Having thought about this issue of “irreducible complexity” I am currently of the opinion that it is not a very productive way to make the case for intelligent design. I support fully the argument for intelligent design but not always the way the argument is put. For example I can not see the benefit in arguing for irreducible complexity. It is very likely that all complex systems can trace their origins to simple (or irreducibly complex) systems. And it may also be true that there were no big jumps that can not be explained by the gradualists approach. Even if both these were true then I would still argue for there being a designer.

But there must have been a jump from a non living system to a living system. We know that living systems can organize themselves and form complexity but before life there was nothing to do this. So before there were any living systems there had to be a non living system that had enough complexity to kick start life. Even now when we know the genetic code for life; and with intelligent designers and with many years of trying we have not got close to building a system that can create life. So the question is not whether complex systems can trace their origins back to non complex systems. The question is; how did that first system (that needed to be complex enough to kick start life) come into existence?

Watson and Crick revealed the structure of DNA in 1953 but 51 years later (with the formula of life in hand) no one has successfully created life in the laboratory. My argument is that the jump from “no life” to “life” needed to benefit from a complex system. And the point here of course is that before there was life there could have been no Darwinian natural selection to design the first complex system that got life up and running.

For the sake of the following I will assume conventional science is correct when it argues that all matter was created in the big bang. I will also allow that there is a rational (scientific) reason for all the heat in stars and the gravitational forces that hold it all together. The only concession I ask is that the system that first got life started was not a simple 5 or 6 nucleotides that fell together by accident. We do not know of any life form that can find its own food source (and reproduce itself) that is this simple. With the structure of DNA revealed over 50 years ago (and still not being able to create life in the laboratory) it is reasonable to speculate that this be a more complex system.

So what sort of system might have got life started. Man has built massive computers and space shuttles but not a system that can create life. A gene that codes for a simple protein will normally have more than 1,000 base pairs but in this exercise we will allow for 76 nucleotide bases (or 76 bases of A, C, T and G). But because the first system that created life could not have been driven by Darwinian natural selection then these 76 bases of A, C, T and G had to fall together by accident. The problem we now have is that we do not know what the magical formulae for life might have been and how difficult it would have been to hit upon by accident. Again I will make a concession. I will allow for any sequence that is non random. It does not have to make sense or code for anything as long as it is a sequence that is non random. And I suggest that the least difficult way of doing this is to type out 38 bases of A, C, T and G in any sequence; then calculate the probability of accidentally typing out the second 38 of A, C, T and G in the exact same sequence.

For example -:

ACGTGCTACTGATGACTGACCTGAGATCATCGGACTTG

The above is gibberish. It is A, C, T and G typed out 38 times in a purely random sequence.

ACGTGCTACTGATGACTGACCTGAGATCATCGGACTTG
ACGTGCTACTGATGACTGACCTGAGATCATCGGACTTG

The above is a non random sequence. The second row of ACTG is copied out in the exact same sequence as the first row. To accidentally copy out the second 38 bases in the exact same sequence as the first is a probability of 1:10(-21). But it is still not a complex system and will not code for anything. The above is merely a demonstration of the least difficult (least improbable) way of getting 76 bases of A, C, T and G to fall by accident into a non random sequence.

Let us imagine we needed to find by accident one grain of rice in a pile of 10(21) grains of rice. There are 1,000 grains of rice in a tablespoon full of rice (and 1,000 grains of rice = 20 grams). So 50 table spoons of rice is a kilo of rice and 50,000 grains. One ton of rice is therefore 50,000,000 grains. A pile of rice with 10(21) would take 1,000 B-double trucks (50 ton trucks), taking one load an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 460,000 years to carry away. And that sequence is not the genetic code for life. It is just any sequence that is non random. Any other non random sequence (or any other sequence for creating life) would be just as improbable.

You will have observed that I am a new poster here. I have been engaging with you in debate on another thread. Since making those posts I have had the opporunity to read some of your other posts and in one you lamented the fact that nobdy had responded to your intelligent design thread. So here I am.

You correctly identify the need to make the transition between non-life and life. And you note that despite having had fifty years since the identification of DNA we have yet to create life in the laboratory. Let me address that second point first.

Fifty years. A drop in the ocean. Humans are smart, compared with pineapples or cyano-bacteria, but life is complex. You have said as much. I agree. To duplicate that complexity we shall need a deeper understanding than what we have gathered in a mere fifty years.

Which brings us to the first point. You say: We know that living systems can organize themselves and form complexity but before life there was nothing to do this.
I now understand your reasoning a little better. If this were true I would be strongly inclined to agree with you, that the problem of the origin of life was looking intractable. However, your quoted statement is false.
The Universe appears to have a perverse liking for order and structure. We do not need a design argument to account for that tendency. Gross examples that spring to mind are formations of stars, rather than a diffuse mass of gas spread everywhere. The formation of galaxies, with vast 'empty' spaces between them.
On a scale more pertinent to the question of the origin of life we might consider:
a) Protein folds
b) 'Condensation' on external crystal surfaces e.g. clay
c) Forced organisation within water droplets

I am only headlining these here, since I will presume you are familiar with at least some of their possibilities. If not I shall happily expand or provide links.

Part of the difficulty is that we think of the origin of life in the singular. There is non-living, then there is living. And the differences between them are huge. In reality it would be more helpful to think of a spectrum between the two states. After all is a virus alive?

Further I see no problem in invoking some form of pan-spermia to account for life on Earth. Rather than simply pushing the problem away and nothing else it acually enlarges our 'melting pot' by many orders of magnitude.

Put all of this together - self organising non-organic structures; multiple simple steps rather than one giant leap; galaxy wide 'laboratory' - and the need for a design argument evaporates in the primeval mist.

Edit: And thank you for not using the hurricane assembly of a 747 argument. It was always the weakest part of Hoyle/Wickramasinghe's arguments. But the statistics you have used are just as flawed for the reasons noted above.

And you note that despite having had fifty years since the identification of DNA we have yet to create life in the laboratory. …

Fifty years. A drop in the ocean. Humans are smart, compared with pineapples or cyano-bacteria, but life is complex. You have said as much. I agree. To duplicate that complexity we shall need a deeper understanding than what we have gathered in a mere fifty years.

This hardly addresses the point I am making. My argument is that we have had the genetic code on hand and after 50 years still have not created life in the laboratory. So if it took 20, 50 or 100 years it does not detract from the point I am making. We have the genetic code and still find it very difficult to create life. My opening post to this thread stressed the point that before life existed the genetic code for creating life had to be found by accident. And the probability of hitting on that genetic code by accident was zero. So your argument (that it may take a few more years for us to create life in the laboratory) hardly addresses this point. You need to explain how that first life got started without the blueprint and intelligent intervention on hand to make it happen.

You (Robert_js) say: We know that living systems can organize themselves and form complexity but before life there was nothing to do this.

I suppose my statement could have been worded a little better. The point I was making should have been self evident but maybe the following would have been better.

“We know that living systems can organize themselves and form complexity but before life there was nothing to organise living systems.”

I now understand your reasoning a little better. If this were true (that there was nothing to organise living systems) I would be strongly inclined to agree with you, that the problem of the origin of life was looking intractable. However, your quoted statement is false.

The Universe appears to have a perverse liking for order and structure. We do not need a design argument to account for that tendency. Gross examples that spring to mind are formations of stars, rather than a diffuse mass of gas spread everywhere. The formation of galaxies, with vast 'empty' spaces between them.

On a scale more pertinent to the question of the origin of life we might consider:

a) Protein folds
b) 'Condensation' on external crystal surfaces e.g. clay
c) Forced organisation within water droplets

I do not agree. We do need a design argument to account for the order we observe in the universe. Your argument is that we do not need to understand how the order in living systems arise because it obviously came from the order in inorganic matter and that came from the order we observe in the greater universe. The order we observe in the greater universe however is even less likely to have happened by accident than is life on earth.

But it would appear you do not agree that Darwinian natural selection can account for the complexity in living systems and this is very refreshing. If protein folds, crystals and the complexity within water droplets take their organization from the greater universe then at least you do not appear to be arguing that natural selection designed living systems.

So if the complexity in living systems was derived from this self organising force that accounts for crystals, snowflakes and the structure of stars etc. then that only pushes the big question one or two or three … steps back. We still need to know what kick started the first complex system.

Further I see no problem in invoking some form of pan-spermia to account for life on Earth. Rather than simply pushing the problem away and nothing else it actually enlarges our 'melting pot' by many orders of magnitude.

Put all of this together - self organising non-organic structures; multiple simple steps rather than one giant leap; galaxy wide 'laboratory' - and the need for a design argument evaporates in the primeval mist.

I do not follow your reasoning here. You relate life on earth to even more complex systems in the greater universe. Systems we have absolutely no means of comprehending but you think this is some justification for dismissing the design argument.

If the origin of something is simple or complex then it was most probably designed. The more complex the more likely it was designed. To suggest that something like the universe could come into existence without a designer is an argument that defies logic.

And thank you for not using the hurricane assembly of a 747 argument. It was always the weakest part of Hoyle/Wickramasinghe's arguments. But the statistics you have used are just as flawed for the reasons noted above.

Actually I do refer to the Hoyle/Wickramasinghe 747 argument in my book. I believe it to be an excellent analogy in that it demonstrates the improbability of any complex system falling together by accident. The only problem I have with this analogy is that the hurricane that assembles a 747 out of a junk yard takes as given the matter present in the junk yard. It also takes as given the energy in the hurricane and once you have assembled the 747 you only have one of a kind. Unless your 747 has some mystical means of reproducing itself you would need the lucky accident to repeat itself time and again for every new 747.

You need to explain how that first life got started without the blueprint and intelligent intervention on hand to make it happen.

Here is a quickie, oversimplified version of the governing theory.

1) A molecule arose that had the property of catalyzing the formation of identical molecules from the materials at hand. Very soon there were a lot of these.

