Abiogenesis is evolution

[Monk Of Reason]

As we learn more we will slice finer and define better but at our current level of knowledge I feel that my division is the best "change of grade" that can come up with.

Actually I'm a little disappointing that no one here has really touched on the academically acclaimed argument that it should not be considered biological evolution. Some of you have gotten close.

The claim that it is different than biological evolution should have no bearing on when it turned from non-life to life but that the process itself had a gradual change into biological evolution. Therefore there is no line and thus in stages the process itself evolves over time.

However even with that argument it is admitted that abiogenisis is part of the same evolution Darwin talked about. However it would be like specialization, adaptation, mutation and abiogensis as different terms and mechanisms of the same process. And as anyone who has worked with chemistry in a lab will know, the line between biochemistry and chemistry isn't always well defined.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

With the emergence of the first species.

There was no first species.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

When life began. If the scientific establishment pronounce that life started with the first cell, then that's where "biological evolution" began. If they pronounce that life started with the virus, then that's where "biological evolution" began. Wherever they pronounce life started, there "biological evolution" starts. They determine what's to be called alive or not.What does this mean?

There was no point in time where it was "life" rather than "non-life". The same, exact same, mechanics that dictate evolution of living cells, dictated the evolution of these pre-cellular strands.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Technically, it is entirely possible, at least slightly more than a 0% chance, that those letter were not put there by a person but washed up randomly. However, we could very easily conclude that they were put their by design, given the experimental examples that I used above. And the blatant probability that outliers are not the status quo

Now, the flip side of that is not what you think, however. It doesn't suddenly work in the reverse as a trap (meaning that what you're hoping to catch me saying or insinuating is that design is the more obvious precursor to study of the natural world)

If you are to assume that the existence of the cosmos, which has only every shown itself to be random via millions and billions of examples, is somehow different from being random, how would you support it?

Essentially, you're trying to make the argument that looking at the properly formed symbols, which spell out the word HELP, are obvious for design, thus the entirety of the world is evidence of design, you're just begging the question. This is no different than what Ray Comfort did in his epic fail of a debate on national television and what countless others have done before and after. (I just pick on Ray because he's easy. There are heavier hitters that have continually made the same mistake, and you yourself have admitted that you can't support design with evidence.)

This:

Based on the conclusions garnered from hundreds, possibly, thousands of other examples like it, can be quickly filed away as having been designed. The probability that the stone face was produced randomly would be irrational unless you have literally hundreds or thousands of contradictory examples to the former, showing how this could possibly be a random formation.

This:

However, has literally millions upon millions of examples supporting the deduction that it is a random occurrence. (Or would you look at this photo and point to the obvious design and fingerprint of an omniscient deity?) There are so many examples of these random formations, for example, that we even understand the variables and processes that shape them. We know, to a larger extent, what their formation entailed, based on scientific principles that were discovered before these things were even known to exist. Those very same scientific principles are used for predicting and studying other phenomena as well, all over the solar system, which match what we would expect to happen in a universe created by random processes.

If you're to argue, for example, that "sunsets are pretty therefore there must be a god" - then you have to likewise admit that there are far more numerous examples of that same designer being a complete dunce when it comes to all of the useless, random, crap that is just flying around in the darkness for no reason whatsoever...

So we both agree that the shape of the face is obviously designed, where the asteroid is not. but why?

The asteroid is actually far more complex is it not? The geometry of the face is far simpler.

So the probability of that particular asteroid shape being generated randomly is actually smaller than for the face.

Similarly with HELP on the beach, it may be spelled with only a few dozen rocks, far more likely to happen by chance than any one particular arrangement of thousands of randomly scattered rocks, yes?

So the reason we suspect creative intelligence in both cases is not the improbability of chance, but rather the probability of purpose. It's not that the face, or the word, are impossible by chance, in fact they are more probable than many random patterns, it's that there is a better explanation in each case- unless creative intelligence is utterly forbidden.

To relate this to the thread, what are the odds that a randomly generated universe, would ultimately develop it's own consciousness to ponder itself with? impossible to calculate, but they obviously ain't too high. Hence the need for infinite multiverses to overcome them. We know there are an infinite number of alternate configurations of the universal constants that would not even result in space-time, far less life, far less sentient life.

So as above, it's not that chance cannot create a face or 'help' or a self-aware universe, it's that the bar is set very low for other, less improbable explanations.

 

[viole]

So we both agree that the shape of the face is obviously designed, where the asteroid is not. but why?

The asteroid is actually far more complex is it not? The geometry of the face is far simpler.

So the probability of that particular asteroid shape being generated randomly is actually smaller than for the face.

Similarly with HELP on the beach, it may be spelled with only a few dozen rocks, far more likely to happen by chance than any one particular arrangement of thousands of randomly scattered rocks, yes?

