Life from non-life?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by shichimenshyo, Jan 23, 2008.

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  1. lightgigantic

    lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    there's a big difference between life and the chemicals life utilizes
    synthesizing amino acids is in the same catagory as synthesizing urea
     
    lightgigantic, Jan 24, 2008
    #21

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  3. Carcano

    Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Sure, but we are isolated from the rest of the universe by a vast empty space in which nothing can live.

    The vastness is rendered less potent when you consider that only a narrow spectrum of temperature is required, and that the number of elements involved in life is actually quite tiny.
     
    Carcano, Jan 24, 2008
    #22

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  5. ashura

    ashura the Old Right Registered Senior Member

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    Even so, the universe is still incredibly very very gigantic and huge and I don't have enough good adjectives to properly convey just how big I'm talking. Less potent? Sure. Still pretty potent though? I think so.
     
    ashura, Jan 24, 2008
    #23

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  7. shichimenshyo

    shichimenshyo Caught in the machine Registered Senior Member

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    But they are parts of what makes up life itself, and what about those creatures with no brains?
     
    shichimenshyo, Jan 24, 2008
    #24
  8. CutsieMarie89

    CutsieMarie89 Zen Registered Senior Member

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    You don't need a brain or nervous system to be alive. Every time we think the brain does something we find out a few months or years later that we were completely wrong and the brain does not even perform the tasks that many people think that it does. I've been studying the brain and its systems for quite sometime now and the more I study it the more that old philisophical belief pops up in my mind. We are made up of atoms which are made up of energy and empty space. So aren't we all just energy?
     
    CutsieMarie89, Jan 24, 2008
    #25
  9. shichimenshyo

    shichimenshyo Caught in the machine Registered Senior Member

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    Thats exactly my point.
     
    shichimenshyo, Jan 24, 2008
    #26
  10. lightgigantic

    lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    much like filaments are parts of illuminating light bulbs

    still unclear what you are talking about here
     
    lightgigantic, Jan 24, 2008
    #27
  11. Myles

    Myles Registered Senior Member

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    Think of the age as well as the size of the universe.
     
    Myles, Jan 24, 2008
    #28
  12. Myles

    Myles Registered Senior Member

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    You are assuming the universe has always been vast. Not so. But your point is irrelevant anyway. Buy or borrow a relevant science book and you may change your mind.
     
    Myles, Jan 24, 2008
    #29
  13. Myles

    Myles Registered Senior Member

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    No. How dou you define energy ? How do you define matter ?
     
    Myles, Jan 24, 2008
    #30
  14. cosmictraveler

    cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Very astute point!
     
    cosmictraveler, Jan 24, 2008
    #31
  15. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Indeed, that is the only hypothesis that is viable here since this is a place of science. The foundation of science is the premise that the natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be understood, and then predicted, by deriving theories logically from empirical observation or evidence of its past and present behavior. All other theories violate the scientific method in one or more ways. Most of them postulate a supernatural universe that cannot be observed and some are simply illogical.

    Not only is abiogenesis (which is what this hypothesis is called, from Greek roots meaning "creation without life") the only hypothesis we currently have, but it is also supported by evidence. Everything that we have learned about the universe so far consistently indicates that at a moment many billions of years ago it was so hot that there was no matter at all in it, much less living matter. Yet today we have abundant evidence that at least one planet is teeming with life. Therefore the logical deduction is simple: the first living tissue arose in an environment that was devoid of living tissue.

    We'll all feel a lot more comfortable when scientists finally discover the process by which this occurred so that we can have actual observations for evidence, or at least some nice formulas in a textbook. Unfortunately we have no idea how long this will take, or whether it will be one of the secrets of the universe that we won't be able to figure out before our species (or the universe itself) dies off.

