How did the first living thing on earth come to life?

[astarath]

God made life, answer is there...next question???

 

[Flappycat]

God made life, answer is there...next question???

You are a transvestite. You wear your hair in curls.

 

[Navigator]

Anything. Arguably, we could even create a self-replicating computer program and call IT life. Perhaps life can even be born in the heart of a sun.

No. Monerans and protists are obviously not aware of their surroundings, yet we call them life. Among monerans, you will find bacteria and types of algae. Among protists, you'll find some of the most sophisticated single-celled organisms in nature.

I realise there are many organisms we call life that self-replicate strictly on the laws of nature. I don't understand how they are the same level or realm as being alive and able to make decisions based on input and not confined to the laws of nature. I know it may sound ridiculous, but are monerans, protists, and bacteria alive or is the life we aplly to them a figure of speech?

 

[Navigator]

You are a transvestite. You wear your hair in curls.

How does that make his opinion any more right or wrong?

 

[Flappycat]

How does that make his opinion any more right or wrong?

It doesn't. It does, however, show that he is not the only person present who can make baseless assertions.

 

[Flappycat]

I realise there are many organisms we call life that self-replicate strictly on the laws of nature. I don't understand how they are the same level or realm as being alive and able to make decisions based on input and not confined to the laws of nature. I know it may sound ridiculous, but are monerans, protists, and bacteria alive or is the life we aplly to them a figure of speech?

We also are confined to the laws of physics. We can just do cooler stuff within those bounds than any protist.

 

[Navigator]

We also are confined to the laws of physics.

A completely seperate debate.

We can just do cooler stuff within those bounds than any protist.

At some point a threshold was crossed and natural selection occurred based on more than the laws of nature. Science gives me no answer to when or how this happened, the Bible does.

 

[Flappycat]

At some point a threshold was crossed and natural selection occurred based on more than the laws of nature.

There is no evidence for any such thing.

Science gives me no answer to when or how this happened, the Bible does.

One of these days, you're going to have to understand that the idea behind your religion is faith. If you're interested in discovering how things work, look to scientific knowledge, for this is the only place that you will find substantial data. If you're interested in spirituality, then turn to your religion, and I will turn to introspection to the same end. If you want scientific knowledge to be compliant with your religious beliefs, you're doomed to disappointment, and this will only make you unhappy.

 

[fantome profane]

:sorry1:
My questions were trying to establish what constitutes living self-replicating structures.
First we have to establish living. To me it would be when self-replicating systems become aware of their surroundings enough to make a decision based the input. Prior to that they are not alive, the natural selection is based on more than the laws of nature. Do you agree?

Ok there is the problem. I was working on the premise that a self-replicating structure is alive. You are adding the requirement of awareness. That is actually reasonable, but you need to define what you mean by “aware”, and what you mean by “make a decision”.

Consider a cell that reacts to the presents of certain chemical by absorbing them. Is it aware of these chemicals? Does it make a conscious decision to absorb them? I would have to say it is not aware in the same sense that we are aware of our surroundings, and it does not decide in the same sense that we decide what we are going to have for lunch, but it is “aware” in a manor of speaking and it does react to it’s environment.

Consider that something does not even have to be alive in order to be “aware” in this kind of rudimentary way of speaking. Think of the thermostat on you wall. You have a devise there that is capable of sensing the surrounding temperature and reacting accordingly. It makes a decision based on input, but it is not alive, and it is not really aware.

Now go back to our living cell, a self-replicating machine, it may have a capability of sensing it’s environment and reacting, but may be no more aware than the thermostat on the wall, and it does not make a conscious decision. But the cells that react to the environment in ways that are advantageous to replication will be selected, those that react to ways that are not advantageous, or do not react at all will not be selected.

So now we have a process of natural selection, based on nothing more than the laws of nature. With each successive generation cells that are more and more sensitive to their environment (aware?) will be selected, they may be able to detect a multitude of chemicals, temperature, light, other cells etc, and if they react appropriately they will be selected.

Strange as it may seem even concepts such as awareness and consciousness can be a matter of degree, and they can evolve in small gradual steps.

 

[Navigator]

There is no evidence for any such thing.

Are you saying that some organisims have always been aware, rationally used surrounding input to promote its exsitence?

One of these days, you're going to have to understand that the idea behind your religion is faith. If you're interested in discovering how things work, look to scientific knowledge, for this is the only place that you will find substantial data. If you're interested in spirituality, then turn to your religion, and I will turn to introspection to the same end. If you want scientific knowledge to be compliant with your religious beliefs, you're doomed to disappointment, and this will only make you unhappy.

Thanks, but based on your last sentence you have no clue what you are talking about.

 

[Navigator]

Strange as it may seem even concepts such as awareness and consciousness can be a matter of degree, and they can evolve in small gradual steps.

This is where you lose me. At some point the organism based natural selection on a learned benefit from paticular input. I don't understand how that can happen gradually.

 

[Yerda]

At some point the organism based natural selection on a learned benefit from paticular input.