2) Alterations in the reaction conditions resulted in more molecules with greater or lesser capacity for self-replication. The ones that were better at this spread; the ones that were worse were out-competed.

3) In some cases, two or more molecules became able to cooperate in their catalysis reactions. Eventually large self-replicating assemblies came into being.

4) These assemblies increased their efficiency by increasing their complexity. They came to form the enormously complex self-replicating arrays that we now call living beings.

We can quibble about the details if you like, but that's the general idea.

I do not agree. We do need a design argument to account for the order we observe in the universe. Your argument is that we do not need to understand how the order in living systems arise because it obviously came from the order in inorganic matter and that came from the order we observe in the greater universe. The order we observe in the greater universe however is even less likely to have happened by accident than is life on earth.

Why do you equate 'not by design' with 'by accident'? Those two things are not equivalent. The operation of simple, non-goal-directed physical laws can create an ordered system, as when a solution crystallizes into an ordered solid. This is not an accident, but neither is it an intentional process directed by some intelligent being.


So if the complexity in living systems was derived from this self organising force that accounts for crystals, snowflakes and the structure of stars etc. then that only pushes the big question one or two or three … steps back. We still need to know what kick started the first complex system.

Why do you assume that an ordered state needs a 'kick start'? If a system operates under a set of stable physical laws that govern its transformations, they will inevitably result in the appearance of some sort of order.

Actually I do refer to the Hoyle/Wickramasinghe 747 argument in my book. I believe it to be an excellent analogy in that it demonstrates the improbability of any complex system falling together by accident.

Again, this fallacy of the 'accident.' Order is not an accident; it is the result of the operation of stable physical laws in the universe.

My argument is that we have had the genetic code on hand and after 50 years still have not created life in the laboratory.All that is necessary for 'life' to start is for a molecule to form that is capable of forming varied copies of itself. That's it. Since RNA molecules are able to act as catalysts for their own formation, this is obviously quite possible.

Do you consider viruses to be alive? If so, you should know that viruses have been created from scratch in laboratories. In any case, the reason why very simple life hasn't been created in laboratories yet is because designing molecules that can create copies of themselves is a dauntingly complex task, even with everything that we know about chemistry. If you had an entire world's worth of chemicals stewing together for a billion years it doesn't seem that far-fetched; but to expect it to happen in just fifty years in the relatively meager confines of the world's laboratory beakers is unreasonable.

Put all of this together - self organising non-organic structures; multiple simple steps rather than one giant leap; galaxy wide 'laboratory' - and the need for a design argument evaporates in the primeval mist.


This makes all the sense. It's really an explicit form of the anthropic principle in evolutionary terms.

I also agree with Hypatia.

Do you consider viruses to be alive? If so, you should know that viruses have been created from scratch in laboratories. In any case, the reason why very simple life hasn't been created in laboratories yet is because designing molecules that can create copies of themselves is a dauntingly complex task, even with everything that we know about chemistry. If you had an entire world's worth of chemicals stewing together for a billion years it doesn't seem that far-fetched; but to expect it to happen in just fifty years in the relatively meager confines of the world's laboratory beakers is unreasonable.

Yet another excellent point. I was just about to say the exact same thing.

To suggest that something like the universe could come into existence without a designer is an argument that defies logic.


God is the ultimate designer of the physical nature of the universe. Other than that, organic causality and subsequently evolution does everything else.

On matter:

It was formed from energy in the big bang. Where did that energy come from? Some scientists say it may have been a quantum fluctuation of some kind.

On heat in the stars:

Gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, which heats up material infalling to create a star. Once a proto-star is dense enough, the internal pressure is high enough to start nuclear fusion processes within the star. The process of fusing hydrogen nuclei to helium and higher elements creates the heat which is output by the star.

On the gravitational forces holding the universe together:

Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces which "froze out" from the unified forces present in the earliest era of the universe - the first fractions of a second after the big bang.

That is all we get to beat the odds of 1:10(-120).

And James R also tells us that life and consciousness is -:

… just one more complex system. There's nothing mystical about it. Natural processes are all that are required.

James R again -:

Each human has a brain. Electrical impulses in the brain give us a sense of consciousness. Our brains are very complex organs, and so consciousness is a rather complex phenomenon. It seems to be related to the ability of the brain to contain a self-image. This ability may not exist in all animals, and is probably a fairly recent evolutionary development.



Here is a quickie, oversimplified version of the governing theory.

1) A molecule arose that had the property of catalyzing the formation of identical molecules from the materials at hand. Very soon there were a lot of these.

2) Alterations in the reaction conditions resulted in more molecules with greater or lesser capacity for self-replication. The ones that were better at this spread; the ones that were worse were out-competed.

3) In some cases, two or more molecules became able to cooperate in their catalysis reactions. Eventually large self-replicating assemblies came into being.

4) These assemblies increased their efficiency by increasing their complexity. They came to form the enormously complex self-replicating arrays that we now call living beings.

We can quibble about the details if you like, but that's the general idea.

There is more sense in the Book of Genesis than the above.

Why do you equate 'not by design' with 'by accident'? Those two things are not equivalent. The operation of simple, non-goal-directed physical laws can create an ordered system, as when a solution crystallizes into an ordered solid. This is not an accident, but neither is it an intentional process directed by some intelligent being.

If it is a complex system it is by design and can not be an accident. There is no such thing as a complex system falling into place by accident. Just ask any casino operator.

Why do you assume that an ordered state needs a 'kick start'? If a system operates under a set of stable physical laws that govern its transformations, they will inevitably result in the appearance of some sort of order.

How did these “stable physical laws” come into existence?

There is more sense in the Book of Genesis than the above. In reference to extensive quotes from James_R and Hipatia
Did you feel this trite, unsubstantiated comment added anything to the dicussion?
If it is a complex system it is by design and can not be an accident. There is no such thing as a complex system falling into place by accident. Just ask any casino operator.
I should prefer to enhance my understanding of the Universe by considering the studies of serious scientists, than the restricted commercial appreciation, no matter how canny, of those in the gambling industry.
There is no such thing as a complex system falling into place by accident.

That is the point we are debating. Restating it as a fact is as pointless as the first quote above.

How did these “stable physical laws” come into existence?

If you are as smart and as well read as you imply you are (and I for one do not doubt it) then you already know the answer to this, but for the benefit of any novices following this thread here is the answer. We don't know how these laws came into existence. At one time science would have considered such a question beyond its remit. Today, some scientists are beginning to ask that question, and to postulate some possible answers.
If I am reading the bulk of the posters aright, those who are challenging your position, they are saying "Once we take these laws as read, the subsequent origin and evolution of life, then of intelligence becomes understandable, and to a greater or lesser extent the mechanisms involved have been defined or at least outlined."

Regarding intelligent design and IC
http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html
http://home.mira.net/~reynella/debate/informat.htm
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.genom.4.070802.110400

I am familiar with the TalkDesign/TalkOrigins site, but the second site you posted relating to Creationism and Information Theory was new to me. A very quick scan shows some interesting items. Thanks for sharing them with us.

How did these “stable physical laws” come into existence?

Maybe unstable "physical laws" exist as well, but no one is there to know it.

If a universe is completely unstable and chaotic, can it be perceived? No, because perception can not exist in such a universe. But that doesn't mean these chaotic universes don't exist.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? No, but that doesn't mean that the vibrations don't exist.

Post by Robert_JS
And you note that despite having had fifty years since the identification of DNA we have yet to create life in the laboratory. …
Response by Ophiolite
Fifty years. A drop in the ocean. Humans are smart, compared with pineapples or cyano-bacteria, but life is complex. You have said as much. I agree. To duplicate that complexity we shall need a deeper understanding than what we have gathered in a mere fifty years. ”
Response by Robert_JS This hardly addresses the point I am making. My argument is that we have had the genetic code on hand and after 50 years still have not created life in the laboratory. So if it took 20, 50 or 100 years it does not detract from the point I am making. We have the genetic code and still find it very difficult to create life. My opening post to this thread stressed the point that before life existed the genetic code for creating life had to be found by accident. And the probability of hitting on that genetic code by accident was zero. So your argument (that it may take a few more years for us to create life in the laboratory) hardly addresses this point. You need to explain how that first life got started without the blueprint and intelligent intervention on hand to make it happen.

Let us imagine that tomorrow a paper is published in Nature that describes the assembly of a simple prokaryote organism through the painstaking assembly of a complete suite of DNA. What would this tell us about the origin of life? Damn little. What would it tell us about our skills in biochemistry and molecular biology and organic syntethis? Quite a lot.
Life today is extremely complex compared with the first life, so copying - recreating an organism that is itself some distance in character and time from that first organism would teach us a lot, but very little about the origin of life. Condemning science's failure to perform such a re-creation, therefore has absolutely no bearing on the question of origin.
You need to explain how that first life got started without the blueprint and intelligent intervention on hand to make it happen.
Correct. Now save me some time here please. You have done some reading on this matter. Which step in the various postulated steps do you consider the weakest. Tell me what it is and we shall examine that first.

This being my first post here, I thought I'd qualify my post by stating that I have no real understanding of the detail or terminology that has been used so far in this thread. Suffice to say that I catch the gist of what is being discussed and that about all.

The question that interests me is how did life form from inanimate mattter. or put it another way how did matter become animated.

The thought occurred as I read this thread or tried to that life could only have formed when movement and reproduction of that movement became a necessecity of evolution and not an accident of evolution.

When inanimate matter requires movement to exist it becomes animated. If it is self animated I would consider this a starting descriptor for defining life.

In other realms of physics there is a contentious area that delves into the forbidden realms of psuedo perpetual motion. In the context of this thread I would call it psuedo self motion.

As in the realms of PPM's the balance of forces must require movement to enable a balance to be maintained. Could it be suggested that life is achieved because of the need to balance forces that could not be balanced in any other way?
That inanimate objects become self animated if only in a fundamental way just to balance the forces being applied.

