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?

[Noose001]

I don't know and neither do you.

I do know, how can i not?

So you keep claiming, along with various statements such as the past doesn't exist. But the supporting evidence is only handwaving and personal opinion so far. What is "everything" in the above statement?

Everything is everything.
Why don't you know such simple things? But you'd go ahead and assert that 'once upon a time', a peptide became a live.
Not acceptable.

Opinion noted. Got any supporting evidence for this unusual idea?

Only if you were keen.

Yet again ... a hypothesis is a proposed explanation for something (a postulate).

Good.
'No one knows' is not an explanation

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #310]

Fact: if Time stops, all things disappear because everything is time.

Fact? "Everything" may exist within time, but the very concept of time does not allow it to "stop." There is time dilation in Relativity which says (to a stationary observer), time could slow down drastically if a nonzero rest mass "thing" approached the speed of light, but on the moving thing time would appear to continue normally (only to the observer would time appear to slow down for the moving thing). But Relativity also says that the moving thing (with nonzero rest mass) cannot actually reach the speed of light so time could never stop altogether for the observer. So saying "if time stops" is a hypothetical scenario.

Google

Google what? Here is what you stated that I asked for more information on:

"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."

I pasted that verbatum into Google and the first hit was:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 00567/full

I don't see any confirmation that your #2 has any validity or is anything more than a personal opinion you hold.

Unsubstanciated claims. Can you prove that your death is the end of you and your birth is the beginning?

I have observed people being born as well as people dying, and their "you" was evidently not known to exist prior to their birth, or to continue after their death. These observations are the basis for my view that I did not exist before I was born, nor will I exist after I die, and that this is the same for everyone else. So it is not unsubstantiated but supported by direct observation and experience. I don't believe in reincarnation, life after death, resurrections, past lives and time travel, etc. as these are either religious ideas or some other interpretations based on humans being special in the grand scheme of the animal kingdom. None of them have been demonstrated to happen in the real world, so for that reason I'm not convinced. Can you prove otherwise?

I know quite a lot it seems.

Maybe, but you're not revealing it in response to questions. Lots of statements of opinion, but no confirming references, links that support your ideas on time, etc. Just telling us to Google something is not useful ... give us the links or some phrases to enter into a web search engine that will return the results you want to use to support your claims.

It was dark and silent; how can anyone deny this?!

Easy ... humans don't know exactly what preceeded this universe, if anything, or have confirmation on exactly how this universe did form or if it is unique, or one of many, a continuous series of some sort, etc. It is currently an open science problem, but there are various hypotheses floating around that don't have full explanations yet (ie. they remain hypotheses).

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #312]

I do know, how can i not?

Then tell us, and support it with something other then personal opinion.

Everything is everything.
Why don't you know such simple things? But you'd go ahead and assert that 'once upon a time', a peptide became a live.
Not acceptable.

Everything is everything? Is time part of that everything so that time = time? If you believe in a god, is that god part of time? It isn't obvious what you are including in "everything." And I've never asserted that a peptide became alive. If that is unacceptable, take it up with whoever made that claim (or explain why they are wrong).

Only if you were keen.

Dodging the question.

Good.
'No one knows' is not an explanation

Of course not ... but who said it was? Enter the word hypothesis into Google (see how easy that was?) and you'll get links that provide definitions of the word. None of them will claim that a hypothesis must contain a full explanation of something, because that is not what a hypothesis is. The condition "no one knows" is what solicits hypotheses in the first place.

[Noose001]

Fact? "Everything" may exist within time, but the very concept of time does not allow it to "stop."

Does it allow it to start?!

I have observed people being born as well as people dying, and their "you" was evidently not known to exist prior to their birth, or to continue after their death.

I was kicking at my mother 2 months before i was born.

Easy ... humans don't know exactly what preceeded this universe, if anything, or have confirmation on exactly how this universe did form or if it is unique, or one of many, a continuous series of some sort, etc. It is currently an open science problem, but there are various hypotheses floating around that don't have full explanations yet (ie. they remain hypotheses).

But i'm telling you, it was dark and silent, if it wasn't, then there was light and sound.
Why don't you believe me.

[Noose001]

Of course not ... but who said it was? Enter the word hypothesis into Google (see how easy that was?) and you'll get links that provide definitions of the word. None of them will claim that a hypothesis must contain a full explanation of something, because that is now what a hypothesis is. The condition "no one knows" is what solicits hypotheses in the first place.

No one asked for a full explanation, but a hypothesis is not a mere claim.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #315]

Does it allow it to start?!

That depends on whether or not time extends infinitely both forwards and backwards. But the comment I was replying to referred only to time stopping. What does that have to do with time starting?

I was kicking at my mother 2 months before i was born.

OK ... then replace "born" with "conceived." In the scheme of eternity the mere average 9 months between conception and birth is irrelevant (as is the length of a human lifetime). Is there any evidence of any kind that you can present that demonstrates the existence of a human being as a living thing prior to conception, or after death? Or, if you want to nitpick then prior to the existence of the specific sperm and egg that get together to create conception.

But i'm telling you, it was dark and silent, if it wasn't, then there was light and sound.
Why don't you believe me.

Its not that I don't believe you, but that science cannot yet accurately describe what preceeded our universe, if anything, or what the characteristics of that would be. We can speculate but that's it ... we don't "know." And there may have been light but no sound assuming "sound" refers to pressure waves travelling through a medium (there is no sound in a vacuum), or no light at all, or something other than light like quantum fields or who knows what. But you cannot definitively say that it was dark and silent (whatever silent means in this context).

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #316]

No one asked for a full explanation, but a hypothesis is not a mere claim.

And no one has argued that a hypothesis is a mere claim. But you have made statements suggesting that a hypothesis must be fully explained or it is simply a belief. A hypothesis is a proposed explanation of something, generally based on plausiblility that the explanation may be correct. Saying life came from spaghetti 4e12 years ago is not plausible given what we know about spaghetti (and flying spaghetti monsters), so a claim that it did would not be a hypothesis that anyone could take seriously and spend time trying to defend or find evidence for.

So I agree that a hypothesis is not a mere claim, but abiogenesis as a mechanism for how life may have originated is plausible and is a valid hypothesis. A claim that is it definitely the correct mechanism would require enough support for the hypothesis to confirm it, and we don't have that yet. But you cannot claim abiogenesis is "impossible" (as you've done many times) without any justification beyond personal disbelief that it could happen. The hypothesis has not yet been falsified.

[brunumb]

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

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

The account of creation is just a story. It's not even an hypothesis. What you need to do is demonstrate that the mind of the creator exists and that it really happened.

[brunumb]

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.

Q. Do you really think before responding?!

You can artificially pump blood and artificially supply oxygen in freshly dead cat but it wont resurrect.
Indeed, every known metabolic process can be artificially supplied but dead organism.wont resurrect.

I will try to ignore your ad hominem which I find insulting. I'm glad you agree that the dead don't resurrect. There are some other good threads on that topic.

We can keep the body alive as you described, but once a certain amount of brain damage occurs the body will no longer be able to function on its own. It's referred to as being brain dead.

[brunumb]

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

Well, it shows 'physical reality' is not real, so what are you trying to say about reality?!
Remember, appearance and disappearance is a property of the mind, i.e, only a mind can tell disappearance and appearance.

You have shown nothing. All you have done is made a fanciful claim. Dismissed.