Life From Dirt?

[Revoltingest]

That you call it so.

I asked that question of another poster.
It would be fine for you to answer it too, but you didn't.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yeah, that is naming convention.

So it goes with words.
And dictionaries best describe what is commonly named by a word.
I don't even know why or what you're arguing about.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I asked that question of another poster.
It would be fine for you to answer it too, but you didn't.

Yes, I did. I just used another variant of science than natural science. You and I are not of the same culture.
So here it is for this site:
"As a community of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, our aim is to provide a civil environment, informative, respectful and welcoming where people of diverse beliefs can discuss, compare and debate religion while engaging in fellowship with one another."

Even what make culture and religion what it is, is culture. The same with science.
I am just do limited cognitive, cultural and moral relativism on even the different cultural understanding of words and how they work.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So it goes with words.
And dictionaries best describe what is commonly named by a word.
I don't even know why or what you're arguing about.

You are not the culture of the world and English and its variant are not the only culture. You have to learn that you can't take this for granted even if we communicate in English.
You are in a weak sense doing the fallacy of ad populum. Common is not universal.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yes, I did. I just used another variant of science than natural science. You and I are not of the same culture.
So here it is for this site:
"As a community of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, our aim is to provide a civil environment, informative, respectful and welcoming where people of diverse beliefs can discuss, compare and debate religion while engaging in fellowship with one another."

Even what make culture and religion what it is, is culture. The same with science.
I am just do limited cognitive, cultural and moral relativism on even the different cultural understanding of words and how they work.

You are not the culture of the world and English and its variant are not the only culture. You have to learn that you can't take this for granted even if we communicate in English.
You are in a weak sense doing the fallacy of ad populum. Common is not universal.

I've nothing to add, except....
You should put more effort into making your posts succinct, clearer, & on topic.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I've nothing to add, except....
You should put more effort into making your posts succinct, clearer, & on topic.

thing | Etymology of thing by etymonline

"meeting, assembly, council, discussion," also "action, deed to be done." In late Old… See origin and meaning of thing.

www.etymonline.com

 

[Hockeycowboy]

This claim that our universe is a closed system is unevidenced.

What else would a system encompassing everything, be considered? Open? (Open to what? There’s nothing else.)
If so, then it wouldn’t be the universe.

Not with one bad premise.

Oh, now it’s a “bad” premise?
It’s really a solid conclusion.

To call energy "God" is a leap of faith.

I did not call energy, the Creator. I said He’s a form of energy, a form that apparently hasn’t been discovered yet.

Moreover, to claim that there's only a single god is baseless.

To claim one God / Creator, as opposed to many, fits the evidence we see of harmony between the numerous fined-tuned forces essential for life, as well as the one constant we find in all living things: DNA, the blueprint for the diverse structures present in all life’s forms.

Whenever humans uncover patterns that convey functional information, intelligence is always accepted as its source…even if it’s basically simple.

Why is that standard, disregarded with the much-more-complex genome?

Sounds purposely biased to me.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Please don't quote scientific ideas that you don't understand.

I understand energy, as explained in my post, just fine. (Was that an attempt at an Ad hom? ‘When your argument is lacking, focus attack on the opposing debater’?)

First, that is the *first* law of thermodynamics, not the second.

I apologize. Thanks for the correction.

Second, the precise form of the first law (a conservation law) says that the total energy at one time is the same as at any other time. So it only applies when there is time. In the BB model, there is no time outside of the universe. So no 'time before'.

There is nothing, outside the universe.
And how do you know there was no time prior to the Big Bang? No human was there to observe.
Sounds like a construct to get around the discovery of energy always existing.

Third, energy is a property of matter (actually, of particles, but I won't get into that distinction here). it is like momentum, or charge, or spin (all of which are also conserved in a closed system). So unless you want to claim that there is also matter and momentum and spin and charge 'prior to the BB', you are talking out of your hat.

Have humans discovered the properties of all forms of energy?
No.

We don’t even know what dark matter is. Yet.

Take care.

 

[Revoltingest]

What else would a system encompassing everything, be considered? Open? (Open to what? There’s nothing else.)
If so, then it wouldn’t be the universe.

It's an unverifiable presumption that the universe we see
is a closed system. Moreover, there is evidence that
suggests it's open, eg, accelerating expansion of the
observable universe hints at energy input.