That life occurs because the forces of spontaneous energy, the very energy that was involved in the big band [edit: did I just write big band...ha]generates the need for articulation simply because the energy is still being created as in the big bang but in a smaller scale.
That life occurs as spontaneously as this creative energy did and does?

In Qm there are discoveries of spontaneous energies occuring. Is this the fundy that allows life to come into existance not because of accident but because of necessity to keep the cosmic books balanced. [Conservation of energy]

Just a couple of thoughts that I am sure will possibly raise a few eye bows and promote spontaneous outcries of ........well...hmmmm....whatever...

My eyebrows have peeled back to the nape of my neck! No spontaneous outcry, as I am dumbstruck.
By spontaneous energies are you referring to quantum vacuum fluctuations?
At any rate I have digested your thoughts, but found tht they did not gel for me. For one thing inanimate objects aren't - inanimate. If by that you mean unmoving. Apart from the thermal vibration most are involved in some form of chemical change, no matter how slowly.
I cannot envisage, what this imperative to motion you postulate would be. Can you enlighten us.
I find it more useful to thing in terms of order and complexity, both of which occur spontaneously in the 'inanimate' world, being raised to more 'advanced' stage.
So an interesting speculation, but regretably it does nothing for me.

Ophiolite,
I thought it was an interesting speculation as well....hmmmmm...
Just thoughts since posting,
observation:
Primary need of life is to sustain life, by searching for and finding food. Usually I would suggest other forms of life as food. Organic food stuffs, also articulated out of necessity due to the spontaneous energies that they employ.
With out organic food stuffs, organism dies. [possibly vegitation being the exception]

To find food movement is required.

Thus observation extrapolates to:

Primary need for movement is to sustain movement.
With out movement the organism dies. [can not sustain movement]

Death being a necessity and not an accident, due to the need to balance the cosmic books.

Keeping in mind this is all abstraction......

It is just the question of why and how life came into existance from unliving stuff seemingly spontaneously is rather facinating...yes?

I would go on to suggest philosophically that life is essential to maintain the universes existence as well. The premise being that life absorbs and utilises an energy that would create chaos if it were not utilised by life.
Most of life as we know it is fleeting in it's existence yet it's over all presence in the universe is continuous. Insects live merely days, humans live for 80 odd years, trees can live for a thousand years but all could be deemed as fleeting moments of existence.

So even in the very early days of the universe life could have come and gone spontaeously existing for only a a few seconds and then being replaced by others only to die a few seconds later.....sounds a bit like the Quantum energies hey? here one moment gone the next.
So as the energy to bring the universe was spontaneous so too is the generation of life.
At another level issues like free will etc are all aspects of this spontaneous energy and the spontaneous actions this energy permits. Thus freewill which is spontaneous in nature is also a necessity.

I wont say much more as I do not wish to fill yor thread with these high flung speculations and abstractions but thought as a matter of interest I would post thus far. :)

.....
With out organic food stuffs, organism dies. [possibly vegitation being the exception]
To find food movement is required.
Thus observation extrapolates to:
Primary need for movement is to sustain movement.
With out movement the organism dies. [can not sustain movement]

The flaw in this logic is that vegetation is not an exception. You could argue that animals are an anomaly in the range of life. The need for movement does not satisfy the probable character of the first life. [If life originated around black smokers then my counter argument is invalid. However, I do not subscribe to the 'oceanic vent origin' hypothesis.]

Could it be suggested that life is achieved because of the need to balance forces that could not be balanced in any other way?
That inanimate objects become self animated if only in a fundamental way just to balance the forces being applied.

On a general level: This seems to require that life has been present for as long as the current physical laws have been in operation. (Otherwise, how were the forces 'balanced' prior to the emergence of life?) But as I understand it, this planet was in existence for a good two billion years prior to the emergence of life, and the universe seems to have operated under the current physical laws since the occurrence of the original singularity that produced it.

On a specific level: Which forces are you talking about? How are they 'balanced' by life, and in what way would they be 'unbalanced' otherwise?

That life occurs because the forces of spontaneous energy, the very energy that was involved in the big band [edit: did I just write big band...ha]generates the need for articulation simply because the energy is still being created as in the big bang but in a smaller scale.
That life occurs as spontaneously as this creative energy did and does?

In Qm there are discoveries of spontaneous energies occurring. Is this the fundy that allows life to come into existence not because of accident but because of necessity to keep the cosmic books balanced. [Conservation of energy]

But life is not a quantum-level phenomenon. Life obeys the macroscale laws of physics. I don't see why one needs to invoke quantum laws to explain its appearance.

In fact, I would suggest that life could not possibly exist at the quantum level, precisely because life (i.e., self-replication) requires a highly organized informational structure that could not tolerate the stochastic fluctuations of the quantum world.

hypatia,
I acn't really answer any of your good questions as my posts were more of an abstraction than any real attempt to answer the question. However I will say that what differes life from non-life is really dimension. The articulation in animated organism requires a much smaller and certainly more complex atomic structure....if those words are the correct ones.

It would also be fare to say that the interactions or chemistry involved is certainly more complex than just mixing salt with water. Although I guess that may not be far from the truth.

I did consider the question that life according to my abstraction would need to be present from the start and of course there is no evidence to suggest this. However it is also possible to consider that the universe especially this part of the universe (Earth) simply could not sustain any durable life forms due to climate and other conditions. However if life did exist it would have been very temporary, possibly like bacteria with a life span of seconds and not days etc.

But as the planet stabilised more long lasting life forms could evolve.

Suffice to say that what distinguishes self animation from inanimation could very well be the very thing that created the universe in conception. And that energy continues to be utilised by life as it's very life force.

Of course there is no way of proving this and certainly no reason to even want to disprove it...

Just brainstorming on the idea of what allows life to be so very different and yet similar to that which is not life, afterall carbon is carbon, hydrogen is hydrogen etc etc. but what makes hydrogen form into organic compounds and lead to self inspired articulation well...thats the big question isn't it? :)

Hmm one basic misconception, albeit an understandable one made ins some post is possibly the border between living and inanimate objects.
I think that those categories are intuitive yet not correct. "alive" is an attribute everyone grasps intutively, yet pointing out what precisely is the need to be considered alive? I am aware that there are a set of definitions which are attributed to living things as compared to inanimate ones, but those working on the borderline are aware that the definitions (including reproduction, growth, reaction to environment, metabolism) are distinctly made to correlate with our intuitive characterisation of life.
Virus are a good example for a borderline object. In addition, the building blocks of every organism consist of element which are by itself, inanimate. However everything together forms something as an emergent property, which we all consider as alive.
Every interaction which happens inside an organism obeys simple chemical (and ultimatively physical laws), yet the convergence of these organisms strkes us as something distinctly different (that is, a biological process).

Actually, they have created life:
- http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/neogenesis_scitues_010501-1.html
- http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20031110/virus.html

Well the first link is a rather inaccurate report on details (eyample: many organisms incorporate modfied aas, thus more than 20 aas are used almost routinely) but basically what they describe is a simple bacterial mutant strain. The whole report is imo exaggerated in its implications.
As to the second link, well generally virus are not considered as living organisms as they lack an own metabolism.

As long as we're discussing probability, I'd like to point out that the chance of the exit polls significantly differing from the actual polls in the past election, and that all error was in Bush's favor, was 1/250,000,000.

So one could argue that the voting machines were intelligently designed to always go Bush. I mean, it's the same logic, right?

Intelligent design is a joke.

The odds of life evolving in the universe is apparently 100%.

There is more sense in the Book of Genesis than the above.

You're confusing your spirituality with the ability to reason. I already invented another religion that worships the Nebraskan Ninja. He is the one who creates all.

"The odds of life evolving in the universe is apparently 100%. "

Haha, yeah.

Did you know that more than 12% of all explored planets have intelligent life on them?

The odds of life evolving in the universe is apparently 100%.

Funnilly enough Wes's comment is actually very important to the discussion.
I would suggest that life only exists because of necessity not because of some convenience.

Funnilly enough Wes's comment is actually very important to the discussion.QUOTE]

I think it's just the anthropic principle clearly stated in the pertinent context.

[QUOTE=Quantum Quack]I would suggest that life only exists because of necessity not because of some convenience.

I would agree though, that it seems apparent that life is due to some process intrinsic to the nature of the universe.

My personal opinion is that life is a force in the same manner gravity is a force - it's a property of the geometry of the universe. It is the result of a dimensional bleed through, like a perforation in a brane (see m-theory). Certain chemical conditions allow this bleed-through. Basically, the "life force" is the resultant of a compactificated spatial dimension interacting with four-space. An initial condition led to the bleed-through and it was propagated, as the physics of the universe force it to. All life is formed as an extension of localized bleed-through.

Our physicality is a representation of energy in four-space. The component that is the "spark of life" is a result of the proper chemical conditions that are an instance of the original perforation. Consider that in a compactificated dimension, the concept of distance as we know it doesn't directly apply. In five-space, at any point in four-space, there are an infinity of points internal to it. if there is a the dimension compactificated and perpendicular (or it could be viewed as internal) to it. Thus a being that is "alive" is a representation of "energy" in at least five-space. Meaning is an expression (even if abstracted) of survival. The necessity of survival is external to four-space and also, the most primitive form of abstract.

Survival = value. Four-space cannot create value, as value is abstract and thus, has no physical basis in four-space. Where in four space-can value exist? It can only exist in the abstract, which doesn't exist in pure four-space, but in something we think of as "abstract". I would argue that something abstract is necessarily perpendicular to time (maybe I should say space-time), because it is based on the bleed-through and in the case of humans for instance, is based upon an instantaneous evaluation of an accumulation of subjective time (an individual's experience).

