New theory on how life began

[untermensche]

Is the cell doing anything?

Is there any agency contained within it?

If cellular machinery automatically does something then it is doing it on purpose.

A ball is rolling down a hill....

Is the ball doing anything?
Is there agency within the ball?
If balls accelerate down a hill, changing direction to take the path of least resistance, then it is doing it on purpose.

I hereby worship the great ball god, without which balls would be no fun to play with at all.

Does the ball end up in the same place every time?

Because every time a very complicated molecule is created.

 

[Deepak]

A ball is rolling down a hill....

Is the ball doing anything?
Is there agency within the ball?
If balls accelerate down a hill, changing direction to take the path of least resistance, then it is doing it on purpose.

I hereby worship the great ball god, without which balls would be no fun to play with at all.

Does the ball end up in the same place every time?

Because every time a very complicated molecule is created.

You mean complicated like naturally occurring fullerenes? By 'complexity' do you mean specified-complexity?

 

[untermensche]

Does the ball end up in the same place every time?

Because every time a very complicated molecule is created.

You mean complicated like naturally occurring fullerenes? By 'complexity' do you mean specified-complexity?

If I have to explain the possible complexity of manufactured proteins I waste my time.

The same molecule every time.

Not a ball rolling down hill to some different location every time.

 

[Deepak]

You mean complicated like naturally occurring fullerenes? By 'complexity' do you mean specified-complexity?

If I have to explain the possible complexity of manufactured proteins I waste my time.

The same molecule every time.

Not a ball rolling down hill to some different location every time.

No you waste everyone's time. Consistently.

This notion you seem to have where you can condescend to people and bamboozle them into believing you actually made a point is, frankly, painful to watch.

Never have I known someone to string together so many words while at the same time saying so little. It's quite the skill.

 

[untermensche]

If I have to explain the possible complexity of manufactured proteins I waste my time.

The same molecule every time.

Not a ball rolling down hill to some different location every time.

No you waste everyone's time. Consistently.

This notion you seem to have where you can condescend to people and bamboozle them into believing you actually made a point is, frankly, painful to watch.

Never have I known someone to string together so many words while at the same time saying so little. It's quite the skill.

Is it possible for you to rise above the level of a whine?

It is a little nauseating.

If you can't comprehend that a process that manufactures the same specific very complicated molecule over and over is not the same as a ball rolling down a hill you deserve whatever degradation you get.

 

[Rhea]

You mean complicated like naturally occurring fullerenes? By 'complexity' do you mean specified-complexity?

If I have to explain the possible complexity of manufactured proteins I waste my time.

The same molecule every time.

Not a ball rolling down hill to some different location every time.

Want to know what's amazing? Aspirin. They seem to manufacture it the same way every time. They seem to never sell little pills of strychnine, despite it being only one atom different in the elements that form it.

Do you know how they do that?

I'll tell you one thing they don't do, they don't have a little talk with the ingredients and convince them to do the right thing.

All they have to do is have a reliable set of conditions. A certain temperature, a certain concentration, a certain moisture level. And they get the same molecule every time.

The chemicals do not care at all how complex or simple the final product is. Not one single little bit. The only thing that matters is whether conditions favor the next chemically certain action. If the conditions are the same, chemicals, having no "agency" will simply "fall" or "roll downhill" into the chemically favorable situation.

Like a snowflake that has no agency whatsoever, no purpose, no intent. And yet "rolls down hill" into six-sided figures that look remarkably of a family.

When I look at my cold window in the winter, those ice patterns will ALWAYS follow the little specs of dust on the glass, the slight trail left over from a ladybug walking up the glass the week before. The atoms react to the conditions... predictably.

My imagination has no trouble imagining the number of atoms it took to create these patterns. And I can practically count on the same patterns coming up on the same windows. One of these is north-facing and one south facing. The different conditions will dictate a pretty predictable pattern. And the dust and dirt on each window will nucleate in similar way every day that it's cold enough to form these, until I wash the windows in spring.





The creation of complex molecules in similar conditions, as they grow and grow and grow of millions of millions of trials is not actually hard to imagine. It doesn't even have to happen every time. You don't need 100% yield. All you need is 0.0001% yield on a billion trials to get a sizable herd.

