The origin of life problem is forever on the verge of being solved

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 16, 2021

Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life}

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And yet always just as far off:

In 2006, in a debate with Stephen Meyer, evolutionary paleontologist Peter Ward observed that, “Harvard University just put a hundred million dollars into a center for the origin of life,” and predicted that because origin of life research is “one of the hottest scientific areas in the world we will have artificial life I predict in a decade.” Ten years later, in 2016, also in a debate with Steve Meyer (and Denis Lamoureux), physicist Lawrence Krauss promised “We’re coming very close” to explaining the origin of life via chemical evolutionary models. We’re now 15 years out from the Meyer-Ward debate and nearly five years past the Meyer-Krauss-Lamoureux event. How are these promises of origin-of-life research faring?
At the end of last year, an article in Nature titled “The Water Paradox and the Origins of Life” admitted that there are still major problems facing some of the most basic steps in the origin of life: explaining how the first biomolecules arose in a prebiotic world. The article begins with the tagline: “Water is essential for life, but it breaks down DNA and other key molecules. So how did the first cells deal with such a necessary and dangerous substance?” The article then recounts origin of life theorists on different sides of a debate: some believe that life originated in an ocean, and others believe that life formed at the surface of the earth. What comes through clearly is that the field can’t even agree on the environment where life originated, a disagreement that stems directly from deep problems facing each proposal.
Casey Luskin, “Nature Article Admits Unanswered Origin-of-Life Questions, Exposing Broken Promises of ID Critics” at Evolution News and Science Today

See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips – origin of life What we do and don’t know about the origin of life.

Comments

Actually, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity unifies space and time into space-time. So, time and space went through at least one massive inflationary stage at the beginning of the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang there was no space and no time. They weren't infinite, they didn't exist.
And as succinctly stated by Querius. “Actually, the Big Bang apparently violates everything.”
Thanks, Bornagain77. I think I can go step further . . . The Big Bang was the transition from Nothing to Everything--in other words, Existence came out of and was somehow caused by Nonexistence. Now, there are a lot of things that we know have Nonexistence, for example the Easter Bunny! Thus, we recognize that the logical equivalent of asserting Everything that exists spontaneously was formed from Nothing is that Everything that exists was formed spontaneously from the Easter Bunny! Woohoo! Oh and probabilities and quantum fluctuations also need space-time. -QQuerius_{February 24, 2021
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Saying that there was a point 14 billion years ago when "time was created" is a nonsensical statement. Nothing can "create time" in any ordinary understanding of that phrase; it necessarily requires there be a "before" the thing existed and an "after," thus "created." There was no "before" time itself existed, so it cannot have been created. If there was no "before" it existed, then it has always existed.William J Murray_{February 24, 2021
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Moreover, the photon, prior to quantum wave collapse, also takes an infinite amount of information to describe properly.
Explaining Information Transfer in Quantum Teleportation: Armond Duwell †‡ University of Pittsburgh Excerpt: In contrast to a classical bit, the description of a (quantum) qubit requires an infinite amount of information. The amount of information is infinite because two real numbers are required in the expansion of the state vector of a two state quantum system (Jozsa 1997, 1) http://www.cas.umt.edu/phil/faculty/duwell/DuwellPSA2K.pdf Quantum Computing – Stanford Encyclopedia Excerpt: Theoretically, a single qubit can store an infinite amount of information, yet when measured (and thus collapsing the superposition of the Quantum Wave state) it yields only the classical result (0 or 1),,, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-quantcomp/#2.1 WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Infinity – Max Tegmark Excerpt: real numbers with their infinitely many decimals have infested almost every nook and cranny of physics, from the strengths of electromagnetic fields to the wave functions of quantum mechanics: we describe even a single bit of quantum information (a qubit) using two real numbers involving infinitely many decimals. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25344
Seversky, via his atheistic metaphysics, simply has no clue why a photon, prior to quantum wave collapse, should exist in an infinite dimension, infinite information, state. Whereas I, as a Christian Theist who holds that God sustains this universe in its continual existence, would pretty presuppose exactly that a photon should exist in an infinite dimension, infinite information, state prior to quantum wave collapse. Simply put, saying something is in an infinite dimensional state to me, as a Christian Theist, certainly sounds very much like the theistic attribute of omnipresence to me. And saying something takes an infinite amount of information to describe properly certainly sounds very much like the Theistic attribute of Omniscience to me as a Christian. And being able to collapse a infinite dimensional, infinite information, quantum wave to a finite state certainly sounds very much like the Theistic attribute of omnipotence to me as a Christian Theist, Again, Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence are some of the primary defining attributes of God,
Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence Omnipotence means all-powerful. Monotheistic theologians regard God as having supreme power. This means God can do what he wants. It means he is not subject to physical limitations like man is. Being omnipotent, God has power over wind, water, gravity, physics, etc. God's power is infinite, or limitless. Omniscience means all-knowing. God is all all-knowing in the sense that he is aware of the past, present, and future. Nothing takes him by surprise. His knowledge is total. He knows all that there is to know and all that can be known. Omnipresence means all-present. This term means that God is capable of being everywhere at the same time. It means his divine presence encompasses the whole of the universe. There is no location where he does not inhabit. This should not be confused with pantheism, which suggests that God is synonymous with the universe itself; instead, omnipresence indicates that God is distinct from the universe, but inhabits the entirety of it. He is everywhere at once. https://study.com/academy/lesson/omnipotent-omniscient-and-omnipresent-god-definition-lesson-quiz.html
So in conclusion, not only does General Relativity, via an absolute beginning of the universe, present Seversky, and his atheistic metaphysics, with an irresolvable problem, but Quantum Mechanics adds insult to injury and exponentially compounds the irresolvable problem for Seversky, and his atheistic metaphysics, in showing us that Seversky, via his atheistic metaphysics, can't even explain why the universe should continually exist. Whereas I, as a Christian Theist, have no problem whatsoever explaining why the universe began to exist, or why it continues to exist. Indeed, thousands of years before General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were even known about, Christianity predicted that the universe was created, and continually sustained in its existence, by God.
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
bornagain77_{February 24, 2021
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To make the irresolvable problem for Seversky, and his atheistic metaphysics, even worse, not only does Seversky, via his atheistic metaphysics, not have a explanation for the beginning of the universe, as is required by General Relativity, but Seversky, and his atheistic metaphysics, also have no explanation, via quantum mechanics, for why the universe should even continue to exist. As Scott Aaronson put the irresolvable dilemma that quantum mechanics presents for atheists, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”
Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables – Scott Aaronson Excerpt: “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec11.html
And indeed, Wheeler's Delayed Choice experiment and Leggett's inequality have both recently shown that, "the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” Via Wheeler’s Delayed Choice experiment with atoms we find that, ““It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”
New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It – June 3, 2015 Excerpt: Some particles, such as photons or electrons, can behave both as particles and as waves. Here comes a question of what exactly makes a photon or an electron act either as a particle or a wave. This is what Wheeler’s experiment asks: at what point does an object ‘decide’? The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html
And via Leggett’s inequality we find that, “Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”
Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: Many realizations of the thought experiment have indeed verified the violation of Bell’s inequality. These have ruled out all hidden-variables theories based on joint assumptions of realism, meaning that reality exists when we are not observing it; and locality, meaning that separated events cannot influence one another instantaneously. But a violation of Bell’s inequality does not tell specifically which assumption – realism, locality or both – is discordant with quantum mechanics. Markus Aspelmeyer, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues from the University of Vienna, however, have now shown that realism is more of a problem than locality in the quantum world. They devised an experiment that violates a different inequality proposed by physicist Anthony Leggett in 2003 that relies only on realism, and relaxes the reliance on locality. To do this, rather than taking measurements along just one plane of polarization, the Austrian team took measurements in additional, perpendicular planes to check for elliptical polarization. They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
Moreover, to make the problem for Seversky, and his atheistic metaphysics, even worse, we find that, prior to quantum wave collapse, the photon is mathematically defined as being in an infinite dimensional state,,,
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner – 1960 Excerpt: We now have, in physics, two theories of great power and interest: the theory of quantum phenomena and the theory of relativity.,,, The two theories operate with different mathematical concepts: the four dimensional Riemann space and the infinite dimensional Hilbert space, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html Wave function Excerpt "wave functions form an abstract vector space",,, This vector space is infinite-dimensional, because there is no finite set of functions which can be added together in various combinations to create every possible function. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function#Wave_functions_as_an_abstract_vector_space Why do we need infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces in physics? You need an infinite dimensional Hilbert space to represent a wavefunction of any continuous observable (like position for example). https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/149786/why-do-we-need-infinite-dimensional-hilbert-spaces-in-physics
bornagain77_{February 24, 2021
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To go over what Seversky stated in a little more detail. Seversky stated that,
"We don’t know that the Big Bang violates anything. My understanding is that physics is able to describe what happened seconds after the BB but, at present, we have no way of knowing what happened before that, what conditions were like in the primordial singularity and what, if anything, came before. All we can infer is that, if it’s true that energy and information can be neither created or destroyed, then they must have existed pre-BB and for all time."
