To feed my curiosity, what is the general agreement on the randomness of life? Do atheists as a generality and you guys as individuals believe that life simply happened to stem out of pure matter?
On another note, I see a number of people applying laws from our world to other scales and dimensions. If we were to take this approach, then we must also assume that ‘energy is neither created nor destroyed’. If that were the case, then consciousness was never created nor destroyed. It simply manifested itself in the emergin life and through death, it returns to its original complete self.
Any thoughts?
So normal inanimate molecules happened to randomly begin to self replicate?
Nope it isn’t matter, but to imagine it as a process would be to imagine that it can be. To simply classify the consciousness as a process would be too great a generalization for my liking. Every process is of its surroundings and in turn has an effect on them. The consciousness however, is not of the material which comprises its base. This can be shown by the so called ‘out of body’ experiences which anybody at a certain age must’ve experienced, and which if not experienced can not be proven. Furthermore, the consciousness of any animal in comparison to a human is partial at best, whereas its material structure is not really different.
I personally entertain the idea that thoughts and the consciousness are more than just limited individual experiences and have an objective existence.
Well, I must admit that I’m not all knowing and I am glad to be pointed in the direction of knowledge but that article is not saying life was created by self replicating molecules. I suggest you reread the article. “How the whole business of molecular replication got started has been and remains one of the central mysteries of the origin of life.” and “This molecule was initially formed by reacting two other molecules.” I’m assuming they didn’t use two inorganic molecules although it is amazing to see asexual reproduction like this. If you have any more articles that are credible and may enlighten me, I’d be more than happy to read them. As for randomness, I don’t believe in it, I’m just wondering what you base yours on and what explanation an atheist has for the appearance of life.
As for the second part, well, you can only see as far as you can. The relation of that to a god is null as far as I can see, but I can only see so far.
Energy might not be invincible/eternal. People haven’t been around long enough to proove anything here is eternal, or indestructable. I would bet there is a way to erase energy and make it non-existent, and also there’s probably a way to create it, but nobody is smart enough to do that yet.
Organic molecules were created from inorganic molecules by lightening bolts interacting with an atmosphere whose contents were markedly different from those of today’s atmosphere (or so they say). Interestingly, they also say that because of today’s atmospheric content (20% oxygen, 80% nitrogen), this process can no longer be done. Life can only emerge from prior life.
First of all, I don’t think the origin of life is directly applicable to atheism. Atheism stems from the belief that there is no god. Or at least- that there’s one yet to be proven. Whatever science can seem to support that claim is certainly used, but there’s no reason why all atheists need believe the same theory.
Some atheists may even believe there could be an extraterrestrial, concsious force influencing things amongst us, but it wouldn’t fit with the criteria for a “god.”
Irregardless, for the time being there is only one real dominant theory in science as to the origin of life. As Gib describes, it also deals with oxidizing rock (rust) causing a chemical reaction complex enough to build simple proteins. There are also strong findings suggesting how RNA was created by stuff very common to the universe, how the first sorts of proteins could be created in controlled experiments, how evolution could lead from simpler to more complex species . . . etc.
It is true that the event seems entirely random, to put it more accurately, it comes from the chaos of the universe, which doesn’t always seem that chaotic (as chaos-theory tells us). All patterns of a seemingly random nature tend to coalesce into its own intuitive order. Nature evolves.
The key in this theory is like this- (1) Take a bunch of different kinds of atoms. All of them fairly stable, after the universe has had time to rigorously change them and cool them down, (2) use a few constant chain reactions in energy to make these different atoms move around and interact over and over in different ways all the time. (3) Sooner or later, a lot of these atoms have strange little interactions that seem to cycle over by themselves with a specific type of energy, rather than just whatever moved the particles around. Each of these little interactions is self-contained, and can be considered a protein. (4) Make tonnes and tonnes of different proteins until some of them self-replicate (it makes another self-contained system like it).
As for your idea about concsiousness following the same rule as energy (neither created nor destroyed), though it doesn’t really have any tangible example to really make sense, this is an interesting thought experiment, which I believe has been presented before, and was expanded upon. Believers of karmic reactions suggest that a concsious force -generally goodwill or wrathful- will have an equal and opposite reaction.
Well I believe what recent quantum physics has discovered is that energy is , by my understandeing, practically infinite in a finite world. The theory of an expanding universe with dark energy seems to support your idea of energy that can be made or destroyed (science.hq.nasa.gov/universe/sci … nergy.html), and yet the first law of thermodynamics which is fundamental to our understanding of the world states that energy is neither lost nor created in a system, that system being the universe (you can’t get something for nothing), whereas entropy suggests within the guidelines of thermodynamics that the universe is ‘running down’, disorder increasing and available energy is decreasing.