So your claim that "it's too complicated to have happened by accident" is just bad math.
And your claim that you have some reason to think it has only happened once is also bad math.

 

[untermensche]

If I have to explain the possible complexity of manufactured proteins I waste my time.

The same molecule every time.

Not a ball rolling down hill to some different location every time.

Want to know what's amazing? Aspirin. They seem to manufacture it the same way every time. They seem to never sell little pills of strychnine, despite it being only one atom different in the elements that form it.

Not true. There are may ways to make organic molecules.

But you are right. THEY MANUFACTURE it the same way every time once they decide which method is best.

On purpose. They intend to make aspirin and it is made.

All they have to do is have a reliable set of conditions. A certain temperature, a certain concentration, a certain moisture level. And they get the same molecule every time.

And carefully constructing these conditions is not a ball rolling downhill.

And these patterns you show. No two the same thing.

 

[Malintent]

A ball is rolling down a hill....

Is the ball doing anything?
Is there agency within the ball?
If balls accelerate down a hill, changing direction to take the path of least resistance, then it is doing it on purpose.

I hereby worship the great ball god, without which balls would be no fun to play with at all.

Does the ball end up in the same place every time?

Because every time a very complicated molecule is created.

Yes. If the conditions are identical then the path (and final destination) will be identical. Of course.

If you built a perfect robot that was able to throw a perfect pair of dice in a vacuum, on a perfect unchanging surface, then the roll would come out precisely the same every.single.time.

However, such a perfectly unchanging and simplistically 'smooth' environment does not exist in the real world today... too many dynamic variables... so things don't always happen exactly the same way every time... but for the specific set of conditions that exist at that time, the outcome is perfectly matched.

THATS CHEMISTRY. Not magic... not indeterminate... not random... just when nature does it there are too many variables for the likes of us non-omnipotent men to measure and accurately predict. Tha tis why we have an entire field of STATISTICS to model ranges of expected outcomes within groups of dynamic variables.

When men do it (MANUFACTURING), we limit the number of variables... we have "clean rooms" and laboratories so that we can eliminate the vast majority of variables and take control over all of the things that effect outcome... and make Aspirin (not strychnine), as was posted earlier.

Go to Vegas among the crowds of people at a casino and hand throw dice over a velvet lined table... and you get a 'random' outcome. Build that perfect robot in that perfect environment, and you get a totally predictable and controllable outcome of dice throws.

And that there is the difference between man-made, and nature-made.

so what does the world actually LOOK LIKE? does our planet look man-made or nature-made? Agency or no agency?
Do balls roll down actual hills exactly the same way every time... no they don't. Agency did not make that hill... only the ball.

 

[untermensche]

Does the ball end up in the same place every time?

Because every time a very complicated molecule is created.

Yes. If the conditions are identical then the path (and final destination) will be identical. Of course.

Yes. To get to a specific destination very specific conditions have to be met. Countless variables.

The question is: How many times must you drop the ball before these very specific conditions are met? Before life arises.

And just because the specific conditions have been met once is that any information on how likely it was?

 

[4321lynx]

Yes. If the conditions are identical then the path (and final destination) will be identical. Of course.

Yes. To get to a specific destination very specific conditions have to be met. Countless variables.



The question is: How many times must you drop the ball before these very specific conditions are met? Before life arises.

And just because the specific conditions have been met once is that any information on how likely it was?

OK, OK-- I give up... Are you going to tell us your version, your hypothesis?

Or are you still awaiting a special message from the Red Tsardom In The Sky, from your good friends Marx,Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, GBShaw and other jokers, funny and/or murderous psychopaths, as to the Correct Party Line in that Land Beyond The Sky? Or were all those "not real (Red) Scotsmen" and we're still awaiting the coming of the Red Messiah?

 

[Rhea]

Not true. There are may ways to make organic molecules.

And every single one of them involves nothing more than settings on a dial. You don't have to convince the molecules, you don't have to guide them, you don't have to trick them. All you do is know the cause-and-effect of equilibrium, and the molecules will "roll down hill" to it. None of them have 100% yield, but life doesn't need that, either.