And as succinctly stated by Querius. "Actually, the Big Bang apparently violates everything." All the scientific evidence we now have tells us that matter-energy, space-time, were created at the beginning of the universe. And since the laws of physics are merely mathematical descriptions of how matter and energy behave in this universe, then it necessarily follows that the laws of physics must also have originated when matter and energy were created. (Indeed, atheists, in their desperate appeal to the multiverse, imagine wildly varying laws of physics. So obviously, even in atheistic metaphysics, there is apparently nothing sacrosanct about having unvarying laws of physics that preexisted the Big Bang). A Belgium priest, George Lemaitre, via working out the implications of Einstein's General Relativity, first proposed a beginning for the universe with what he termed to be a 'primordial atom' and/or a 'primordial egg'. Einstein initially resisted the idea of a beginning for the universe and, in fact, told Lemaitre, “Your calculations are correct, but your grasp of physics is abominable.” Moreover, Einstein himself had added an ad hoc cosmological constant to his equation that would keep the universe stable instead of the universe requiring a beginning. When astronomer Edwin Hubble later showed that the universe was indeed expanding, Einstein admitted that he was wrong, and even later in his life Einstein ended up calling his ad hoc addition of the cosmological constant to his equation “my biggest blunder.” Eddington also resisted the idea of the beginning of the universe and, philosophically not scientifically, found the idea to be 'repugnant'. Hoyle also resisted the idea of the universe having a beginning and coined the term 'Big Bang' as a point of derision for those who thought the universe had a beginning. Which is very unfortunate thing for Hoyle to do since the creation of the universe was nothing like an explosion, as is implied with the term 'Big Bang', but was instead a very orderly event.
WHY THE BIG BANG IS NOT AN EXPLOSION - By Sten Odenwald - May 14, 1997 Excerpt: the event that created the universe and everything in it was a very different kind of phenomenon than most people -- or, at least, most nonphysicists -- imagine. Even the name "Big Bang" originally was a putdown cooked up by a scientist who didn't like the concept when it was first put forth. He favored the idea that the universe had always existed in a much more dignified and fundamentally unchanging, steady state. But the name stuck, and with it has come the completely wrong impression that the event was like an explosion. That image leads many of us to imagine that the universe is expanding because the objects in it are being flung apart like fragments of a detonated bomb. That isn't true.,,, So, how should we think about the Big Bang? Our "fireworks" image of the phenomenon depends on five basic requirements: 1) A preexisting sky or space into which the fragments from the explosion are injected; 2) A preexisting time we can use to mark when the explosion happened; 3) Individual projectiles moving through space from a common center; 4) A definite moment when the explosion occurred; and 5) Something that started the Big Bang. All of these requirements in our visualization of the Big Bang are false or unnecessary, according to GR. Preexisting Space? There was no preexisting space. The mathematics of GR state unambiguously that three-dimensional space was created at the Big Bang itself, at "Time Zero," along with everything else. At that beginning, there were no separations between particles anywhere. This is another way of saying there was no three-dimensional space,,, space is not a passive stage across which objects dance but a full-fledged member of the cast. GR treats galaxies and "space-time" together, giving a very different picture of what happens than if they were treated separately, as most of us tend to do.,,, Perhaps the strangest truth to emerge from general relativity is the expansion of space. Like spots glued to the surface of a swelling balloon at eternally fixed latitude and longitude points, the galaxies remain where they are while space dilates between them as time passes.,,, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1997/05/14/why-the-big-bang-is-not-an-explosion/7164578f-5b06-407b-b69a-e97377145ac5/ "The Big Bang represents an immensely powerful, yet carefully planned and controlled release of matter, energy, space and time. All this is accomplished within the strict confines of very carefully fine-tuned physical constants and laws. The power and care this explosion reveals exceeds human mental capacity by multiple orders of