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How Life Can Come From Randomness

Started by stromboli, July 03, 2016, 01:17:08 PM

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Baruch

Mere philosophy ;-)  Like the monkeys banking on the typewriters in the British Museum, accidentally creating the Encyclopedia Britannica ;-))  Which is also proof that humans, not even atheists, are sentient.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Atoms and molecules attract each other and produce an almost infinite variety of chemical substances.  It's part of the chaos that exists in the universe.  When things combine because they have a natural affinity to do so, they simply do so.  And they do this whether the universe is chaotic or not.  There is so much of this natural affinity creating so many chemical substances among the existing chaos, that it seems random, but it's not really random, because of the natural affinity that exists.  It happens because it's going to happen.

When simple things combine into new more complex things that go on to combine and make even more complex things, the results can be unpredictable, and that makes it seem like a pattern exists in the chaos.  Of course, none of this is directed, predicted, or predetermined.  If that's the definition of "random" then I'm OK with that. 

I suppose, I'm missing the point of the short video, but it seems like that speaker was suggesting that scientists might be looking for a pattern to randomness, which would be absurd.  Randomness literally means "without a pattern."  This is not to say that life is inevitable any more or less than carbon dioxide is inevitable.  It's just one of the trillions of outcomes of the affinities of complex combinations of elements.

We act as if we are surprised because life exists, but that surprise is just an emotion that arises from our confusion.  Things happen whether we are surprised, disturbed, elated, or surprised again.  No reason to be surprised, really.

Gawdzilla Sama

Our oceans were a wild chemical soup back in the early hundred-millions of Earth's history. It would have been surprising if life didn't appear.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

SGOS

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on August 11, 2016, 08:30:04 AM
Our oceans were a wild chemical soup back in the early hundred-millions of Earth's history. It would have been surprising if life didn't appear.

No, that wouldn't have surprised me either.

Baruch

On the other hand, some responses are mere regurgitation of Democritus' ancient atomic theory.  When in fact, atoms can be subdivided, contrary to the etymology of the word.  The most recent version is attempts at space/time being in little Plank chunks ... because the paradox of motion of Zeno of Elea (back in ancient Greek days also) has to be refuted.

Space and time interact, and mass and energy interact ... all ideas that existed way back when.  The continuation of the idea of Thales, the earliest physicist ... that everything is made up of something, and what is that something?  Thales said water.  I think it was ouzo ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS


Draconic Aiur


Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Draconic Aiur on August 12, 2016, 08:41:59 PM
chemicals
"I went to the Chemical/Corn Exchange Bank and traded a bushel of corn for a beaker of chemicals." (Firesign Theater for you unhip people.)
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

SGOS

Yeah, I always wondered what Chemical Bank did as a business.

DeltaEpsilon

The complexity of the universe just baffles me at times. All the chemical and physical changes eventually led to one of the most complicated machines ever, the brain. It is quite beautiful if you think about.
The fireworks in my head don't ever seem to stop

Baruch

Quote from: DeltaEpsilon on August 27, 2016, 08:47:19 PM
The complexity of the universe just baffles me at times. All the chemical and physical changes eventually led to one of the most complicated machines ever, the brain. It is quite beautiful if you think about.

It is only mysterious, if you believe in epiphenomenalism, and other pseudo science.  Pseudo science can be useful, just not truthful.  Pythagoreanism is a pseudo science, yet use of math in science and technology is very powerful, in spite of Pythagoras being an early Jim Jones.

Complexity isn't for people.  We are apes ... and keep your hands off my banana ;-0
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

trdsf

Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on August 13, 2016, 09:09:36 AM
"I went to the Chemical/Corn Exchange Bank and traded a bushel of corn for a beaker of chemicals." (Firesign Theater for you unhip people.)
You get a like just for referencing Firesign Theater -- been a fan since the early 70s.  :)
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

SGOS

Now I keep all of my chemicals at the Chemical Bank.

Mermaid

Quote from: DeltaEpsilon on August 27, 2016, 08:47:19 PM
The complexity of the universe just baffles me at times. All the chemical and physical changes eventually led to one of the most complicated machines ever, the brain. It is quite beautiful if you think about.
I think the same thing about eyes. The evolution of eyes just floors me.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR