Artificial life: can it be created?

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Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #1

Post by Diagoras »

Here's the link to an article which inspired my creation of this debate topic:

https://newatlas.com/science/artificial ... nteresting

"Artificial cells created that imitate basic functions of living cells"

There are disagreements within the scientific community on precisely what constitutes a 'living' thing, and clearly these artificial cells are not alive. However, the experiment shows success in replicating some important attributes of life.

A general theistic position might declare "All life comes from God", but if some 'cellular gene engineer' of the future succeeded in creating a basic cell that ate, grew, replicated and all the other generally agreed things that life does - could it be recognised as life? And wouldn't that falsify that bolded theistic claim?

The Affirmative:

The creation of life is possible by means other than a god.

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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

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Post by Inquirer »

brunumb wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:14 pm
Inquirer wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:34 am
DrNoGods wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:39 pm [Replying to Inquirer in post #37]
... currently I'm asking atheists to justify the claim "I've never been shown evidence for God" this is what they say so why can't they justify it? If they can't justify why do they keep saying it? faith? belief? prejudice?
How about the simple and unambiguous answer that the evidence they've been shown is not convincing. That's all the justification that is needed.
But that's not logical, unless you can explain the test you apply to decide if something is "convincing" its all well and good to say "Bah, that's not convincing" but unless you have a rational process for doing that evaluation it can be no more that whim, belief surely?
I don't need to apply any test. If I am not convinced then the alleged evidence was clearly not convincing to me. That much is self-evident.
Very well, so by the very same reasoning a theist can argue they don't need to apply a test, if they are convinced then the evidence was convincing to them.

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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #72

Post by Inquirer »

DrNoGods wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:36 am [Replying to Inquirer in post #67]
I'm not here defending a claim I have made, I'm discussing how the atheists can claim "I've never seen evidence for God" - this is a definitive concrete proposition that seems unsupported, if you agree we can press on and explore this further but if you disagree, if you think that claim can be supported I'm all ears.
You posted this in response to my acorns vs. coins comment (on your prior comment to that example from Difflugia), but the above has nothing whatsoever to do with that exchange. Myself (and others) have already given examples of support for the position that we've yet to see any convincining evidence for the existence of gods. Why ignore these and just repeat the same thing you've already gotten answers for?
Yes but you're going around in circles, when you say "some observable action or event that only a god being could do" yet you do not have any means of evaluating observations to determine this do you?
For a god being that is completely defined in terms of what it is, what it can and can't do (back to the acorns vs. coins thing), then yes. But for some nebulous, undefined god "thing" without any concrete definition then no ... no one can because the problem is too ill defined.
Why do you form the view that "my mother had sat up in her casket at her funeral and started speaking" would be evidence for God but literally everything else you've ever observed is not?
This is dirt simple so I'm surprised you'd ask such an obvious question. Humans coming back from the dead has never been confirmed to have ever happened in the history of humans, and we have every reason to believe that it is not possible physiologically because of our understanding of what death is and what it entails.
That's not really true, you have no idea whatsoever if anyone has ever "come back from the dead" the NT even recites details of an example of this happening. To the theist the evidence is convincing to you it is not, that's the only difference.
DrNoGods wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:36 am So if it did happen, that might be evidence for some kind of god being. "Everything else" I've observed has far more reasonable and believable explanations that don't require a force or intervention beyond anything known to exist.
What's a "reasonable explanation"? The universe and its laws exist, what is the "reasonable" explanation for this? and what makes it reasonable?

You need to understand what you mean by "reasonable" because if its subjective then I too can regard God as a reasonable explanation can't I?
DrNoGods wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:36 am For things that we've yet to work out the mechanistic details of (eg. origin of the universe, how life arose on Earth, dark matter and dark energy, etc.) a default position that some god being is involved is not justified ... it is the lazy way out.
Why is a God hypothesis not justified? You have zero criteria for evaluating an observation and deciding if God is a viable explanation so if you have no criteria then God and not God are surely equally viable possibilities?

Why is a mechanistic explanation important at all? explaining reducible things mechanistically does not explain why things appear to be mechanistic. Can you show that everything has a mechanistic explanation? if you cannot show that, then it just an assumption is it not?

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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #73

Post by William »

[Replying to Diagoras in post #1]
A general theistic position might declare "All life comes from God", but if some 'cellular gene engineer' of the future succeeded in creating a basic cell that ate, grew, replicated and all the other generally agreed things that life does - could it be recognised as life? And wouldn't that falsify that bolded theistic claim?

The Affirmative:

The creation of life is possible by means other than a god.
The problem I see with this reasoning is that it fails to acknowledge a source.

For example, humans may create AI to the extent that the AI becomes self conscious - living and knowing that it lives - but even so, eventually the "artificial" part of the description would have to be dropped...and the 'source' extended beyond human invention and creativity...

