I just find it improbable that life could emerge on its own without some sort of divine push to get things started…what is your take on this ? — kindred

Well, the question seems to be whether matter and spacetime are fundamental, or are they emergent from some other source (of information). The short answer is, of course, we do not know.

Some would say that information is more basic than matter, but that leads to the question - "Information about what?"

It's just difficult for me to imagine that anything exists outside of spacetime and matter. To answer that it is something "divine" just seems to me an imaginary answer to an unanswerable question.

Your posts contain spelling mistakes on the basic simple English words too, which gives impression you are not in clear mind when typing posts. — Corvus

Are you not quite aware of typos? This is an absolutely ridiculous ad hominem.

Hope it helped. — Corvus

As noted i the quote you've used, no, it did not :) Status quo remains...Evolution is occurring.

Are you not quite aware of typos? This is an absolutely ridiculous ad hominem. — AmadeusD

I was only pointing out your ability of understanding English and bad spelling at times, which seems to be the cause for your misunderstanding, because you asked silly questions. It was not ad hominem at all.

As noted i the quote you've used, no, it did not :) Status quo remains...Evolution is occurring. — AmadeusD

"i the quote you've used"? It doesn't make sense grammatically. There is no sign of evolution anywhere. :)

I've provided you with ample evidence of evolution. If you chosen path is to talk about grammar, in the face of my pointing out that typos exist, I can only assume you are attempting to remain ad hominem.

Not to worry.

I've provided you with ample evidence of evolution. If you chosen path is to talk about grammar, in the face of my pointing out that typos exist, I can only assume you are attempting to remain ad hominem. — AmadeusD

Your examples don't prove human evolution conclusively. Not sure where you shoveled across the examples from, but those are just features which could be different from individuals to individuals. Some folks are more tolerant than others, and some folks have different sizes just like everyone has different heights and weights for their bodies. Not concrete evidence for evolution.

It is not a good practice to claim ad hominem when your weakness has been exposed by your own doings. I would have never mentioned your grammar and spelling, if you didn't attack the simile statements as if they were the central part of the argument.

You claimed there were no examples. I gave them. They are about 0.0001% of the plethora of evidence showing evolution by natural selection.

The claim to ad hominem was just a plain reading of your responses. If you feel that's wrong, that's fine. I accept we see your comments differently. But it seems patently clear to me that picking up on typos (which follow a pattern, generally) and claiming this speaks to my state of mind is an ad hominem, and a pretty abysmal one at that.

If you'd like to do a bit of reading, I presume you will take the requisite several weeks to get comfortable with the concepts in these papers, read them, parse them and then interpret them to your heart's content before commenting:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK230201/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25030307/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16778047/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5004836/?
https://arxiv.org/abs/1308.4951?
https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/GoldbergEtAl2018-OxfordBiblioEvolBiol.pdf

You claimed there were no examples. I gave them. They are about 0.0001% of the plethora of evidence showing evolution by natural selection. — AmadeusD

I said in my previous post that your examples don't seem to have credibility for the concrete evidence of evolution is true. Please read it again.

in the face of my pointing out that typos exist — AmadeusD

If you keep making the same mistakes more than once, then it cannot be typos.

The claim to ad hominem was just a plain reading of your responses. — AmadeusD

You seem to be being too sensitive and emotional.

You can say you agree or disagree with the other poster's point with your supporting arguments why you do or don't. But if you add the words like "fail", "nonsense", "silly", or any of derogatory negative emotional nature which is not adding anything to the actual argument in the topic, then your posts will not get credibility, and the other poster will hit you back with the similar tone in their response to you.

If you'd like to do a bit of reading, I presume you will take the requisite several weeks to get comfortable with the concepts in these papers, read them, parse them and then interpret them to your heart's content before commenting: — AmadeusD

Thanks for the link. But recently my way of philosophizing is via mostly relying on my own thinking and reasoning. I don't read any information in the internet. I will read the original works by the historical philosophers. Hence my idea on evolution is from my own reasoning and inferring on the theory.

I said in my previous post that your examples don't seem to have credibility for the concrete evidence of evolution is true. — Corvus

Addressed.

They are about 0.0001% of the plethora of evidence showing evolution by natural selection. — AmadeusD

If you keep making the same mistakes more than once, then it cannot be typos — Corvus

clearly, the same mistake being made continually is habitual. That is how typos work. I am uninterested in your position on tihs. It was a ridiculous thing to bring up and your pretense was horrible.

You seem to be being too sensitive and emotional. — Corvus

I literally just said it's a plain reading. Good god man.

But if you add the words like "fail", "nonsense", "silly", or any of derogatory negative emotional nature — Corvus

"fail" and "nonsense" are objective descriptors. They can be wrong. I'll leave it there, because I already allowed room for that disagreement. Not interesting.

