Abiogenesis and Probabilities

[DrNoGods]

I'm creating a new thread here to continue debate on a post made by EarthScience guy on another thread (Science and Religion > Artificial life: can it be created?, post 17). This post challenged probability calculations in an old Talkorigins article that I had linked in that thread:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

Are the arguments (on creationist views) and probabilities presented reasonable in the Talkorigins article? If not, why not?

[brunumb]

Of course they are. There are even machines that can be used to multiply trace amounts of DNA for use in forensic analysis. Organic molecules are based on the chemistry of carbon, with hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen being the other major component elements. If we struggle to make them without the assistance or organisms it's mainly because biological catalysts make things far easier than trying to find and use other types. It is not that there is a magical ingredient called life involved.

Oh yes, there's a special ingredient called life.

Q. What is the difference between a freshly dead cat and a living cat?

The heart is no longer pumping oxygen to the cells and they are no longer able to continue metabolic processes. There is no magical ingredient called life that has somehow been withdrawn. Life is essentially just a classification based on certain criteria.

[brunumb]

Everything the virus does is meant to preserve its life.

Not exactly. The virus is governed by the chemistry that ensures that it replicates, not that the virus itself stays alive.

When talking about nature, avoid terms such as 'ensure' which shows knowledge of the outcome, not unless it is a living creature which has purpose.

Semantics will not help you here. There is no knowledge of the outcome implied by 'ensure'. If every living creature has purpose, what is it?

[brunumb]

If Time stops, everything disappears, that shows you that eveeything is Time but Time is not physical.

OK. When time stops and everything disappears you will have made your case. Otherwise, all you have presented is fanciful speculation.

[brunumb]

Not according to God. He says (for example) that He used the earth to bring forth life.

Everything within the 5 days of creation was retrospective of what man would experience.

But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.
Isaiah 51:15‭-‬16 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/isa.51.15-16.KJV


Man's experience is the creation of the world.

If you can demonstrate that any of it is more than just a story you will have made your case.

[brunumb]

A hybernating bear doesn't fully funnction as is required yet it's alive. A virus outside a cell is much alive.

The life functions in a hibernating bear are simply slowed down to conserve the energy needed to maintain that life in the absence of new food sources. A virus outside of a cell is nothing more than a packet of DNA in a protein shell. It does nothing and that is why there is conflict over classifying it as being alive,

[brunumb]

One problem with abiogenesis is chirality. You can screem, you can go quiet but it wont change the fact that chirality is an issue for abiogenesis.
Q. How did nature sort out L- configuration which is required for life?

But is it actually required for life? It may simply be that the conditions under which these molecules formed favoured the L-configuration. Again, not knowing the answer now doesn't mean that there is no natural answer. Nor is it a compelling reason to insert a celestial chemist with a predilection for chirality into the process.

[Noose001]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #219]

I don't have to, only those who claim life arose feom non life need to prove their claims, failure to which i can claim anything against.

Abiogenesis is still a hypothesis, same as it was way back in this thread when you claimed it was impossible. It has not been proven that life originated via such a mechanism, and I've not seen any claims here that it has. But your entire objection seems to be based on the idea that because abiogenesis has not yet been proven and the details uncovered, it is therefore impossible. That's not how it works.

Any open hypothesis can be supported by evidence, observation, etc., or falsified in some way to show that it is invalid. If it is falsified then it is discarded, and if it is sufficiently supported then it may become a theory and accepted as correct (ie. as close to a fact as science gets). In between, it remains an open problem and you cannot simply declare it to be "impossible" just because it has yet to be solved. Should we declare cancer to be "impossible" to solve and give up (or pray) instead of doing more research to better understand it and possibly cure it?

No one is claiming that abiogenesis has been proven to be correct, yet you are claiming that it is impossible. It is you who needs to support that claim, but so far you haven't.

A hypothesis is never a wild guess, it must come with proper explanation and reason.

Abiogenesis is in fact a brilliant idea. I understand that majority 'believe' there was no life initially and now there's life, so it's only concievable that abiogenesis took place. But in the absence of a proper explanation, it remains a belief.

If i claim that life came from fire but i don't know how, is that really an hypothesis or is it a belief?

An explanation doesn't prove or disprove, but it adds meat to the bone. There's no way to escape the explanation of 'how' and 'when', and claim it's just an hypothesis. Even if you have to claim that each step might have happened by chance, it is an explanation.

[Noose001]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #253]

Does the brain create the mind or the mind create the brain?

By all observations, the brain creates the mind (ie. consciousness is an emergent property of a brain). Some of these observations are that things without brains do not have minds (consciousness); things with brains that have their brains damaged can have impaired consciousness, and this can vary in degree depending on the severity and location of the damage; things with brains that die appear to simultaneously lose their consciousness; consciousness is not limited to humans.

Human brains form from the neural tube and we know a great about how that development process works. Prior to a certain point in brain development the eventual conscious human has no self awareness, then it does, and this transition point appears to be directly related to progress in brain development. Just a coincidence?

These are just a few, simple observations that suggest that "brain creates mind" and not the other way around. What have you got to support the idea that mind creates brain? Where (and what) is the "mind" that is driving the development from neural tube to fully-formed brain?

1. Nope

2. If Time stops, the brain (all material and energy) disappear. But disappearance and appearance is a property of the mind; i.e only the mind can tell appearance and/or disappearance.
This alone proves that the brain(and all material and energy) is a property of the mind.

So?

3. It so appears that the brain is nothing more than a filter through which the mind experiences but doesn't diminish the fact that it is a creation of the mind.

4. Consciousness= Life=awareness.
There are levels to consciousness, the highest being that of humans which is awareness to self + morality (good vs bad) + highest form of intelligence on top of general awareness. All living things are are aware of something at least the fact that they need to preserve life, this makes all living things conscious.
It can even be argued that non living things are conscious.

5. Again, Time being a property of life( consciousness),
I can tell exactly what happens when you die.

Imagine you are in restaurant and die suddenly;
a. You'll try to call the waiter but no sound will come out coz the mouth will disappear
b. The chair, the cup and the coffee will disappear, you'll try to stretch your hands but there'll be no hands to reach for the cup
c. No hearing, no seeing, just pitch black( darkness) and silence.No senses, no passage of time too.

These were the conditions before the universe begun only that you joined this world without knowledge and experience of this world, you will not leave the same, hence a,b and c.

So, life/ consciousness creates everything through Time.
Death is indeed stoppage of time.

[Noose001]

You can believe that if you like but now demonstrate that it is true. All biochemical reactions are just a classification of chemical reactions. They do obey all the laws governing matter and there is no evidence that any magical intervention is involved, including this mysterious shielding, whatever that might be.

There's a reason why living cells have a special environment to operate. Biochemical processes are shielded from the physico-chemical environment because they are special and don't obey physico-chemical rules; Fact.

On this, you can screem, claim, assert but it is common knowledge, life operates in special environment away from physico-chemical laws.

[Noose001]

But past is not real and creation is very much just a story,

Creation involves a mind, so it's not just a story.