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Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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You’re an idiot If you think the first organism “ate” normally. Even photosynthesis is too complicated for the first organism. The first organism simply ate from the primordial soup that consisted of rna and other syntheses replicating proteins and other basic components of life. Photosynthesis came much later.
"complex genes would have had to spontaneously create themselves in some manner."
That's a false dichotomy fallacy of course, but no, your assertion is not true, they could have evolved slowly, as we know ALL LIVING THINGS have done.
@lukew0480: Even if the source of food was sunlight alone, the organism must undergo photosynthesis to create usable energy.
The first organisms likely took energy from the hot chemical stew around deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Photosynthesis was a much later innovation. One of the side-effects was to transform the Earth's atmosphere by emitting oxygen, which is very dangerous stuff. And organisms don't "undergo" photosynthesis. They perform it.
lukew0480: The likelihood of this occurring labels this as being conceivably impossible.
Pluck a number of out the air to represent that likelihood. Christian apologists and creationists often do that without any logical or scientific basis.
Now divide that by the number of locations in Earth's primeval oceans where chemical reactions could occur. Divide the result by the number of chemical reactions that would occur per hour in environments energized by sunlight, radiation, tidal effects, bombardment, volcanic and seismic activity, etc. Finally divide this by the number of hours in around a billion years.
The answer is one.
Life itself is the opposite of entropy. That's why the second law of Thermodynamics applies to nature that is unaltered. From the way that we alter the terrain to the extremely complex way that we are built, life is the opposite of entropy. For life to have occurred naturally, there had to be one single point of breaking that law.
@lukew0480: That's why the second law of Thermodynamics applies to nature
Of course it does. But look up the law and read it carefully. It says that entropy cannot decrease in an isolated system. The Earth has never been an isolated system. It's constantly fed with energy from the Sun. It's also full of stored solar energy in the form of oil, coal, wood, etc. As long as energy is coming in, entropy can decrease. So the spontaneous emergence of life is not a violation of the second law.
Before reading any other posts, I have been waiting for the opportunity to use the attached message. This thread seems like a wonderful place to park it.
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I'm not sure what your exact complaint is, but I'll take a guess at it and if my guess of what your complaint(s) is not accurate, then please accept my apology, and please post a more explicit complaint. Anyway I'm guess it is one (or more) of the following:
To save time I will address both of these (potential) complaints:
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For complaint A, I'll simply say that entropy is described in dimensions of energy divided by temperature. In SI units that is joules/kelvin which is often written J/K. You can see that appears all over my calculations:
Now its possible I made an error in my multiplication, but clearly entropy is related to energy flow (joules). According to Wikipedia the SI unit for entropy is JK^(-1) which is just a fancy way of writing J/K. If you don't like Wikipedia as a source I can quickly find dozens of academic sources that agree with me, after all that is where I learned this stuff, I didn't come up with it myself; I ain't that smart.
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For complaint B, I don't think we need to go any further than your own statements:
Clearly from your own descriptions, the calculation of the entropy associated with life had better involve the transfer of energy from the Sun to the Earth in the form of sunlight.
(format edited)lukew0480: "Everything that has life contains intelligence?"
Love to hear your definition of intelligence. "1. the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills." is how it is generally defined. So what in the hell are you talking about????
RE: ffs "Didn't we just do this with another Creationist?" THERE IS NO CODE IN DNA. It is a complex molicule. You said, "DNA, which is the encoded instruction written into the genes of living organisms." This is a theist equivocation fallacy. You are not using the word code in the same way geneticists use it. A simple google search would prove that to you. "As usual, this argument comes down to using words improperly. A code, by the strictest definition, is in fact something designed by intelligent beings. It is a system of symbols that either arbitrarily or by some system represent various things. "
"The problem with the theist argument, however, is that the DNA code is not arbitrary, and it does not rely at all on the agreement of sentient beings. In fact, it is exactly the same in nature as any other dynamic chemical process. " DNA is not a “code” in the normal sense of the word. We call it a code because doing so gives us an easy way to think of the process by which a strand of DNA is responsible for the building of a living thing.
That’s it. When we look at a particular sequence of nucleotides, we can recognize that the chemical reaction they facilitate will produce a certain protein. This is no different from looking at a few grams of sodium or potassium and recognizing that in the presence of water, they will react in very specific ways to produce a violent exothermic reaction. If DNA is a code, then so is every other molecule in the universe. It’s just the consistency of the laws of nature." (It's just that easy. The only way DNA gets to be a code is when theists fuck around with the actual definitions.) You are engaged in an equivocation fallacy.
https://livinglifewithoutanet.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/dna-is-not-a-code/
RE: "Though most life must consume life to survive."
Thank you Mr. Obvious and where did you get your biology degree? I assume you will publish your theories soon and wake up the world to the obvious fact that there is a creator being behind all this code crap you speak of.