It could be said of that, that "humans were able to replicate the act of creating life - something which could not have been achieved if life didn't exist to begin with."

Because we do not know if this experience is a creation or not, we cannot say [as a matter of fact] that life created itself nor could we even say that human beings didn't start off as a type of artificial intelligence - because we do not even know to what extent intelligence permeates the environment we call "reality" nor do we know if it is only limited to biological forms

Intelligence as a planetary scale process

10,000 individual minds may have altogether brough the JWT into existence as a functional device, but we cannot say for sure that those minds were not influence by an overall local mind...much research is needed before any fact-sounding statements can be accepted as actual truth. Such must be regarded as opinion until we have enough evidence to accept one way or the other...

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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #74

Post by brunumb »

Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:29 am
brunumb wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:10 pm
Inquirer wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 11:15 am So how can you reach that conclusion? what characteristic must it have in order to be "convincing" evidence for God?.
There is no one characteristic. It just has to be convincing.
Very well so for atheists its undefined, arbitrary, whim, not a methodological process for deciding, this is what I wanted to demonstrate, so thank you. So if a theist observes something and says "This is convincing evidence for God" that argument is no less legitimate is it? Would you accept the claim God exists because I find X is convincing evidence for God? If not, then why?
I just explained. Everyone has their own threshold of gullibility. If you present me with the evidence that convinced you that God exists and I do not find it convincing, then why should I believe?
Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:29 am
brunumb wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:10 pm Everyone has a different threshold of 'gullibility'. Some people are convinced by the fact that they read about God in an old book. Others need a miracle like a god telling them where their car keys can be found after they prayed for help.
Yes, and since there are clearly no definitive tests, no methodology, they are rational to do that surely?
The way they evaluate the alleged evidence doe not necessarily have to be rational. If it works for them, that seems to be enough. None of that validates the existence of gods anyway.
Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:29 am
brunumb wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:10 pm In reality, the vast majority of theists did not actually reach their position through the evaluation of any evidence anyway.
That may or may not be true, but what if it is true? Surely if something "convinces" them then that's sufficient? after all you just said "It just has to be convincing".
If you are indoctrinated with a belief, there is no convincing involved. Young children are not equipped to evaluate the information being fed to them by trusted elders. Once the belief is hard-wired in their brains of course they are convinced. That doesn't make any of it true.
Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:29 am
brunumb wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:10 pm They were inculcated with their belief from a very young age.
Are you saying that beliefs acquired through childhood are always false?
But there is no guarantee that they are true either. look at every different set of religious beliefs inculcated into the minds of young children. Do you accept that not all of them can be true? In fact, all of them may be false.
Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:29 am
brunumb wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:10 pm The whole evidence schtick comes later when some of them want to somehow rationalise that belief.
brunumb wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:10 pm I don't know what would convince me that a god exists.
Indeed, so you may well have seen evidence for God and simply not perceived it as such, do you agree with this?
If I am unaware of it then it matters not. Everything that has been presented to me as evidence for the existence of God has not breached my threshold of gullibility. What always amazes me is how many theists can be convinced by what appears to me as the flimsiest of reasons. Surely evidence that is truly compelling would be accepted by everyone.
Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 11:29 am
brunumb wrote: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:10 pm All I can say is that nothing so far has managed to achieve it. Perhaps a personal miracle in which the laws of the universe are broken, or something that I personally consider to be an impossible event occurs that I actually witness. Hearsay, second-hand stories and anecdotes simply don't cut it. But then, I don't really know where my threshold of 'gullibility' lies.
How can you tell if a law of nature has been broken? surely the obvious reaction to that would be that the assumption it was law in the first place was wrong?
Again, it all comes down to these things being personal. If something appeared to break the laws of the universe as I understand them then it would give me serious cause to reconsider my position on the existence of gods. Everything discussed so far speaks to individuals being convinced of the existence of gods. What is missing is compelling evidence that would confirm for all that gods do in fact exist. Not quite the same thing.
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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #75

Post by DrNoGods »

[Replying to Inquirer in post #73]
That's not really true, you have no idea whatsoever if anyone has ever "come back from the dead" the NT even recites details of an example of this happening. To the theist the evidence is convincing to you it is not, that's the only difference.
If you are convinced by stories in a ~2000 year old holy book that's fine, but that "evidence" is part of the same source that claims a 6 day creation, a global flood since humans appeared on Earth, people living to 900+ years, and the like. Believe it if you like, but I would consider it pure storytelling given the vanishingly small probability that any of it is actually true.
What's a "reasonable explanation"? The universe and its laws exist, what is the "reasonable" explanation for this? and what makes it reasonable?

