what is the origin of life on earth?
How did life start?
shareGod coughed, sneezed and farted at the same time.
share[deleted]
MovieChat Forums > Politics > what is the origin of life on earth?
Once all the necessities were in place such as water, a stable environment, and energy together with the right chemistry, with quite a few very lucky breaks, it was imho inevitable. The question which occupies many scientists is whether earth did all this on its own or if things were 'seeded' by the bombardment we enjoyed at the dawn of time.
Not sure how this is relevant to the politics board though. It is more likely to turn into a religious or scientific discussion.
what process are you referring to?
shareWith the huge caveat that some critical things are unsettled or not certain, (and that I am no expert) the processes I have in mind go under the general heading of prebiotic or abiotic chemistry. A famous example was when Stanley Miller and Harold Urey passed electrical sparks through a container of gases that they thought might have made up Earth's early atmosphere. This experiment led to the spontaneous formation of amino acids, which are essential building blocks for life. (It is fair to say that many scientists now believe that Earth’s early atmosphere had a different chemical makeup from Miller and Urey’s recipe.) Or take Pantetheine, a compound that may have helped chemical reactions that led to the first living organisms. Researchers at UCL created pantetheine in water at room temperature using molecules formed from hydrogen cyanide. None of these things are conclusive but are pointers to how things might have processed.
sharespontaneous formation? oh dear.
shareOh dear yes, the experiment demonstrated that organic life could spontaneously arise from inorganic molecules.
share"organic life could spontaneously arise from inorganic molecules."
LOL, oh dear.
The line between organic and inorganic is not always so clear cut, or uncrossable, as one might think. Inorganic substances can become organic through a number of processes, including photosynthesis, the carbon cycle, and other sources of energy. Based on ideas which have come down after the inspiration of that early Miller Urey experiment, scientists think that lightning sparked chemical reactions in Earth's early atmosphere. The early atmosphere contained gases such as ammonia, methane, water vapor, and carbon dioxide. Scientists hypothesize that this created a “soup” of organic molecules from inorganic chemicals. But as I said at the top of things here critical things are unsettled or not certain. It is also fair to say though that science is getting closer.
share"scientists think that lightning sparked chemical reactions in Earth's early atmosphere."
So, maybe Mary. Shelley was right after all? IT'S ALIVE, IT'S ALIVE!
"could"
If all this were possible and happened on its own it would be easily replicable and sustainable by todays society. There is also no reason why early life would survive even if it was created out of thin air, it would not evolve or become more complex it would simply be created and then poof it would be gone.
Im not sure how life started on this planet but your theory sounds as crazy as the others to me.
If all this were possible and happened on its own it would be easily replicable and sustainable
That is not necessarily the case and does not follow logically. share
There is only evidence of abiogenesis occurring once however, which means it might not be inevitable in similar circumstances. My personal opinion is that life itself is rare, multicellular/complex life is very rare, and intelligent technology-creating life is almost impossibly rare - which would explain the Fermi paradox and why we see no signs of it in the universe.
shareThere is only evidence of abiogenesis occurring once
I'd agree that intelligent life appears very rare (although what percentage of the universe have we checked thoroughly?), but more and more science has discovered places suitable for life of some sort - including a few places even in our own solar system.
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"There is only evidence of abiogenesis occurring once however"
so you have faith it occurred? interesting
Where there is evidence no one speaks of faith.
share"a strongly held belief or theory"
shareScientific beliefs and theories are usually based on evidence. Also, a scientific theory such as that of evolution or gravity is not the same as a regular theory.
shareThat doesnt change the fact that you and others rely on faith.
shareI don't deny it. We all rely on types of faith at some time or other. I have faith that my car will start or that the sun will rise. It is not such a dirty word as you imply to others, while it seems to exercise you a lot here. Faith though in the scientific method (say) does not require the same extent of faith, or credulity that one needs to have in an unfalsifiable supernatural. Also any religion is a Faith in a way that any scientific discipline is not.
shareThe mysteries of life are such a difficult puzzle to solve. I can see Intelligent Design in nature, I can feel the presence of a higher power behind it all but I also think science could explain most of the things we find "mysterious".