But you are right. THEY MANUFACTURE it the same way every time once they decide which method is best.

Don't you get it, though? The manufacture is simply figuring out which chance conditions will result in the desired reaction, and no longer waiting for chance. But every step _can_ happen by chance. And when your reaction vessel is an entire planet, the odds are much higher.

And once you learn those, then you can increase your odds by deliberately setting the conditions. But that NEVER takes away the fact that the chemicals will do it on their own, whenever the conditions chance to appear.

On purpose. They intend to make aspirin and it is made.

You're still missing it. "On purpose" they wanted yields of 50-100% No intent was needed to have aspirin occur on the planet. Intent was only needed to have it so concentrated and prolific as to supply a market.


Ditto penicillin. Right? Penicillin occurred by chance. Human intent set up a high-yield harvest.

All they have to do is have a reliable set of conditions. A certain temperature, a certain concentration, a certain moisture level. And they get the same molecule every time.

And carefully constructing these conditions is not a ball rolling downhill.

Yes it is, the same way as before. Conditions exist, reaction happens.

And these patterns you show. No two the same thing.

Aaahh, but grasshopper, notice that on the one window all of the frost patterns are curly. And on the other window they are angular and straight. A year later when it is that cold out again, the SAME window will AGAIN have curly patterns, increasing the yield of sameness. And the other window will again have angular ones.

There are almost certainly areas that are indeed exact replicas. One might propose two perfect diamonds have more "identicalness" among a higher number of atoms than a DNA strand.

No two life forms are _exactly_ alike. But there are some cases of similarity, are there not?

 

[untermensche]

And every single one of them involves nothing more than settings on a dial. You don't have to convince the molecules, you don't have to guide them, you don't have to trick them. All you do is know the cause-and-effect of equilibrium, and the molecules will "roll down hill" to it. None of them have 100% yield, but life doesn't need that, either.

It is not rolling down hill if you have add just the right temperature at just the right time, or add a specific solvent at just the right time.

Rolling down hill is letting go and doing nothing.

According to you building the Empire State Building was rolling down hill.

 

[skepticalbip]

And every single one of them involves nothing more than settings on a dial. You don't have to convince the molecules, you don't have to guide them, you don't have to trick them. All you do is know the cause-and-effect of equilibrium, and the molecules will "roll down hill" to it. None of them have 100% yield, but life doesn't need that, either.

AH, but all untermensche needs to do to refute that reasoning is demonstrate that either animism or divine intent is a more powerful explanatory and predictive force than chemistry.

 

[Rhea]

And every single one of them involves nothing more than settings on a dial. You don't have to convince the molecules, you don't have to guide them, you don't have to trick them. All you do is know the cause-and-effect of equilibrium, and the molecules will "roll down hill" to it. None of them have 100% yield, but life doesn't need that, either.

It is not rolling down hill if you have add just the right temperature at just the right time, or add a specific solvent at just the right time.

Rolling down hill is letting go and doing nothing.

gah. You still don't get it.

The dial settings happen in nature at random. Every now and then they HAPPEN to be at the settings you and I would make if we wanted to do it with high yield.

Have you no imagination?
The BILLIONS of chance opportunities that can yield one random arrangement of the right settings.... one at a time?

(just various examples)
You have a thermal vent. A thing happens there. It makes thousands of certain molecules. Most of them just degrade with no effect. But SOME of them drift in a direction that has remaining heat but also oxygen and then get another piece clicked together against them or another configuration twisted - this one more durable in colder temperatures. Most of these drift away and degrade, but SOME of them get adhered to the surface of a bubble, which raises it upward, where different conditions now take that two-stage molecule to a third stage. And so on. For a billion years.

Meanwhile, that vent is still pumping out heat, and some of the molecules are forming... etc... and if all of the ones in the first burp degrade and "die" the source is still pumping stage one molecules with no care or concern if they ever become stage two. But odd are, some will... again.

Over an entire ocean and over a billion years, that is a LOT of events, and even if you are at the very tippy tail ends of a distribution with respect to the odds of something having traveled through the conditions that would make a molecule complex, having that much time makes the odds of anything a billion times more probable.