So I'm trying to say that for each subjective instance of life (and note that it is subjective because the four-space "energy pattern" that connects it to the internal dimension necessarily leads to a subjective instance of a base expression of survival) there in a hole (smaller than plank-length, or maybe right at it) into an internal dimension. If the instance is attached to the right four-space energy pattern, that pattern can project the synthesis of its experience into the internal dimension with more complexity than the less sophisticated equipment (like bacteria) can manage. In the case of bacteria, the hole is barely utilized. It basically just drives the instinct to propagate, which is ultimately an expression of a gross expansion of the tear between dimensions.

So life is an expansion of four-space breaching a subjectively internal perpendicular dimension.

I wish I could express these thoughts more clearly, but I don't know the language in which to do so. It could be that I'm completely full of shit I suppose.

Wes:

Are you saying that attempting to survive is a physical law in organisms, and that a survival of the most fit organisms would be a corollary?

What then of the nullist approach to ecology (genetic drift, Hubbel's reseacrh on Costa Rican trees, showbox hypothesis, etc.)?

Ophiolite

There is more sense in the Book of Genesis than the above.

Did you feel this trite, unsubstantiated comment added anything to the dicussion?
I do not know how much of this thread you have read but I have been trying to keep it polite as I think my above quote would suggest. If however some are offended then what has been dished out to me is far worse.

I should prefer to enhance my understanding of the Universe by considering the studies of serious scientists, than the restricted commercial appreciation, no matter how canny, of those in the gambling industry.

This sounds like you think scientists are nice people so you will believe them but those in the gambling industry are not nice so you will not consider what they have learned. I doubt if there are many people on planet earth that have more contempt for the gambling industry than myself. But I also have learned that truth is truth and nice people sometimes burry their heads in the sand. If your so called “serious scientists” do not understand probability, and the gambling industry does, then I will take my lessons from those who know.

There is no such thing as a complex system falling into place by accident.

That is the point we are debating. Restating it as a fact is … pointless … .
Good point. I too feel it tiresome repeating the same point over and over again. But I only do it because so many have found various and imaginative ways to avoid this obvious truth.

We don't know how these laws came into existence. At one time science would have considered such a question beyond its remit. Today, some scientists are beginning to ask that question, and to postulate some possible answers.

Lets hope they remember that no complex system can fall into place by accident!

If I am reading the bulk of the posters aright, those who are challenging your position, they are saying "Once we take these laws as read, the subsequent origin and evolution of life, then of intelligence becomes understandable, and to a greater or lesser extent the mechanisms involved have been defined or at least outlined."

Lets hope we all remember that no complex system can fall into place by accident!

Let us imagine that tomorrow a paper is published in Nature that describes the assembly of a simple prokaryote organism through the painstaking assembly of a complete suite of DNA. What would this tell us about the origin of life? Damn little. What would it tell us about our skills in biochemistry and molecular biology and organic syntethis? Quite a lot. Life today is extremely complex compared with the first life, so copying - recreating an organism that is itself some distance in character and time from that first organism would teach us a lot, but very little about the origin of life. Condemning science's failure to perform such a re-creation, therefore has absolutely no bearing on the question of origin.

I have know doubt that we know a lot about molecular biology and organic synthesis and I think that is great. But, if I have it correct, you are also saying that science knows little about the origin of life. My problem here is that science has assumed that because they have made such rapid advances in so many areas of biology they have assumed that the question of the “origin of life” is solely within their realm. They want this area of enquiry left to themselves and are hostile at the suggestion that they alone can not resolve this issue.

I expect the problems are these. First is that science and theology were set on a collision course in the mid 19th century by Darwinism and that debate still continues to this day. Second is that science likes “black and white” answers and the question of “the origin of life” may never provide this type of decisive outcome. But going it alone, and arrogantly assuming you will eventually find the answers to such an unyielding question, is doomed to failure.

You need to explain how that first life got started without the blueprint and intelligent intervention on hand to make it happen.

Correct. Now save me some time here please. You have done some reading on this matter. Which step in the various postulated steps do you consider the weakest. Tell me what it is and we shall examine that first.
Not a postulated step for it must have happened. The step I feel needs explaining (that can not be explained by natural selection) is the step from “non-life” to “life”. How did this step happen when the probability of it happening by accident was zero and (because it went from non-life to life) it could not have been driven by natural selection.

Quantum Quack

In Qm there are discoveries of spontaneous energies occuring. Is this the fundy that allows life to come into existance not because of accident but because of necessity to keep the cosmic books balanced.

We are debating the question of “Intelligent Design”. So if there are laws out there that require the cosmic books to be balanced (and I do not doubt that this is true) then this will not address the question of Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design asks whether complex systems merely fell into place by accident or were they designed by some intelligent being. So if these laws that find it necessary to keep the cosmic books balanced have resulted in the complex systems we observe all around us then; did these laws fall into place by accident or were they the work of an intelligent designer?

Intelligent design is a joke. The odds of life evolving in the universe is apparently 100%.

Your statement is the joke. I have addressed this point in another post for Raithere but for your benefit I will post it again.

“This is crazy. If you won $1,000,000 in a lottery would you say that now it has happened the probability is 100%. Would you assume that if you took another ticket in the next lottery then your probability of winning was again 100%. As I understand it “probability” refers to the chance of something happening in the future. There is no such thing as the probability of a past event. You criticise me for not understanding maths but do you think this type of rubbish is any encouragement for me to learn. If this is the logic of a mathematician I would be very happy to forget what little maths I know.”

You're confusing your spirituality with the ability to reason. I already invented another religion that worships the Nebraskan Ninja. He is the one who creates all.


Don’t you mean something like this; “because you are a spiritual person you are confused and unable to reason.” You might confuse your “spirituality” with your “ability to reason” but I do not. It would appear that you are a little confused yourself and would do well to give some more thought to what you post and your readers would have less difficulty comprehending your meaning. Maybe it is because you have spent too long worshiping the Nebraskan Ninja.

My personal opinion is that life is a force in the same manner gravity is a force - it's a property of the geometry of the universe. It is the result of a dimensional bleed through, like a perforation in a brane (see m-theory). Certain chemical conditions allow this bleed-through. Basically, the "life force" is the resultant of a compactificated spatial dimension interacting with four-space. An initial condition led to the bleed-through and it was propagated, as the physics of the universe force it to. All life is formed as an extension of localized bleed-through.

Just out of interest Wes. Is all this stuff “falsifiable”, does it follow the “scientific method” and (if it was all correct) does it explain how those original laws fell into place that were able to set up a complex system with life and consciousness? And did it all happen by accident or was there an intelligent designer?

Robert, I do sense your frustration with this question. And I agree that is just that ....very frustrating.

TO ask was the universe created by intelligent design assumes it's premise that the "designer" some how designed himself, or ask the question was the designer [God] the subject of intelligent design.

For me the answer is the evolution of intelligent design, out of chaos came order with order came design, with design came success, and so on.

The universe is evolving intelligently maybe another approach.

Some will hold eth vioew that God existed before his creation thus his creation is by design of his inteligence.

Some will hold that God is his creation, a spontaneous self creation that is him and our universe and reality.

If the later then is is quite easy to see that as God has evolved his intelligence so to has his ability to design. But using the singular "HIS" does not necessarilly mean that he is single minded as he could very well be multiplistic in his sentience thus rendering him to the same evolution as his creation, and not capable of saying and doing anything as a human sentience would do.

Imagine being made up of 6 billion + minds and trying to do anything....hmmmm not easy I reckon and thats just Human minds....

I would answer your question as yes it is by intelligent design but one that is evolving and not complete from the outset.

“As I understand it “probability” refers to the chance of something happening in the future. There is no such thing as the probability of a past event.

Exactly. Put that into the context of the question of "creating the universe". The universe is here. It's present. The probability of the occurance of a past event can be expressed as 100%. Expressing it as such in this context is only done to communicate that you are trying to compute the probability of a past/current event.

Do you understand that statistics/probability is a tool created by humans? Probability in particular can help you determine the likeley outcome of events with known constraints. It can tell you the odds of winning powerball is x based on the known constraints of x.

It's important to understand that it's always an estimation of likelihood. One creates a mathematical representation of the scenario. For instance saying that the odds of your coin toss are 50/50 assumes that the coin if perfectly balanced and the air doesn't play any factor at all. The fact is that the coin is not perfectly balanced and the air may well play a factor on any individual toss of the coin.

Given that there is no "theory of everything", and no real comprehension of what life really is or how it came to be - attempts to express the probability are fundamentally flawed.

For instance, every attempt to caculate the odds of the occurence of the human DNA sequence alway state it flatly as in "what are the odds of the occurence of this sequence?" That question is fundamentally flawed and only makes sense in a creationist model where humans are created out of nothing. Scientific claims are that humanity probably evolved from a genetic predecessor. As such, the calculation of the occurance of human DNA should be based from a hypothetical predecessor. Ultimately, that will take you all the way back to "how did life start in the first place?" So then it's more like "what are the odds of carbon chains creating simple amino acids" or something.

As we've both noted however, attempting to calculate the odds of a past occurence is kind of nonsensical. So your claims regarding probabilities in your previous statements are equally non-sensical. Hence my comment.

Intelligent Design is the nonsense that theists use in an attempt to justify their assumptions.

The concept itself is fundamentally flawed. The word "design" implies intention, and in order to presume one can discern it, one must presume they can comprehend it. In this case however, you are the very result of said presumed intention - so a failure to allow for conditions beyond possible comprehension is illogical.



Does a chicken design an egg?

Is the chicken, who came from the egg, able to comprehend the egg's design? If he were, could he state the intention behind it? Maybe he could come up with something that made sense to the other chickens, but it's impossible for him to do anything but poultrifimorphocation. As a chicken, he has no other choice. It's the same with people. Any attempts to discern intention regarding design are necessarily flawed if the design is beyond the capacity of human experience or imagination. While it's an entertaining thought to consider how the universe and/or life may have come to be, it is ridiculous to assert that one could discern any factual intention resulting from a designer with whom you cannot communicate. It makes sense to do it in human anthopology, because we can relate. We have the records and motives of other humans and animals and can relate to them to some extent. Note that the resultant however can only be theory. The is nothing within human experience to enable them to relate to the intention of a hypothetical intelligent entity. The whole hypothetical thing renders the excercise futile.