Oh, now it’s a “bad” premise?
It’s really a solid conclusion.

It's merely an assumption.

I did not call energy, the Creator. I said He’s a form of energy, a form that apparently hasn’t been discovered yet.

To claim one God / Creator, as opposed to many, fits the evidence we see of harmony between the numerous fined-tuned forces essential for life, as well as the one constant we find in all living things: DNA, the blueprint for the diverse structures present in all life’s forms.

Whenever humans uncover patterns that convey functional information, intelligence is always accepted as its source…even if it’s basically simple.

An intelligent deity isn't necessary to explain what's observed.
It's just the explanation you've chosen.

Why is that standard, disregarded with the much-more-complex genome?

Because it has no predictive value, ie, it's not testable.
So it's just an assumption that's "not even wrong".

Sounds purposely biased to me.

We're all biased.
But a difference here is that you presume the existence
of a singular god creating it all. I make no claims about
gods existing or not.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You think the millions of people who believe in God have no good reason for doing so?

Their god belief is not justified in the philosophical sense. Many unfamiliar with the rules of inference that connect evidence to sound conclusions about it claim that their god beliefs are reasoned and evidenced, but apparently using gut feeling, and hence their beliefs cannot be called justified by academic standards.

But you said "good reason." Their reason is that the belief is comforting. How do I know? because those comfortable without god beliefs and religions don't have them. I won't quibble whether fulfilling that need should be called a good reason, but I would say anybody without such a need is better off than anybody who finds a benefit there, the same way that those who can find comfort without gambling or smoking are better off than those who find comfort there, the same way than those who can read without corrective lenses are better off than those who need them.

atheists wonder why they have a reputation for insufferable arrogance

There is no wondering. Theists are conditioned to see freethought as blasphemy and impiety, and are taught to view skeptics as immoral God haters trying escape accountability for sin and indulging the flesh and establish themselves as gods. I wrote this today in response to my saying that what appears to be gratuitous suffering can be called that. I got the "You must indeed be most intelligent and wise to be able to think on those cosmic scales" pushback. He also thinks I'm arrogant for not standing down:

"This is an example of the theist trying to restrict thought that contradicts his beliefs. It often manifests as the skeptic being unqualified to contradict the believer regarding scripture or admonishing him not to bring his puny mind to any task regarding the intelligence and moral fiber of his god. In this case, you wish to disqualify my calling suffering gratuitous because I don't know everything. I repeat: I'm satisfied with my ability to make such judgments and to treat what appears to be gratuitous suffering as such."

So you are the arbiter of good reason, for all of humanity?

And here it is again - a theist trying to impede a freethinker with the latest incarnation of the puny human mind argument. But to answer your question, the academic community collectively is the sole arbiter of what are sound conclusions and what are not according to its own standards and definitions of things like truth and knowledge. You don't need to approve. You don't need to understand. Object away.

Whereas to the person of faith, this is the pride that cuts man off from God.

To the critical thinker, critical thought is the anchor that keeps him tethered to reality. He strives to be "cut off" from faith and what follows belief by faith.

There are sound arguments which conclude "Therefore belief in God is more sensible than not believing in God".

Only if sensible means practical, as in fulfilling a need as I just described.

My claims unfalsifiable, as are claims that "it assembled itself" "unconscious matter became conscious" "the universe poofed into existence all by itself".
You may say that you don't claim those things, that you just say you don't know.

But these are strawman claims of yours, not mine. The universe appears to have assembled itself without intelligent oversight. Matter appears to have come alive and then became conscious without intelligent oversight. It appears that reality, whether that includes more than our universe, either always existed or came into being uncaused. And my answer to each of these "may haves" is "I don't know."

I'm prepared to believe that you have decided to sit on the fence until pushed either way and declare a belief either way.

You are correct. Why wouldn't I remain undecided if I lack the means to decide and recognize that?

are you saying that belief in "magic is real with no Gods and because science says so but not real if there is a God involved" ?

The empiricist doesn't use the word magic to describe the workings of nature. Magic is change without force, without mechanism beyond will - think it and it happens, maybe after crossing the arms being held horizontally and shaking one's nose. That describes how a mind moves its own body - by will alone - and I lack a mechanism for that at this time. Can we call that magic? Maybe I need to rethink this:

I never did believe in miracles
But I've a feeling it's time to try
I never did believe in the ways of magic
But I'm beginning to wonder why

It sounds like the basic building blocks of nature lead inexorably to life................... under the right conditions.

