Abiogenesis

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Why has a number of meanings. One meaning is "from what cause" and another meaning is "for what end or purpose"

ruveyn

I wasn't saying that the universe made a conscious decision. Perhaps a better better phrasing is "why should the universe exist?"



That wasn't my intention, sorry. I was just trying to say that the two things are not mutually exclusive. I wasn't trying to use you to make a point. I won't do that in future discussions.

Last edited by Jono on 23 Nov 2009, 3:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yes, and some things don't have to have a purpose.

And, sometimes I can be too touchy.

It is common for people to presume things about other people's beliefs or "positions" or whatever, but that is never safe with me! In this particular case, I do not even know the term "cosmology" and I most certainly do not embrace any particular dogma some folks might believe is in contradiction with it.

Fair enough. If you're interested, cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole, on very large scales. In other words, how it evolves in time, the beginning of the universe and it's ultimate fate. It's a branch of astrophysics (the physics of the stars and heavens so to speak), and the observational side is a branch of astronomy. Theories in cosmology include the big bang theory, inflation etc. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_cosmology.

P.S. I think this off topic from what the thread was originally about.

All is well, and I thank you!

I can't try to offer a better answer without a better understanding of your question.


You can't say anything sensible about the origin of intelligence without knowing what it is, and for that you have to know something about how it works. See next point.


I claimed that intelligence is a form of computation, and that computation depends on the pattern of interaction among physical elements. The computation is not in the elements, it is in the pattern of interactions. To explain the origin of intelligence, I must explain the origin of the pattern. The origin of the physical components that implement the computation is a separate matter.


Of course. If the potential did not exist, it would be impossible to blow a smoke ring, but that is irrelevant to my point. Please have another look at the second last paragraph in my previous post in this thread. A smoke ring is a pattern. It is not the material in the ring. The smoke existed before the ring, and it is still there when the ring has been broken up by turbulence. The pattern is what matters. And no two smoke rings are exactly alike, so the pattern is never quite the same. Some people can blow one smoke ring through another. The first time someone did that, it was another new pattern. Computation is a pattern. If we want to know whether "nothing comes from nothing" means intelligence can't arise without being made by another, greater intelligence, we have to think about whether it is possible that new patterns arise. The origin of the components that make up the pattern is not relevant.


OK, I'll rephrase my point. Competent evaluation of the first cause argument depends on some knowledge of cosmology. The first cause argument depends on the universe (or possibly multiverse) having a definite origin, and on every event having a cause. Cosmology is the study of the development of the universe, including its possible origin. I say possible, because there are some cosmological theories that propose events before the big bang and involve cycles of universes, with no beginning in sight.

Knowledge of quantum physics is also needed because the dominant interpretation assumes that at the quantum level many events are truly random, without underlying deterministic structure. For example, this interpretation says that you can predict the probability that an atom decays within a certain time, but that there is no deterministic cause. You can see how that is a problem for the first cause argument.

Within the limits of my knowledge, it is not certain that either assumption of the first cause argument is true, never mind both of them. I don't have the talent to learn all I would need to judge the first cause argument. I derive my tentative conclusion from the observation that the people who do know enough mostly do not feel compelled to accept the first cause argument.

I thank you for your time and effort here, Gromit, and I hope you can understand all of this is far beyond my knowledge or anything my mind can really grasp.

If somebody can conceive the idea of nothing producing something, his or her mind goes well beyond mine! But, and of course, that is fine. For now, however, I will just stick with the idea/theory of "intelligent designer" or at least "intelligent design" somehow being the essence of whatever "nothing" or "everything" that ultimately produced you and me, and yes, I do understand much of that is outside the realm of science, where I live.

A simple example: 0 = 1 - 1
The totality is nothing but the 1 and -1 are "something"
I wouldn't be surprised if the entire universe (multiverse) somehow totalled to zero or nothing.

Regarding intelligent design I see nothing intelligent about it. Evolution works fine without inventing such concepts and at no point does intelligent design actually add anything to the knowledge base or provide anything testable to support its claims. It isn't even science, just theology in another wrapping. Wishful thinking by creationists desperate to cling on to some vestige of the belief that a God creating life.

Ah, now I will be pondering that one all day!



Sure, but something or someone had to get it started.

OK. I admit it. It was me.

At the instant of the B.B. the cosmos was in a state of minimal entropy, which is to say minimal disorder. All the energy was free energy capable of doing work.

ruveyn

... and was Lau also responsible for that?

My truck will run along and do all sorts of things all by itself if I do nothing more than start the engine, engage the drive train and place a brick on the accelerator!

Analogies are nice enough, provided you don't base your entire argument upon them.

Seriously though, you attach so much significance to the idea that there is always a "before", when that is not a necessary concept - just idle speculation.

Creators, designers, and so on ... they are just methods of avoiding genuine understanding.

Personally, the only interesting question I ponder over is "What is this thing we all seem to roughly agree on, and call 'conciousness'?"

I'm pretty sure it is just an emergent property of a complex system (a brain, in my case), but there's that "me-ness" about it, which needs more explanation.

Maybe there is some misunderstanding here. 1-1=0, but 0 cannot produce 1-1 ... and that is not speculation. The speculation is that everything somehow came from nothing and/or that chaos produced order. I have no personal objection if all of that ultimately proves to be fact, but at least for now it would be nice if the theory could at least make sense in these minds of ours that are alleged to have come from it ... kind of like being backwards compatible.



Nonsense. Denial of even the possibility of same is avoiding even the desire for genuine understanding!

You say that based on "common sense" however, the universe doesn't respect common sense. On the scale of the very small, very large or very fast common sense goes out of the window and you have to use physics and mathematics and observe what actually happens.

Zero does become 1 and -1 all the time in nature. The nature of "reality" isn't as black and white as you may think based on common sense. Virtual particles spontaneously appear all the time - particles of matter and antimatter and they usually annihilate each other within a very tiny fraction of time. The nature of reality itself becomes "fuzzy" at tiny scales and can only be described using Quantum Physics - you end up with a sort of quantum foam. Sometimes these virtual particles don't cancel each other out. For example if they spontaneously appear at the edge of an event horizon of a black hole one may fall in and leave the other outside. This is called Hawking radiation and is a mechanism how black holes can evaporate over time.

I think part of the exhilaration of physics is that it delves into these strange regions that are well beyond the realm of common sense. Time itself is not as straight forward as common sense implies. You get all the strange phenomenon of time frames being different depending on how fast objects are moving relative to one another. At the subatomic scale time can even behave strangely. I vaguely remember a particular nuclear particle disintegration mechanism that operates backwards in time and you get an effect preceding the cause. The nature of time itself becomes "fuzzy".

The only way to describe "reality" whatever that is, is by using mathematics. The maths shows that some very very strange things happen at these tiny scales of nature, and experiment confirms the bizarre predictions.

Regarding the singularity and big bang common sense is completely useless. Everyday logic goes completely out of the window. Here you are totally in the realm of mathematics, physics and trying to make deductions based on observable phenomenon. Take for example the discovery of the universe's background radiation pointing to the temperature of the early universe and distribution of matter as the universe expanded from the singularity. Fascinating stuff. Like looking at the distribution of shrapnel to make deductions about an explosion.