Chukka

Blinky, even though you say you do, you don't seem to understand the basics of evolution and natural selection. You also seem have a problem with the scale of things.

Evolution, or natural selection, which is an important part of evolution, is about "survival of the fittest". The fittest organism is the one that manages to get as many child organisms as possible, thus making sure its genome is passed on to the future.

Let's assume, then, that a couple of billion years ago, when there was no life, an amoeba formed (you've said you accept that life did form, so this is no problem for you). But sadly, this amoeba was of a kind which doesn't reproduce. What would happen? Like all life, after some time, it's cells would stop working, and it'd die. The end, sorry, no advanced creatures will come from it since it didn't get any offspring.

Fast forward some time, and an amoeba of another kind forms, one which is able to reproduce. So when it feels like it, it splits into two amoebas, who then split into two more, and so on, some die, but there are always more aroound. This amoeba is thus a lot "fitter" than the previous kind, and starts the development of life. Maybe some of its offspring mutates into amoebas (or cats, later on), that can't reproduce, what happens? That branch of amoeba dies out as soon as they die.

Now, the creation of sterile amoebas might have happened once, twice, never, or a million times, we have no way of knowing since they died out immediately.

For life to reproduce is one of the fundamental requirements for it to exist, the same way we require oxygen to breath. If amoebas that reproduced never formed, we wouldn't be here.


Your problem with scale that I mentioned earlier is that you expect a quark to behave the same way as an electron which you expects to act the same way an atom does, which you expect to act the same way a molecule acts, which you expect to act the same way a cell acts, which you expect to act the same way a human acts.

The more complex something is, the more complex it's actions probably are too, because some action require more than a single quark to happen, and this is why life manages to make replicas of itself while the electrons won't. The same way two protons are able to sit really close to each others in the nucleus of an atom, while two atoms in a molecule are extremely far apart. The same way two electrons can't join up and create a stable group, while two oxygen atoms can.

 

I just want to clarify this statement a bit further because I think one of Blinky's questions that I didn't answer very well was along the same lines.

Blinky: Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you read the italicized part of mathboy's quote, would you then ask "But what is the force (or functional purpose) that makes the amoeba feel like it needs to replicate?"

Now one side of the argument, I think, would be what Blinky brought up before about the force of Atman, or God's creations for a Christian, or some other source, that instills in us the primal urges to feed, to reproduce, etc. And the other side of the argument (the one I support) is how our urges are just the result of chemical processes telling us that when we're hungry, we feed; when we're horny, we get jiggy. There is no outside (God or Atman)/inside (soul) influence that puts this motivation in us. But what I failed to do to back up my argument was explain the chemical process. The amoeba doesn't "feel" an urge to split. When it begins life, some chemical processes are active and some are at rest. These chemical process depend different sources of proteins, enzymes, single peptides, or ribosomes to function properly. If a process is at rest, it becomes active when something in the environment triggers it. These triggers are commonly in the form of fluctuating concentrations of the proteins, enzymes, etc that form in the cytoplasm, nucleus, etc...of the cell. So the amoeba floats along in its environment until it encounters a stimulus that triggers a membrane surface bound receptor to trigger a process that tells the enzyme polymerase to start transcribing the amoeba's DNA to produce a certain kind of protein. Once so much of this protein is made to reach a certain concentration, another process is triggered that then tells the amoeba it's time to begin the processes of mitosis. The result is two daughter cells and the original parent amoeba is successfull in passing along it's genome to a future generation. There was no conscious effort on the amoeba's part to procreate. When it was time, then it was time. Why did it have to be at that time? What was it in the atmosphere that triggered the process and why that specific stimulus? The laws of science. Just like the Big Bang sent cosmic debris scattering through time and space that eventually tumbled into place the way we know due to the boundaries of science. And I'm using "science" very ambiguously here, though, becuase I simply don't know what processes took place to actually start the formation of planets, comets, stars, etc. I could look it up, but that's another topic for another time.