That's likely correct. What would stop it? The original formulation of the start of life involved an incredibly lucky lightning strike in just the right place and time where the necessary ingredients happened to be one day,but this has been rethought:

From A New Physics Theory of Life | Quanta Magazine :

"From the standpoint of physics, there is one essential difference between living things and inanimate clumps of carbon atoms: The former tend to be much better at capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat. Jeremy England, a 31-year-old assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has derived a mathematical formula that he believes explains this capacity. The formula, based on established physics, indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life. “You start with a random clump of atoms, and if you shine light on it for long enough, it should not be so surprising that you get a plant,” England said."

According to this way of viewing life, it is seen as inevitable whenever the conditions are right for it, just like a tornado or hurricane. Now we understand why these occur more frequently in the summer, and more frequently and more violently as the temperature of the air and water warm. These are structures channeling the energy which causes them to form.

So no theists are reasonable and they are all self delusional or misunderstand the nature of evidence

I answered this to another poster earlier in this post.

faith is what you do when you believe something without any evidence. OK.

By critical thought standards, all beliefs are either justified by its methods or not, no believed idea being both or neither. Unjustified belief is also called belief by faith.

Workable and being true are not the same thing.

What works can be considered correct in the settings where it works. No idea need do more than accurately anticipate outcomes. When it can no longer do that at other scales of magnitude, the narrative is modified to reflect this new knowledge, but if the old ideas still work in daily life, they are keepers and can be called knowledge or correct.

There is a difference between assuming that consciousness is an emergent property of matter and showing that.

Yes, but the empiricist needn't do either. It's not a problem for science, which studies how matter appears to behave. It appears that minds do not exist outside of material vessels. You are fond of attaching importance to never seeing life not coming from other life, and others to man never having seen a new family of life evolve into existence. These aren't good arguments, but creationists make them, so I ask you, when do you see mind separate from matter, and if your answer is never, why do you consider it possible in the positive sense of something that it is known can actually happen like an extinction level asteroidal impact of earth as opposed to something that may in fact be impossible but cannot be called that yet, like traveling back in time.

 

[Polymath257]

I understand energy, as explained in my post, just fine. (Was that an attempt at an Ad hom? ‘When your argument is lacking, focus attack on the opposing debater’?)

I apologize. Thanks for the correction.

No problem.

There is nothing, outside the universe.

Including time.

And how do you know there was no time prior to the Big Bang? No human was there to observe.

That is not required. All that is required is a testable theory that says something about it.

I do not know that there was no time before the BB. But, if there was, then there was also matter, energy, space, etc. In other words, a universe.

Sounds like a construct to get around the discovery of energy always existing.

Nope. It is the application of a tested theory to the situation.

Have humans discovered the properties of all forms of energy?
No.

We don’t even know what dark matter is. Yet.

Take care.

Not required. But ALL energy we know of so far is associated with some sort of particle. If you want to go beyond that, you will need to give strong justification.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No problem.

Including time.

That is not required. All that is required is a testable theory that says something about it.

I do not know that there was no time before the BB. But, if there was, then there was also matter, energy, space, etc. In other words, a universe.

Nope. It is the application of a tested theory to the situation.

Not required. But ALL energy we know of so far is associated with some sort of particle. If you want to go beyond that, you will need to give strong justification.

Well, for the universe we only got a sample of one, so if there is and I am only saying if there is something outside the universe, we really can't say what to except based on a sample of one, so to me it is unknown, if it is the case.

 

[Valjean]

If something created the first cause then it was not the first cause.

Turtles all the way down?

The first cause, causing other things to exist, through a mechanism that we do not know, sounds more reasonable than things just coming into existence from nothing and without a cause. That magical coming into existence usually seems to be associated with the pre existence of something else however which becomes the alternative first cause when God is rejected.

Who's claiming things came into existence from nothing? A singularity may be no thing, but it's not nothing.
Frankly, an invisible magician speaking things into existence strikes me as, at least, equally unlikely.

The scientific view point assumes the existence only of those things that it can test.
Assuming that and then defining life accordingly is not a proof that the definition is true.
Those who define life in other ways can see a different nature in those things that are alive compared to a pile of chemicals,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, especially when those things are conscious.
We define this as a different nature to just chemicals and so the chemicals need something special beyond the material to give the material life.

