Abiogenesis

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Exactly. Science is interested in how and it shows how things happen. "Why" is beyond the scope of science. However, a mistake a lot of people make is to assume the question "why" is always valid to ask. "Why" is a question about human motive.

You can ask a person "Why did you do such and such a thing". However, you can't ask why a lose rock tumbles away from a cliff. There is no why in that event, only a how. Similarly many people try to use why regarding other events where it is not relevant. Physical processes have no why only how.

The formation of the world and evolution of life on the planet is all in the realm of physical processes and "how". Why does not apply. Just because you can string words together into a sentence doesn't make the sentence a valid construction e.g. "Why did life evolve on Earth". It is like saying "Why did it rain today" or "why did my cup break when it fell on the floor". However, "how" is valid in those examples in place of "why". Regarding the cup I could legitimately ask "Why did you throw that cup on the floor?" because it has human motive behind the action.

The inappropriate use of "why" is a form of anthropomorphism of physical phenomena.

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anthropomorphism: an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics (Merriam-Webster Online)
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I had to go look that one up!

I now understand "Why?" is out-of-place in the laboratory, and that makes sense. So then, and somewhat rhetorically: Why do "scientists" waste time arguing against other people's answers to such questions?

The main problem I have with the idea of abiogenesis (and some parts of the modern interpretation of evolution) is that I have never seen any process that is driven by microscopic changes generate anything which even remotely looks like something a human(like) intelligence would design.

An example: When we take a historic view of computers we will also see an evolution; this is however an intelligence driven evolution. Change over time is the definition of the term "evolution"; Change over time does however not demonstrate anything about the process that caused this evolution. Intelligent design can be a cause of evolution: Neither one will exclude the other.

Our technology has a hierarchical modular design. This has a very simple reason: We can't keep track of too many parts before we become confused. So, we abstract functionality into (mostly) independent reusable modules [however, all abstractions leak]. After that we move up to a higher level of abstraction and using the modules from lower levels to build more complicated things. At each level of abstraction we have only this many relationships and dependencies between modules as our mind is able to handle comfortably.

I know of no natural/unintelligent process, which could generate a hierarchical modular organization. More importantly: Without an intelligence, there is no logical reason for their to be a hierarchical modular organization. If an unintelligent process can generate anything it would generate designs which are totally alien (or even magically) to us because it would not have the same limitations as we have, it will not have a need for (nor the ability to) abstract functionality into independent modules.

Life seems to have a very clear hierarchical modular design or organization. We have clear modular organization within each cel, many cells form tissues, tissue combine to form organs, etc. At each level in this hierarchy the relevant parts are few and mostly independent; Transplantation shows that organs are mostly even interchangeable parts. Some limited variation exists within a population with regard to the functionality of some modules; selective reproduction seems able to explain most observed examples of evolution of a population.

If life was the result of only natural processes one would expect its design to be completely alien, just like the solutions created by using evolutionary algorithms often are alien: The global functionality would be spread out without any abstraction or modular organization (unless this kind of abstraction was initially introduced by an intelligence).

I'm not a creationist, I am convinced that this planet is billions of years old and life was not created in 6 days of 24 hours. I accept evolution in the sense that e.g. lions and tigers share a common ancestor. I accept evolution as a fact: Clearly life has and continues to changed over time. However, what I'm not sure about is the how?.

Last edited by Meta on 22 Nov 2009, 8:36 am, edited 3 times in total.

I can't speak for others with a scientific background, but my personal quest is to comprehend the nature of life, the universe and existence. Questions which have tortured my mind since childhood. To this end I have both studied science to great depth at university but I have also studied various religions and even was a Buddhist monk for a period of my life. So there is no lack of effort in trying to make sense of everything from lots of different angles!

I have a passion for the truth and for facts. Where I see errors of understanding I point them out. I'm not claiming to be perfect in this respect and people point out errors in my understanding too - and I am grateful for their input. With me it isn't a question of keeping up appearances or defending indefensible positions out of ego - I want the facts, truth and knowledge and I don't care if my most sacred beliefs are trashed in the process. One thing I despise are bland assertions with nothing to back them up.

If I was in that fabled garden of Eden, forget the serpent, I'd have shinned up that tree of knowledge at the first opportunity, wrath of God or not!

I likely would have at least *tried* to stay away from that proverbial tree, but you and I are of the same ilk, my fellow: "Input, more input (Johnny Five), and just the facts, please!"

I thought this was a rather "good" explanation:

Then was also the first time ever that a lie (untruth, falsehood) was told. [true facts vs. good facts]

Interestingly this first lie was also the first recored denial of death as the end of life. It seems to have been the seed for the idea of ascension to a higher plane of existence (aka going to heaven after death). If this is however a lie...

The ancient hebrews did not have a concept an independent immortal soul or afterlife: Life was very much physically and finite. There was some believe in the idea of a physical resurrection: If God could make a man out of dust then surely if he would remember how we have been he would be able to recreate us? This would then effectively be a copy or clone with all the right memories. The original version would however still die and remain very much dead (=non-existence).