Now another question I think Blinky was proposing (and one I agree with him on) is: Why does that stimulus trigger the reproductive process of the amoeba? We've just established that it DOES do it. But WHY does it do it? Why does Na bond with Cl to form a salt? Sure their electron orbital configurations make it possible, but why is an electron attracted to a proton (and vice versa)? Why is something negative attracted to something positive? Why do the opposite poles of magnets attract and like poles repel? Why does the universe have to obey THIS set of scientific laws and not another set where like poles attract and opposites repel?

Those questions for the ages. Our 2nd level Physics professor back in college, when proposed with a few of these questions, literally said, "We just don't know yet. Magnets and opposites/likes have been a mystery for a long time, and we just don't know how, exactly, they work yet. When someone does figure it out, though, it'll mean an immediate, automatic, Nobel Prize." And that was that.

 

Well, no offense intended, mathboy, but that logic seems fuzzy at best.

First of all, I never said I accept that life DID form on its own, only that it COULD, so that we could discuss the topic you've brought up. I'll do the same again with you.

I DO in fact understand evolution; it's very obvious that those cells that were created that were sterile (didn't perform mitosis) obviously have died by now, and that only a viable strain of bacteria could have continued on, growing, reproducing, and evolving. However, my point wasn't related to an obvious fact that things that don't breed can't have a perpetuating genetic line, it was slightly different.

The organization of a living cell, however unlikely (I will elaborate more in a second), can be attributable to a random molecules 'bumping into each other' and bonding. Mitosis, however, cannot. You, like Grimm, are stating the fact that cells divide like a fait accompli, like since we know that they do, we don't need to question how. I didn't think I was imposing too much of a human temperment on a cell to say that it's purpose is to replicate itself: it eats until a certain point, then 'dies' as it splits into two. In this simplistic case, the sole purpose of that organisms life is breeding.

That said, my argument stands quite well, I think. If the structure that is a living organism can be created by scientific means, by a random conglomerating of various organic compounds, then that still doesn't explain its instinct to breed, or to survive, both of which are not the behaviors of a simple chemical compound.

The formation of a cell, to backtrack and expand upon its unlikeliness, is composed of ridiculously complex cells and organisms. This two seems to counter the tendency most of chemical reactions, which seek the lowest energy state. A large amount of energy (heat or light) in the system can counter this, but I feel it's important to point that, in addition to forming in the first place, the molecule would have to be in a stable environment for the entire time until it reached more molecules like it. As you know, proteins are extremely fragile things, as are most cellular parts, when taken in isolation.

That sums up my own point quite nicely, with a minor tweak. For life to reproduce is a requirement for continuous existance. A sterile ameoba might form, but without the instinct to reproduce, ALL ameoba would be sterile. Reproduction is a complicated process and I highly doubt that the ameobas just felt like it would be an awesome thing to do. There's something more going on.

I never meant to imply that quarks behave the same as electrons, they each have discrete behaviors, as do cells and humans. However, I stand by my statement, all of life has a reproductive instinct, and I would be astonished to see an example showing otherwise. I can, however, prove your second to last statement hypocritical based upon your last.

I don't like the word probably, but I'll role with it. However, you're proposing that life is based on quarks. I'd firstly love to see research supporting this, but even still: let's assume a cell needs two of a specific quarks to reproduce, and it only has one. (Since there seems to be a problem with people taking my hypotheticals as literals, feel free to substitute the word quark for any fitting cellular or atomic object)

Let's take reproduction in multicellular organisms as an example, since it shows the example best, although it does apply to single-celled organisms as well, which I will elaborate on if you wish. A cat has one-half of what is needed to form a new cat. Now, why the cat WANTS to form a new cat is still beyond me; but to imply that it's because this one quark, or chromosome, or whatever put in a request to the cat to get more of itself, presumably because it's lonely or has a job to do, seems to be a stretch of logic.

In the single-celled case, even when it possesses all that it needs to to make the cell reproduce, that still does not explain why the action is taken, why that ends is sought.

