Thanks, at least I know what you mean by it now Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I agree that a fire that doesn't burn is not a fire.. but your logic is ased on the existence of God. That I don't agree with. Or maybe I misunderstood.. :shrug: Who says a plant or bacteria has will..? Has this been scientifically proven ? Which I can't do, as you very well know.. You expect me to solve the riddle of life right here on Sciforums.. ? lol If I could, we wouldn't be having this conversation...
God also has a similar quality not at all just as consciousness is not an issue of belief, neither is god. And even then, we experience that our consciousness has limitations of expression - namely limitations of the body it inhabits and limitations of the mind it inhabits. :bawl:
Ok, from my perspective (and please try to see from my point of view, imagine there is no God): 1. There's nothing demonstrative to evidence god 2. Life came from somehwere 1+2 -> what are the possibilities ?
first possibility: we created ourselves, future created the past, past created the future second possibility: this is all some sort of matrix...program of a sort
lol lets keep it conventional for the moment.. please Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
that's just the definition of one specific (advanced) type of life. consciousness is made of the thought that i am separate from the world, and since thoughts are measureable, consciousness should be measureable. consciousness exists in all matter and all matter exists in consciousness, so of course it's possible. they are aware of feelings. why are stones attracted and repelled by other stones? because they feel love and fear, the basic emotions. only humans are conscious of thoughts... it's perfect at worst because matter CAN'T be made of anything but nothing.
So you would argue that a rock is concious of itself? I disagree that everything has a degree of conciousness, maybe things like rocks contain the materials that could percievably make up conciousness but not in the right order to make it actually concious. Its all about the basic building blocks, and arguing the definition of life doesnt forward the discussion. The discussion is about the conventional definition of life and how its created, not some random personal interpretation of what you think life is.
Are we really talking about rocks having feelings? What the hell? Light, "In the absence of anything demonstrative, it's not clear how your first paragraph also doesn't owe it's credence to the sci-fi fan within you" Do you have a better alternative? Truth is ascertained on probabilities. I'd say the most probable right now is the primordial soup argument. Why? It appears the building blocks and conditions for life to arise were possible. Extremely unlikely in the short term but possible. You know what happens when highly unlikely scenarios are given incomprehensible periods of time to unfold? They happen.
You can disagree with that if you want to be wrong. There are no basic building blocks because the world is made of language, like computer programs. When two humans are attracted or repulsed by each other, it's love or fear, but when rocks do it, it's suddenly some mysterious "law of nature". Animals don't feel the same kind of love as humans do, but we can still say that they feel (some kind of) love, and we can say that plants and matter feels it.
How productive Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Life is made up of language? Come on now, has anyone ever observed rocks communicating? what about breeding? Your just reaching now.
Actually when two humans are attracted or repulsed by each other, it's an entirely different definition of "attraction" and "repulsion" than is used with respect to rocks. There is a root similarity between the two concepts, but they are just different things, with the differences being understood in context. You might as well argue that a man who spends his nights at "his local bar" must be a lawyer (since lawyers also have "local bars"). Same word, similar roots, but ultimately different meanings that should not be confused. You can disagree with that if you want to be wrong.
Simple enough: It's like cause and effect only backwards. And you can sometimes tell it's not just "correlation", because science has provided a mechanism - after which science can just shut up, thank you. The hard part is deciding, in various circumstances, which is the contingent and which the given of two correlated and named entities or properties or whatever we have named today. That's especially difficult when science has shut up and returned to its proper place. For this we turn to philosophy, especially theologically corrected (i.e. capable of apprehending truth) philosophy. For example: you have phlogiston, and heat. Which is contingent? Philosophy has shown that heat (what follows) determines the presence of phlogiston, which is thereby shown to be contingent. Why is this so hard for the unbeliever to understand ?
Do you have ANY evidence or indications of these 'theories' of yours ? Btw.. rocks make out ?? :roflmao: So they reproduce, grow etc. ?
Big error here. The 'basic building blocks' don't combine randomly. They follow very strict rules of interaction. Chemistry and whatnot. Nope. You'd be wrong in that one. The most basic forms of life simply react to their environment in a limited number of ways which are prescribed by their physical makeup. It all boils down to interaction at the molecular level. How fine can you split a hair? How many pieces can you cut a cell into before you can say that this bit is no longer alive? Are viruses alive? Crystals? Anyway. The topic of this thread is abiogenesis, not consciousness. I'd suggest sticking to topic, but I'm no longer moderator of this thread as I have moved it as per request of the thread starter. I will issue a formal request to cease and desist all religious ramblings and stick to a biological perspective to the opening post. On the topic, I would like to say this. The bit that intrigues me most about the creation of life is the evolution of the genetic code. It is this little trick that makes a bunch of molecules that follow simple chemical rules into something greater than the sum of its parts. Everybody goes on and on about the wonders of DNA and, it's true, DNA is a wonderful storage medium (relatively speaking. From a design perspective, better choices could have been made, but I digress). It's not the DNA that is the magical part of the process. It's the tRNA. That's where the code lies. That's where the instructions for reading the code lies. That's where the assembly of proteins from the DNA becomes reality. There's also all the epigenetic goings on which we learn more about every day, but the magic of magics is tRNA.
how do you determine probabilities in an unknown set? for instance suppose I have a six sided dice with the numbers 1-3 shown on 3 sides and 3 faces covered with black tape. How do you propose the probability of it turning up a 4,5 or 6? (for all you know it could have an 11, a star or a smiley face on it) not unless there are superior issues at hand for instance how many years of you jumping do you think it would take before you can jump over your knees? ten? a thousand? ten thousand trillion?