Just out of interest Wes. Is all this stuff “falsifiable”

Actually at this point no. It's indeterminant as there's no means to verify it at this point. It's based loosely on my understanding of M-theory, which is unproven. It's true merit should be experimentally justifiable within 20 years at the latest.

does it follow the “scientific method”

That question makes no sense. A "theory" doesn't follow the scientific method. Analysis of it can. I offered my theory on how it works. The scientific method should be applied if we wanted to eventually label it "accepted in science".

and (if it was all correct) does it explain how those original laws fell into place that were able to set up a complex system with life and consciousness?

Your question assumes intention. You shouldn't presume the outcome of your analysis before you perform it. You shouldn't presume the answer to a question that doesn't have one.

And did it all happen by accident or was there an intelligent designer?

That question is indeterminant. There is no means to gather evidence to support or deny the claim of either answer. To assert knowledge as to intention of design of nature is pure anthropomorphization and presumption.

Wes:

Are you saying that attempting to survive is a physical law in organisms, and that a survival of the most fit organisms would be a corollary?

No. I'm merely hypothesizing that when a hole (when I say hole, I mean at minimum "the ability to encode information") is formed by the occurence of the right conditions, it will be instanced if the conditions persist that allow it to do so. It makes me wonder if that since there's the possibility for the conditions to be met and since they have been and since that time it has as far as we know had a significant net increase in instances, survival is then the tendency of the hole to increase in number of instances - each of which add to the gross number of holes. I surmise that there is something about the universe then that is leading to an increase in influence of a force from lower dimensions applied in four-space. I call that force "the life force". "survival" is almost synomous, but in slightly different context as it's more about the phenomenon of the holes increasing in number of instance rather than the force poking through from lower dimensions.

What then of the nullist approach to ecology (genetic drift, Hubbel's reseacrh on Costa Rican trees, showbox hypothesis, etc.)?

I know what genetic drift is, but I'm not familiar with "the nullist approach", Hubbel's research on trees or the showbox hypothesis. Genetic drift doesn't contradict anything I've said as far as I can tell.

Does a chicken design an egg?


The genetic information of the chicken and the father in combination with environmental cues 'designs' the egg. But this is only one step of the design process. The egg has been 'designed' over many generations by an accumulations of both effects.

Spurious, I agree, as I posted earlier the universe could be said to be evolving intelligently, Or God could be said to be evolving intelligently.
In that evolution is an intelligent method of evolving. Thus teh question of intelligent design is about an ongoing inteligent deisgn and not one of prior conception, in that sentient planning. before the universe was created as most montheistic religions would have themselves believe.

not really...the method of evolution is natural selection and rather a effective method but it can hardly be called intelligent.

Intelligent Design asks whether complex systems merely fell into place by accident or were they designed by some intelligent being.

Why does intelligent design restrict it's scope to only two predetermined possiblities? That's a fundamentally flawed way to start a theory. A theory should be developed through deductive, scientific reasoning to come to a single conclusion, rather than starting off with two (unscientific) conclusions and disregarding the most silly of the two(which wasn't an accurate representation of any counter-theories to begin with).

Also, which one of the following two theories do supporters of intelligent design believe:

1) The intelligent designer merely fell into place by accident

or

2) The intelligent designer was designed by some intelligent being

Darwin was a genius :)

Having thought about this issue of “irreducible complexity” I am currently of the opinion that it is not a very productive way to make the case for intelligent design. I support fully the argument for intelligent design but not always the way the argument is put

.....

And that sequence is not the genetic code for life. It is just any sequence that is non random. Any other non random sequence (or any other sequence for creating life) would be just as improbable.
read Lee Strobel's, "The Case for the Creator", it has many interesting concepts, I like Ch's 8 & 9, on Biochemistry & Biological Info. I find the fact that we are blobs of nanotechnology directed by DNA instructions to make coordinated nanofactories making us live & breathe, all written in a 4-letter language, not binary, but quad, totally & absolutly, beyond a doubt
amazing, maybe even a miracle?!!!

Intelligent design is a joke.

The odds of life evolving in the universe is apparently 100%.
ah, as far as we know its 0.00000000000000000000000000001%,
unless you can prove otherwise, we have only Earth as an example

ah, as far as we know its 0.00000000000000000000000000001%,
unless you can prove otherwise, we have only Earth as an example

Can you please explain how that number was reached?
If possible, please post the equation(s) and evidence for the sources of the numbers in said equation(s).

I would like to see some supporting evidence before I accept that number as anything but one that was pulled out of some creationists ass for the sake of bolstering his point of view.

Thank you.

Can you please explain how that number was reached?
If possible, please post the equation(s) and evidence for the sources of the numbers in said equation(s).

I would like to see some supporting evidence before I accept that number as anything but one that was pulled out of ...
for the sake of bolstering his point of view.

Thank you.
My, aren't we testy, its a make-believe number like the 100% it refers to

oh, and I would like to see all the math evidence for that 100% certainty, & not Drake's Equation, because if any of those variables are zero, well the answer would be zero

Actually, I'm not testy at all.
It was a genuine request.
Perhaps some sarcasm or other unintended emotion came across in my post.

I see many numbers fly around whenever this argument comes up and they ALL seem to refute each other yet it is very rare that anyone actually comes up with how the specific numbers were derrived.
When someone does come up with a derrivation, it is most often vague at best and based on at least one unsupported supposition.
I am always wary when people come up with numbers in this argument, because more often than not, they are simply quoting someone that agrees with their side and don't even know how the number was obtained in the first place other than this matematician or that biologist said so (if even that).
Without supporting evidence, the numbers are meaningless to me (and should be to anyone thinking critically and being honest).

By the way, if you will notice, I didn't support wes on his 100% statement.
Honestly I thought it was delivered somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
It made me smile, but I didn't view it as having or intending any real merit.

ah, as far as we know its 0.00000000000000000000000000001%,
unless you can prove otherwise, we have only Earth as an example

If you didn't notice, Earth has yielded life. Your answer is nullifed by the example you cited.

It was a genuine request.
...
I see many numbers fly around whenever this argument comes up and they ALL seem to refute each other yet it is very rare that anyone actually comes up with how the specific numbers were derrived.
...
Without supporting evidence, the numbers are meaningless to me (and should be to anyone thinking critically and being honest).
math explains a lot of things, E=mc2, is probably the most simple & elegant.

I'm not sure how the "100%" was derived, because we can only guess from our vantage-point here on Earth.

Drake's Equation, is a guess, it has too many "unknown" or "unknowable" variables, read "Rare Earth", by Brownlee & Ward for some possible insurmountable odds for, at least complex life around the universe.

of course, since we haven't gotten off this planet & really explored (the Moon's our backyard, we need to go to Mars & Jupiter at least), we may never know.

unless, those pesky aliens finally show themselves & asked to be 'taken to our leader' :p

If you didn't notice, Earth has yielded life. Your answer is nullifed by the example you cited.
if you didn't notice, we are the only example presently that you can cite, so the "100%" can only be absolutly used on Earth-based lifeforms,
unless you have ET visiting? or some other discovery &/or math formula you haven't revealed?

Honestly I thought it was delivered somewhat tongue-in-cheek. It made me smile, but I didn't view it as having or intending any real merit.

The answer was intended to illustrate one of the any flaws n thinking that those who endorse intelligent design commit. You can't apply probabalistic thinking to past events, yet folks seem to try anyway. The earth is in the universe and on it, there is life. Therefore, the universe has produced life.

You can't compute the odds of it happening because don't have a model that sufficiently models the forces at work to make life what it is in the first place. Certainly you can say "these chemicals do this and that is how life happened", but why is like asking why blue is blue. It's just defined that way, but why is pretty random. It's a label.

The same follows with the chemical process that leads to life. Sure, physics can tell us why the chemicals bond as they do, but why life follows from it is simply unknown. Without that missing bit of information, you're kind of screwed when it comes to explaining what the odds are of it happening. Since it has happened, we must conclude that regardless of what a human perspective might have calculated the odds of the conditions to allow the occurence to be, they were met. Only one valid conclusion follows: The conditions of the universe fostered life in at least the case of Earth.

Why that is, may remain a mystery forever. I think it there's a possibility it can be explained via M-theory.

Regardless of my theory, Intelligent Design is based purely in human expectation. It's the pinnacle of anthropomorphization. It is competely unscientific. It offers no basis by which to explain anything, except the age old refuge of desperation "god (or something godlike) did it".

if you didn't notice, we are the only example presently that you can cite, so the "100%" can only be absolutly used on Earth-based lifeforms,
unless you have ET visiting? or some other discovery &/or math formula you haven't revealed?

Then you're ignoring the text to which you responded.

I said "the odds of life evolving in the universe is apparently 100%". Earth is in the universe. That you would exclude us from consideration as "life" speaks poorly of your view of our fine planet! ;)

Then you're ignoring the text to which you responded.

I said "the odds of life evolving in the universe is apparently 100%". Earth is in the universe. That you would exclude us from consideration as "life" speaks poorly of your view of our fine planet! ;-)hmmm, your math is fuzzy, one example proves "100%"? is it the exception or the rule? my math, says 'unknown' at this time

the Earth is a part of the Universe, albeit a very infinitesimal part, so unless you have the math &/or can cite sources, that "100%" was a guess for the rest of the Universe ( life on Earth is a given), come on, admit it, it can only be a fraction of "X" & even that is a guess. we have no way of knowing what's out there

Previous threads that I started on the topic of ET life or lack thereof:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=851
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=588
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=4658

Why can't evolution be considered as intelligent?

It certainly seems to be an intelligent way of doing things if automatic Cause and effect growth and change is required.

hmmm, your math is fuzzy, one example proves "100%"?

