I don't see the problem here. The works of Shakespeare (the product of his mind) are the subject of the monkeys/typewriters thought experiment, which is used by many scientists to defend the idea that DNA code could arise by chance, given a very long time.

The meaning of Shakespeare’s writing is in his mind — Me

What makes you believe that? — You

I'd say it's not a matter of belief - rather one of common sense.

Mind/consciousness produces meaning. There's no agreement on how this happens. — Me

... I know how. — You

How?

An interesting question is one that people respond to. If the OP is poor, but gets a response, a responder can reframe it, and rescue it from deletion.

What time is love? THAT's what would have made an interesting question. :wink:

A poem, if I may, by Hugo Brucciani:

God is a mixed metaphor
Do you know what He is for?
Religion is a form of art
Totality made up from parts of
Goodness, wisdom, power, love
Authority from up above
He’s been dead two hundred years
Poisoned by our hopes and fears

Life is a revolving door
Do you know what it is for?
Philosophy? Ah nah nah nah
Just put you hand upon your car
And swear you will be true to those
Who lie in wait, half comatose
We’ve been stoned two hundred years
We know all your hopes and fears

God is a mixed metaphor.

My point being: The origin of DNA can't be materialisticaly brushed aside. As long as it can't be explained, it must be acknowledged a mystery.

Give me abductive every time.

That would be almost as bad as Brexit.

Yes - hypothetically the universe would probably implode and cause the next Big Bang.

if a repeat thread was made asking about what does and doesn’t qualify as ‘sentient’ as well as exploring AI and consciousness, then it might not look so redundant.

It is a popular enough topic to warrant something new to offer and/or a particular argument posed.

Good point. Someone should have done that: recallibrate the discussion.

Could be a disaster-movie sequel to that Dan Brown about anti-matter: a new Cerne experiment goes wrong and threatens to destroy the universe.

If nothing moved, time wouldn't stand still, it would end - and so would space.

Time is generally considered to be the fourth dimension, isn't it? (And in space - in addition to no one hearing you scream - there's no such event as "nothing moves".)

This is the probably best forum in the world.

Yes, but things look different in daylight.

So... let's deny the possibility of dimensions beyond time and space; and let's continue this discussion without consciousness. Forum, where are your defenders?

... let’s do away with consciousness altogether

That's a bit strong as well, Count. What would be left?

Have you not heard of phase space, that curious eight-dimensional world that merges space and time with a four-dimensional momentum space? Me neither, I just googled it. Point being: play fair.

To exist outside of the time is to exist never. To exist outside of space is to exist nowhere. It means it does not exist and that it never existed. If this simple logic is not obvious there is really no point in talking about this anymore, or about anything really.

That's a bit strong. There's much talk, in the Land of Metaphysics, of what is or may be beyond time and space. Like Donald Trump, for instance.

The important thing is, you've found a way to feel superior to even them. :wink: (Seriously it's just a joke..)

Lol. (Not enough jokes on here!)

This is a good discussion! I find being stoned breaks me out of my (mild) autistic bubble. Not that I'm diagnosed - I'm self-diagnosed and self-medicating. (Ending prohibition is a long way off here in the UK.) Medicinal use is considered good, unlike that bad old recreational use. Heres the thing, though: recreational use is medicinal. It can cure, for instance, existential nausea. Have you read Sartre’s Nausea? Me neither. But I know what I think he means: Stuff, the world, it makes you sick. Have a toke - it helps you tick. It helps me think - I think. Half of what I've written on this forum, I've written stoned.

Oh yeh. Duh. Thanks, Purple Pond.

Ooooh!

Gnomon... stupidity... ignorance... nonsense

How rude! Give the man a chance! He's got his own website and everything!

I don't see that as a smug position - though humans can be smug about just about anything - but tending more likely towards an epistemologically humble or at least cautious position

.
The agnostic's facade of humility and caution conceals a smug superiority: you fools believe that God exists, or doesn't exist; I'm above all that. Mind you, as smartarse Nosferatu annoyingly points out, agnostics have to believe in the possibility of God.

In your link...

Paul Davies on Morphogenesis : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page8.html

... you say:

I... speculate that human culture has arisen at this mid-point of the evolutionary arc in order to take over the management of enforming the world. Does this mean that the development of our universe is not random & pointless, but intentional & goal-oriented?