So I am still at a loss as to the full explanation of the simultaneous validity of the expanding universe and the first law of thermodynamics.
As to the origin of life, I personally don’t believe in an invisible hand that defies the world it is said to have created to make sudden changes. If the concept of time is non-existent, then god would not have to make any changes as his knowledge can not possibly change with time.
Unless they belive in aliens controlling us, I’m assuming they’d be agnostic. I should note that I don’t capitalize the word ‘god’ because I only use it as a simple means to convey the concept of a creator, not as the reproduction of the religiously defined creator. My curiosity as to an atheist stance on the matter is due to many claiming that their lack of belief, or rather a different belief, is due to their knowledge of life. I’d like to share in that knowledge.
This is not my actual belief really, I’m just wondering if anyone has anything to say about it, something to tickle the mind.
I have yet to come across a credible source for the creation of life. Although your (gib and gaia) views are probably correct, I’d be much obliged if you could link me to a credible source which has some articles published on the matter so that I may be more knowledgable rather than being content with quoting somebody else.
I asked around on another forum and would appreciate some feedback on this as this is one of the links they sent:
harunyahya.com/refuted9.php
I can’t help but think it is being motivated by religious beliefs and yet there is some sense in there. A brick which ‘by probability’ happened to be created just perfectly, and which in a potentially infinite time frame happened to be arranged together to create a house. Any thoughts?
Sure, I have some thoughts:
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Darwinian evolution is often misconstrued as being a product of random chance - as if there was nothing at first and then suddenly - BOOM - a whole bunch of organic material came together and created man. Nothing could be further from the truth. Darwinian evolution is based on a complex assortment of variables, but each one contributes in its own deterministic way to the gradual emergence of life forms. It’s all governed by natural laws.
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Given a “potentially infinite time frame”? Sure! Why not? If you’ve got an infinite amount of time, anything can happen. In fact, you should expect great things to happen. Ever heard of the infinite number of monkeys typing at an infinite number of typewriters over an infinit amount of time. The entire works of William Shakespear were produced! (okay, not really, but it’s a common hypothetical thought experiment used to drive home the point I’m making - that given an infinit amount of time, anything that can happen will happen eventually). This is a common point opponents to evolution theory often bring up. They say the odds of such an evolutionary turn of events - like the advent of man - are absurd in virtue of the infinitesimally low odds - like one in a billion. The thing they fail to take into account, however, is that we’ve had a billion chance - a billion trials of different forms of life, that is - and so the odds of finding human beings are actually quite trivial.
Well what this guy is saying is that he acknowledges that it had to be done step by step, he gives the example of the correct soil making the brick perfectly, then the cement and steel etc coming together and the roof coming on etc etc to finally make the house.
I know the infinite monkeys, or hell, even one monkey in an infinite time is bound to finally make something sensible of varying degrees. And yet although that lies within logic, the idea of self aware creatures emerging from the simple amino acid is somewhat difficult to take in. I think our technology and understanding of the world is sufficient to create an atmosphere which would be similar to that of the precambrian era and we can create artificial lightnings, and yet, even with all of our progress and confidence in our knowledge, we know that we can not make organic matter from non-organic matter. As far as probability goes, I’m not certain if there is any probability of self-aware creatures emerging, but if the darwinian argument is in fact the one that holds the most weight, I suppose there must be.
My field has almost nothing to do with biology and I don’t know enough to make any qualified judgements but it seems that both sides of the argument have some valid points, hence the ongoing debate. I don’t believe in an invisible hand come to make amendments to creation, but I think I’m gonna keep neutral at least for the time being.
Did he also take into consideration the time scale during which this happens?
This is true. This is another matter, however. This concerns the problem of consciousness, which evolution theory, nor any other science, has a satisfactory solution to.
This is not true. We can create organic molecules from inorganic one in a laboratory setting (I’ll try to find a source). It just doesn’t happen in nature as readily as it used to.
Excellent! Neutrality is often the best position to be in. You get to see the strengths and faults in a wide variety of views - even the mainstream ones.
It’d be great if you can find a source! Organic matter is anything that contains carbon, as we’re carbon based beings, but can we really make ‘living’ things even in the form of the simplest bacteria? A credible source would do much to inform me.
Thanks for taking the time to post, it’s nice to see someone who comments from an objective view rather than a condescending/matter-of-fact one!
Gib, Rouzbeh
I believe it has something to do with the Stanley Miller experiment.
Where’s old gobbo? I think he should take a bong rip outta that thing.
nano-bug,
I recommend the bottom-right corner.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment
That and what Gaia posted.
I’m sure Miller did too in his leisure time. 
There is only one world. The law of conservation of energy applies to everything in it. There is no conservation of consciousness, but all the processes in your body are subject to the law of conservation of energy.