Thoughts on the Existence of the Universe

[Baruch]

You only have to violate the naive interpretation of thermodynamics.  Consider non-uniformity.  If there is a zone of higher entropy next to a zone of lower entropy, the zone of higher entropy can lose entropy (aka catalysis) or reverse by borrowing from the zone next to it.  Basically as a thermal thing, consider a hot thing next to a not so hot thing.  We can naively say that both things will lose temperature in the long term.  However by contact (a structural element) the not so hot thing can actually increase in temperature temporarily.  This entropy/heat borrowing can't go on forever (but with solar power and geothermal power in that finite time can last a long time) ... but in a localized space, entropy can decrease instead of increase, and the temperature can go up rather than down.  We accomplish this thru a greater structural magic, of intake of carbohydrates what are converted into ATP which is burned/oxidized with oxygen in our cells ... again with the assistance of very advanced catalysts (which can actually self assemble).  Of course cold blooded animals need further thermal assistance from their environment, something not possible back in the Archaic Age when the Earth was a frozen snowball.  Life in that time must have only existed around volcanic vents and deep cracks.

[Fickle]

Baruch

Thermodynamics is great for people who still live in the dark ages with a strange fettish for burning things. Which is kind of odd because logic would suggest primitive civilizations based on the burning of things will at some point... run out of things to burn. It is absurd and shows a complete lack of intelligence and yet most everyone considers this the norm. Which would suggest to me normal is the new stupid.

[Baruch]

My father loved big fires when we were camping.  He was closer to the Stone Age than I was ;-)

[Fickle]

I know many people who want to be just like their parents, I don't because that would mean I didn't learn anything from them. They expected me to be better and I am just as I hope my children will be better than me.

[u196533]

You only have to violate the naive interpretation of thermodynamics.
I am considering the classic, irrefutable definition of the 2nd Law of Thermo-  The entropy of the universe must increase.  The energy in any system will distribute itself as much as possible.  (batteries discharge, heat moves to colder areas etc.)  When the energy disperses from concentrated areas, the ability to do work is decreased.    Think of entropy as unusable energy.

  Life in that time must have only existed around volcanic vents and deep cracks.
That is one theory, but the laundry list of issues from the biochemical perspective is huge.  Even if you could overcome those issues, at some point it would need to manipulate the environment to acquire energy when it should really just decompose from a chemistry/thermodynamic perspective.  How did self preservation develop in simple chemical systems?  Without some plausible explanation, abiogenesis is untenable.

[stromboli]

We know Abiogenesis happened because there is life. Your choice is god breathed on a clump of dirt, and lo! or from a natural origin. You can throw Panspermia in the mix but it still comes back to natural versus supernatural.

So we are exactly one plausible explanation away from the origin of life. We do have a pretty good body of evidence supporting evolution, but obviously they are 2 different things. But evolution shows us a process that comes after. So we are still back to one plausible explanation.

As to the selfish gene concept, life from a very basic form, such as viruses, exhibit selfish behavior. So the issue is that one plausible explanation. Scientists don't have a problem with "I don't know" and neither do I. I cannot from my own learning incorporate the supernatural into the mix. So we are left with "I don't know."

Abiogenesis is being studied by science, something the believers in the supernatural aren't doing. They can say I don't know, but we are learning. Works for me, but then I'm neither a believer in the supernatural nor a scientist.

[Fickle]

u196533

You only have to violate the naive interpretation of thermodynamics.
I am considering the classic, irrefutable definition of the 2nd Law of Thermo-  The entropy of the universe must increase.  The energy in any system will distribute itself as much as possible.  (batteries discharge, heat moves to colder areas etc.)  When the energy disperses from concentrated areas, the ability to do work is decreased.    Think of entropy as unusable energy.

Actually no and the universe balances out perfectly however you have to ask the right questions to get the right answers. Where did our Sun, a star, come from?, well matter ie. Energy gravitated inwards towards a singular point until some impetus caused nuclear reactions to occur. Then the Sun started radiating Energy outward as EM Energy/high energy particles where before ignition Energy was gravitating inward...Sum zero. Entropy is always balanced by Syntropy which concentrates energy versus diffusing it. As you may know Energy and Matter are interchangeable via a transformation, ie. E= mc^2.

It should come as no surprise that nobody knows what Gravity is because 99.9% have no understanding of what Energy is at the most fundamental level. Thermodynamics is an illusion created by the weak minded because fundamentally all "heat" is simply a narrow spectrum of EM radiation. What is EM radiation?, matter or particles get excited and radiate energy as Electro-Magnetic waves. Where do these EM waves go?, well if energy is truly conserved then logically they must move outward until they hit something. The thing they hit does not sense these waves as radiating outward as Entropy but gravitating inward towards them as Syntropy thus Energy is truly conserved.

