Life is generative and evolvative, isn't it?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by quantum_wave, Jan 12, 2010.

  1. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    This thread is about life. Evolution is pretty much accepted by now isn’t it? Maybe not as a complete picture of life from the first living thing to the present but still, if we don’t accept evolution in some respect we need to be talking about the supernatural don’t we? Isn’t it one or the other?

    I am thinking that life is generative and evolvative. My spell checker let me get away with those terms for some reason

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    . I suppose everyone is in agreement with me on this, right? So this thread will end with the OP, case closed?
     
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  3. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    OK, I know this topic will not be as riveting as Quantum Wave Cosmology (QWC), but this thread is based on the nature of life in the QWC universe. I hope those who were dedicated to opposing speculation about the universe will be just as faithful in opposing my speculations about life in the QWC.

    I presented some of my thoughts about life and the meaning of the words “generative” and “evolvative” in a previous thread[/utl] in Pseudoscience.

    A recap of my participation on that thread sets the stage for a more in-depth set of speculations about life in QWC:

    I don't think life requires fine tuning. My view of life in the universe is that life originates (on a planet) based on physics and chemistry when conditions are hospitable. Life could form across the universe here and there when the proper conditions come together. There could be many different sets of conditions from which many different varieties of life could emerge. Life could emerge given a wide range of possible physics, and the nature of life forms could be quite different from one set of circumstances to another.

    Given that view, life emerged on the early lifeless planet Earth as it could have on innumerable planets. The planet afforded a variety of hospital environments for life and life itself is “generative” meaning that given enough time and the right combinations of chemistry and environment life can emerge and get a foothold. In the same view, life is also “evolvative” and once it gets a foothold in a hospitable environment it flourishes and branches out into many forms, many species, etc. to take advantage of every nook and cranny of the hospitable planet. It also adapts to changes in the environment as well.

    The presence of life on Earth would be characterized by phases starting with the potential for life, the emergence of life, the flourishing of life to all the hospitable environments on the planet, and the eventual decline of life as the necessary resources are used up or as extenuating circumstance reign in the living community.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2010
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  5. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Provide evidence to support this opinion.
     
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  7. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    I don't have any. If there was evidence it wouldn't be speculation.

    As you can see, this thread is about speculations. That recap covers speculations about life on Earth and life on other planets here and there throughout of expanding arena. In QWC, our arena is one of a potentially infinite number of arenas across the landscape of the greater universe. With life being generative and evolvative, there is no reason not to expect life to be abundant in every arena and as such, life would be prevalent across the entire infinite cosmic landscape.

    A few words about infinites in a QWC universe are in order. Space is potentially infinite. Energy is potentially infinite. Time is potentially infinite. The QWC universe has always existed and is characterized by those infinities. So I conclude that life as always existed. It comes and goes, emerges and dies out, takes almost unimaginable forms, and from time to time it masters technologies that enable it to outlive the planet of its origin.

    I am adding life as one of the infinities of QWC. Life forms have always existed and are continually emerging and evolving across the infinite universe.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2010
  8. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Not so. If you had evidence it would still be speculation, but speculation founded on evidence. What you have offered is unfounded speculation. That is completely pointless.
    You are begging the question. You have given no reason to believe that life is generative.
     
  9. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    I can't argue that point.
    I can't argue that point.

    This thread is speculation about life in a speculative QWC universe. No proof, no evidence, nothing in science to support it against opposing thoughtful speculation. 1) Are you opposing my act of speculating? 2) Are you objecting to my speculations because you find them pointless? 3) Do you have any thoughtful argument against my speculations? 4) Do you have any opposing thoughtful speculations?
     
  10. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    I am not opposing it, I am commenting on its worthlessness.
    Yes.
    Yes. Your speculations have no basis. (Certainly you seem to acknowledge as much.) Consequently they are meaningful as the speculation that life arises as a consequence of deity indigestion; or that the universe came into existence twenty three hours ago, but formed as if it had a 13 billion year history; or that hat box angels are responsible for gripe.
    If you meant, do I have any evidence that your speculations may be wrong, then I have two points.
    1. Science doesn't work that way. It is incumbent on the proposer of the new, the unusual, the speculative, to offer some justification for their proposal. It is not sufficient to say 'what if all colours are actually purple?'
    2. There is strongly indicative evidence that life requires narrowly constrained conditions to arise. You appear to ignore this evidence.
    Life may be an inevitable consequence of this universe's physical laws, but inevitability and commonality are different things.
     
  11. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    Is it pseudoscience then? I am OK with that since I just want to discuss the topic because I am interested in it.
    OK, if there is a convenient url that you can link us to I would like to see what evidence you have.
    I'm not sure I see your point but might be able to understand it better if you would provide a link to the evidence of fine tuning.
     
  12. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Almost any publication on abiogenesis would be relevant. As a popular work you might start iwth Ward and Brownlees' Rare Earth.
    I don't believe I mentioned fine tuning, explicitly or implicitly.
     
  13. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    Though I am familiar with the topic of abiogenesis as covering the topic of the origin of life, you now have me thinking my view that life is generative under hospitable conditions goes against that theory somehow. Was that your point?

    I will spend some time today reviewing the topic. Ward and Brownlees might be partially available on line and I'm sure I can search out discussions on the topic. Thanks.

    As for my mistakent impression about "fine tuning" I was going by http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2458380&postcount=3.

    Edit: I did quickly find this: ''While primitive organisms such as microbes are very likely abundant across the galaxies, advanced life, depending as it does on a myriad of special circumstances, is altogether another story. In a thought-provoking departure from the widely held view that there must be countless civilizations of intelligent beings out there, Ward and Brownlee suggest that multi cellular life forms, let alone life-forms with whom we'd be able to communicate, must be exceedingly rare.''