You need to understand what you mean by "reasonable" because if its subjective then I too can regard God as a reasonable explanation can't I?
I wasn't present to observe the universe being created so that is not in the category of "everything else" that I have observed. But I can observe parts of the universe today and see no reason to assume that god beings were involved in any part of it existing or behaving as it does. I think it is unreasonable to attribute anything to a god being that itself cannot be shown to exist. It is that simple ... show that gods exist first, then it would be reasonable to attribute things to them. BTW ... how many gods do you believe exist? You've avoided answering that question that Clownboat has also asked.
Why is a God hypothesis not justified? You have zero criteria for evaluating an observation and deciding if God is a viable explanation so if you have no criteria then God and not God are surely equally viable possibilities?
Because gods have not been demonstrated to exist, so attributing anything to them is unjustified.
Why is a mechanistic explanation important at all? explaining reducible things mechanistically does not explain why things appear to be mechanistic. Can you show that everything has a mechanistic explanation? if you cannot show that, then it just an assumption is it not?
I never said a mechanistic explanation was important. But by mechanism I mean the exact processes behind origin of the universe, origin of life, etc. (not "mechanical" which you seem to be using). The mechanism could be god did it, or it could be nature did it without any god inputs, etc. There is some mechanism for the process, whether we know the details of it or not. My point was that when we don't yet know the mechanism, the default explanation is not god did it.
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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #76

Post by William »

Any "God hypothesis" is not justified if it assumes we exist within a creation before showing that this is the actual case.

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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #77

Post by Clownboat »

Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 2:17 pm Very well, so by the very same reasoning a theist can argue they don't need to apply a test, if they are convinced then the evidence was convincing to them.
Sure, but we have to acknowledge that religions persist due to parents indoctrinating/convincing their children. Not because the children grew up and found convincing evidence (though that happens to some of course). There is a reason that religions are geographic.

For me, I believed because that is how I was brought up (same with my 4 siblings). Ironically, I eventually read the book from cover to cover and formed my own opinions. Now I need more than mommy and daddy telling me its true and I would like to see some convincing evidence for any of the gods. Unfortunately, what we have seems to be a shortage of evidence and a plethora of claims instead. Not very convincing if you ask me.
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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #78

Post by Tcg »

Clownboat wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:46 am
Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 2:17 pm Very well, so by the very same reasoning a theist can argue they don't need to apply a test, if they are convinced then the evidence was convincing to them.
Sure, but we have to acknowledge that religions persist due to parents indoctrinating/convincing their children. Not because the children grew up and found convincing evidence (though that happens to some of course). There is a reason that religions are geographic.

For me, I believed because that is how I was brought up (same with my 4 siblings). Ironically, I eventually read the book from cover to cover and formed my own opinions. Now I need more than mommy and daddy telling me its true and I would like to see some convincing evidence for any of the gods. Unfortunately, what we have seems to be a shortage of evidence and a plethora of claims instead. Not very convincing if you ask me.
Yes, and not that I disagree with you, but what we seem to have is an absence of evidence. At least an absence of sufficient evidence.


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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #79

Post by Clownboat »

Tcg wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:59 am
Clownboat wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:46 am
Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 2:17 pm Very well, so by the very same reasoning a theist can argue they don't need to apply a test, if they are convinced then the evidence was convincing to them.
Sure, but we have to acknowledge that religions persist due to parents indoctrinating/convincing their children. Not because the children grew up and found convincing evidence (though that happens to some of course). There is a reason that religions are geographic.

For me, I believed because that is how I was brought up (same with my 4 siblings). Ironically, I eventually read the book from cover to cover and formed my own opinions. Now I need more than mommy and daddy telling me its true and I would like to see some convincing evidence for any of the gods. Unfortunately, what we have seems to be a shortage of evidence and a plethora of claims instead. Not very convincing if you ask me.
Yes, and not that I disagree with you, but what we seem to have is an absence of evidence. At least an absence of sufficient evidence.


Tcg
I stand corrected as the evidence is absent (not in short supply). Claims are abundant though.
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Re: Artificial life: can it be created?

Post #80

Post by Tcg »

Clownboat wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 10:06 am
Tcg wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:59 am
Clownboat wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:46 am
Inquirer wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 2:17 pm Very well, so by the very same reasoning a theist can argue they don't need to apply a test, if they are convinced then the evidence was convincing to them.
Sure, but we have to acknowledge that religions persist due to parents indoctrinating/convincing their children. Not because the children grew up and found convincing evidence (though that happens to some of course). There is a reason that religions are geographic.

For me, I believed because that is how I was brought up (same with my 4 siblings). Ironically, I eventually read the book from cover to cover and formed my own opinions. Now I need more than mommy and daddy telling me its true and I would like to see some convincing evidence for any of the gods. Unfortunately, what we have seems to be a shortage of evidence and a plethora of claims instead. Not very convincing if you ask me.
Yes, and not that I disagree with you, but what we seem to have is an absence of evidence. At least an absence of sufficient evidence.


Tcg
I stand corrected as the evidence is absent (not in short supply). Claims are abundant though.
Yes, and oddly enough (and I'm not suggesting this about you) some seem to think that those abundant claims are evidence.


Tcg
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