Theoretical origin of life; Koonen's odds against (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 24, 2015, 19:30 (3560 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The argument is simply that infinity and eternity make anything possible. I remain baffled by all the vehement opposition to the two concepts.-DAVID: It is accepted that odds of 10^-150 rule out chance. That is not infinity. The argument is the same as the orbiting teapot. Just because it is imaginable does not mean it is real.-And just because God is imaginable does not mean he is real. Russell's teapot was a way of poking fun at the argument that nobody can prove God doesn't exist. The same applies to all the hypotheses, theistic and atheistic, that are offered to explain the origin of life and the universe. Nobody can prove they're wrong. Theist pots versus atheist kettles.-dhw: Of course the chance argument is no reason for believing in infinity, but until someone proves that our universe is finite and/or came from nothing, it will remain as much a hypothesis as an infinite eternal universe or succession of universes.
DAVID: This universe appears to have a beginning and a microwave background that represents it. There is an unproven discussion that beyond the CMB is an infinite universe. Unfortunately, we can never see it. Another hypothesis to mull in the confusion. IF the BB created space and time, there must be a boundary with the void. Unfortunately, we cannot see that boundary because space curves back on itself. I think God created all of this to confuse us or keep us guessing. After all, faith requires faith. He shouldn't allow science to absolutely prove Himself. He leaves room for faith.-It is certainly confusing. You have sometimes rebuked ne for trying to read your God's mind (e.g. maybe he created life as an entertainment to relieve his eternal boredom), and so it is gratifying to see you offering your own divine mind-reading interpretation of the confusion. But of course the confusion might be caused by the fact that we are specks of dust that arrived long after the birth of our planet, and for all our technical prowess we cannot observe any of the phenomena we theorize about (birth of the universe, infinity, eternity, origin of life). We are way, way, way out of our depth. But it's fun to speculate.