Entropy (outward acting Energy) is always balanced by Syntropy (inward acting Energy) otherwise Energy cannot be conserved. So the question remains... do you believe all Energy follows Entropy exclusively in every case or do you believe the conservation of Energy is always true?. Obviously you cannot believe both because Energy gravitating towards something such as matter is not Entropy. You see the obvious question is that if all energy follows Entropy then where does it go?...where does it go?. Thus we come full circle to the narcissistic notion that we are still the center of the universe.* facepalm*

Let's start with the obvious questions.
What are the Primary Fields... Electric, Magnetic and Gravic, not what they do as any fool can read in any high school textbook but what they are on the most fundamental level?. What is Energy?... and no the capacity to perform work does not qualify as an answer to anything. What is inertia?, this supposed spooky force which causes an accelerating mass to oppose an acceleration by apparently acting on itself because there is nothing else it may act upon.

I like these questions because if you ever want to clear a room full of really smart people all you have to do is ask them these questions. Most avoid the questions, they break eye contact, they lose composure and make excuses to leave. At which point we may understand that everyone thinks their a fucking rocket scientist until they meet that one question they cannot even begin to comprehend. At which point we may understand were only human, we are only human and in fact we have infinitely more questions than answers. Ask the hard questions, open your mind and the universe is mine oyster, which I with sword will open.

[Baruch]

"How did self preservation develop in simple chemical systems?"  Teleology and anthropomorphism that.  Not science, by definition.

How do things get more complicated rather than simpler?  G-d is a bureaucrat ;-)

Realistically ... order is part of what defines entropy.  Getting locally and temporarily more complex ... is a local and temporary reversal of a more general trend, as I explained previously using heat as an example.  This same thing is why climate and weather are not the same thing.  The climate is getting hotter, though we may temporarily and locally have more snowfall.

[Fickle]

Stromboli

We know Abiogenesis happened because there is life. Your choice is god breathed on a clump of dirt, and lo! or from a natural origin. You can throw Panspermia in the mix but it still comes back to natural versus supernatural.

So we are exactly one plausible explanation away from the origin of life. We do have a pretty good body of evidence supporting evolution, but obviously they are 2 different things. But evolution shows us a process that comes after. So we are still back to one plausible explanation.

As to the selfish gene concept, life from a very basic form, such as viruses, exhibit selfish behavior. So the issue is that one plausible explanation. Scientists don't have a problem with "I don't know" and neither do I. I cannot from my own learning incorporate the supernatural into the mix. So we are left with "I don't know."

Abiogenesis is being studied by science, something the believers in the supernatural aren't doing. They can say I don't know, but we are learning. Works for me, but then I'm neither a believer in the supernatural nor a scientist.

That's a mind bender.
Abiogenesis is the process by which life arises naturally from non-living matter which opens a whole other can of worms. If the notion of thinking as a chemical process must relate to comprehension and interacting with an environment then can a tree think?. A tree senses winter coming sheds it's leaves and goes dormant and it's roots reach out to find water. Is this intelligence?, the same intelligence we claim to have on a slightly different level?.

Another issue is that there is no such thing as chemical/biological interactions persay because fundamentally all matter is made of particles and fields. An aggregate of particles buzzing about only interacting with each other through the Primary Fields (Electric, Magnetic and Gravic). From simple lifeless little chunks of matter moving about and the Primary Fields we get everything we know. Now if what we call intelligence or being can only come from particle/fields because that is all that is present then realistically anything may be self-aware and have some form of intelligence on some level.

It just boggles the mind that we distinguish ourselves, an animal and a piece of wood as being fundamentally different however all of these things are made up of exactly the same thing...particles and fields. How do you make the leap from supposedly non-living to living when everything in the universe is made up of exactly the same thing, no more no less?. Fundamentally we are left with the notion that if we put enough very small moving rocks together (particles) in the correct way (fields) we get what we call an intelligent human being. It would seem obvious that if we knew how to put all these pieces together in the correct way then we could literally create anything...life is a puzzle.

Personally I think ignorance is a form of self-preservation because science fact is truly stranger than fiction.

[Baruch]

Reductionism is a tool, not a panacea.  Thales started this by saying that everything was made up of water.  Present knowledge is just a more sophisticated version of this.  Thales had the first abstract math theorem, followed shortly by Pythagoras doing a related theorem.  But Pythagoras was an experimental scientist also, and his theory of harmony was tied to arithmetic.  From that he generalized that all things aren't water, but all things are numbers.  Pretty much those two have defined all subsequent thought on this subject.

So there are times that reductionism works ... like with uncomplicated things like salt crystals.  But there are times when reductionism doesn't work ... like with highly complicated things like humans.  If you misapply your method, you will conclude that humans are the same as salt crystals.