So the reason we suspect creative intelligence in both cases is not the improbability of chance, but rather the probability of purpose. It's not that the face, or the word, are impossible by chance, in fact they are more probable than many random patterns, it's that there is a better explanation in each case- unless creative intelligence is utterly forbidden.

To relate this to the thread, what are the odds that a randomly generated universe, would ultimately develop it's own consciousness to ponder itself with? impossible to calculate, but they obviously ain't too high. Hence the need for infinite multiverses to overcome them. We know there an infinite number of alternate configurations of the universal constants that would not even result in space-time, far less life, far less sentient life.

So as above, it's not that chance cannot create a face or 'help' or a self-aware universe, it's that the bar is set very low for other, less improbable explanations.

Yet, you exist because of a giant asteroid

Ciao

- viole

 

[Guy Threepwood]

I'll wait for your response to go into further detail - but what are the laws other than what we have discovered about how the universe operates? No one is attributing tangible qualities to some mythical process behind these laws. They are little more than our understanding of what things in the universe do and how they relate to one another. They aren't actually functioning governors or intelligent deciders of fate - they are simply frameworks that allow us to describe the world around us. If we had no language or intelligence to describe them, we would just grunt them with something simple like "stick fall down".

"Stick fall down" is not a paradox in a random universe - it is simply a side effect of excess matter(mass) - which simply is.
Sticks could fall up, for all we care - as long as it was observable and repeatable, the statement and knowledge that sticks fall up would still be accurate. Reality of something doesn't make it a paradox unless you're playing some hoola-hoop game with reason in attempts to discredit...reason.

sticks can only fall down by releasing potential energy. So the 'stick fall down' 'law' of gravity was very much a paradox, that's why classical physics failed, without other forces once considered mythical- the entire universe would simply collapse.

laws being entirely created by themselves will always be paradoxical, they have to be written

 

[rusra02]

Probability is a funny thing with atheists. The simplest mathematical sequence drifting across interstellar airwaves would be proof positive of alien intelligence, demonstrating humanity to be insignificant.

While the long list of excruciatingly finely tuned mathematical constants and algorithms necessary for physics, chemistry, biology to be functional, may be safely assumed to have accidentally blundered into existence for no particular reason.

Well said.

 

[jonathan180iq]

The asteroid is actually far more complex is it not? The geometry of the face is far simpler.

So the probability of that particular asteroid shape being generated randomly is actually smaller than for the face.

This is a false premise.

Similarly with HELP on the beach, it may be spelled with only a few dozen rocks, far more likely to happen by chance than any one particular arrangement of thousands of randomly scattered rocks, yes?

No.

To relate this to the thread, what are the odds that a randomly generated universe, would ultimately develop it's own consciousness to ponder itself with?

This has been worked on before as a mathematical model. Give me some time and I'll find it.

sticks can only fall down by releasing potential energy...

Granted to them by the gravity of the huge change of mass directly below it.

I used to play this game in grade school where I told people I didn't believe in gravity, and used similar loopholes to make a seemingly valid argument for why gravity didn't exist. I'm used to this.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Probability is a funny thing with atheists. The simplest mathematical sequence drifting across interstellar airwaves would be proof positive of alien intelligence, demonstrating humanity to be insignificant.

While the long list of excruciatingly finely tuned mathematical constants and algorithms necessary for physics, chemistry, biology to be functional, may be safely assumed to have accidentally blundered into existence for no particular reason.

Except one is found in nature naturally with no need to assume it was purposefully designed that way as we have no comparison to hold it to. However the other would be distinctly different than what we have already observed in nature which would nidicate that there was some sort of alteration of some sort. Would it be intentional or not? We wouldn't know and hopefully no one would assume that it was until further investigation is conducted. However we know what we could look for and if we find what we were looking for based off of our predictions then that is evidence that it is correct.

 

[Bunyip]

There was no first species.

Sure there were. The first species (plural). Meaning the first species of life to evolve.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Sure there were. The first species (plural). Meaning the first species of life to evolve.

IT is much like asking who the first human was. I assume you will agree that that is nonsensical. It is the same.

 

[Bunyip]

IT is much like asking who the first human was. I assume you will agree that that is nonsensical. It is the same.

Not at all. It is much like asking who the first humans were. 'Species' is plural. The first humans emerged about 2 million years ago.


When the first life emerged is not going to resolve to a specific point - it is a continuum, and where we place the boundaries is inescapably arbitrary.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Not at all. It is much like asking who the first humans were. 'Species' is plural. The first humans emerged about 2 million years ago.