 

Your 21? Huh. I thought you were like 30 (I was exaggerating the age differance-thing)... Well, that places you at a whopping two years older than I. :lol:

I also believe that proof of other intelligent life will play a big role in proving or disproving God. Currently I've been awake for a bit over two days, and think of why this sounds so logical to me. Anyone care to support my thought?

 

I'm not so sure that will play a big role as much as just possibly shed a little more light on the subject. But still, this is like a carousel of a discussion we're having. Even if intelligent life is disovered on a different planet, I'll still contest that it was put there by the laws of science behind the Big Bang and others will still refute that it was God that created all life; ours and the others that are discovered. Someone said that if God created the universe, that would mean that God at one point resided outside of this universe. So I don't think that any of us will ever really know the origin of the universe because:

1) The gods of our religions are the only beings with divine enough power to exist outside of this universe and...

2) ...Scientifically speaking, even with the aid of time hopping through wormholes in space, to observe the birth of the universe would mean to have to be there at least a fraction of a second before the universe formed which would mean to exist before our own existance. Sounds like a pretty good Twighlight Zone episode.

There's 12:30am Friday night logic for you.

 

Hmmm...think of it this way;
We were created in His image.
God created all life, and then created us, humans, in his image. Say there's intelligent life on other planets. I don't know why God would have two separate species that have the exact same function, so that could mean all intelligent life looks like us, or Him, as the case may be. If it looks different, maybe that means there's not a great creator. Or it means God looks like many things.
Ah, damn...this is why I hate thinking. I end up going in circles by not defending either point and trying to meet some imaginary middle ground.

What if it all looks the same everywhere? We can't be the only living planet in the universe. It's too big, and we know too little to say there's nothing but us. Also, that'd be really depressing.
I'm just trying to think if there's a reason for intelligent life to look like anything but us. If it does, and it's more advanced, what's that say? If it's less advanced, what does that say?
We could then watch another planet's progress and actually witness our own evolution into what we are today.
Maybe that's what the aliens of our planet are doing? Maybe they're humans from another planet watching how "they" progressed to their current state, and the things we see are planted memories of what they look like. I'd be shocked if they weren't capable in hypnosis at their state of being.
Then there's the whole theological standpoint to look at...
If there's other intelligent life in the universe just like us, then we're not as special. Especially if we weren't created as early as that other life. But we're more special than the life that's younger than us, so we'd still have that.
But, here's an interesting suggestion;

Say this was all intelligent design, but not by God. What if it's by a scientist in a lab, from a civilization even greater than what ours is? Our entire lives could be the result of an experiment in a particle accelerator. In this case, so that we could be observed, our universe would age much more quickly than that of the observer. Maybe to them, this is a process taking only seconds, or minutes of their time. Perhaps universes are born every day in this manner, and we're just one of the many results possible. The thought that my entire life, that the life of this universe, was started simply to answer a hypothesis, is rather staggering.

What happens when we get to this level? Will we be creating and crushing universes just to answer questions? It's a crazy thing to think about.

Personally, I do believe in a higher power, but I'm gnostic. I can't really say what that power is, but I can't explain all of the universe with science.
Hell, a few athiests I know can't explain everything with science (but none who come here).
I know the sun is going to swallow the first 3 rocks of this system in another 5 billion years. Where are we going? I've got very little faith in our species as far as space travel goes. Do we have the minds for it? Yes. But we're not going to have the resources for it pretty soon, and you can only do so much to mine it from passing asteroids.

 

Oh, but did you miss my post or did I never said it?

Science has discovered a planet with all the conditions that the earth had, and they suspect that in a billion years life may sprung there

 

Ah, sorry. Misunderstood you question a little. But to colonize space, yes, Mars would definetly do it. And to make it livable, I think the best is to start with a glasbubble and try to get a working ekosystem in that, and then expanding it.

 

I'm sorry I mixed things up a bit. Electrons aren't made from quarks, protons and neutrons are. But my point is the same. A bunch of different quarks group together to form the nucleus of an atom and a couple of electrons join them. Together they make an atom. Many atoms make a molecule, and many molecules (specific molecules) make a cell. On every step in this chain, the behaviour of the particles is different.