Randolfo, if you accept that you are a life form, and that you occupy this universe, then presumably you also accept that the life - of which you are a representative - evolved in this universe. You are proof that life HAS evolved in the universe. Therefore, the odds of life evolving in the universe = certainty = 100%.

Randolfo, if you accept that you are a life form, and that you occupy this universe, then presumably you also accept that the life - of which you are a representative - evolved in this universe. You are proof that life HAS evolved in the universe. Therefore, the odds of life evolving in the universe = certainty = 100%.
Ah, since you are trying to put this in a more logical sense, then were would Earth be in the Venn Diagrams? My question, has to do more with whether we are "the Rule" or "The exception", I contend that we do not have enough information to do more than imply that it is a possibility; because we do not know at least 3 things;
1) whether life can start form non-life (chemical soup)
2) the processes involved in that jump or
3) how many of the trillions of possible earths, are in fact capable of evolving & sustaining life

all you logiticians, please complete the following;
if ...
if ...
Then life evolving in the rest of the Universe is a 100% certainty.

Randolfo, please put down the crack pipe you bastard. ;)

Hey man look, that shit is unknown. You know that, you said it. The issue of "life evolving in the universe" is different that "life evolving at particular locations in the universe". It would seem likely based on the fact that it happened here, that it probabaly happens all over the place where conditions permit... but we can't tell for sure yet as we're kind of localized.

My assertion was correct. You've changed the question and are seeming to insist that you haven't.

Regarding the question "will life evolve in the universe", the earth (as would any additional proof in support of life) is the entire solution space. A venn diagram doesn't make sense in terms of past events. Past events can be used to model venn diagrams that attempt to describe the possibility of future events, but "that the universe will produce life" is not a future event. The universe has produced life. Done deal.

Randolfo, please put down the crack pipe you ... ;-)
hey, was that crack you gave me last night? I thought it was meth, I'm bummed out, no wonder I'm still sleepy, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Intelligent design

problems: male nipples (useless feature), hemorrhoids (faulty design of anal bloodvessels causing this phenomena to appear.

ha...I like that....Tell that to my wife, she happens to think that male nipples do serve a purpose....ha. and as to hemerrhoids, etc, just because we cannot see any purpose for them at present is more an indication of our ignorance than their purpose or lack thereof.

My understanding is that males have nipples because all zygotes start out female. At some critical point I think around 9 weeks (ish) into gestation, a critical hormone (is that right, hormone?) or gene or whatever is either introduced or it isn't. If it isn't, the fetus stays female. If it is, male.

Oh, and nipples develop before then.

Further, I do believe that the penis is derived from what would have remained a clitorus.

ahhh but the question is : Even if the zygotte is showing signs of being female is it destined to remain female. If it is destined to remain female then it can be rightly called a female zygot but if some where in it's dna it is destined to be male then the zygot can not be claimed to be female until it is proven to be as such. Looks being decieving.
Actually is gender predetermined or is it more a lottery. If so then the zygot cannot be considered to be either male of female even though it has structures suggesting it is female.

My previous post was really about how sometimes we forget that our knowledge about the universe including the human body is far from complete, in fact we know so very little about anything. So to throw something out as non producing like male nipples and wisdom teeth and hemmerhiods etc, is simply showing how arrogant we some times tend to be in thinking we have the ability to discount these things as useless.

For example hemerhoids could be very essential to the survival of the person. In that with out them the person may face fatality. The hemerhoids being some sort of compensatory mechanism to ensure the body survives a yet to be understood condition that may otherwise prove fatal.
The fact is we simply do not know.

Intelligent design

problems:
male nipples they're for hanging stuff on; like rings, pins, pendants, etc...

hemorrhoids
design problem? more like symptom, they're telling you to eat right, all you fat, lazy Americans

My understanding is that males have nipples because all zygotes start out female. At some critical point I think around 9 weeks (ish) into gestation, a critical hormone (is that right, hormone?) or gene or whatever is either introduced

Further, I do believe that the penis is derived from what would have remained a clitorus.

you're right, & that brings up some other items that you can say are "variations on a theme", many things do double duty; like some chemicals in our system, which if they are in our blood stream are 'hormones', but if in our nervous system are 'Neurotransmitters', and etc...

http://web.indstate.edu/thcme/mwking/nerves.html
Table of Neurotransmitters

Transmitter Molecule Derived From Site of Synthesis
Acetylcholine Choline CNS, parasympathetic nerves
http://www.depressioncenter.net/library/medication_glossary.cfm#a
Adrenaline - see epinephrine
Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptophan, 5-HT) - a hormone and neurotransmitter (an indoleamine) important in a variety of functions including appetite, sleep, depression and anxiety and depression.

http://health.yahoo.com/health/centers/bone_health/207.html
calcium is essential for cell function, muscle contraction, transmission of nerve impulses to our muscles and for blood clotting. In the form of calcium phosphate, it makes up the hard outer coating of bones and teeth
http://www.wholehealthmd.com/refshelf/substances_view/1,1525,10086,00.html
Potassium's task is a formidable one, primarily because of its role as an electrolyte, a mineral that takes on a positive or negative charge when dissolved in the watery medium of body fluids.
...
aids in converting blood sugar (glucose, the body's foremost fuel), into glycogen, a form of energy that can be stored in the muscles and liver and released as needed.

http://www.vitamins-nutrition.org/vitamins/phosphorus.html
Phosphorus is required by the body for bone and teeth formation. Calcium alone can't build strong bones and tissues.
...
allows proper digestion of riboflavin and niacin, aids in transmission of nerve impulses, helps your kidneys effectively excreting wastes, gives you stable and plentiful energy, forms the proteins that aid in reproduction, and may help block cancer.

what's my point?
that God used basic building blocks for everything; in 2's, 3's, 4's etc...
that's the basic plan of intelligent design

like the aliens in "Contact" that put the diagrams for the ship in 3-d format, God designed using those for form & function, & variation comes naturally; sunsets, novas, systems, life

TO ask was the universe created by intelligent design assumes it's premise that the "designer" some how designed himself, or ask the question was the designer [God] the subject of intelligent design.

Whether the designer designed himself or was a God then it is still “intelligent design”.

For me the answer is the evolution of intelligent design, out of chaos came order with order came design, with design came success, and so on.

This would suggest no “intelligent design”. So did it “just happen?”

Some will hold the view that God existed before his creation thus his creation is by design of his intelligence.

This is rubbish. How can something exist before its own creation?

Some will hold that God is his creation, a spontaneous self creation that is him and our universe and reality.

The something that person was holding was most likely a bottle for the assertion is totally illogical and sounds like the ravings of and intoxicated mind.

“As I understand it “probability” refers to the chance of something happening in the future. There is no such thing as the probability of a past event.

Exactly. Put that into the context of the question of "creating the universe". The universe is here. It's present. The probability of the occurrence of a past event can be expressed as 100%. Expressing it as such in this context is only done to communicate that you are trying to compute the probability of a past/current event.

Wes; what you are asserting here is incorrect. You are still saying that because the universe is here and it is present that I am trying to calculate the probability of a past event.

Suppose I won a lottery. I would most likely want to calculate what my probability of winning it was at the time I purchased the ticket? In other words I am placing myself at a given time in the past and calculating the probability of a future event taking place at that time.

Likewise it is reasonable to ask what was the probability of the universe coming into existence by accident at the time of its creation. If we are talking about the time of the creation of the universe we are calculating the probability of a future event. This is totally consistent with my assertion that “probability” refers to the chance of something happening in the future and that there is no such thing as the probability of a past event.

Your statement quoted above is quite wrong. You are accusing me of trying to calculate the probability of a past event when what I am doing is only what statisticians do every day of the week. An example of calculating the probability of a past event is your assertion that the creation of the universe is a probability of 100%. It is you who is in error; not me.

It's important to understand that it's always an estimation of likelihood. One creates a mathematical representation of the scenario. For instance saying that the odds of your coin toss are 50/50 assumes that the coin if perfectly balanced and the air doesn't play any factor at all. The fact is that the coin is not perfectly balanced and the air may well play a factor on any individual toss of the coin.

This is true. To calculate the probability of the universe coming into creation we would have to look back in time. This however is something that scientists do all the time. We would have to estimate what conditions existed at that time and assume that the underlying laws that govern our universe (including the laws of probability) held true at that time and in that place. Like the conditions that govern the outcome of a coin flip we can never be certain of all the conditions that might influence what will happen. But we know that enough flips of an unbiased coin will always produce 50% heads and 50% tails. And if our observations are true then the probability of our universe coming into creation by accident is zero.

As such, the calculation of the occurrence of human DNA should be based from a hypothetical predecessor. Ultimately, that will take you all the way back to "how did life start in the first place?" So then it's more like "what are the odds of carbon chains creating simple amino acids" or something.

As we've both noted however, attempting to calculate the odds of a past occurrence is kind of nonsensical. So your claims regarding probabilities in your previous statements are equally non-sensical.

Not so. You merely need to place yourself at that point in time (with an estimation of the conditions that existed) and ask; “what is the probability of this event happening.” The problem is not one of calculating a past event. Every time an accident investigation team arrives at the scene of a motor vehicle accident they place themselves at a past point in time. They reconstruct (to the best of their ability) the situation at the time of the accident and calculate the probability of the accident happening again.

The problem is not with my method of calculating probability but with the results we all get when we estimate the chance of creating life and the universe by accident. The answer we get is always an emphatic ZERO. So it would seem that people who want to claim there is no creator (and that science will eventually yield the answers to all) resort to errors in logic that most 10 year old children can correct.

Intelligent Design is the nonsense that theists use in an attempt to justify their assumptions.

The concept itself is fundamentally flawed. The word "design" implies intention, and in order to presume one can discern it, one must presume they can comprehend it. In this case however, you are the very result of said presumed intention - so a failure to allow for conditions beyond possible comprehension is illogical.

