist with the same quantum properties, and so electrons are pushed into higher energy levels when they share the same nucleus. I used the word “forbid” here which has anthropic undertones. But the pauli exclusion principal is not an arbitrary rule imposed on electrons by a governing body, but is instead intrinsic to the wave/particle duality of electrons where two electrons with the same properties just simply cannot co-exist, as they would collapse from interference.

Which leads to the dizzying array of combinations possible with the heavy elements, their array of allowed electron energies, and how they combine to form new molecules. Each pattern produces a different substance with different properties owing to where they electrons are in the valence shells, what energies they inhabit, and that dictates how the interact with other molecules, and light, and their rest mass.

Flann
How do these codes come about?
The DNA answer is a long one. I’ll try to sum it up briefly.

Matter has properties which can be exploited. Iron likes to bind with oxygen for instance. There is iron in our blood for exactly that function. Other material holds onto the oxygen too tightly, or not tightly enough, to get it to where it needs to go in our bodies.

Take a look at the video below. Evolution doesn’t set out with the purpose of using iron to transport oxygen through the arteries of mammals. Instead, accidental exposure to a variety of chemicals leads to conditions which help to facilitate reproduction of a molecule, or hinder it. Not by any intent, but just based on the properties inherent to the substances.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/articl ... -ways-walk

When those properties make reproduction easier, then it happens faster, and more often, until those circumstances are the most easily found instances of reproduction, perhaps exclusively the only instances.

These block robots just have parts that flop around, which is programmed to be a property of the substances. Some flopping motion gets the simulated robot to move forward, which is set aside as a selective pressure, and some do not move forward. The computer uses this as the selective criteria on whether to reproduce that robot again with a variation, or to abandon that tract.

Holding onto what works is what allows evolution to function, more so than randomness.

In nature, the criteria for what gets passed into the next reproductive cycle is whether or not the previous version was able to reproduce. That’s all. If being able to flop around and move from a low concentration of “food” to a higher concentration of “food” through naturally occurring hydrophobic properties for instance gets a structure to a place where it can reproduce faster and more successfully than those structures which can’t flop, then the next generation will be floppers. And the next modification might make them more efficient floppers. And after that they might do something that reminds us vaguely of swimming. Step by step, not all at once, keeping what works, we go from simple to complex.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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