I like the "god answer" because you know... why not? The universe is highly complex and full of energy and this alone makes it quite baffling to think that it's all some kind of random event or that it can be explained by quantum physics and cosmology.
But there is a place for both, I guess you could say, science is the "how", god is the "why".
Although, at the end of the day, some things are probably better left unsolved.
The Argument from Design or from irreducible complexity (convincingly dismissed at the Dover Trial), has always seemed to me just an argument from credulity.
Imho it is better to look for a wholly natural cause for everything, not least because we know the natural exists and, pace Occam, using that philosophy we do not need a whole extra level of reality to explain things away,
I understand the argument I just find it to be more fun to believe in ID. Of course, it's an old way of thinking developed by ancient people that didn't really understand the natural world as we do today. Even with all of our advances in technology and boundless understanding of the universe, people are still inclined to believe in a supreme being. I get it, it helps people sleep good at night knowing that "god" is in control. And yes, biblical stories have mass appeal to people. The men that wrote them were very good story-tellers and were the philosophers and poets of their day. People can write amazing stories.
I have a tendency to enjoy talking about Nietzsche more than Hawking. Scientists are not good story tellers and/or poets. lol...
Nothing wrong with those that gravitate towards Einstein rather than Frost though. There is a place for both but I just don't like scientists to some extent. I appreciate their work, but for an example, I recently watched an interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, in my opinion a decent guy, but in his own words - he stated in so many ways that "humans are nothing special". I find that so many scientists are like this though. To them, life has no special meaning.
But overall, I feel that philosophy without science and science without philosophy are both dead end roads.
Thank you, an interesting post. But I am not sure I would hold to a world view because it was more fun!
shareIt’s all chemistry. Carbon allows you to build long chains of molecules (organic chemistry), which means you can make very complex molecules. These can form spontaneously under the right prebiotic conditions — where you have a mix of elements, energy sources like lightning or UV radiation, and the right environment, like the early Earth's oceans. The "spark," the magic that turned organic chemistry into biology, was when a complex molecule became self-replicating.
That means it reacted with its environment in a way that created copies of itself. Once you have this, the laws of natural selection do the rest because of random mutations. The self-replicating molecule will create variations of itself and keep replicating. The mutations that lead to dead ends die. The neutral ones keep replicating and mutating, and the positive ones replicate even better.
While we don’t know exactly what the first replicating molecule was, we know it eventually led to something like RNA and then DNA. From there, you get proteins and eventually single cells — all of it driven by the same natural selection process.
Though it typically holds has no place in such a discussion, it is the teleological that interests me.
Why does phosphorus, nitrogen and a sugar molecule synthesize to form a self-replicating strand of DNA and not something else? Why is the notion of self-replication even feasible when, given the predominance of entropy in closed systems, such order seems contrary to physical nature?
Perceiving that the functions of all are a result of chance seems to require more faith than the opposite. Even given an infinite* timeframe, there is a point of probability at which potentiality becomes unlikely enough as to become effectually impossible (this is a mathematical concept and the name eludes me at the moment). In other words, there is no certainty that something will happen because it could. That reality is constituted as we know it would require a chance upon a chance upon a chance...ad infinitum. And still there would be no assurance for existence.
* infinite is a misnomer here, what I was actually referring to is everything that has occurred since the formation of the universe
That I do not know. I'm still grappling with how parts can arrange themselves in such a way that something new emerges — something that transcends the individual components. It's fascinating that, with the same parts, if they aren't assembled in the right configuration, you don't get the 'magic.' What is it about these specific configurations? Were they inevitable? And if not, what other configurations exist within this space, and what kind of entities could they give rise to?
shareSo am I. If a set of Legos is opened, there may be near endless permutations of what can be built. However, the way the pieces fit together was presupposed from the start when the pieces were produced at the Lego factory. The likes of covalent and ionic bonds, or even the potentiality for the validity of the periodic table, seem similarly synchronistic in their potential for actuality so as to defy chance. And that's just basic Chemistry.
