Thoughts on the Existence of the Universe

[widdershins]

When it comes to in-depth science, while I enjoy discussing it, I get my opinions directly from scientific consensus, should I care enough about a subject to learn what my opinion on that subject should be.  Why?  Because the experts on a given subject have given it more thought and are better trained than I will ever be.  If I look into it myself there is better than a 99% chance one of two things will happen.  I will either learn enough about it (or at least think I do) to come to the same conclusion as the experts and be as close to "right" as we can get with current knowledge or I will come to a different conclusion and almost certainly be "wrong".  There is very little chance that I will be able to simply do enough research to learn enough about a given complicated subject encompassing many fields of science to come up with some brilliant piece of insight that the experts missed.  So, I could waste months of my life to come to the conclusion I could have gotten from them anyway, I could waste months of my life to come to a different conclusion which probably means I don't know enough about the subject or, just possibly, I could have a world-changing brilliant piece of insight that the experts completely missed right as I was being struck by lightning, and bitten by a cobra, then pointlessly take that insight with me to the grave because nobody will listen to just "some dude" when he claims to have knowledge outside of his training, and rightly so.  All 3 of those seem pointless.  So scientific consensus is my opinion, if I care enough about a subject to have one.

[Baruch]

This is why I don't engage in detailed technical discussions.  Most people couldn't follow it or some arse-hole PhD biochemist will step in and whip everyone's ass.  It may be appropriate for a graduate level seminar ... but not here please.  Keep it at Physics 101 or Chemistry 101 level.

[u196533]

I am an engineer, not a chemist.  The ideas presented are covered in Chem 101.  Spend 5 minutes Googling the Gibbs Free Energy equation.  It is not an advanced concept.  I think most of you are already familiar with the concept of entropy.

The bottom line is that sometime before well before things with brains evolved, primitive life must have developed self preservation.  I don't think science alone can explain that.

[Sargon The Grape]

The bottom line is that sometime before well before things with brains evolved, primitive life must have developed self preservation.  I don't think science alone can explain that.

Things without self-preservation generally died out, I would imagine.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but you tend to gloss over obvious answers to some of the problems you pose.

[u196533]

Things without self-preservation generally died out, I would imagine.

That is a given.  It's kind of a basic requirement for evolution, and explains the WHY.
However, nobody can explain HOW self preservation came about in primitive things.  Everyone just accepts that it must have occurred, but ignores that it should not have occurred since it contradicts the basic drives of chemistry to give off energy and increase entropy.

[Baruch]

Or is the problem linear thinking vs circular thinking?  In a circle, there is no one beginning point.

Krebs cycle anyone?  Recursion is much more powerful than sequence.

There are many material and energy cycles in nature ... some of them happen in very confined spaces, are not part of the larger ecology.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Things without self-preservation generally died out, I would imagine.

That is a given.  It's kind of a basic requirement for evolution, and explains the WHY.
However, nobody can explain HOW self preservation came about in primitive things.  Everyone just accepts that it must have occurred, but ignores that it should not have occurred since it contradicts the basic drives of chemistry to give off energy and increase entropy.

You talk about "self-preservation" as if it's a monolithic sense, non-changing and atomic. It's not. It's a set of behaviors that tends to increase chances for survival and thus, procreation. The organism would start out behaving a certain way. Those behaviors that tended to increase survival/reproduction prospects would be conserved. Those that did not would lose out to behaviors that did. We put a label on that and call it "self-preservation".

Entropy does not apply. Entropy measures the dispersal of energy, and all life disperses energy in one way or another.

[u196533]

Those behaviors that tended to increase survival/reproduction prospects would be conserved. Those that did not would lose out to behaviors that did. We put a label on that and call it "self-preservation".

I was specifically referring to replicator molecules and primitive chemical systems in the origin of life process.  At some point, the driving energy and "food" would have been cut off since it is not reasonable to expect that the perfect environment existed for millions of years.  When that occurred, those simple chemical systems would have had to seek out energy /food rather that just ceasing and likely decomposing as any other chemical would do.
The basic drive of chemistry is to lose energy and increase entropy.  How could a molecule or simple chemical system defy that?

You are correct that living things increase entropy (disperse energy) throughout their lives, but I don't think that is relevant.  I am focusing on individual chemical reactions.

(You caught a snippet at the tail end.  It would help if you looked at my previous posts in which I fully described my argument.)

[Baruch]

That is why simple life forms with cilia tend to survive better ... they can get to where the food is, and they have a better sense of humor ;-)

[widdershins]

That is why simple life forms with cilia tend to survive better ... they can get to where the food is, and they have a better sense of humor ;-)

That was just cili

[Mike Cl]

That was just cili

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Those behaviors that tended to increase survival/reproduction prospects would be conserved. Those that did not would lose out to behaviors that did. We put a label on that and call it "self-preservation".

I was specifically referring to replicator molecules and primitive chemical systems in the origin of life process.  At some point, the driving energy and "food" would have been cut off since it is not reasonable to expect that the perfect environment existed for millions of years.  When that occurred, those simple chemical systems would have had to seek out energy /food rather that just ceasing and likely decomposing as any other chemical would do.

You assume that such a simple chemical system would remain simple. It would not. There are always going to be variations that will be able to take advantage of more kinds of resources. The more resources you're able to draw from, the more robust that system is to dwindling of one or even a few kinds of resources, because it will be able to take advantage of more resources than its more specialized brethren.