Can you really not imagine an ocean full of chemicals and a billion years giving rise to some pretty "improbable" events actually coming to fruition?

According to you building the Empire State Building was rolling down hill.

Nope. Not even a tiny bit.
I am talking about chemical reactions, not things that are designed by humans.

Chemistry and architecture DO NOT follow the same rules. I can get some books for you on this if you like.

 

[Malintent]

Yes. If the conditions are identical then the path (and final destination) will be identical. Of course.

Yes. To get to a specific destination very specific conditions have to be met. Countless variables.

The question is: How many times must you drop the ball before these very specific conditions are met? Before life arises.

And just because the specific conditions have been met once is that any information on how likely it was?

Let's say 100 million times... cause, well why not. Pick a very very very very big number.

Now, how many times has one atom interacted with another atom? divide the first number into the second number. That is your answer.

The answer I get is greater than 1. Not that I have an exact figure, but any number divided by a smaller number will be greater than 1. In probability, that means 'certain'.

your methodology of determining the odds of naturalistic abiogenisis has determined that life is certain.

 

[untermensche]

And every single one of them involves nothing more than settings on a dial. You don't have to convince the molecules, you don't have to guide them, you don't have to trick them. All you do is know the cause-and-effect of equilibrium, and the molecules will "roll down hill" to it. None of them have 100% yield, but life doesn't need that, either.

AH, but all untermensche needs to do to refute that reasoning is demonstrate that either animism or divine intent is a more powerful explanatory and predictive force than chemistry.

This is pulled from your ass.

You don't know the difference between life and non-life.

So you want to claim there is no difference.

 

[untermensche]

The dial settings happen in nature at random.

That is an explanation of anything and therefore nothing.

No matter the outcome you just say there was nothing unusual in the process.

I'm not saying the hand of some god is needed.

I'm saying we don't know what was needed.

And saying it is just like falling down hill is empty speculation.

 

[skepticalbip]

AH, but all untermensche needs to do to refute that reasoning is demonstrate that either animism or divine intent is a more powerful explanatory and predictive force than chemistry.

This is pulled from your ass.

You don't know the difference between life and non-life.

So you want to claim there is no difference.

It is really simple. There are three choices that I can see:

1. Chemistry works.
2. Animism - Atoms are aware and intentionally form molecules only because they want to.
3. Divine intent - God creates molecules because he has some plan.

Personally, two of those sound silly to me.

 

[untermensche]

There are three choices that I can see:

1. Chemistry works.

An empty phrase that explains absolutely nothing.

We divide chemistry between organic and inorganic.

So saying "chemistry works" explains absolutely nothing in terms of inorganic moving towards organic and the chemistry of life.

2. Animism - Atoms are aware and intentionally form molecules only because they want to.

The issue is not at all why atoms do what they do.

The issue is what did they do.

What happened that caused specific molecules to form and form in a specific way so that the end result was life?

Was it just time and chance?

Or were very specific events necessary along the way?

Nobody is close to knowing that.

 

[skepticalbip]

An empty phrase that explains absolutely nothing.

We divide chemistry between organic and inorganic.

So saying "chemistry works" explains absolutely nothing in terms of inorganic moving towards organic and the chemistry of life.

Damned dude!! Are you really ignorant of the fact that there is a science of organic chemistry?

2. Animism - Atoms are aware and intentionally form molecules only because they want to.

The issue is not at all why atoms do what they do.

The issue is what did they do.

What happened that caused specific molecules to form and form in a specific way so that the end result was life?

Was it just time and chance?

Or were very specific events necessary along the way?

Nobody is close to knowing that.

The atoms combined by well understood laws to form organic molecules. If you don't accept that because it is too far over your head then you should either take a course in organic chemistry or join the ministry.

The laws are well understood. It is only the specific path that was involved out of several possible paths that is uncertain.

The options still boil down to chemistry, animism, or goddidit unless you enlighten us with your in-depth understanding otherwise. And since you continually use phrases like "on purpose" or "decided to" then you apparently lean toward animism or goddidit.