If I understand your post correctly you are wondering how it is that living organisms have a modular nature rather than being more diffused. You give an example of organs which are more or less stand-alone functional units.

My guess, and it is only a guess, is that this arrangement is also the most efficient in nature. DNA holds the instructions for producing things at the lowest level of structure but also instructions at a higher level of organisation too. Thus for example by making a minor change to DNA you can end up with an extra limb or eye. This also means that modules can be reused for other purposes. The DNA holding the instructions to make an arm is not dissimilar to that that to make a leg or a wing, so a duplicate segment of DNA with relatively minor changes makes an entirely new organ or structure.

When cells divide and the DNA creates a copy of itself, not only are there sometimes minor mistakes in the DNA but sometimes whole segments get repeated, or missed out.

I write software for a living. There is a good comparison here. The software is modular in design for the reasons that you mention that the human brain can only handle so many blocks at once and manipulate them. However, it is also the most efficient way of writing and adapting code. Some people write what is called spaghetti code. It tends to be unstable and it does not evolve easily - a minor change in one part can destabilise the lot. However a modular design means that a new piece of software intended for quite a different use can often be made with only minor changes here and there to an existing program. The same principles apply to DNA. A minor change in DNA instructions can have major changes to the resulting animal. There is also more chance that the resulting creature will be viable. You tend to see this in the fossil record too where transitions forming new species occur in steps rather than as a continuous smooth change.

The problem I see is hidden in your argument: unintelligent programmers can only generate spaghetti code.

In your example it's very likely that when a small change can cause an extra limb then this limb would have dependancies toward all the other limbs; Not much independent development is possible. Also, experiments with small insects did show that extra limbs that are generated like this don't have all of their parts: muscle, neurons, etc are missing. The limb is non-functional. To have functional change one needs to have more then small random changes; it requires specific intelligent changes.

To generate modular code one needs to be able to think intelligently about the problem in context of a plan with some degree of foresight, come up with one or more working solutions, implement them and test them under realistic situations, then move forward with the best solution.

Programming seems to require that one is able to abstract functionality and from time to time to re-factor the code again with foresight and planing?

What abiogenesis/evolution seems to require is that a rather simple and very likely, extremely scalable and flexible natural process, without any plan or foresight, would be able to automate programming...

Two scenarios:

(1) If programming requires intelligence then abiogenesis/evolution will require intelligence.
(2) If abiogenesis/evolution does not require intelligence then neither will programming.

Which is it?

(3). None intelligent changes lead to unpredictable results, most of which are harmful but one in a million being beneficial:

For software the introduction of a random change is likely to lead to a bug or failure of the resulting software. In this scenario there is only one resulting piece of software and it is under a lot of scrutiny, so it is clearly seen. However, experiments with millions of AI bots in artificial environments and neural nets show that random code changes can lead to small advances in the "survival" of particular bots that come to dominate the "gene pool" over multiple generations. These changes accumulate over many generations. So here we see the principles of evolution at work. Some of the resulting bots are now so radically different that the original programmers can now make little sense of the code. Rather like the sci-fi film mentioned by leejosepho and Johnny Five where the programmer looks at him and cannot make sense of his wiring any more.

For evolution. The introduction of random changes usually leads to a none-viable organism that either doesn't develop in the womb or is still-born. Very few reach term and most are born with the changes being harmful, with plants and animals this goes largely unnoticed. The vast majority of the none-viable organisms never develop beyond a handful of cells or small foetus and nobody sees them.

However, once in a while one of the none-intelligent random changes offers a benefit to the organism that helps it to survive better in its particular niche and to have offspring, passing on the modified bit of DNA to the next generation.

The failure rate is extremely high. The vast majority of these changes to DNA are harmful. This is only offset by large populations of the animal and vast periods of time that allow these one in a million (or less) changes to perpetuate themselves and come to dominate.

Thats just a special case of my scenario 2. Adding more time only makes it less testable and maybe untestable (unscientific). To say "a long long time ago..." does not change anything: It still assumes that programming requires no intelligence.

It also does not explain why life has a hierarchical modular organisation and how it got that way/stayed that way.

Experience with genetic algorithms has shown me that it's not trivial. It's more like automatic configuration than programming. It's most definitely not creative. It very quickly will exhaust all possible configurations, after which is will just move inside a small range following selection conditions without ever moving beyond a finite set of configurations.

A true genetic algorithm has infinite configurations, it isn't based on a hard coded algorithm testing out a number of pre-defined tick boxes which are tried in each combination. i.e. it is functionality and data driven rather than by data alone. Rather like human written software, there are infinite potential configurations.

I get the impression you are trying to say that DNA was intelligently designed and continues to evolve under the guidance of some external intelligent designer? Is that what you are trying to say? Intelligent design?

That would be the ideal situation from theory. In practice it will always hit a complexity barrier which it will not, can not, cross. And this is independent from cpu-cycles and ram-usage (aka time and population size)




What I am saying is this:

(1) It has become clear enough that the standard mutation-selection process everyone is referring to does not work as expected.