But recently my way of philosophizing is via mostly relying on my own thinking and reasoning — Corvus

Clearly. This may be way you think Evolution isn't true. If you refuse to engage the professionals, your reasoning and thinking is not adequate by definition as you do not have the requisite knowledge to reason on the topic. I admit, I've read almost everything in these papers and gone over prior iterations of the concepts, and I'm still only part way there. There is not a lot to be said for an autodidact about a field which has been accumulative for 150 years or more.

"fail" and "nonsense" are objective descriptors. — AmadeusD

Totally unnecessary words in philosophical discussions. You are just letting everyone know you lost control of your emotion.

Clearly. This may be way you think Evolution isn't true. — AmadeusD

I would rather discuss any topic with the folks who think with their own mind rather than listing lots of links. Right or wrong can be clarified and judged later by more discussions, arguments and evidence.

One very specific point I've noticed: Inorganic matter can only react to what has happened, whereas any kind of organic life is concerned with what will happen. It remembers and it anticipates - which matter does not. It is at this point that intentionality arises, even if it is not conscious in the sense that the higher animals are.

A rock rolling down a hill is entirely determined by forces already acting on it—gravity, momentum, friction. But even a bacterium swimming toward a glucose gradient is doing something different. It's not just responding to the current chemical concentration; it's effectively "acting for the sake of" reaching higher concentrations that don't yet exist in its immediate vicinity. The bacterium's molecular machinery embodies a kind of normativity—glucose is "good," toxins are "bad"—and this creates genuine directedness toward future states.

Likewise the very first characteristic that life has to have is memory - it has to preserve a record of experience. Of course, rocks bear the impact of what has happened to them, but it has no further bearing on what they do, in the way that does for living things. So perhaps it can be argued that the emergence of life just is also the emergence of intentionality.

It's just difficult for me to imagine that anything exists outside of spacetime and matter — Questioner

Numbers, geometrical forms, logical laws, are good candidates, although, mind you, these don't exist in the sense that sense-objects do. They are real in a different sense - but real nonetheless. Whether they are found 'in nature' or 'in the mind' is the perennial question. Perhaps they are found in the relationship between them. Which again, is not something that exists inside spacetime, rather, space and time exist within it.

Numbers, geometrical forms, logical laws, are good candidates, although, mind you, these don't exist in the sense that sense-objects do. They are real in a different sense - but real nonetheless. Whether they are found 'in nature' or 'in the mind' is the perennial question. Perhaps they are found in the relationship between them. Which again, is not something that exists inside spacetime, rather, space and time exist within it. — Wayfarer

Very interesting. But I am not sure that I agree. Numbers, forms, laws are measurements? And you need to have something to measure?

Well of course. But more to the point you need someone to measure it. The observer. And the observer is not in space time, except to another observer.

The short answer is, of course, we do not know. — Questioner

This is a scientific response. "We do not know". :up:

It's okay to question abiogenesis. Other theories say the origin of life came from outerspace and was brought here on Earth. But, then the question remains, how did life start in the universe?

Other theories say the origin of life came from outerspace and was brought here on Earth. But, then the question remains, how did life start in the universe? — L'éléphant

I've always been drawn to 'panspermia'. I have the original book on it, by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasingha, called The Intelligent Universe, published around 1989. They argue that life on Earth originates from, and is constantly influenced by, microorganisms or genetic material arriving from space. They say the probability of life spontaneously generating on Earth is to all intents zero, with Hoyle famously arguing that the complexity of enzymes makes it impossible. Hoyle proposes that the universe itself possesses intelligence (hence the title!) which engenders life through finely-tuned physical constants (e.g., Hoyle's discovery of carbon resonance). Evolutionary Input: Earthly evolution is not solely driven by natural selection, but by the influx of viruses and bacteria from space, which can introduce new traits or even explain the rapid development of human intelligence. His colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe is still active to this day, in his native Sri Lanka.

hmm. I guess we live in quite different worlds; metaphorically. That seems wholly inadequate to me and a clear ad hominem continuing.

Thanks for your time.

hmm. I guess we live in quite different worlds; metaphorically. That seems wholly inadequate to me and a clear ad hominem continuing. — AmadeusD

I am not your work boss. I wasn't saying to you not to use negative words in your posting. My point was, say whatever you want, but if you did, don't make up the other party's response in the same level as yours into ad hominem.

By the way, your examples for evolution look like variances in different individuals, or adaptations in life, rather than evolution. IOW, you seem to be confusing between adaption and evolution.

The alternative is that intelligent life has no prior precedent and is in fact the first time it has emerged in the world. I find this difficult to accept because it would in fact be easier to posit a pre-existing intelligence (divine) from which the current one sprang from. — kindred

Most Philosophers are somewhat argumentative, and don't readily accept "easy" answers, such as "God did it". They may then ask, where did this magical God come from? And the "easy" answer is that Gods, by definition, are self-existent and meta-physical, with no need for gradual evolution from lifeless stuff to living beings. Believe it, or not!

