Origin of Life (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 28, 2009, 08:35 (5241 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt is constructing a system in order to calculate the probability of life coming about by chance, though the solution is not likely to happen in our lifetime. -First of all, thank you for your patient and clear answers to my list of questions. I think (hope) I now have a better understanding of what you're trying to do, but as I'm in no position to judge its scientific feasibility, I can only go on making general observations. Your answers are of very real interest to me, precisely because these are fields of which I know so little, so I hope I'm not overstretching your patience. -I'll begin with an old issue, on which I think we agree. You wrote: "It is fair to say that from what we currently know from chemistry, it seems preposterous that life came about. But for us to be able to say with any level of confidence that it COULDN'T be by chance, we can't just look at earth. The combination must be "preposterous" everywhere in the cosmos." This "preposterousness", plus the fact that our present knowledge of the cosmos is so limited, must lay equal doubt on the claim that life COULD be by chance. Therefore, until we know all the conditions and combinations, the feasibility or otherwise of life coming about by chance remains a matter of belief and not of science. In case the message is not clear, this brackets theism and atheism together as dependent on different types of faith.-The established physical law that "matter cannot be created or destroyed" raises another old question (see the thread on Nothing): if our universe began with the Big Bang, what went bang? According to this law, it could only have been existing matter, and therefore the Big Bang can't have been the beginning of the universe. Alternatively, if the Big Bang did create matter, then matter CAN be created, and the fact that we have not observed any "generating" force in the cosmos does not mean that there is no such force. Of course I'm not postulating anything. I'm floundering! And to make matters worse, in view of the fact that 96% of the universe's matter/energy remains unknown, I still don't see how physicists can calculate the total number of particles. And doesn't the "HUGE degree of error" make such calculations worthless anyway? -The same problem applies to the origin of life. You write: "For the question on only knowing 4% of the universe, we have no reason at present to assert that "dark matter" or "dark energy" plays a role in the creation of life." Recently (13 December at 20.03) you wrote "since every particle contains information about the universe all things are tied together more closely than one could ever imagine..." Might not the 4% of cosmic matter/energy that we actually know be closely tied to the 96% we don't know, and might not some of the missing information about life lie in the 96% rather than the 4%? Another imponderable factor?-In response to my point that the "ingredients" for life had no form of locomotion, you reply that chemical reactions are "an exchange of electrons ... nothing more". Scientists in search of the Holy Grail of abiogenesis consciously conduct experiments, i.e. investigate possible combinations. My argument was that according to the chance theory, 4.5 ... 3.5 billion years ago no-one was conducting experiments, and the ingredients had no way of combining and transferring their energy except through unpredictable, unconscious elements. That was why I queried how you could accurately count the number of "attempts". But maybe I've misunderstood your answer.-Let me really stick my neck out now, and try to sum up your hypothesis in my own layman's terms. If we knew the total number of particle combinations possible in our cosmos (which we don't), and if we knew the combination that led to life (which we don't), and if we knew what other combinations and conditions might also lead to different forms of life (which we don't), we would be able to calculate the number of "attempts" necessary to achieve a combination for life. If we divided the number of attempts necessary by the age of the universe at the time when we know life began (say 10 billion years?), we would be able to calculate the number of attempts necessary per second/minute/hour for chance to have created life (though we would have no way of knowing whether they took place).-I apologize in advance if this is all wrong, and I fully acknowledge that I am a non-swimmer jumping in at the deep end, but the object is clarification, and I see no other way of getting it. I can only hope you'll find it of some use to explain your ideas so that even a non-scientist like me can follow them. If my summary is not wrong, though, aren't we still left, not with a solution but with a question of belief ... namely, whether chance could and did carry out the requisite number of "attempts" within the given time?