[u196533]

So we are exactly one plausible explanation away from the origin of life

Actually there are numerous explanations needed.  There is a laundry list of major issues associated with abiogenesis.  You could literally write books on the issues.  A century of research learning more about the complexity of the cell has only added to the list versus solving them.  My point is that if you include the thermodynamic constraint, spontaneous abiogenesis starts to look absurd.  I am not a religious person and I understand we are star dust in the wind.  However, when I see that chemicals had to behave in an animated fashion, in it not unreasonable to consider the supernatural.

As to the selfish gene concept, life from a very basic form, such as viruses, exhibit selfish behavior.
That is my point.  If they are just chemicals interacting, why don't they just succumb to entropy and cease as inorganic things do?  How did chemicals associated with life develop self preservation? The real kicker is that this behavior is only observed in living things.

It just boggles the mind that we distinguish ourselves, an animal and a piece of wood as being fundamentally different however all of these things are made up of exactly the same thing...particles and fields.
If they are just chemicals interacting with fields, why don't they just succumb to entropy and decompose as inorganic things do?  This behavior is only observed in living things. That is my point. 

[sdelsolray]

So we are exactly one plausible explanation away from the origin of life

Actually there are numerous explanations needed.  There is a laundry list of major issues associated with abiogenesis.  You could literally write books on the issues.  A century of research learning more about the complexity of the cell has only added to the list versus solving them.  My point is that if you include the thermodynamic constraint, spontaneous abiogenesis starts to look absurd.  I am not a religious person and I understand we are star dust in the wind.  However, when I see that chemicals had to behave in an animated fashion, in it not unreasonable to consider the supernatural.

As to the selfish gene concept, life from a very basic form, such as viruses, exhibit selfish behavior.
That is my point.  If they are just chemicals interacting, why don't they just succumb to entropy and cease as inorganic things do?  How did chemicals associated with life develop self preservation? The real kicker is that this behavior is only observed in living things.

It just boggles the mind that we distinguish ourselves, an animal and a piece of wood as being fundamentally different however all of these things are made up of exactly the same thing...particles and fields.
If they are just chemicals interacting with fields, why don't they just succumb to entropy and decompose as inorganic things do?  This behavior is only observed in living things. That is my point. 

As others have mentioned, anthropomorphism infects your arguments.  Consider removing it.

[Baruch]

it is always hard for an "anthropos" to remove all "isms" ;-)

"The real kicker is that this behavior is only observed in living things."  Context is important, not just the thing itself.  You or I don't exist without parents and the rest of society.  None of us will exist without some ecology.  Reductionism assumes ... that we can get away with removing the thing from its context ... otherwise we are left with a vast incomprehensible listing of spaghetti code (see programming), without comments of course.

[u196533]

The primary thrust of my argument is to point out that anthropomorphism infects YOUR argument.  Dawkins coined the term Selfish Gene, not me.  An excerpt from my previous post:

The atoms in any living organism are in a higher state of energy and lower state of entropy than they would be as constituent atoms.  This places them in an unstable state far from equilibrium.  From a chemical/thermodynamic perspective, they should just die and decompose versus taking energy from the environment to maintain their low state of entorpy (we all will eventually succumb to entropy.)  While it is true that energy from the sun (or thermal vents) could provide the energy for some initial chemical reactions, it is unreasonable to conclude that they would just continue indefinitely without some force to drive them.   Most reactions involve a compromise between lowering energy and increasing entropy.  Something that increases energy and lowers entropy must have an external driving force.

At some point in the history of life on earth, a self-ordering, autocatalytic chemical system had to develop characteristics to which selfishness could be attributed.  The driving energy and/or the chemicals needed for reaction would have had to exhaust themselves at some point in a process that took millions of years.  At that point those pre-biotic replicator molecules should have simply ceased to exist.  Instead those autocatalytic chemicals must have had to manipulate the environment in order to extract energy in an act of self-preservation. 

While the will to live/self-preservation can be rationalized in a sentient being, it can’t be explained in a simple organism or the replicator molecules you describe.

It is accepted as a tenet of evolution that self preservation is the default mode for all living organisms.  While I accept that, I am asking HOW that came to be.  I can understand it in a sentient being, but not in a molecule.  Natural abiogenesis dictates actual anthropomorphism of a replicator/pre-biotic molecule.  Since I equate that with an inanimate object like the Statue of Liberty actually singing and dancing, I think it is reasonable to consider the supernatural as an explanation.

The other arguments related to reductionism and the fact that we don't REALLY understand basic forces such as gravity, electricity etc. were not relevant so I didn't respond.  (I don't disagree with those statement, but I didn't see how they addressed my argument.)

[Baruch]

Psychology assumes, that everything springs from biology.  Biology assumes, that everything springs from chemistry.  Chemistry assumes that everything springs from physics.  Physics assumes that everything springs from Math.  This chain is almost correct.  To the extent that it isn't correct ... that is where it gets interesting.