What are we defining, here? Life?

 

[Brian2]

And nobody has ever found a way to test for 'spirits' in a way that gives consistent results.

And that shows science cannot test for spirits and cannot say whether they are real or not and cannot say that chemistry is all that is needed.
Having evidence for God that science cannot use does not go beyond the realm of reason unless you think that only those things that science can find and test are reasonable to believe in.

Um, I think you need to learn a bit more about this process. Life *continues* through different cells. Those cells divide to reproduce. That is one of the things that *defines* life. But that division is a physical/chemical process and we know most of the chemical steps in that process.

There is NO evidence of life being anything other than a chemical process.

That is fine. I don't look for science to approve of my belief in God.
But you do understand that science not being able to test something does not tell us if it exists or not don't you?

Nope. Either there is objective evidence or there is not. If there is, then science can deal with it. If there is not, then it is a personal opinion and not a fact.

OK, forget my last question above.
But yes, faith is a personal opinion and the object of faith is not classed as fact. That does not mean that it is not fact or that a person is delusional for believing however.

Good. So no pre-existing life.

And that is going beyond reason.

If you mean by that, that God is not proven by reason to exist then it goes beyond reason just as not believing goes beyond reason. And we have to disagree about only science being able to say what is real and what is not real.

If the prefix 'pre-' applies, then time is there. So there can be no 'pre-' for the beginning of time.

That seems clear to me.

So God existed at the beginning, when there was no time. And if God did anything in timelessness then God would have to do it in the space of no time. Interesting concept.

 

[Brian2]

Well, I think it *was* reasonable in the past because of our limited knowledge about a lot of things. But as we learn more and more, it becomes less and less reasonable.

It was reasonable for Aristotle to make conjectures about physics, and his reasons for believing what he did were often good ones. He just turned out to be wrong. Anyone today that believes in Aristotle's physics is being unreasonable.

But yes, if there *is* evidence, then science can deal with it. The ideas can be tested and it can at least be determined which ones are false.

if there is no evidence, on the other hand, then it is not reasonable to believe.

I think you are attributing too much to the ability of science and how far we have come in terms of knowledge.

 

[YoursTrue]

Yes.

They have an explanation (mostly indoctrination) and some have a reason (makes me feel good). The question is if you consider that a good reason.

Except that a person like myself, who was raised 'in' a religion but after searching when I left my family and went to college and thereafter, decided after examining all the belief systems and celebrations, and seeing the misery around me, decided there is no God. But then -- things happened that made me realize there IS a God. Have a nice day.

 

[Brian2]

Certainly. To think that an infinite regress requires an infinite wait is incorrect. Between any two links in the chain of causality, there are only finitely many steps.

You don't have to wait for an infinite amount of time to pass, because at any point an infinite amount of time has already passed.

The mistake is thinking there is a start, AND THEN an infinite number of steps have to transpire. But the point is that there is no start. So, you are here because of the previous step. Causality is a wave that moves through the chain. At any point in the chain there has already been all the necessary precursors for that event.

But, of course, causality in the real world isn't just a chain. Very few events that have a cause only have a single cause. Usually, there are multiple different influences that 'cause' any event. So we actually get a network of causes, not a simple chain. And that network simply continues back for an infinite amount of time.

It's not the same discussion as with @Audie as far as I remember. That was Audie trying to fit an infinite number of regresses in a finite amount of time.
If there is no start however we run into the problem of what infinity is. As a number to me it is something that you cannot add do, it cannot get bigger, it is the biggest number, it is non existent. So and infinite amount of time in the past means that we cannot be here yet..................... imo.

That is a misunderstanding. Quantum events are uncaused in their specifics. For example, if you have two uranium nuclei, they will be *identical*. And yet, one may decay in a minue and the other not decay for another billion years. There is NO internal or external 'trigger' to the decay.

I have no idea what you mean by the 'quantum environment'. The only reasonable way to interpret that is the universe itself.

OK, I am no doubt wrong.

Which goes way, way beyond the actual evidence.

Yes it no doubt does go beyong the evidence.

Hmmm...that seems to be a misunderstanding of the nature of physical laws. They are descriptions of how things behave. Nothing else. Things in the universe have properties and those properties determine how they interact. The laws of physics describe those interactions.