And I don't see why the "instinct" of a cell to split into two cells is any different from the "instinct" of an electron to join up with a proton, or the "instinct" of Na and Cl to join and create NaCl.

Cells, DNA, copy itself to create more cells, U transforms itself into other elements while shooting dangerous radiation, and three quarks join to form a proton or neutron. This explains growth too. Cells copy themselves, that's what they do, and to do that, they need energy and we grow.

Now, of course it's a lot more complicated when you have more cells, the cells specialize in different areas, but since it works in single celled organisms (amoebas that copy themselves), evolution made sure that the multicellular organisms also had the instinct to reproduce (by making the ones who had the most hormones telling them to mate get the most children).


EDIT: DE: Why would we move to mars when the sun is eating earth. I'd prefer going as far away from it as possible, and 420 lighyears isn't that far, sure, the original colonizers probably wouldn't be alive, nor would their children or grandchildren. But it's still not a very long time.

 

I think we should start with the moon. If we can make the moon livable, then we can colonize anything. =]

Also, my point with the God vs. other races statement, now that I've slept and can function properly, is that that sufficiently disproves Adam and Eve. Particularly if they've their own creationism theories and Gods.

 

This is a good comment for me to build upon a point someone (can't remember who now that we have more people than just me and Blinky getting in on the discussion) brought up earlier about complex life being a mystery due to the fact science presents the law that energy travels from a higher to lower state.

That's a good point to make, but whoever stated it is forgetting a few fundamental rules of science: The Laws of Conservation of Energy and Mass. These state that energy and mass can neither be created nor destroyed; only change in state. Now if the argument is made "how can something as complex as life just be left on its own to propogate when energy should naturally be descending from higher to lower states?" Now I'm thinking that this point is meant to say that the complexity of life can't progress if it's supposed to follow a scientific law such as this. But I would argue that not all chemical reactions require the transition of a higher to lower state of energy, meaning the reaction is giving off energy in the form of heat, or exothermic. But where does this energy go once it is released? The Law of Conservation (a law not a theory so it is a proven scientific fact) says that this energy cannot cease to be since its release. No, this energy is then absorbed by other reactions that are endothermic, meaning they require that released heat to react the way they do. And why do they require it? That's the structure of science of our world. That released heat from exothermic reactions lends to the optimal conditions required for endothermic reactions to proceed.

Now some people on here are throwing the word "instinct" around carelessly. An instinct is an innate knowledge that can only be possessed by a living thing. Applying instinct to a non-sentient thing, like atoms and elements, is a false accusation. Atoms and elements behave they do because of the results of physics, not a biological/genetic predisposition to respond to environmental stimuli that allows an immature spider to just already "know" how to spin a web, or for a baby goose to follow the first moving thing it sees after its birth as if it were its mother (a process called "imprinting"). Now, the atoms play an important role in the chemical process when nerve receptors in these organisms percieve this outside stimuli, but they themselves, as non-sentient/non-living beings, do not express instinct. They only adhere to physical law.

 

Basically why geneticists prefer using Drosophila melanogaster as research subjects, and mice as well. These oranisms have rapid maturation and reproductive time frames, allowing a high ratio of experimental and control groups to encourage accurate results in the face of possible mutation. Humans are horrible test subjects because of our long maturation process and moral/personal convictions on who we mate with. But the point is, all the inbreeding going on in God's early Earth would have been so destructive towards the populations collective genome, that the possibility of beneficial mutation in the few required human infants to avoid genetic abnormalities from inbreeding would have been millions to 1...or however many total base pairs we possess in our chromosomes. Meaning: The exact, right type of mutation(s) would've had to occur in the exact nitrogenous base(s) on the exact allele(s) on the exact chromosome for human life to avoid an impending downward spiral into physical and mental ineptitude.

This would be more probable in a species of flies or some other organism that can produce an abundance of offspring in one reproductive cycle. This means more chances for those mutations to occur per cycle, and thus life proliferates.

