Abiogenesis and Probabilities

[DrNoGods]

I'm creating a new thread here to continue debate on a post made by EarthScience guy on another thread (Science and Religion > Artificial life: can it be created?, post 17). This post challenged probability calculations in an old Talkorigins article that I had linked in that thread:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

Are the arguments (on creationist views) and probabilities presented reasonable in the Talkorigins article? If not, why not?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #130]

i. Osmosis (movement of water molecules) destroys cells. You need to find out why.
ii. All simulated biochemical processes in the lab are done in a physiological saline and not water. You need to find out why.
iii. The biomolecules accumulation inside a cell are still hazardous to life. That's why biochemical processes are timely and purposeful. The claim that they arise from randomness and chance is unthinkable.

I'm afraid you are wrong on all three counts. Osmosis does not always destroy cells, and is in fact a critical mechanism for cell operation and stability. Here is a little refresher article to help you understand what osmosis is and how it works (negating your point i.).

https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/ ... 3A_Osmosis

And what do you think a saline solution it? It is basically salty water. Here's another educational article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saline_(medicine)

I can't decipher iii, but you seem to be claiming that accumulation of biomolecules inside cells are hazardous to life (even though life depends on them), then claim that biochemical processes are timely and purposeful (at odds with the first claim), and then you make a completely unrelated comment about biomolecules arising from random chance (who has ever made that claim?).

All reality happens in time, so it depends with your view of time. 'Present'/'now' is an experience of the mind. You need to explain how abiogenisis happenened in the presence of a mind.

OK ... all reality happens in time. So far so good. But anyone's personal view of time has no impact on what happens in time. It may impact their perception of time, but if something happens in the physical world then it happens, and you can assign a time to the event. What do you mean by the last sentence in the quote above? The whole concept of abiogenesis is that it happened long before any "minds" (or brains) existed. It is a hypothesis for how nonliving molecules may have developed into the first living thing, which as far as we know did not have anything like a brain or a mind. So almost by definition, abiogenesis did not happen in the presence of a mind (just the opposite) and so that doesn't need to be explained.

[Noose001]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #130]

i. Osmosis (movement of water molecules) destroys cells. You need to find out why.
ii. All simulated biochemical processes in the lab are done in a physiological saline and not water. You need to find out why.
iii. The biomolecules accumulation inside a cell are still hazardous to life. That's why biochemical processes are timely and purposeful. The claim that they arise from randomness and chance is unthinkable.

I'm afraid you are wrong on all three counts. Osmosis does not always destroy cells, and is in fact a critical mechanism for cell operation and stability. Here is a little refresher article to help you understand what osmosis is and how it works (negating your point i.).

https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/ ... 3A_Osmosis

And what do you think a saline solution it? It is basically salty water. Here's another educational article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saline_(medicine)[/quote]
'Does not always' means it is always harmful unless certain conditions/controls are met.

I can't decipher iii, but you seem to be claiming that accumulation of biomolecules inside cells are hazardous to life (even though life depends on them), then claim that biochemical processes are timely and purposeful (at odds with the first claim), and then you make a completely unrelated comment about biomolecules arising from random chance (who has ever made that claim?).

None of the biomolecules are generated randomly. They are always needed in the next important cascade or are toxic byproducts which need to be evacuated asap. Either way, anything that needs to be done timely can not be said to be random or by chance. The claim that these products came by chance/ randomly doesn't make sense.

All reality happens in time, so it depends with your view of time. 'Present'/'now' is an experience of the mind. You need to explain how abiogenisis happenened in the presence of a mind.

OK ... all reality happens in time. So far so good. But anyone's personal view of time has no impact on what happens in time. It may impact their perception of time, but if something happens in the physical world then it happens, and you can assign a time to the event. What do you mean by the last sentence in the quote above? The whole concept of abiogenesis is that it happened long before any "minds" (or brains) existed. It is a hypothesis for how nonliving molecules may have developed into the first living thing, which as far as we know did not have anything like a brain or a mind. So almost by definition, abiogenesis did not happen in the presence of a mind (just the opposite) and so that doesn't need to be explained.
[/quote]

But 'present'/'now' is an experience by a mind, do you deny it?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #133]

But 'present'/'now' is an experience by a mind, do you deny it?

All of our experiences are the result of a brain/mind. We could not be conscious without it or experience anything. But present/now is an instant in time, which moves with time continuously. If that time is prior to the present then the experience was in the past, and if the experience happens in the future then it is at a later time. But time stamping every experience does not mean that only things happening in a given instant are real and everything else on the time line (past and future) are in some kind of different category.

[Noose001]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #133]

You miss the point.

Consciouness creates reality and physical reality is a mere illusion.

Time is a construct of the mind (i believe).
Past and future are not only references to the present, which is an experience by a mind but they are subsets of the present.
This means the past and future are not real; there's no point in the future that will never go through the 'present' cycle, likewise, there's no time in the past that skipped the 'present' cycle. Yet abiogenesis seems to have happened in a mindless/timeless period.

This is my objection.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #135]

Consciouness creates reality and physical reality is a mere illusion.

The problem is that you are making this statement without any support. So you are simply stating an opinion. Why should anyone believe that consciousness creates reality, rather than that consciousness is an emergent property of a working brain? Physical reality is not an illusion ... it is the physical world we live in that we can touch and see and confirm its existence.