    But in the meantime, it is a solid enough hypothesis that places the burden of substantiation on anyone who offers a competing hypothesis.
    Whoa dude. You've committed a huge error by equating life with consciousness. Most of the life right here on our own planet, whether measured by weight or number of individual units, has no consciousness. Plants, for instance.
    This is merely a manifestation of the human trait of innumeracy, writ large. People don't have an intuitive grasp of the mathematics of extremely large numbers. When you apply the laws of probability to a timespan measured in billions of years, the words "random" and "complexity" are not mutually exclusive.
    Perhaps it's "far from" it, but it's a step in the right direction. Molecular biology only became a rigorous science in my lifetime. An incredible amount of progress has been made since then. Don't fault scientists because they haven't managed to do more yet.
    You're making a lot of mistakes with the concept of consciousness. For starters, there's no really good, rigorous, scientific definition of what consciousness even is. It could just be something we experience subjectively, and so, because we are the animal with the technology of language that gives us the ability to name things, we give it a name. But at the very least, even in our vague consensus on the meaning of the word, consciousness is an upper brain function. The rest of the brain, and surely the entire brain in the lowest animals that have one, is all autonomic, reflex and other genetic programming. Which of course brings us back to the question: Is what we call "consciousness" merely a very complex bit of "other genetic programming"? When computers finally develop consciousness it will be merely a very complex bit of their programming.

    The brain can and does "do anything" without consciousness. People who have been knocked out by a blow to the head don't stop breathing.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Jan 24, 2008
    #32
  16. iceaura

    iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Except sleepwalk me down to the fridge and make me a sandwich.
     
    iceaura, Jan 24, 2008
    #33
  17. Myles

    Myles Registered Senior Member

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    A Note on Consciousness

    Susan Greenfield. Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University and Professor of Physics at Gresham College, London ,has written books and lectured on the brain. In a recent edition of New Scientist she said words to the effect that

    There is no, accepted definition of consciousness.
    We are not sure what questions to ask
    We do not know what would constitute a satisfactory answer.

    She suggests that in about fifty years' time we may have a clearer idea of what it is we are talking about when we refer to consciousness.

    I have given the gist of what she said but the whole piece is worth reading. Unfortunately, I cannot remember when I read the article. I believe it was in the last three or four months . It should be in New Scientist Archive.
     
    Myles, Jan 24, 2008
    #34
  18. lightgigantic

    lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Fraggle Rocker

    plants aren't conscious?
    no coincidence, since empirical definitions require a materially reducible answer.

    There are no good, rigorous, scientific definition of anything that falls under the banner of soft science
    not sure what you are working with for a sense of consciousness.
    Basically anything that gives expression to a will or a state of self has consciousness.
    To say "conscious life" is kind of like saying "burning fire" (in the sense that a fire by default is always burning much life by default is always conscious)
    Of course there is a medical sense to consciousness ("regained consciousness")

    There are also other significant uses of the word in different contexts (philosophy for eg)
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2008
    lightgigantic, Jan 24, 2008
    #35
  19. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Not again... lol
     
    Enmos, Jan 24, 2008
    #36
  20. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    LG,

    show me how plants (or other brainless organisms, like bacteria) have consciousness..
    And while you are at it it might prove useful to define consciousness. And don't start your circular argument again (life = consciousness), it is not a definition.
     
    Enmos, Jan 24, 2008
    #37
  21. Sarkus

    Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Indeed.

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    Yet again, with his wonderful analogies, he fails to take into account decay of biological matter in the absence of certain things - i.e. the brain decays as soon as you "switch it off" rendering it unable to be restarted. The light bulb does not decay.
    And he uses this difference to try to persuade us that it is consciousness preventing the switching on again within a brain.

    Now, if lightbulbs, once switched on for the first time, started to decay as soon as they were switched off again, the analogy might be better - but then of course the conclusions able to be drawn would be very different. So no wonder he doesn't use more accurate analogies.


    Marvellous.
     
    Sarkus, Jan 24, 2008
    #38
  22. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    This discussion has come up before and he refused to define anything properly.
    Take a peek at what's coming: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=76386&page=6
     
    Enmos, Jan 24, 2008
    #39
  23. lightgigantic

    lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Jagadish Chandra Bose pioneered the field with plants.
    I guess it depends in what ways the word "consciousness" is used.
    If we cannot even properly define how we ourselves are conscious certainly we will have problems in figuring out how other things are conscious.


    It's not clear why you insist contingency is not a valid explanation
    (I mean aside from your values on the subject of course)
    eg
    from our previous discussion of consciousness, it appears that you are more into discuss issues of similarity of processes of intelligence (as opposed to issues of dissimilarity) - like a machine that can fool a person into thinking it is a person has the nous (if you could indicate a machine that could understand how something is not conscious or pretending to be conscious perhaps you would have hit a mark closer to home)
     
    lightgigantic, Jan 24, 2008
    #40
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