    So says the back cover of Rare Earth, a book by scientists Peter D Ward and Donald Brownlee.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2010
  14. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    No. You appear to be claiming that there are many, many, many hospitable conditions. . "There could be many different sets of conditions from which many different varieties of life could emerge. Life could emerge given a wide range of possible physics"

    That runs counter to current thinking and therefore if you are going to make this claim you must justify why you are going against the consensus. I am not saying you are wrong, merely that such a statement requires justification.
     
  15. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    QW is not wrong. Since we only know one planet with life, it is open to speculation whether life could evolve in a variety of conditions. We happen to assume it needs things like water, and temperature range that can support complex chemical reactions, but we don't really know.
     
  16. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    I have on my book shelf, “Evolution, the Triumph of an Idea”, by Zimmer. It is a companion book to the PBS series. I have referred to it periodically over the years and so I pulled it down when you brought up Brownlee and Ward. There is no reference to Brownlee and one reference to Ward regarding the extinction of Ice Age mammals. I Read the chapter where that reference appeared and not surprisingly it was the chapter on Extinctions (which covers forty pages).

    I began to see why Brownlee and Ward conclude that Earth’s advance life forms are rare in the universe. So since I walk a lot and the library is well within my daily walking distance I stopped in and picked up “Rare Earth”. I have been scanning it and looking at the contents, index, and especially the references that I alway like to read (sometimes instead of reading the whole book). But of note is the last topic in Chapter eight. It is two or three paragraphs under the heading, “A model of Planetary Extinction”. I think I can type it out in two minutes so here goes:

    "We can summarize the implications of Earth’s history of mass extinctions with regard to the Rare Earth Hypothesis as follows. Mass extinctions probably occurred rarely during the long period in Earth history when life was only of a bacterial grade. With the evolution of more complex creature, such as eukaryotic cells, however, susceptibility to extinction increased. With the advent of abundant complex animals in the Cambrian, vulnerability to mass extinction may have reached a peak, because diversity was very low. As more and more species evolved within the various body plans, susceptibility to extinction decreased again."

    "On any planet, the number of mass extinctions may be one of the most important determinants of where animal life arises and, if so, how long it lasts. In planetary systems with large amount of space debris – and thus a high impact record – the chance that animal life will arise and persist will surely be much lower than in systems where impacts are few. In similar fashion, inhabiting a cosmic neighborhood where large amounts of celestial collisions, supernovae, gamma ray bursts, and other cosmic catastrophes occur will also reduce a planet’s likelihood of attaining and maintaining animal life."

    "It appears that the best “life insurance” is diversity."

    Note: Wow am I rusty at typing but there it is. Extinctions as I suspected, play an important role in the Rare Earth scenario. And I agree that the specific course of life on Earth includes a lot more than the generative and evolvative forces (not forces in the same sense as gravity, EM, strong and weak).
     
  17. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you for giving us that perspective which is in line with my thinking.

    My direction in discussing life is a look at it in terms of possibilities for life forms to have lengthy heritages, i.e. that can survive the ultimate catastrophes that can plague a planetary system. Let’s focus first on a speculative life form that has the intelligence, resources and time to become technologically advanced enough to develop sustainable moon or other-planet life colonies. We think off the top about our moon or Mars I suppose but that is not the focus I am talking about. Those would be steps toward the survival of an intelligent life form beyond the period of time that their home planet could support their life form, i.e. to survive the catastrophes of “end of Earth” scenarios as opposed to “end of Sun” or solar system scenarios. I am talking about surviving the catastrophe of the "end of the sun" scenarios.

    We may have five or six billion years to achieve success if it depends on the life of the sun, but as for the duration of Humanity on Earth, time might already be a factor in achieving success. If we can't stop being our own worst enemies and learn to work toward global goals then the days we have left are likely to be too short to acheive any meaningful exodus. But like the Rare Earth scenario, it would be far rarer indeed to find a life form capable of such an exodus.
     
  18. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    I've met some DEVOLUTIONISTS before, they believe we are de-evolving into some sort of primordial oooze.
     
  19. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    I bet they loved this movie.
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The most likely candidate would be a bacteria. They have survived multiple catastrophes on Earth, and it's possible for some of them to survive in space. Some can live in suspended animation within salt crystals for tens of thousands of years. You wouldn't need to preserve advanced life, just like the bacteria seed itself wherever it goes. Also, fungus spores are amazingly hardy.
     
  21. 786 Searching for Truth Valued Senior Member

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    I haven't read everything but just something that caught my eye was your assertion that 'life is generative'.

    What gives life its 'generative' attribute when it is simply a result of physical and chemical interactions (which is how life came to being as you say)....

    As such, since everything is a result of physical and chemical interaction then why does 'non-life' not have this 'generative' feature- what is it is that defined 'life' to be 'generative'?

    Peace be unto you; )
     
  22. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    I agree, darn it. I was hoping that we Humans would be the chosen one's. I should have known given the heritage of the cockroach.
     
  23. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

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    It is natural in my view.
    Please note the words, “given enough time”:
    What I’m talking about is the possibility of an almost infinite number of iterations of those factors in an hospitable environment (a huge factor), until just one emerges.
    Nothing. It could just as well have been chance. The fact that we Humans exist here on Earth, have consciousness, can perceive time, seem intelligent

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    seems very special, but the fact that we are here cannot be changed. How we got here cannot be determined.
     

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