 

Mathboy, those are EXCEPTIONALLY different 'instincts', one is a physical force, one is a life process. Positive charges attract negative. Women and men are not magnetically drawn into fucking each other. Pheromones do the work of attracting them, but there is no direct force behind that, this isn't basic physics. The pheromones perform a purpose, attracting a mate. Attracting a mate is necessary for breeding, but why is breeding necessary. To promote life?

If you're implying that life is a force into itself, that there's somehow this magical, translucent lifeforce that spurns beings into life and reproducing, and surviving, I'd actually agree with you. I'd call it Atman, the force of life.

You're speaking like there's absolutely no reason at all for cells to divide, they just do, but that type of operation denies a few basic tenets of science. Why should a group of compounds become more and more comlex, then harvest energy from the natural world in order to make more complex compounds, to eventually replicate themselves. Trying to dumb reproduction down to the same thing as atoms bonding might be the only way to argue your point, but it's still not valid, and that fact seems rather clear.

I agree, there are times when chemicals advance to higher energy states, but it seems very random that there would be these 'chemical compounds' floating around in a pool, actively trying to gain energy so that they can try to achieve these higher energy states. Ameobas down sit still. They swim around and look for little blobs of stuff to eat so that they can get bigger and bigger. Gain more and more energy. All so that they can divide. Why? What the fuck is the point? If they were quarks they'd just fly around space, pushed and pulled by physical forces, until they nailed another quark or two, then they would turn into a proton, neutron, or electron. Sodium doesn't look for chlorine, it waits for it. Living creatures don't, that's why they are said to have 'instinct.'

 

Of course, humans reproducing is a lot more complicated than atoms bonding, but deep down, it's pretty much the same, which is why I'm going to talk about the amoebas instead.

Amoebas don't really swim around looking for food. They have no eyes.so they wouldn't know where to swim. I'd say they float around, and when they hit something edible, they eat it, even if they don't want to. Kind of like Na hitting Cl and creating NaCl without wanting to.

And there are no basic tenets of science saying a group of compounds shouldn't gather energy to replicate themselves. In a closed system, energy eventually turns into heat, but the earth is not a closed system. An incredible amount of energy is hurled at it all the time making it possible for compounds to gather lots of energy.

What about mitosis is it that doesn't remind you of the involuntary bonding of atoms? Amoebas don't choose when their cells are going to divide, and neither do we. Cells divide automatically, whether we want it or not, every once in a while.

 

It's not really the same. Atoms don't divide. They may "transfer" electrons which leads to a "bond" with each other to form molecules, but that is drastically different from a reproducing cell where the end result is a copy of that cell. When atoms bond, there are no other atoms that are copied, only the resulting molecule. This follows my explanation that matter and energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only changed in state.

If you have one amoeba that undergoes mitosis, you get two daughter cells. But if you have one Na and one Cl atom that bond you only get one NaCl molecule, not two.

You can try to make the claim of an amoeba replicating at the molecular level is like atoms copying themselves, but that is not accurate. When a cell is triggered to undergo mitosis, the cell has already produced the molecules necessary to replicate its DNA, cytoplasm, mitotic spindel, etc. The atoms are not replicating, only building upon what's already there. I've already explained this type of process before:

I hope this clears some things up.

 

Do not confuse "gather" with "passively collect". Atoms sit there, waiting fo energy to come to them, they don't go to the energy. Living beigns go to the energy.

And no, ameobas don't have eyes, but they do hav e a rudimentary perception that allows them to discern stimuli; bad, or good. Swim toward, or swim away.

Human, or mammal in general, reproduction might be a lot more complicated, but the same motivation to reproduce is there. We don't need to get into the intricacies of baby-making, we all get the gist of it, but the fact is that having a child is not an involuntary bonding reaction. When I meet a female, the two of us aren't instantly zombified and pulled towards each other, where we maul, prod, and poke one another until finally I find the right hole with the right tool. It's not like chemical bonding.