Homo sapiens are only a few hundred thousand years old. Homo Erectus which is our most direct ancestor that we have identified was first found in the fossil record to be around 2 million years ago. However this is arbitrary. There were no "first humans" as there was no line between homo-erectus and homo sapiens. We have now a good understanding of the differences between our current form and our previous form but there is no line in which we are homo sapiens rather than homo erectus. Similarly there were no first species. There were increasingly advanced chemical compounds with increasingly advanced chemical reactions and complexity. We then can state that we have found the earliest form of what we would call a primitive cell but those cells were still undergoing the same systematic processes as they were doing at that time, prior to that time. There is an invariable link between the two and the processes are not separate processes. No more separate than micro and macro evolution.

 

[Bunyip]

Homo sapiens are only a few hundred thousand years old. Homo Erectus which is our most direct ancestor that we have identified was first found in the fossil record to be around 2 million years ago. However this is arbitrary.

Sure, of course it is arbitrary.

There were no "first humans" as there was no line between homo-erectus and homo sapiens.

What? Of course there were first humans, so what if there was no line between two species? - of course there is no line between them.

We have now a good understanding of the differences between our current form and our previous form but there is no line in which we are homo sapiens rather than homo erectus.

Of course there is no line, that is about the most basic concept behind evolution.

Similarly there were no first species.

Of course there were.

There were increasingly advanced chemical compounds with increasingly advanced chemical reactions and complexity. We then can state that we have found the earliest form of what we would call a primitive cell but those cells were still undergoing the same systematic processes as they were doing at that time, prior to that time. There is an invariable link between the two and the processes are not separate processes. No more separate than micro and macro evolution.

Sure, but so what?

 

[ArtieE]

There were increasingly advanced chemical compounds with increasingly advanced chemical reactions and complexity.

Evolution.

We then can state that we have found the earliest form of what we would call a primitive cell

First life. And therefore we call what follows biological evolution.

but those cells were still undergoing the same systematic processes as they were doing at that time, prior to that time.

So what? Before "life" those processes didn't happen to "life". Hence just evolution. After "life" those processes happened to "life". Therefore biological evolution.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Sure, of course it is arbitrary.

Glad we can agree on this fact. I assume you do not agree with the implications of such a fact?

What? Of course there were first humans, so what if there was no line between two species? - of course there is no line between them.

There were "early humans" but there were no "first humans". There are earliest human remains found but they themselves were not the "earliest" or "first" humans.

Of course there is no line, that is about the most basic concept behind evolution.

Then I am continued to be baffled by your self contradicting assumptions.

Of course there were.

Good. Except there were NOT any species that could be considered the first. We have early species but no place in time in which we could call them the "first" life forms

Sure, but so what?

That the exact same processes continues since prior to the first life to now. And that it is all part of the exact same process and this strange misunderstanding that abiogensis is somehow not part of evolution doesn't make sense.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Evolution.

First life. And therefore we call what follows biological evolution.[/quote]
There was no "first life"

So what? Before "life" those processes didn't happen to "life". Hence just evolution. After "life" those processes happened to "life". Therefore biological evolution.

And there was no "first life". The processes that deal with abiogensis and the processes that deal with biological evolution are one in the same. There is no argument against that. Unless you have some sort of evidence that the processes are inherently different in some way.

 

[Bunyip]

Glad we can agree on this fact. I assume you do not agree with the implications of such a fact?

What implications? I thought it was just stating the obvious.

There were "early humans" but there were no "first humans". There are earliest human remains found but they themselves were not the "earliest" or "first" humans.

Then I am continued to be baffled by your self contradicting assumptions.

What assumption is that?

Good. Except there were NOT any species that could be considered the first. We have early species but no place in time in which we could call them the "first" life forms

That the exact same processes continues since prior to the first life to now. And that it is all part of the exact same process and this strange misunderstanding that abiogensis is somehow not part of evolution doesn't make sense.

Why not? Seems a clear distinction to me. What is the issue?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

What implications? I thought it was just stating the obvious

There is no line between life and non-life. Therefore there is no "first" species. If there was a first species then that would indicate that there was a line. You cannot claim both while being intelectually honest.

What assumption is that?

As above. That there is a first life from or first human when there clearly was not by your own statements.

Why not? Seems a clear distinction to me. What is the issue?

The fact there is no clear distinction and you have yet to make sense. Your claims seem much like that of a creationist to me. Do you recognize this?

 

[ArtieE]

That the exact same processes continues since prior to the first life to now. And that it is all part of the exact same process and this strange misunderstanding that abiogensis is somehow not part of evolution doesn't make sense.

You still don't understand the difference between evolution and biological evolution? The first expression just consists of one word: Evolution. As in going from simple to complex but not yet being complex enough to have the processes required to call the assembly alive. The second expression consists of two words: Biological evolution. That is the evolution that takes place with assemblies having the processes required to be alive.