Is there any chance you could re-phrase that sentence? I can't make sense of it.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

This is where you lose me. At some point the organism based natural selection on a learned benefit from paticular input. I don't understand how that can happen gradually.

The organism didn't base natural selection on anything; it wasn't doing it's own selecting.

 

[Navigator]

Is there any chance you could re-phrase that sentence? I can't make sense of it.

How did any organism gradually become self-aware, conscious or alive.

 

[s2a]

How did any organism gradually become self-aware, conscious or alive.

[A] God did it?

Suppposing, just for a moment, that no divine intervention in such a process is claimed or proposed as some viable/valid "explanation" to your inquiry...then what would you suggest or infer that the extant evidence suggests as providing the "best available explanation"?

If "God" can not be empirically proven, should faith then be the only available alternative available to human minds "empowered" with reason, consciousness, and self-awareness?

No great offense intended, but it is facile and simplistic to wish that some invisible and undefined supernaturalistic "entity" is the only other plausible (or "legitimate") explanation available for discomfitting conclusions borne of objective empiricism and science that only seeks to reveal and discover objective facts, versus validating faith-based existential "truths".

Who knows?

Maybe Al Gore beats his wife, and takes great joy in stuffing baby chicks through the necks of coke bottles...

...and that would prove him to be a nasty, horrid man to know...

...but it would offer nothing to discredit the presentation of bolstered and verified scientific facts that he champions as evidence and factual proof of manmade consequences of global climate change.

Even if you knock down the fashioned scarecrow made of effete straw,you still are going to have to deal with the indifferent crows that continue to eat your corn...

...and maybe, just maybe, "God" wants you to get off your *** and help clean up the filth and refuse left behind by a few billion humans going though their daily activities...instead of impugning what may very well be one of His own purposed messengers...

But don't ask me...I'm just another atheist.

 

[Mister_T]

Alot of the problems Mister_T is the lack of knowledge on things. Religions get to exploit this in people. The compression of the universe came from a repeating cycle. For example, the universe around us has already been proved to be expanding. It has also been discovered that this effect is slowing. What this means is, scientist are speculating, is that once it reaches the point to where the force that caused the expansion in the first place is overcome by gravitational pull again it will pulled back in on itself. That is more than likely where the "compactness" originated from. It is probably an endless repeating pattern.



You are making a separation between religion and science that is not needed. The "textbook" you are referring to has its own roots in problems. It was put together by a Pagan ruler to unite his kingdom for more power...that’s it...Before that, what you call a "textbook" written by god, was nothing more than stories passed down by different groups for over 300 years. As a matter of fact what you are reading in your bible is only what was agreed on by the pagan enlisted group. So as far as that goes, God didn't write anything. As for your personal health, in my opinion, versus focusing so much on the bible alone, combine religion with science. You will make a lot more progress that way...

Religious title=lacking knowledge and exploited. Got it.

You are full of assumptions about me. Like for one I'm a creationist Bible thumper and I don't incoprorate science into religion. Tsk tsk.

I'm fully aware of the theory of a repeated collapsing and expanding universe. I'm also aware of Constantine and his apparent meddling as well as the biblical canon.

Thanks for your "concern" for my personal health, but perhaps you should worry about getting your facts straight about a person before you make comments about them. :foot:


As for you comments about the compactness, they still don't explain how that compactness got there. They only explain how it becomes compact.

 

[Mister_T]

Is it a hypothesis statement, or is that a factual statement?

Nothing concerning the origins of the universe can really be considered a fact. So it is the former

 

[Mister_T]

That scientific law is no longer universally accepted. Matter and energy are known to be inter-convertable. So if you consider matter has been converted into energy, and that matter is no longer existing in the form of matter, and is in the form of energy, then matter can be destroyed or created.

I wasn't aware that scientific laws could change.

 

[Mister_T]

Well if it didn’t come from nowhere, then it must have come from somewhere. So the next question is where did that somewhere come from. That somewhere from which the universe came can’t have come from nowhere, that somewhere must also have come from somewhere. And what about the somewhere from which came the somewhere from which the universe came? That somewhere can’t have come from nowhere, it must have come from somewhere. So where did the somewhere from which the somewhere came from which the somewhere came from which the universe came come from? That is the question we should be asking. Or on the other hand maybe we shouldn’t.

I trust you can see how quickly this line of reasoning can become futile.

Absolutley. It can leave one with a headache.

 

[painted wolf]

ahhh better living through chemistry.

What is "alive" Mimivirus is so close to being a Bacteria its spooky, with 900 genes. In actual physical size it is bigger than some bacteria!!
Pelagibacter has just 1,354 genes is so small there are viruses nearly as big.
Carsonella has only 160,000 DNA letters, composing 182 genes (less than mimivirus)... but it cheats by being a symbiote. It may eventually loose itself to its host alltogether as Mitochondria seem to have done with Eucaryotic cells.

is a photoautotrophic bacteria self aware when it moves into the light to feed?
is it conscious when it moves away from danger?

ahhh the fuzzy lines we draw to seperate ourselves from the rest.

wa:do