magnitude." Prof. Henry F. Schaefer - closing statement of the following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=901f7oC_Pik&feature=player_detailpage#t=360s “An explosion you think of as kind of a messy event. And this is the point about entropy. The explosion in which our universe began was not a messy event. And if you talk about how messy it could have been, this is what the Penrose calculation is all about essentially. It looks at the observed statistical entropy in our universe. The entropy per baryon. And he calculates that out and he arrives at a certain figure. And then he calculates using the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for Black-Hole entropy what the,,, (what sort of entropy could have been associated with,,, the singularity that would have constituted the beginning of the universe). So you've got the numerator, the observed entropy, and the denominator, how big it (the entropy) could have been. And that fraction turns out to be,, 1 over 10 to the 10 to the 123rd power. Let me just emphasize how big that denominator is so you can gain a real appreciation for how small that probability is. So there are 10^80th baryons in the universe. Protons and neutrons. No suppose we put a zero on every one of those. OK, how many zeros is that? That is 10^80th zeros. This number has 10^123rd zeros. OK, so you would need a hundred million, trillion, trillion, trillion, universes our size, with zero on every proton and neutron in all of those universes just to write out this number. That is how fine tuned the initial entropy of our universe is. And if there were a pre-Big Bang state and you had some bounces, then that fine tuning (for entropy) gets even finer as you go backwards if you can even imagine such a thing. ” Dr Bruce Gordon - Contemporary Physics and God Part 2 - video – 1:50 minute mark - video https://youtu.be/ff_sNyGNSko?t=110
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and George Ellis were instrumental in refining General Relativity yet again to a point to reveal that not only did mass-energy have a absolute (singular) beginning in the Big Bang, but that space-time also itself had an absolute (singular) beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy.:
Big Bang Theory - An Overview of the main evidence Excerpt: Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3 Steven W. Hawking, George F.R. Ellis, "The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and the Existence of Singularities in our Universe," Astrophysical Journal, 152, (1968) pp. 25-36. Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548. http://www.big-bang-theory.com/ "Every solution to the equations of general relativity guarantees the existence of a singular boundary for space and time in the past." (Hawking, Penrose, Ellis) - 1970 http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html
i.e. Hawking, Ellis, and Penrose proved that space and time did not even exist at the beginning of the universe! Which is a truly astonishing thing to realize. As Stephen Meyer pointed out, "How much matter and energy can you put into zero space?, The answer is, obviously, that you can put zero matter and energy into zero space. Thus even Lemaitre's idea of a 'primordial atom' was falsified since, (via Hawking, Ellis, and Penrose refinement of General Relativity to show that space and time were created), matter and energy themselves were shown to have required an absolute beginning. So regardless of Seversky claiming that the Big Bang did not violate the first law of thermodynamics, and regardless of him saying that "the First Law that must always have existed so no need for a Creator then", regardless of that claim by Seversky, (and according to what our best science from General Relativity can now tell us), the first law of thermodynamics was indeed violated in the most spectacular way possible in that the science itself tells us that all the energy of the universe was necessarily created at the beginning of the universe. Seversky likes to repeatedly claim that he is being 'scientific' in following his Naturalistic and/or Materialistic metaphysics, Yet, despite what Seversky might claim to the contrary, he certainly is NOT following the science where it leads but is instead letting his a priori materialistic, even atheistic, biases dictate what scientific evidence he willing to accept and which scientific evidence he is willing to, resolutely, ignore. In short, Seversky is being VERY unscientific! Verse
Genesis 1: 1-3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
bornagain77_{February 24, 2021
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Seversky,
We don’t know that the Big Bang violates anything.
