Origin of Life (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, December 28, 2009, 18:30 (5240 days ago) @ dhw

dhw, 
> ... 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.
> -Of this we are in staunch agreement. -> 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. -The Singularity that Cosmologists refer to, is a point where everything that IS the universe existed. The reason that physics breaks down at this point, is that even space didn't exist--There was no time, no matter and therefore no point of reference. Only raw energy--and there was a fixed amount. They can put an upper limit on the amount of energy (particles) due to the fact that if you have too much energy, the matter that transformed from that energy would move away from each other too rapidly to form all the structures that we see. Too slowly, and everything would just be a large massive blob. If it puts you off that I seem to use matter and energy interchangeably, I apologize in advance but it is my intention as matter is really seen as an expression of... "stored information." To summarize: If there was an infinite amount of energy, the "Big Bang" would have been too large for things such as our solar system to form; in fact even if our world DID somehow manage to form in that universe, we wouldn't even be able to see other stars. We also know that the Big Bang DID in fact, happen. Observations of the "Microwave Background" that you may have heard about verified the signature of this expansion. We know--for a fact--that our universe began at a single point and expanded.-
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? 
> -I believe I've addressed most of this. The "rest of the universe" that you discuss is currently under investigation by astronomers and cosmologists; but all that goes into making life is in that 4% of the universe we call matter. The rest of the "unknown" is "dark matter" and "dark energy" which if they truly exist at all, have properties that would make it rather hostile for us here on earth considering that dark energy by itself seems to work against gravity. -No, the huge degree of error does not make calculations worthless: we know that below 10^72 there isn't enough energy for our universe (as we know it) and above 10^87 there's too much. -
> 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?
> -If dark matter were present in our solar system, it wouldn't be a mystery. The role that dark energy seems to play is in accelerating expansion. We know that the outer boundaries of our universe are moving at 3x the speed of light because of Dark Energy. (Again, assuming it *truly* exists.)

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"