(2) We have no explanation how life got its rather technological looking hierarchical modular organisation.

(3) Only our own technology has a similar hierarchical modular organisation structure and we know why.

We know why life has this organisational structure only in so much as that it's how we would have made it; It would have been a natural design choice, wouldn't it? But a why is not a how.

It does however presents us with the quite obvious question: Was life as we know it designed/made by an intelligence? Regrettably we can not answer this question at the moment because we don't know. At best we can say: Perhaps.

Considering intelligent design would open up a whole range of additional ways in which we can explain how life began. So, some people are currently looking into designing and building their own life form. Just to figure out what it would require at a minimum. There is nothing unscientific about considering intelligent design, it's just another hypotheses to be tested. What would we expect to see if life was designed by an (human-like) intelligence? What evidence do we have for or against this hypotheses?

I just meant one that doesn't directly interfere in the universe. Indirectly, in the sense that there may be interference but that it would still be explainable as natural phenomena, may be another story. If there was such indirect interference there would be no evidence that there was interference at all because there would be nothing supernatural. It would be as though God set the universe in motion and left it to run its course. Evolution and the ideas in cosmology has like the Big Bang and inflation is already well supported by evidence. This is not really a contradiction with Judeo-Christian beliefs as much as you may think it is. The catholic church has already accepted them. It would require a reinterpretation of genesis, one other than the literal interpretation used by the creationists.

Last edited by Jono on 22 Nov 2009, 4:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Depends on what you mean by that. Are you asking how it is possible to get from the big bang, assumed to be a state of maximal entropy, to a state that clearly does not have maximal entropy without violation of the second law of thermodynamics? Stenger writes the solution lies in the expansion of the universe. I don't remember the argument well enough to give you a summary, but you can get Stenger's book quite cheaply and look it up yourself.

Do you mean where do the laws of nature come from? One suggestion comes from the so far rather inconvenient finding that there are many solutions to the equations of string theory, each describing a slightly different universe. If all those universes exist, then it is inevitable that we find ourselves in one where life can exist, and the anthropic argument turns out to be an illusion.


The best attempt I have seen at explaining what intelligence is relates it to the complexity of relationships you can represent, and assumes that the representing system is coupled to a content-addressable memory. Broadly speaking, intelligence is a property of some types of computation. Computations are carried out by physical devices that implement suitable patterns of interactions among their physical components.


I don't know what distinction you are trying to make here. I have designed a few contraptions, and I am confident that at least one of them never existed before I thought of it. I have had a few other ideas of which I have found no trace in the relevant published literature. Please explain to me in what sense I only manipulated ideas instead of creating new ones.


I think you are trying to push the first cause argument even further than usual. Here is a thought experiment. I see someone blowing a smoke ring. A smoke ring is a pattern of movement of smoke particles and air molecules. Are you saying the smoke ring I see has always existed? Or is it possible that the person blowing the ring has created it? I am not asking about the idea of a smoke ring, I ask about the smoke ring I see now.

If you concede that the smoke ring did not exist before the smoker blew it, you concede that it is possible to create a pattern that did not exist before. If intelligence comes from computation, and computation comes from patterns of interactions, you concede at least the possibility that one pattern that comes into existence de novo is a pattern of computational interactions that results in intelligence. You could try to argue that any pattern that exists now necessarily has always existed. Or you could argue that intelligence does not result from computation (I would be curious what alternative you might propose).

Incidentally, it is not true that nothing comes from nothing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particles. Stenger has a few things to say about how that idea may be extended to form one possible explanation for the origin of the universe without a creator. It's in the same book I linked to before. There are other suggestions as well, but I don't understand them well enough to give you anything like a good explanation. You will have to pick up some books about cosmology if you really are interested in finding out whether your first cause argument is as good as you seem to think.

Well, that would definitely be a shock to me ... and maybe you would be shocked to discover whoever first thought of that was actually correct?! Dunno. But, let us back up for just a moment ...



Unless the universe has an intelligence or mind of its own, it could not "bother" to do anything at all, could it?



Please try to leave all mention of me out of your presentations of theories or whatever. I always hang up on salesmen and solicitors or anyone else who in any way uses me to say whatever they wish to say. I do understand that might not be your intent, but please know that kind of thing shuts me down very quickly and I hate it when that happens to me.

I have absolutely no idea!



If "order" and "laws of nature" are synonymous, then yes ... but I do not know whether they are.




My question is about its origin, not how it works.



I work as a mechanical fabricator, and I can build just about anything ... but not from nothing. I can manipulate materials and produce things, and I mostly do one-offs first conceived within my mind, yet I can produce from within an empty room nothing other than a little noise.



Understood, but neither you nor I could ever create the elements needed to produce them.



No, but the potential for it certainly did.



Like I asked someone else, please do not do that to me. I do not come here to discuss or to prove or disprove me or you or anyone else. Let the NTs do that kind of s**t.