RE: " Life is a force" Wow! One ignorant saying after another. "force: n physics, something that causes a change in the motion of an object." You have said absolutely nothing. "It found a way to survive?" WTF are you talking about? Can we call this one an equivocation oxymoron? Forces survive? Really. Electric force, Gravitational force, Tension force, Magnetic force. ....
RE: "But even to say that if all of this came together in the perfect way by chance, why does it start functioning?" You just saw it functioning in the DNA molecule and before that the RNA molecule. You see the same force in molecules and atoms. "Intermolecular forces (IMF) are the forces which mediate interaction between molecules, including forces of attraction or repulsion which act between molecules and other types of neighboring particles, e.g., atoms or ions." CHEMICAL INTERACTIONS AND NOTHING ABOUT IT IS 'RANDOM.'
RE: "there must be some reverse of the second law of thermodynamics/miracle in order for the current reality that we live in to exist. Such an event would undoubtedly require knowledge." WTF are you talking about. This is so far off base as to just be stupid. "The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time." Are you just repeating shit you have heard to try and sound intelligent. Please demonstrate your absurd assertion..
RE: "but when you look at the vast amount of automated and perfectly harmonious cycles and processes that atheists contend happened randomly and by chance, atheism just looks to me like the true delusion."
The only thing deluded around here is your inability to understand simple facts and the bullshit cut and paste job you have done from creationist websites. Have you any idea at all how utterly ignorant you sound. You are like a six year old child with an IQ of 70 explaining the meaning of life. I want to give you a box of crayons, a blank sheet of paper and send you to your room to color but you would probably eat the crayons, shit rainbows, and then call it an act of God. READ SOMETHING BESIDES THAT FRIGGING BIBLE.
"Everything that has life, contains intelligence, if not through a brain, through DNA, which is the encoded instruction written into the genes of living organisms. Therefore, if life exists, intelligence must exist also."
This is a stretch of the definition of intelligence. A traditional definition would include reason, interest, problem solving. Single celled bacterium, the oldest known lifeform, still outnumber every other living organism on the planet, but they do not reason or have interests. Conciousness might be a better word for the majority of lifeforms. Intelligence comes into play with later animals.
In any case DNA does not confer intelligence. A fully developed sensory nervous system is required to produce intelligent behaviour. DNA is "blind". Its purpose is to replicate existing genetic combinations, not create them or fashion genomes that run faster or fly or consciously produce bigger brains.
About 2 to 3 billion years ago the only lifeforms were single celled bacteria. They were alive. That they were single celled precluded them from having brains, or intelligence. The best they could do was react. They might have been concious but they were not intelligent.
"Intelligence-driven information must already be in place for a single duplicate to be made. That intelligence-driven information is the genetic code of the being. The genetic code is as complex as a book, something that I have never seen write itself."
The single cell bacterium were duplicating so rapidly 2.5 billion years ago roughly 25% of their fossils show them in the middle of seperating or recombining in the process of mitosis.
There was no intelligence invovled. Theres one thing theists either ignore or discount entirely and that is TIME. The earth was formed approximately 4 billion years ago, life in the form of these single cell animals appeared 3 to 2 billion years ago, that leaves one to two billion years and a huge earth sized cauldron of chemical and physical activity, not chance, not luck but the predictable effect of chemistry and physics is all that was needed and it only had to happen once at a microscopic level and it all had to happen in an oxygen free world. The cyanobacteria whose photosynthetic activity produced unattached oxygen as a by product were the main source of the oxygen found in the earth's atmosphere and the ozone layer that eventually both aided in the development of land animals.
I could go on dissecting your OP but I am weary of the exercise and in the end it doesnt matter what is explained about the science, you will always be a theist and for you the bits you can't understand will always be because your god made it that way. Fine. I don't care. Beleive what you want but dont pretend you understand science or even care to, when all you want to do is attribute the universe and everything to your god's incredible power.
You are wrong and there is nothing to discuss nor debate, you want only to empahsise and distort what you don't know or understand and pass it off as proof against the scientific method.
This is an atheist site, we deal in intelligence and reason not myths, what were you expecting?
"And you try and tell the young theists of today that, and they won't believe you. "
"No, they won't"
LOL!
Hi to all, I am new here.
I like how you use the term consciousness although I can not see how you explain how it works.
I believe that consciousness is part and parcel of everything in this universe.
Even a stone has consciousness which she can not express unlike more developed form of life such as plants, animals and humans.
So the more a life form evolve and the more she is aware of who she is.
Any thought?
You can believe any bizarre thing you want to believe. Base your belief on faith and you will sound as nutty as the Christians. Base it on a minimal facts argument and you can sound as fruity as any new age crystal magic, Chandra, pyramid power, power of chi, bullshit practitioner out there in the world today. Believe in any WooWoo you like. But around here, at least have the balls to back it up with a couple of facts. What evidence do you have that a rock is conscious. Please post a reference to the scientific data you used to reach that conclusion. OH! By the way.... If you can prove it you will win a Nobel prize/
"Even a stone has consciousness......Any thought?"