However, once an entity has achieved on-going existence (Life), it's assumed to be on the long & winding path to increasing Intelligence (Mind). For example, Materialism presumes that the random jostling of atoms, over some large fraction of Infinity, will inevitably stumble across the formula for Life, and then Mind. But, that's an audacious speculation, based on nothing but wishful thinking. It attributes the Potential for Life & Mind to mundane Matter, without offering evidence, other than the "easy" observation that all life in this world is matter-based.

So, for "hard" thinkers, a cogent & consistent path from Nothing to Being is required to provide a foundation for further speculation. In other words, we need to know the, logical if not physical, steps from non-life to biology. Including the "prior precedent" for Life & Mind (e.g. Intelligent Agents, if any) that might explain the time-bound existence of our physical Reality. So, traditionally, Gods are defined as existing in some state of Ideality (an imaginary or spiritual state of being). Even details of inherent Potential for animation of matter, remain unexplained and undefined.

Throughout history though, to provide that foundation for understanding the mysteries of the real world, almost all human cultures have developed some notion of a powerful-but-invisible autonomous Being that serves as an explanation for the question : why is there something instead of nothing : i.e. creation of our visible world. You can call that theory : Cosmogenesis*1. The Torah contains the familiar easy answer of Genesis, where our world, complete with energy, matter and living creatures, was created in a single work week by divine fiat : "let there be light" and everything else necessary for a functioning cosmos.

Of course, that's Magic, and offers no scientific or philosophical reasons for being, except the inscrutable Will of God. Even pseudoscience theories of Panspermia, omit the details for Cosmogenesis, and just assume that our material world is, like the gods, self-existent. Hence, life on Earth is just an accident of seed-sowing from one habitat to another. So, if you want to limit this discussion to the physically existing Real world and empirical evidence --- as the thread title indicates --- you'll need to develop some scientific theory of Abiogenesis*2. But, If you are willing to just take Cosmogenesis for granted --- no knowable First Cause --- there is no need to deal with the fraught theories of "pre-existing intelligence (divine)". :smile:



*1. Cosmogenesis refers to the origin, creation, or development of the universe, often exploring the intersection of scientific, philosophical, and spiritual perspectives on its expansion.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=cosmogenesis

*2. Abiogenesis is the scientific theory that life originated from non-living, inorganic matter through natural chemical processes on early Earth, approximately 3.5 to 4 billion years ago. It proposes a gradual, multi-step transition from simple organic compounds to complex self-replicating molecules and, ultimately, the first cells, rather than a single, spontaneous event.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=abiogenesis+theory
Note --- The Miller-Urey experiment in 1952 showed that some precursors for life (e.g. amino acids) could be produced from specially-selected inorganic materials zapped with energy. But the actual transition from non-life to life has not been observed experimentally in the 74 years since then. Moreover, there are no known precursors for Cosmos from Chaos. Therefore, the original Emergence of the evolving world remains an open (philosophical) question.

I've always been drawn to 'panspermia'. I have the original book on it, by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasingha, called The Intelligent Universe, published around 1989. They argue that life on Earth originates from, and is constantly influenced by, microorganisms or genetic material arriving from space. They say the probability of life spontaneously generating on Earth is to all intents zero, with Hoyle famously arguing that the complexity of enzymes makes it impossible. Hoyle proposes that the universe itself possesses intelligence (hence the title!) which engenders life through finely-tuned physical constants (e.g., Hoyle's discovery of carbon resonance). Evolutionary Input: Earthly evolution is not solely driven by natural selection, but by the influx of viruses and bacteria from space, which can introduce new traits or even explain the rapid development of human intelligence. His colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe is still active to this day, in his native Sri Lanka. — Wayfarer

Fascinating!
This is, to me, the most plausible explanation -- that microorganisms have been around.

Yes, I liked it. Hoyle’s reputation is mixed - it was he who coined the term ‘big bang’, dismissively, in a radio interview, but I like his maverick streak, and this book always really appealed to me.

Hoyle’s reputation is mixed - it was he who coined the term ‘big bang’, dismissively, in a radio interview, but I like his maverick streak, and this book always really appealed to me. — Wayfarer

:grin: Will check it out.

You would be lucky to find a copy of The Intelligent Universe, the last printing was, I think, 1989. But have a look at https://www.panspermia.org/ - the website owner is, let’s say, a dedicated amateur scientist, but he’s gotten a lot of info together on that site about the topic.

I've always been drawn to 'panspermia'

What I find interesting is how these amino acids form in space; from Gemini;

Amino acids form in cold interstellar molecular clouds, where cosmic dust grains are coated with ices (water, methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide). When these ices are exposed to ultraviolet radiation (UV) or cosmic rays, they trigger chemical reactions that produce complex organic compounds, including amino acids like glycine and tryptophan.

It’s as though the physical universe is set up for these things to happen.