As an aside, for my part, I suspect that a conception of the derivation of such "rules" is the closest approximation to a conception of יהוה.
Then enters the notion of the Demiurge. That's what haunts me.
As an aside, for my part, I suspect that a conception of the derivation of such "rules" is the closest approximation to a conception of יהוה.
Are you familiar with Stephen Wolfram, the physicist and computer scientist known for his work on irreducible complexity? One of his most fascinating ideas is the concept of the Ruliad. The Ruliad is the ultimate foundation of reality — a space encompassing all possible computational rules that could govern universes. It’s not just a theoretical construct; Wolfram argues that the Ruliad is the fundamental substrate that makes the existence of universes possible. It must exist because it represents the totality of all conceivable rules and computations. Within this infinite space, the specific rules that govern our universe are just one configuration, while other universes arise from different rule sets in the Ruliad. According to Wolfram, this is the deepest layer of reality, from which everything else emerges.
Here is a video of him explaining it:
What Is The Ruliad? | Stephen Wolfram
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05BalegrMqQ
It's only 20 minutes long, so it’s not a particularly thorough explanation. For a deeper understanding of his theory, I highly recommend his four-hour interview with Lex Fridman. I had to listen to it three times just to begin wrapping my head around the profound ideas he was discussing. share
I'm just finishing "Blasphemy Challenge- Logic of why there is no god" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caLGGpCZ9Gg that I found on the channel of the video you shared with me earlier. That one will be next. Thank you for these.
shareDamn, that brings back memories. I remember when the Blasphemy Challenge was all the rage in the YouTube Atheist community — everyone was doing it. It feels kind of cringe now. By the way, the link you provided is to someone else doing the challenge, but the one from GKLR (Atheist on Demand) is this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt7u84Ref7Q
I couldn't find the video you provided on GKLR's channel. I thought it might have been in one of his playlists but I didn't see it.
Listening to this I'm envisioning sort of a Rubik's Quantum Tesseract (rather than a Rubik's Cube), where "rules" aren't "fixed" in a sense but are limited to the potential permutations of the structure.
Is that close to the mark? I'm going to ponder this over a cigarette for now before I continue.
That's interesting. That is in a way similar to the way I see it. The way I think about it is in terms of cellular automata. You have rules that describe a behavior. For example, a cell turns on (1) if one of its neighbors is on (1); otherwise, it stays off (0). If both neighbors are off or both are on, the cell turns off (0). Running this computation leads to all sorts of patterns emerging. Most of them aren't interesting, but certain rules produce really intriguing patterns and the emergence of objects and processes that feel alive.
Here’s a short clip of it in action. You can find all sorts of incredible patterns on YouTube that are produced by other, more intricate rules:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iHRAKn9Fhg
For me, the ruliad — or at least a simplified version of it — is like a 2D grid with blank squares, extending infinitely in all directions on a 2D plane. Each possible rule determines which squares are on or off, and these rules are being played out simultaneously across this 2D grid. All the rules exist in a kind of superposition, playing out all possible configurations on this grid.
Now, I simply take this and extend it from a 2D grid to a multidimensional space, whether that be 4D, like our space-time, or 10D, like in string theory, or 11D, like in M-theory. Regardless, it’s all the possible computations being played out in all directions. A small subset of these computations produces beings like us, who perceive a small sliver of those computations and the world created by them. That world is what our universe is.
Radioactive spider.
No.
Wait.
That’s Spider-Man.
That's a question people have been trying to answer for thousands of years, and still have not found the answer. Or some people did find an answer, and either nobody believed them, or only some agreed that it was true.
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