Actually, the Big Bang apparently violates everything. That's why the multiverse idea was proposed in the first place. One has to explain how Nothing created Everything: how quantum fluctuations and probabilities existed even before space and time; how entropy started at such a low level, how everything in the universe existed as a point; where all the mass-energy came from; why there was any inflation; and many, many more questions using only the existing physics in nature, which also came into existence with the Big Bang. So, what are your arguments against what Paul Davies says here? https://youtu.be/a-4N0Mclb6o -QQuerius_{February 23, 2021
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Seversky, Not that I have any hope that it will help you understand information, given your dogmatic commitment to atheism where facts simply don't matter, but the 'physics' of information has come a long way over the last decade or so, to show that information is a real and tangible thing, and is not just some abstraction as materialists hold it to be. For example, as the following article states,,, "information, entropy, and energy should be treated on equal footings."
Information: From Maxwell’s demon to Landauer's eraser - Lutz and Ciliberto - Oct. 25, 2015 - Physics Today Excerpt: The above examples of gedanken-turned-real experiments provide a firm empirical foundation for the physics of information and tangible evidence of the intimate connection between information and energy. They have been followed by additional experiments and simulations along similar lines.12 (See, for example, Physics Today, August 2014, page 60.) Collectively, that body of experimental work further demonstrates the equivalence of information and thermodynamic entropies at thermal equilibrium.,,, (2008) Sagawa and Ueda’s (theoretical) result extends the second law to explicitly incorporate information; it shows that information, entropy, and energy should be treated on equal footings. http://www.johnboccio.com/research/quantum/notes/Information.pdf J. Parrondo, J. Horowitz, and T. Sagawa. Thermodynamics of information. Nature Physics, 11:131-139, 2015.
bornagain77_{February 23, 2021
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Seversky lives in a atheistic dream world where facts simply don't matter, Sev states (with a straight face I imagine), "We don’t know that the Big Bang violates anything." Save for violating the entire Atheistic notion that the universe has always existed.
“My argument,” Dr. Penzias concluded, “is that the best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.” - Dr. Arno Penzias, Nobel Laureate in Physics – co-discoverer Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation – as stated to the New York Times on March 12, 1978 “Certainly there was something that set it all off,,, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match Genesis” - Robert Wilson – Nobel laureate – co-discoverer Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation - Fred Heeren, Show Me God (Wheeling, Ill.: Daystar, 2000), "The question of 'the beginning' is as inescapable for cosmologists as it is for theologians...there is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing" - George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time, 1993, p.189. - George Smoot is a Nobel laureate in 2006 for his work on COBE "Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy." - Robert Jastrow – Founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute – ‘God and the Astronomers’ - Pg.15 - 2000? "The Bible is frequently dismissed as being anti-scientific because it makes no predictions. Oh no, that is incorrect. It makes a brilliant prediction. For centuries it has been saying there was a beginning. And if scientists had taken that a bit more seriously they might have discovered evidence for a beginning a lot earlier than they did.” - John Lennox ,,, 'And if you're curious about how Genesis 1, in particular, fairs. Hey, we look at the Days in Genesis as being long time periods, which is what they must be if you read the Bible consistently, and the Bible scores 4 for 4 in Initial Conditions and 10 for 10 on the Creation Events' - Hugh Ross - Latest Scientific Evidence for God's Existence
bornagain77_{February 23, 2021
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The irony meter just exploded. seversky's entire position is nothing but speculation.
And by the First Law that must always have existed so no need for a Creator then.
That doesn't follow.ET_{February 23, 2021
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Bornagain77/32
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Yet the Big Bang violates the first law of thermodynamics in the most spectacular way possible in that all the energy of the universe was instantly brought into being at the creation of the universe approx. 14 billion years ago. (As well space-time itself was brought into being at the creation of the universe)
We don't know that the Big Bang violates anything. My understanding is that physics is able to describe what happened seconds after the BB but, at present, we have no way of knowing what happened before that, what conditions were like in the primordial singularity and what, if anything, came before. All we can infer is that, if it's true that energy and information can be neither created or destroyed, then they must have existed pre-BB and for all time.
i.e. God, being transcendent of, and the foundation of, all the space-time matter-energy of the universe, can impart as much quantum information into the universe as he see fits, when He sees fit.
Pure speculation.
To repeat part of post 8, “the information to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000.”