... and you quote physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies as saying:

... if the emergence of life, and perhaps mind, are etched into the underlying lawfulness nature, it would bestow upon our existence as living, thinking beings a type of cosmic-level meaning.

(From The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life by Paul Davies)

(My boldings)

So perhaps consciousness, as well as being how we see the world, is what the world, the multiverse, is made of: the unifying field, full of meaning, as in our Goldilocks planet - and the non-random appearance of DNA.

DNA most likely evolved via Random processes

How could it have? There's no agreed possible process via which DNA could have appeared. It certainly didn't evolve, as evolution depends on self-replication, only possible with DNA!

Thing is, despite the superficial linguistic felicity, agnostics aren't opposed to gnostics - they're opposed to theists, and, to a lesser extent, atheists, in that theists (and, some say, atheists) believe, whereas agnostics don't. The (semi-)belief of atheists denies supernatural explanation. The non-belief of agnostics allows the possibility of supernatural belief. Those who claim reason should perhaps close that loophole. On reflection, I'll continue to call myself agnostic - I admit the possibility of the supernatural. However, I'm grateful to the OP for making me think about it. Thanks!

Perhaps DNA came into existence because the universe (or multiverse if you like) has meaning, perhaps deriving from universal consciousness.

You might say, well clear off then - but it's strangely addictive!

Anyway, as a relative newbie, it seems to me that most threads follow this format: OP asks interesting question; contributors more or less ignore the OP, bang on at great length on their hobby horses; then start quoting each other and ripping each other to shreds. A few rays of light shine through the general murk, but there's not much sign of this OP"s suggested format.

The OP"s got a point, though. I've always felt rather smug and superior calling myself agnostic. But he's right - it is a bit of a cop-out. It allows supernatural explanation.

chemical affinity to spontaneously form lipids and self-replicating polymers make DNA

There is speculation about this, but no one yet knows how DNA came about. Those who brush aside this problem and its larger question are bending truth.

... a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress.

Very interesting! May I refer you to my thread, "The significance of meaning" which asks if DNA could be the result of random events?

Found this:

I am in the process of building upon my Enformationism cosmological thesis... in order to show why an abstract First Cause is necessary to explain the existence of the physical universe with its metaphysical inhabitants. I have a name for the new website, Enformity... "Enformity" is a coined term defined as the essential quality of an enformed system (e.g. a designed universe as opposed to an accidental universe). — Gnomon

Enformationism

So...intelligent design?

Re populism and immigration, it's a popular remainer trope that leave voters were manipulated and stirred up by leave campaigners. There was some of that, true, but it was riffing on existing grassroots concern about mass immigration.

The UK host community was just about coming to terms with postwar mass immigration from colonies and the Commonwealth when EU free movement of people began, and large numbers of people came to the UK from Eastern Europe. Polls showed that concern about immigration was a main reason for the leave result.

Mass immigration has always been imposed or facilitated by governments for economic reasons with no concern for the wellbeing of the host or immigrant communities.

The referendum was, in effect, the first public consultation on mass immigration.

If I may quote from my OP:

Wikipedia says that DNA is a molecule that carries the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms. Most DNA molecules consist of two strands coiled around each other to form a double helix. Both strands store the same biological information, which is replicated when the two strands separate.

Does that sound like something that came about by chemicals randomly bumping into each other?

Perhaps DNA came into existence because the universe (or multiverse if you like) has meaning, perhaps deriving from universal consciousness. Again, I’d suggest that meaning is never the product of random processes.

... an Idealist worldview similar to mine... — Gnomon

Despite having had for some time a keen (amateur) interest in all this (what consciousness is, anti-reductionism, etc), I'd somehow never come across - until now - the philosophical/metaphysical notion of Idealism, meaning (according to Wikipedia) an assertion of the primacy of consciousness as the origin and prerequisite of material phenomena.

Having read and agreed with radical biologist Rupert Sheldake, whose views, I'd say, coinicide with Idealism, I’d be interested to know - if it's not a diversion - what you (and others here) think of his morphic resonance idea, which hypothesises that self-​organising systems inherit memory and habit from previous similar systems.

He suggests that societies have social and cultural morphic fields which embrace and organise all that resides within them. He connects morphic resonance with Jung's collective unconscious.

I'd say the totality of Sheldrake's nested fields amounts, perhaps, to the same thing as universal consiousness.

Then how come there's no agreed explanation for the "evolution" of DNA?