by EndofMysteries 69 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Life seems to happen at a small, microscopic scale; so, did it start that way? so why would it be so hard to replicate? Only repeating the process artificially now would reveal the way it happened 4 billion years ago.
CERN, Fermi Lab have recreated conditions close to the Big Beginning, found new Questions to ask. What makes the minuscule, low energy life research so unique? not that this universe and it's lfe is not unique too.
prologos: There are quite significant differences between the work at CERN and abiogenesis, primarily that at CERN they have a fixed theory to work with (the standard model of particle physics) which operate with a small(ish) number of entities according to fixed laws. With abiogenesis, you got all of biochemistry, most which has not yet been discovered (no standard model), you don't know what simple life could be (compare to look for the higgs boson) and you don't have a fixed environment since we don't know the geological and chemical makeup of early earth very well (compare to the controlled environment in a collider).
You could make the same argument for any old crime: hey, if they can find the amplitude of the Higgs field, why can't they figure out who killed ms. Jones?
So is it a question of resources? Even if the high energy experiments were not designed to verify given theories, the results were telling and often unexpected.
To use an analogy from that field: If a quark had consciousness, what questions would it want to ask to the designers and makers of the accelerator? The only thing on it's horizon would be that energy of the collision.
Finding out how matter started to organize to have finally consciousness should be easier, not driven by hypotheses either, one molecule at a time?
prologos: Why should it be easier to figure out what could/did happen on the early earth 4 billion years ago than to find the Higgs boson?
Am I wrong to assume, that less energy is required to repeat the first (or 5st after the extinctions) jump from inorganic to organic to "life, or living molecules"? We do not have to manufacture the whole "zoo" of chemicals, do we not now have even more complex compounds existing today, than 4 billion years ago? If it was random, we have powerful tools to "cheat on the house" alter the odds, or create set-ups to try to make it happen again, even if we can not be sure it was THAT life that would emerge?
I am thinking Alchemists versus nuclear research, modern chemistry.
prologos: It depends a bit on what you mean by energy. The energy involved in the actual collision events at CERN is actually quite miniscule (I have heard it is comparable to two mosquito's colliding heads on), however since it is concentrated on two particles it create a region with relatively high energy density.
Now, the misunderstanding is that energy == complexity. You are really comparing two very different physical systems and two very different goals. At CERN, scientists was trying to check out the predictions of a very specific set of laws, namely the standard model in particle physics. In other words they knew what to do and what to expect, provided the law was correct. The experiment was still very complicated at the end of the day, but that was mainly because it involved a great deal of engineering.
With life it is the case (1) we don't know what to look for (2) we don't know which building blocks we have available (3) we don't know what the building blocks we have available might do (in details).
All of these conditions are very different than what happened at CERN. So while it might be the case any specific experiment is relatively inexpensive to carry out compare to the LHC, we don't know which experiments are relevant.
It is like given a person in the 1850s a hanger full of all sorts of modern electronics and mechanical stuff and ask him if he can somehow assemble some of these bits to something that can fly really quick; he don't know what pieces to put together, what the various pieces might do or that he should build a jet engine.
Telling him the energy involved in putting the stuff together is relatively small compared to a bonfire is properly not very helpful to him.
I suggest you read the wikipedia page on abiogenesis.
In science today I would think that looking at all possibilities is exactly the sort of advice I think one should give to people.
First, there are two key differences between what you wrote and EOM wrote. EOM said we MUST look at all possibilities. You wrote that people should be ALLOWED to look at all possibilities. Those are fundamentally different statements.
To negate the statement one end up with the suggestion that one should not look at some possibilities; however if we are really to take this suggestion seriously, we cannot decide to look or not to look at a possibility by investigating it's properties, because that would exactly require us to look at it in the first place
That's not true at all. No one ever said "don't investigate". The statement by EOM was "look at all possibilities". If a ball sitting on a table moves at a certain time of day, there are a variety of things I can do to determine why that is. What I don't have to do is entertain nonsensical possibilities, such as a butterfly flapping it's wings on Mars is the cause.
Saying "you don't have to consider non-sense or extremely unlikely possibilities" isn't the same as saying "don't investigate", much like saying "must" isn't the same as "allow".
we will not find the answers we will not live long enough someday someone will. but it should be enjoyable and open always for discussion and should never have any religious opposition, for many a 'faith' has been found to be untrue.
those who do not follow religion prefer not to be labeled as atheists,I feel that word is sort of a prejudiced slur, maybe not all feel that way, but its viewed as a negative word, and those who do not believe in a God are not being negative, they just haven't been presented with enough evidence as science and history has presented and have seen the damage religions have done t mankind.
maybe our creator Isnt a God, did you ever ponder that?
those who do not follow religion prefer not to be labeled as atheists
That's how I label myself. I see nothing negative in it.
maybe our creator Isnt a God, did you ever ponder that?
Yes, many people have. In fact, that came up on this thread.