One of those 'resources' of course may be those specialized brethren themselves. After all, chemicals don't just disappear.

The basic drive of chemistry is to lose energy and increase entropy.  How could a molecule or simple chemical system defy that?

They don't. The problem is that "entropy" is not the same as "disorder." Entropy is a complicated beast, especially in chemistry. You would think that a bunch of monomers would be at a higher entropy than its polymer, but a lot of polymerization reactions are exothermic, so that the entropy lost to the organization of the polymer is more than made up for by the expelling of heat into the environment. Also, the monomers don't constitute as many possibilities as it may appear, because they are all identical in every way. Exchanging two identical molecules doesn't actually add a new possibility, so the entropy of a monomer soup is actually a lot lower than it may appear. Finally, the polymers are of varying lengths, which increases the entropy because their identicalness has been reduced.

You are correct that living things increase entropy (disperse energy) throughout their lives, but I don't think that is relevant.  I am focusing on individual chemical reactions.

You're an engineer, and not a chemist. Don't think your engineer's knowledge of entropy applies the way you think it would. Chemistry is subtle and often traps the unwary.

(You caught a snippet at the tail end.  It would help if you looked at my previous posts in which I fully described my argument.)

It's still the same dime-a-dozen argument just about every engineer that would comment about biochemistry floats here.

[u196533]

Again we are talking about a replicating molecule.  So you are telling me that it would have to encounter a highly reactive, energetic polymer, break it down and the end result would be 2 replicating molecules.   You spoke about exothermic polymerization reactions, but I happen to know that the resulting polymers tend to be inert.
 
You assume that such a simple chemical system would remain simple. It would not.
It must have had the following properties:
•   Stable yet can selectively react with these highly reactive polymers.
•   Self replicates
•   Act as a catalyst to break down the polymers, but not change itself
•   When it mutates, the mutants inherit these amazing qualities.
The last several decades of research have only produced small molecules that replicate.  I don’t think a naturally occurring one has been found.  They peter out after a few iterations and any changes in configuration prevent them from replicating. The idea that these molecules could continue to replicate and evolve over long periods of time clashes with the real world data.

This still does not explain how primitive single cells that metabolize food acquired self- preservation. You spoke about behavioral patterns, but we are talking about primitive chemical systems.  When they run out of food/energy, they cease.  When they decompose they lower their energy and increase their entropy, so why seek out food?

If my argument is dime-a-dozen, then why hasn’t anyone been able to answer it.  I have been asking these questions for literally decades, and never heard an answer.  I have done research periodically just out of curiosity, and it is sidestepped and not addressed in the literature.
Your comments questioning my knowledge seem like a “Pay no attention to the guy behind the curtain” deflection.

[Baruch]

The question is side-stepped because ... vitalism and anthropomorphism.

[widdershins]

Those behaviors that tended to increase survival/reproduction prospects would be conserved. Those that did not would lose out to behaviors that did. We put a label on that and call it "self-preservation".

I was specifically referring to replicator molecules and primitive chemical systems in the origin of life process.  At some point, the driving energy and "food" would have been cut off since it is not reasonable to expect that the perfect environment existed for millions of years.  When that occurred, those simple chemical systems would have had to seek out energy /food rather that just ceasing and likely decomposing as any other chemical would do.
The basic drive of chemistry is to lose energy and increase entropy.  How could a molecule or simple chemical system defy that?

You are correct that living things increase entropy (disperse energy) throughout their lives, but I don't think that is relevant.  I am focusing on individual chemical reactions.

(You caught a snippet at the tail end.  It would help if you looked at my previous posts in which I fully described my argument.)

That is a very simplistic view of what "would have" happened, not to mention pure speculation.  We know that life forms exist today where we didn't believe they could just a few decades ago.  Called "extermophiles", these life forms defy even modern understanding of biology.  The theory of evolution says that the changes necessary to survive in these extreme conditions didn't simply "poof" into existence, but evolved over long periods of time as the environment slowly changed.  For the food to simply be "cut off" would be an extreme and rapid change in environment, which has happened, but isn't the norm.  More likely whatever "food" these replicating molecules would have consumed became less and less plentiful over time while remaining plentiful in some places, giving the molecules time to adapt and evolve to use different forms of energy.

Most importantly, though, that something "cannot be explained by science alone" is a bit of a disingenuous argument.  Yes, everything in nature CAN be explained by science alone.  In fact, anything which can be explained by science BY NECESSITY can be explained by "science alone".  It's in the very definition of what "science" is!  We just may not be able to explain it with science today.  That doesn't mean you need to invoke some other method of explanation outside of science.  We don't have to have all the answers right now for science to be THE sole reliable way to explain the universe around us.  Because that is exactly what science is.  THE SOLE reliable way to explain the universe around us.  If it's not science it's a complete guess.  So your statement that "science alone" cannot explain something, well, that's just plain wrong.  Utterly not true.  Not a shred of evidence to support that statement.  EVERYTHING in nature which has been accurately explained and described has been explained and described best by science "alone".  It may not have a 100% success rate, but it very much has a 0% failure rate.  There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there is ANYTHING in nature which can't eventually be explained by science "alone" and there is NO other method of explaining things which can attribute anything other than dumb luck to whatever limited success it may be able to boast.