I agree we can not comprehend it. I do not try to explain it only say that it could not happen by accident. You might want to argue that the believers in “intelligent design” are “illogical” but it would be more of a “nonsense” to argue that a complex system was created by accident.

what's my point?
that God used basic building blocks for everything; in 2's, 3's, 4's etc...
that's the basic plan of intelligent design

Your point is valid from your perspective I'm sure, but you cannot offer compelling evidence that your perspective is representative of anything
objective.

The conclusion you draw from your argument is erroneous. That the "building blocks" exist and interact in a way that fascinates you doesn't speak to intention or why they exist.

Please consider these two thoughts:

1: If "god" exists and possesses the power to design and create our universe, how can a human relate to that power? You necessarily attempt to do so in applying the term intention to the design of the universe. Intention is a human convention, limited to linear relative time. It presupposes that we consider “what will be next” and impose intention on our actions to shape events over linear time. God is timeless by definition. Therefore, the concept of intention is simply inapplicable.

2: If god created the universe, the he preceded the universe and is as such, unbound by it. If god is unbound by the universe, evidence born of this universe cannot be directly linked to god. There is no means by which to quantify or qualify something beyond the universe. Even if you can prove there are other universes, then you’ve simply expanded the notion of the universe and whatever created that again, must be unbound by it.

The notion of design or intent is a human convention, limited to the scope human conception. The notion of god is necessarily and beyond that scope to the extreme. It is therefore inescapable that design or intent cannot be shown to be applicable to the something so far beyond the scope of human conception. Assertions thereof have no reasonable objective basis. The evidence is necessarily indeterminate as a consequence of the definition of god.

Wes; what you are asserting here is incorrect. You are still saying that because the universe is here and it is present that I am trying to calculate the probability of a past event.

That's exactly what you're doing. It's too late for probabilistic calculations. The experiment is already in progress and the results regarding the question "will life evolve" are already in. Yes is the answer.

Suppose I won a lottery. I would most likely want to calculate what my probability of winning it was at the time I purchased the ticket? In other words I am placing myself at a given time in the past and calculating the probability of a future event taking place at that time.

While that may satisfy some masochistic curiosity (hehe), it presumes much. We can resume this when you figure out how to run the "I'm creating a universe, hey watch this guys" experiment.

Likewise it is reasonable to ask what was the probability of the universe coming into existence by accident at the time of its creation.

No it isn't for the reason I just provided. It's only useful information if you can re-create the experiment. I think you'd have to agree that there doesn't exist the proper technology or knowledge of initial conditions to do so.

If we are talking about the time of the creation of the universe we are calculating the probability of a future event.

Telling that you use the word "creation". A bit presumptive don't you think? I really hope you give some consideration to my post to randolpho.

You should also take into consideration that the "creation" of the universe appears to be a past event.

This is totally consistent with my assertion that “probability” refers to the chance of something happening in the future and that there is no such thing as the probability of a past event.

Your assertion is fundamentally flawed as I've demonstrated as clearly as I can manage. The probability of a past event is certainty. That clearly demonstrates the arrow of time as we know it. Again, you are apparently ignoring you cannot recreate the event, nor can you provide an accurate model of current reality, nor can you travel back in time to try the experiement again and see if it doesn't happen this time - thus verifying the accuracy of the model by which you generated your probability function.

Your statement quoted above is quite wrong.

I disagree.

You are accusing me of trying to calculate the probability of a past event when what I am doing is only what statisticians do every day of the week.

Certainly, but if you really understood the usefullness of the tool "probability" in the first place you wouldn't argue that what they do is applicable to an necessarily singular event. Probability less than certainty doesn't apply to past events, yet you do so and claim your calculation has relevance. It doesn't. It can't. It's a one shot deal. Game over. Certainty is the victor.

An example of calculating the probability of a past event is your assertion that the creation of the universe is a probability of 100%. It is you who is in error; not me.

You speak from ignorance. I can relate, but this time your simply incorrect. I hope you can see it. I think I've made it clear, but I think that most of the time when I post and well... as far as I can tell I'm usually wrong.

This is true. To calculate the probability of the universe coming into creation we would have to look back in time. This however is something that scientists do all the time. We would have to estimate what conditions existed at that time and assume that the underlying laws that govern our universe (including the laws of probability) held true at that time and in that place.

Estimates require confidence. You've expressed yours clearly. I don't share it, as I find it wholly misplaced for reasons I've explained. What's the difference between life and the inanimate? Do you factor the fact that you cannot really answer the question into your estimate? What is the "force" behind life? Can you model it? Did you apply that to your "estimates"?

Certainly the odds can be guesstimate of the "spark of life" and from that you can guesstimate hindsight probabilities of iterations that lead to humanity, but if there are say, forces bleeding through other spatial dimensions into ours that propel life and evolution to some unknown and perhaps, unknowable end.. what then? What if the snake lord shit an egg and inside it, the universe sparked from the quahelifax's interaction with the zylorphosphere?

Since I'm unaware of any prolific models of the universe that can effectively explain why things can be describd as "animate" and "inanimate", it's quite premature to proclaim any probability function regarding "could humans evolve in the universe" (et al) has any basis in reality at all.

Like the conditions that govern the outcome of a coin flip we can never be certain of all the conditions that might influence what will happen. But we know that enough flips of an unbiased coin will always produce 50% heads and 50% tails.

That is a repeatable excperiment for which you can verify the results with large volumes of data (n repetitions of the experiement). Thus is bears no weight on the question at hand.

And if our observations are true then the probability of our universe coming into creation by accident is zero.

The probability of a past event is certainty. You have it bass-ackwards. It's 100% or by your assertion that you are not trying to calculate the probability of a past event, indeterminant.

Not so. You merely need to place yourself at that point in time (with an estimation of the conditions that existed) and ask; “what is the probability of this event happening.”

How are you going to place yourself at a point in time that precedes time? That's a cool trick. Please let me know if you figure it out.

The problem is not one of calculating a past event.
Yes, it is. You're surely not claiming the universe doesn't yet exist...

Every time an accident investigation team arrives at the scene of a motor vehicle accident they place themselves at a past point in time.

Do you know why?

They reconstruct (to the best of their ability) the situation at the time of the accident and calculate the probability of the accident happening again.

That's because there are vast data sets that demonstrate what happens during collisions. It can be analyzed with a high degree of confidence because it can be repeatedly demonstrated. Car goe fast, car go boom. This doesn't apply to the conditions that "led to" the universe. I use quotes because I'm not sure the concept of time is exactly applicable to an event that may somehow not been subject to it, since it may have preceded it. It is simply unknown at this point, though I think over the next 30 year there will be incredible advances in technology that enable experiements which may be able to rule out many models.

The problem is not with my method of calculating probability but with the results we all get when we estimate the chance of creating life and the universe by accident.

You have simply failed to support that assertion. You assume your calculation has merit. I assert that it has none and have supported that to the best of my ability at this time.

The answer we get is always an emphatic ZERO.

Pardon the common sense, but I'd think one might surmise their calculations to be a little weak given overwhelming contrary evidence (certainty).

So it would seem that people who want to claim there is no creator (and that science will eventually yield the answers to all) resort to errors in logic that most 10 year old children can correct.

Given your inability to properly utilize the concepts offered by probability, I find your condescension dubious.

I agree we can not comprehend it. I do not try to explain it only say that it could not happen by accident.

Why do you assume that the concept of "an accident" is applicable to events outside the capability of your conception?

You might want to argue that the believers in “intelligent design” are “illogical” but it would be more of a “nonsense” to argue that a complex system was created by accident.

I want to argue reason. I have no agenda besides comprehension and satiation of curiosity. That's not completely true I suppose, as there is always some ego involved in the quest for comprehension. One of the rewards is the feeling it offers, which is that of righteousness to some extent. I try not to indulge in it, but I'm sure it creeps into many of my comments.

Your agenda has been clearly expressed as anthropomorphic.

ahhh but the question is : Even if the zygotte is showing signs of being female is it destined to remain female. If it is destined to remain female then it can be rightly called a female zygot but if some where in it's dna it is destined to be male then the zygot can not be claimed to be female until it is proven to be as such.

A person with XY (male) genetics can still develop as a female, lacking certain hormonal interactions. Recent research has focused in on two genes, and I presume they are "active" genes, but I am unsure how they interact with the hormones themselves.

From Reuters, originally, but I picked this up through Google on a Latter-Day Saints' website: Sex reversal syndrome in humans (http://www.lds-mormon.com/gender1.shtml)

The evidence we have strongly suggests that DAX1 is the gene responsible for human sex reversal syndrome. Just a simple duplication of the gene in a double dose apparently leads to sex reversal," Robin Lovell-Badge, of the MRC National Institute for Medical Research, told Reuters.

DAX1 lies on the X chromosome. When it duplicates it causes an individual who is genetically male to develop physically as a female. Another gene called Sry, on the Y chromosome, is the main sex gene which determines whether testes or ovaries will develop in the embryo ....

.... "We know that Sry is the gene critical for male development. If it's there you get a male, if it isn't you get a female," Lovell-Badge explained.

"Dax1 and Sry act in the same point in the pathway (chain of events) but in a normal male Sry wins. The normal function of DAX1, we believe, is to ensure that secondary male genes are turned off. It's an anti-male gene."

Reaney (http://www.lds-mormon.com/gender1.shtml)

It's a 1998 article; we can look around for something more up to date. It's a start.
____________________

Notes:
Reaney, Patricia. "Gene for human sex reversal syndrome identified". Reuters, February 18, 1998. See http://www.lds-mormon.com/gender1.shtml

Tiassa, thanks for that, I'll do a little research just for the fun of it....
Wes, I find your last post interesting regards to 'creation'

It could be argued and quite convincingly that concepts of begining or start, are erroneous in logic, simply because if there was no time before, the word before has no logical meaning.

To say that before time there was nothing is an invalid logic. It isn't an easy concept to grasp for most, however I am sure, you Wes can and have already seen this seeming paradox. Of what can be before time when it requires time to be after an event before it can exist.