One or two thoughts are springing irrepressibly to mind.
@Sheldon Re: "Even a stone has consciousness......Any thought?"
One or two thoughts are springing irrepressibly to mind.
LMAO.... I gave you an "Agree", but only because they still have yet to install a "1000 Agrees" button! That was great!..... LMAO.....
@Alain, I offered the word 'conciousness', denoting some level of awareness, which you would expect to find in a bacteria that can move and react to its environment, as an alternative to 'intelligence', as found in higher animals, and which carries the definition that includes, conciousness, reason, problem solving, preferences and the ability to respond and induce changes to environment.
The definition of these words and their synonyms like 'sentience' and 'perception' provoke all sorts of debate over interpretation.
I felt the OP's use of 'intelligence' with regard to first organisms a bit over the top, especially when he moved straight to 'intelligence' with respect to the ultimate creative fantasy.
The single celled animal does not even have a noto-chord (precursor to a spinal chord). You require an organism made up of a variety of specialised cells for that and that doesn't occur in the geological history until about 500 million years ago.
Now as to rocks and stones...firstly they are not alive, they are totally comprised of minerals and elements. Living things are defined as anything that respires (breathes in some way), eats, defecates, reproduces, and of course the final proof, dies. Rocks and stones don't do that. I have a lovely collection of rocks which I favour because of peculiar shape and colouring, but they never seem happy to see me when I get home from work, unlike my dog.
However if you want to, you can even beleive the rocks engage in telepathy with you, there is no way I can prove or disprove that, just like beleiving in a god, really.
Science clearly say that.......energy and matter are really the same thing.........so a stone is made of energy.
Science doesn't say that energy and consciousness go hand in hand or that the two are the two sides of the same sheet however something tell me that energy without consciousness would be like a meteor that of course is out of control.
If you touch a stone you will not get a shock like if you touch an open electrical wiring despite this stone is made of energy, right?
Why than don't we agree that this energy is under the control of a consciousness?
Any thoughts?
How do you define consciousness? Why do you feel the need to introduce an agency to the universe that is greater than the whole?
What this whole suppose to be?
I understand "the whole" to be everything that exists. In the context of what you said, equivalent to the universe. For you to say that everything in the universe is under control by some consciousness means invoking an agency greater than this, which makes no sense.
Well, well, well..............
The universe may be as big as you like but is still made of the five fundamental factors such as space, air, light, water and matter which lie many step below our human consciousness so a human developed consciousness is superior to it that is why the universe can not be called the whole.
Eventually a super developed consciousness can be called the whole not the universe which elements or factors are still in a less developed stage.
I don't think your argument would make any more sense even if you actually defined what you meant.
wait a minute: air and water are made out of particles labeled as matter. So that only leaves you 3 fundamental factors. Not that I agree with that either, but at least then your story wouldn't contradict itself in the same sentence.
Well..........if you put it in this way we can also say that we are a body only even if this body is made of the same elements or components that made the universe.
You are a dense child. Yes our bodies are made of the same elements as are in universe. In fact, they go hydrogen, helium, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen. The most common elements in the human body are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen. Water is ONLY found on celestial objects that are not stars. And then they have to be at the right distance from a star, else the water boiled off. Literally. Air, as you are referring, does not occur in space. Once in space, most gaseous molecules will break down to their constituent elements.
Please stay in school yungun and quit skipping classes.
rmfr
@ Alain
A-ha! An Elementalist. You are completely wrong. There are only four components of everything in the universe: matter, energy, space, time. That's it. Elements are reserved for each of more than 100+ substances that cannot be chemically interconverted or broken down into simpler substances and are primary constituents of matter.
Your attempt to redefine the elements of alchemy into a New Age pseudoscience is nothing more than a huge pile of horse hoowhee.
rmfr
Since when the time is an element that compose the universe?
Can you see it?
Touch it?
Smell it?
Hear it?
The time is only there to measure a distance.
Distance that the evolution take to go from point start to point finish.
Nothing to do with being an element.
Well, this is all I needed. You are a nothing more than a 13 year old yungun trying to compete with minds that far surpass anything you are capable of thinking.
When did I say "time" was an element? Plese BLOCKQUOTE the text and proved a link back to the specific post.
Time does NOT measure distance. Stay in school yungun and quit skipping so many classes.
rmfr
1) Gee, to you the difference between element and component must be enormous.
In reality the two offer little if any difference.
But depending on context, both elements and components can be used interchangeably.
https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/6166
2) Time.
You say that the time ..........does NOT measure distance, right?
So explain to me why the time never goes for someone who is suffering while it goes very fast for someone who is happy to disappear completely when someone find him-herself in total ecstasy?
Why the time suppose to be a component?
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