Higher math and Darwin (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, April 12, 2010, 16:35 (5338 days ago) @ dhw

I shan't go over the various arguments again, because the point at issue between us was your earlier statement that the chance v. design dilemma was false. I disagreed and still disagree, because in your response of 10 April at 00.58 you haven't actually addressed that issue. No matter what conditions may have been at the beginning, the fact remains that we do have life, and unless you subscribe to BBella's theory (there has always been life), either it originated by accident or by design. What follows on ... namely evolution ... from the origin of the mechanism for life, reproduction, adaptability and innovation can be made to fit into either pattern, and so I agree that you can't draw any sharp distinction from that point onwards.
> -I don't know another way to say it: If chance becomes part of the process, then you can't separate it from the cause. This is due to a mathematical fact--consider that we look at the entire string of chances that makes life exist. Life is some number in this context. If at any point on the line of its history, one of these events was completely random, than that number is permanently a factor, and its effect is greater and greater over time. If you factor out this number, it ceases to be life. This makes the question harder, because its not chance vs. design, it's "how much is chance, and how much is design?" In a sentence: You're turning a gray question into black and white. -> In your post to David, you emphasize that "there IS a physical nature to how life got here, and outside of the greater debate here, THAT should be our focus." Unless people believe in magic (some do, but they don't include any of our current contributors), then that has to be an incontrovertible truth, since life on Earth is physical. Even God would have had to use physical matter to create physical life. And scientists are indeed focusing on THAT. But are we incapable of focusing on more than one subject at a time? David has offered us one post after another (e.g. his latest under "Why is a designer so compelling?") detailing the astonishing physical complexities of life. His conclusion that these provide evidence of design is not a distraction from the physical realities of life, or from the quest to discover their origin. Nor is George's conclusion that it's all down to chance and the laws of nature. Maybe, as you say, we won't "figure out the origin of life by studying life". But your argument concerning our ignorance of the conditions and forms that existed then applies to any approach to the subject. However, that shouldn't and fortunately doesn't stop us from studying life, from analysing and marvelling at what that unknown original mechanism has produced, and from speculating about how it could possibly have come into existence.-You... put a little bit into my mouth here. In the context of the conversation I'm speaking at large: what part of origin of life research has really come about by studying life itself? I'm not saying that we can't draw inspiration, or use life as a guideline, but the origin of life itself could very well be something entirely different than what we have now. My thought is more of a warning that if we place too much emphasis on life as we know it now, we may completely miss some other, more likely method than what we've seen. The paper I posted some time ago that talked about a "de-evolution" if you will of a codon base is what really got me thinking this direction. -I've said before that a good chunk of my work here is "as a mathematician," and it is in this sense that I view my job as one of pointing out heuristics and feedback on current methods and thinking. I think the approach currently taken in origin of life research is completely wrong. The goal should be to create life--any kind of life, even if it doesn't resemble our own--and then work from THAT point. Marveling about life is contemplative, creating it is actionary.

--
\"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.\"