So with that out of the way it can only be stated that reality has always existed. There was no before and when we get to the after bit...well if we existed we wouldn't have been finished existing..

So if the universe was not created then it must be creation in progress, thus creation is evolving with in the time it has.
The logic is always circular and paradoxical. It can never be anything else.
so in the NOW which is always all we know creation is unfolding. No begining and no end, just is......
as soon as the now came to be it allows us a past and a future. so creation, God or what ever exist only in the NOW.

The interesting thing is that if you try to find the now between the future and the past you will find that the Now is absolutely the center of time and because it is infinitely small in time it doesn't exist. Thus logically everything doesn't exist. Another paradox hey?

Tiassa, thanks for that, I'll do a little research just for the fun of it....
Wes, I find your last post interesting regards to 'creation'

It could be argued and quite convincingly that concepts of begining or start, are erroneous in logic, simply because if there was no time before, the word before has no logical meaning.

To say that before time there was nothing is an invalid logic. It isn't an easy concept to grasp for most, however I am sure, you Wes can and have already seen this seeming paradox. Of what can be before time when it requires time to be after an event before it can exist.

So with that out of the way it can only be stated that reality has always existed. There was no before and when we get to the after bit...well if we existed we wouldn't have been finished existing..

So if the universe was not created then it must be creation in progress, thus creation is evolving with in the time it has.
The logic is always circular and paradoxical. It can never be anything else.
so in the NOW which is always all we know creation is unfolding. No begining and no end, just is......
as soon as the now came to be it allows us a past and a future. so creation, God or what ever exist only in the NOW.

The interesting thing is that if you try to find the now between the future and the past you will find that the Now is absolutely the center of time and because it is infinitely small in time it doesn't exist. Thus logically everything doesn't exist. Another paradox hey?

I expressed my opinion regarding that:

"outside the capability of your conception"

I should have said:

"outside the capacity of human conception at this time".

I would however make note that IMO, there is no reason that pardoxes can't exist in one's mind, as it has no bearing on physicality.

Also, paradox is readily apparent but untrue if you consider dimensionality. By that I mean from a perspective in three dimensions, four dimensional objects can literally appear to be at two places at once; or two simultaneous events can occur in what appears to be the same space.

also like saying that reality is a three dimensional extrapolation of that which is 2 dimensional.
But I think we agree in general.

With regard to this:

"I would however make note that IMO, there is no reason that pardoxes can't exist in one's mind, as it has no bearing on physicality."

If that's true, then to me it's somewhat telling regarding the dimensionality of mind. If mind is in some aspect unconstrained by physical reality as we generally think of it, can we infer that our model of physical reality must be missing at least one degree of freedom? Isn't that degree of freedom required to account for phenomenon that do not conform to the view of physical reality?

I would add to this that if paradoxes are quite capable of existing in mind that they are also quite capable of existing in reality.

We are so much more comfortable with unparadoxical realities that we automatically reject paradoxes as being reality.

I feel that is only when we can accept paradox as real that we will find the answers to those big questions.

But of course a paradox only appears so becasue we deem them to be just that.
With further understanding we find that it all makes sense in the end any way.

to me paradox equates with dyslexia.

and it is a hard one to get past.

It's a bit like talking about 2, 3 and 4 dimensional logic, what the f*ck does that mean....
I believe that the mind works fundementally with a 4 dimensional logic were as our output or cognitive mind works more like a 2 dimensional or linea logic.

to describe it you have to consider logic as a cube or sphere instead of a line of reason.

but this is probaby way to dimensional for this thread........

But I guess I fall into the belief system that if you can imagine it then some where some how it exists in reality in some form.

Thus the imagination reflects the reality in rather amazing ways.

But of course a paradox only appears so becasue we deem them to be just that.
With further understanding we find that it all makes sense in the end any way.


Which, of course, means it is NOT a paradox.
A paradox, by definition, can not exist in reality.
If a paradox does SEEM to exist, that simply means that we don't understand what is going on, and we are mis-interpreting reality

This is the view, theory, concept (I do not know what) of Wes.

My personal opinion is that life is a force in the same manner gravity is a force - it's a property of the geometry of the universe. It is the result of a dimensional bleed through, like a perforation in a brane (see m-theory). Certain chemical conditions allow this bleed-through. Basically, the "life force" is the resultant of a compactificated spatial dimension interacting with four-space. An initial condition led to the bleed-through and it was propagated, as the physics of the universe force it to. All life is formed as an extension of localized bleed-through. …

I'm merely hypothesizing that when a hole (when I say hole, I mean at minimum "the ability to encode information") is formed by the occurence of the right conditions, it will be instanced if the conditions persist that allow it to do so. It makes me wonder if that since there's the possibility for the conditions to be met and since they have been and since that time it has as far as we know had a significant net increase in instances, survival is then the tendency of the hole to increase in number of instances - each of which add to the gross number of holes. I surmise that there is something about the universe then that is leading to an increase in influence of a force from lower dimensions applied in four-space. I call that force "the life force". "survival" is almost synomous, but in slightly different context as it's more about the phenomenon of the holes increasing in number of instance rather than the force poking through from lower dimensions. …

Certainly the odds can be guesstimate of the "spark of life" and from that you can guesstimate hindsight probabilities of iterations that lead to humanity, but if there are say, forces bleeding through other spatial dimensions into ours that propel life and evolution to some unknown and perhaps, unknowable end.. what then? What if the snake lord shit an egg and inside it, the universe sparked from the quahelifax's interaction with the zylorphosphere? …

Does this make sense? Is there any attempt to relate this concept to what we know to be true?

The basic outline of the God Gametes model is as follows.

The model presented in “God Gametes and the Planet of the Butterfly Queen” assumes our universe is part of a multiverse. In his book “Before the Beginning” Sir Martin Rees (British Astronomer Royal) postulates the existence of other universes but God Gametes would simply say that there does not appear to be one of anything else, so why one universe? There is also the history. We started out thinking there was one earth and one sun only to find that our earth was one of many planets and the sun merely a star. People then assumed there was only one galaxy to later find that our galaxy is one of billions. We now of course assume there is only one universe!

From this point God Gametes argues:

1. If there is always more than one of everything there is more than one universe.
2. If there were other universes they would have life as does ours.
3. If they have life, it is cyclical as is all life.
4. If it is cyclical, it reproduces as does all life.

The model in God Gametes then assumes that the multiverse is hierarchical with the older and more complex universes on top and the younger and less complex below. Again this conforms to what we know to be true of reproductive systems. For example we can say that animals have two levels of the hierarchy (adults and their reproductive gametes) with the adult form living longer and being more complex than its reproductive cells.

We argue that each level of the multiverse is the reproductive system of the level above. Universes are assumed to have gender; female universes made of matter and male universes anti-matter. The Planet of the Butterfly Queen (earth) is made of matter and is the reproductive system of a single female of our parent species on the next higher level of the multiverse. Our human consciousness is the male reproductive cell she hosts from our companion antimatter planet.

The God Gametes model is in conformity with many things we know to be true.

Death of Universe: Energy in our universe will eventually run out and it will die. If there were other universes then it is likely they will also run out of energy and die. This is consistent with the God Gametes claim that they also need to reproduce.

Life and Consciousness: There is life. Creatures have evolved complexity, and our human species, a consciousness. God Gametes provides a reason for evolving complexity and a purpose for our human consciousness.

Universal Laws: There are laws that govern our universe and these are the same everywhere. It is likely therefore that other universes would be cyclical, they would have life and would need to reproduce.

The Life Cycle: Living organisms reproduce and have a life cycle. God Gametes holds that living systems in other universes are gender based, have a life cycle, reproduce and that we are part of their reproductive system.

Dimensions: It has not proven possible to fix the place of quantum particles in terms of the three geometric dimensions, or of time. Mathematicians have suggested however that more dimensions might be needed to make sense of the quantum world and this is consistent with the God Gametes model.

Gender: The more complex living organisms are gender-based. God Gametes notes that our gender based reproductive system may relate to dimensions. Our universe being a female universe while in the hidden dimensions there is a male gender universe.

The Speed of Light: In the classical world nothing can travel faster-than-light. If we are the reproductive cells (unborn life) of the next higher level of the multiverse then it is important that we are never able to consciously communicate with our parent species on that higher level.

Faster-than-light Signalling: In the quantum world, faster-than-light signalling is possible. Faster-than-light-signalling is something we can never comprehend in our classical world but is what makes it possible for our parent species (on the next higher level of the multiverse) to communicate with their reproductive system (us) on this level.

Matter and Antimatter: It is not possible to produce matter without making equal amounts of antimatter. No one knows what happened to all the antimatter when the universe was created. The God Gametes theory believes that equal amounts of matter and antimatter were made. Our universe (female) is made of matter but the (male gender) parallel universe is made of antimatter.

The Changing Properties of Time and Matter: Time and the properties of matter will change when the speed at which an object travels varies, or if the gravitational forces in which it is located are altered. The God Gametes theory holds that the parent species live in a universe with a far greater gravitational force than on earth. This would mean that (in relation to their universe) we would only be small and our life expectancy of 70 to 80 years would be only a few days in their lives.

Symmetry: Properties of life and matter have symmetry. The God Gametes theory explains why symmetry is lacking in some notable places. Our universe only has matter but equal amounts of matter and antimatter is always made. So if our companion universe is made of antimatter then symmetry is restored. Only right handed amino acids are found in DNA but if the God Gametes model is correct their left handed counterparts may well be found in our companion antimatter planet. Time only runs in one direction in our universe but again could run backwards in an antimatter universe.

The 2nd law of Thermodynamics: Properties of life and matter conform to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The God Gametes theory holds that life and our universe has not degraded over time and is therefore in conformity with the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

God is timeless by definition. Therefore, the concept of intention is simply inapplicable.

Webster’s (god)

1 any of various beings conceived of as supernatural, immortal, and