Past and future are not only references to the present, which is an experience by a mind but they are subsets of the present.
This means the past and future are not real; there's no point in the future that will never go through the 'present' cycle, likewise, there's no time in the past that skipped the 'present' cycle. Yet abiogenesis seems to have happened in a mindless/timeless period.

Why are you connecting abiogenesis with your idea that the past and future don't exist? Abiogenesis would be an event that happened over some time period in the past (its happening being the "present" when it happened, and the past now). What is a "mindless/timeless" period? If you think the only time that exists is the present, then anything happening prior to the present would not exist whether it is abiogenesis or anything else (like your birth as Tcg brought up earlier). Explain why abiogenesis as an event has anything to do with your unusual concept of time.

[Noose001]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #135]


The problem is that you are making this statement without any support. So you are simply stating an opinion. Why should anyone believe that consciousness creates reality, rather than that consciousness is an emergent property of a working brain? Physical reality is not an illusion ... it is the physical world we live in that we can touch and see and confirm its existence.

The problem with 'science' is that it embarked in explaining reality and skipped the most fundamental 'features' of reality, Time.

Why would anyone believe consciouness is an emergent property?

Saying physical reality is not an illusion because it is the physical world we live in makes no sense. The reason i'm telling you that it is consciouness that gives you a perception of a 'physical world', and it does so through the sense of time.

If time stops then everything disappears; why is it so?
This simply means that everything is time, but time is not physical. So a physical world is indeed an illusion.

Why are you connecting abiogenesis with your idea that the past and future don't exist? Abiogenesis would be an event that happened over some time period in the past (its happening being the "present" when it happened, and the past now). What is a "mindless/timeless" period? If you think the only time that exists is the present, then anything happening prior to the present would not exist whether it is abiogenesis or anything else (like your birth as Tcg brought up earlier). Explain why abiogenesis as an event has anything to do with your unusual concept of time.

'Present' is a conscious experience. If all consciousness is 'removed', there'll be no present, hence no past or future and no reality at all.

My point is, life creates non life and not the otherway.

[brunumb]

Consciouness creates reality and physical reality is a mere illusion.

There are billions of individual consciousnesses, but somehow they all create a coherent unified illusion of physical reality. How does that work?

[Noose001]

[Replying to brunumb in post #137]
There's just 'one' consciousness from which billions of 'grounded consciousness' (minds) are derived.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #137]

The problem with 'science' is that it embarked in explaining reality and skipped the most fundamental 'features' of reality, Time.

Not sure why you put science in quotes (it is a real thing after all), but science has spent a great deal of effort on the issue of time since the beginning of humans thinking about science. More recently, a very popular (late) scientist wrote a book on that very subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Time

But there are countless discussions and papers on the "arrow of time", relatively and time dilation, phenomena that occur on time scales of attoseconds to billions of years, etc. Science has most certainly not skipped time, but you've yet to reference any papers, books, links, etc. to support your idea that only the present exists as far as time. Got any backup for your claims?

Why would anyone believe consciouness is an emergent property?

For the simple reason that there is no evidence to the contrary, and it is the most obvious explanation even if we don't yet know the mechanistic details. Give me an example of something that possesses consciousness that does not have a working brain. If brains don't create consciousness, what does?

If time stops then everything disappears; why is it so?

Has time ever stopped? We can't possibly know what would happen if "time stopped" (whatever that actually means), because it marches on with or without us humans as far as we can know. Time dilation (due to relative velocity in Special Relativity, or also to gravitational effects in General Relativity) says that the faster something moves (velocity) relative to an observer the slower time passes for the moving object as measured by the observer (but on the moving object time passes normally). But even in these kinds of extremely high velocity scenarios time doesn't "stop", and everything doesn't disappear.

This simply means that everything is time, but time is not physical. So a physical world is indeed an illusion.

This looks like the textbook definition of a non sequitur.

[Noose001]

[Replying to Noose001 in post #137]

Not sure why you put science in quotes (it is a real thing after all), but science has spent a great deal of effort on the issue of time since the beginning of humans thinking about science. More recently, a very popular (late) scientist wrote a book on that very subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Time[

An opinion. Why would you believe his opinion more than others.

But there are countless discussions and papers on the "arrow of time", relatively and time dilation, phenomena that occur on time scales of attoseconds to billions of years, etc. Science has most certainly not skipped time, but you've yet to reference any papers, books, links, etc. to support your idea that only the present exists as far as time. Got any backup for your claims?

Arrow of time is not time but an aspect of time which is directionality. The symetry points to a mind rather than anything else.

Relativity and time dilation are more about observers and hence mind

For the simple reason that there is no evidence to the contrary, and it is the most obvious explanation even if we don't yet know the mechanistic details. Give me an example of something that possesses consciousness that does not have a working brain. If brains don't create consciousness, what does?

Plants, sponges e.t.c

Has time ever stopped?

Did it ever start?

We can't possibly know what would happen if "time stopped" (whatever that actually means),

We actually do, the same thing that 'happened' before it started

Name one thing you know that is independent of time for its being. Or name one thing that can exist outside time. 'Not even space'.
So when time stops, everything disappears.

This looks like the textbook definition of a non sequitur.