Physical laws are descriptive laws, not prescriptive laws (like those of the legal system).

The laws of physics are descriptive for those who are working them out. Initially I imagine the laws could be applied. Even what some physicists (I think it was Stephen Hawking) say seems that way when they say that given the laws of physics initially, everything could come into existence.

Well, from what I can see, there are many, many uncaused causes all the time within our universe. Every quantum event is uncaused. That means there are quintillions of them every second in every cubic meter.

So the first cause might be uncaused then and might never have come into existence.
I just worked out what I probably meant by the quantum environment. That would be the initial universe, the universe in which the laws of physics had not been applied, the chaos of the initial stuff that was there after the BB. But this stuff came into existence at the BB and out of the singularity.

And now your assumptions multiply further. You now have to postulate such a timeless realm (without evidence) for the being to exist that creates the universe (through the action of which laws?) in a way for which there is no evidence.

One of the biggest mistakes of philosophy was when Plato imagined such a timeless realm.

I have heard science and you say there is no before the BB.
So what are you saying now?

Good question. And if that distinction cannot be made, then the extra assumption of a spiritual should be discarded as unnecessary to understanding.

That is what happens in science. It does not mean that the spiritual does not exist, it just means that it has been defined away to make a definition that is workable.

 

[Heyo]

And that shows science cannot test for spirits and cannot say whether they are real or not and cannot say that chemistry is all that is needed.
Having evidence for God that science cannot use does not go beyond the realm of reason unless you think that only those things that science can find and test are reasonable to believe in.

That shows that nobody can test for spirits and can say whether they are real or not. I don't know what evidence you are talking about that science can't use. There is no evidence, scientific or otherwise.

 

[Audie]

It's not the same discussion as with @Audie as far as I remember. That was Audie trying to fit an infinite number of regresses in a finite amount of time.
If there is no start however we run into the problem of what infinity is. As a number to me it is something that you cannot add do, it cannot get bigger, it is the biggest number, it is non existent. So and infinite amount of time in the past means that we cannot be here yet..................... imo.



OK, I am no doubt wrong.



Yes it no doubt does go beyong the evidence.



The laws of physics are descriptive for those who are working them out. Initially I imagine the laws could be applied. Even what some physicists (I think it was Stephen Hawking) say seems that way when they say that given the laws of physics initially, everything could come into existence.



So the first cause might be uncaused then and might never have come into existence.
I just worked out what I probably meant by the quantum environment. That would be the initial universe, the universe in which the laws of physics had not been applied, the chaos of the initial stuff that was there after the BB. But this stuff came into existence at the BB and out of the singularity.



I have heard science and you say there is no before the BB.
So what are you saying now?



That is what happens in science. It does not mean that the spiritual does not exist, it just means that it has been defined away to make a definition that is workable.

WHAT is that nonsense you are making up about me?

 

[Polymath257]

And that shows science cannot test for spirits and cannot say whether they are real or not and cannot say that chemistry is all that is needed.
Having evidence for God that science cannot use does not go beyond the realm of reason unless you think that only those things that science can find and test are reasonable to believe in.

I believe it is reasonable to only believe in those things that can actually be detected.

For example, I can definitely say there is not an adult elephant in my room. The reason I can say that is that I cannot detect it. That is how I know that something doesn't exist: that it is impossible to detect it.

That is fine. I don't look for science to approve of my belief in God.
But you do understand that science not being able to test something does not tell us if it exists or not don't you?

If it is impossible for 'science' to detect something (meaning it is impossible to detect), then it simply doesn't exist. that is, in part, how the term 'exists' is defined.

OK, forget my last question above.
But yes, faith is a personal opinion and the object of faith is not classed as fact. That does not mean that it is not fact or that a person is delusional for believing however.

Well, it is not a fact. It is an opinion. The difference is *precisely* that one is public and the other is personal.

If you mean by that, that God is not proven by reason to exist then it goes beyond reason just as not believing goes beyond reason. And we have to disagree about only science being able to say what is real and what is not real.

Tp 'go beyond reason' is, by definition, unreasonable.

So God existed at the beginning, when there was no time. And if God did anything in timelessness then God would have to do it in the space of no time. Interesting concept.

If there was no time, it could not have been the 'beginning'. You cannot 'do' anything in timelessness: timelessness implies static, so there is no 'doing'.