And by the First Law that must always have existed so no need for a Creator then.Seversky_{February 23, 2021
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Is the information in the ink someone uses to write a scientific paper? Is it in the paper?
“Information is information, neither matter nor energy. Any materialism which disregards this, will not survive one day.” Norbert Weiner
DNA codes for RNA sequences. The code is neither the DNA nor the RNA. And the DNA does not determine biological form. No one knows where that information is but no one has been able to link it to anything physical.ET_{February 23, 2021
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Bornagain77/31
And as the last line in this following video (which was referenced in the preceding article) stated, ‘it (information) is the thing that converts the random chaos of gas in a box into something useful. Kinda like how the information in DNA is the thing that makes a bunch of random molecules into a squirrel. Information,, can bring order out of chaos. If it (information) is not real then neither are we’
So this video is arguing that "information" is the same as the chemical and physical properties of matter, including what we call the laws which regulate how they behave.? Isn't that different from the information you and I and everyone else here are exchanging?
In short, immaterial information is now shown to be a ‘physical thing’ in that it it is now shown to bring about real, tangible, i.e. thermodynamic, effects on matter and energy, (i.e. bringing order out of chaos).
If information is now shown to be a "physical thing" then calling it "immaterial" is contradictory. It can't be both.Seversky_{February 23, 2021
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Martin, Their confidence comes from years of equivocations, lies, misconceptions and misrepresentations. There are those who actually believe it is a successful research paradigm all the while unable to say what successes were brought on by the concept of evolution by means of blind and mindless processes. So they equivocate, lie and bluff. They will go to their graves living in denial about all that. Pathetic, actuallyET_{February 22, 2021
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The next lecture by Dr. Tour just happened Episode 6/13: The Building Blocks of Building Blocks // A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCf-OfFpS_kbornagain77_{February 22, 2021
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Martin_r,
what i don’t understand is, where all the Darwinian self-confidence comes from…
Ideological poisoning. Their worldview doesn't allow them to consider any alternatives despite the mounting evidence that Darwinism has not been a successful theory in explaining the diversity of life on earth nor the origin of the massive complexity in cells and organisms. -QQuerius_{February 22, 2021
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Querius, what i don't understand is, where all the Darwinian self-confidence comes from... Not only in regards to OOL-research, but in general. Every new Darwinian scientific paper on evolution starts with a statement that it is "other than thought, earlier than thought, more complex than thought and so on ... ". Recently, the University of Oregon article: "... long-used approaches for reconstructing evolutionary paths are deeply flawed.", and "...our finding casts serious doubts over literally thousands of studies that use phylogenetic trees of extant data to reconstruct the diversification history of taxa ..." I really don't understand where all the Darwinian self-confidence comes from ...martin_r_{February 21, 2021
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Martin_r, Yes, researchers are actually farther in that they are "barking up the wrong tree." They synthesize some things from artificial ingredients in artificial environments in with artificial processes and then claim that all this proves that it coulda happened this way somehow and therefore in absence of any other naturalistic method, it thus musta happened this way. They claim they're just missing a few intermediate steps that will inevitably be found. Note that this is similar to all the missing fossils, missing in-between evolutionary steps, and missing processes that can realistically explain the overwhelming complexity of all the chemistry of interlocking chemical cycles and a credible path to get there. No, they're not even close to being close, plus they're heading in the wrong direction. -QQuerius_{February 21, 2021
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also, another take-home-lesson from Dr. Tour lecture on OOL-research is, that all these Darwinian OOL-researchers using PURCHASED! chemicals to do their experiments... these guys don't create it from scratch!!! What is even more ridiculous, these purchased chemicals come from living organisms !!!!! The suppliers extract/isolate these chemicals from nature, from cells!!!, and then sell it to who ever it needs, e.g. a Darwinian OOL-researcher :))) So even these purchased products have not been developed from scratch !!!!!!!!!!! This is insane !!!! How could an Darwinian OOL-researcher look in the mirror.... the whole Darwinian OOL-research is a bluff, a delusion, a deception ...martin_r_{February 21, 2021
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i just watched Dr. Tour's 5/13 lecture on Carbohydrates. After this lecture, i see, that the problem with DNA-carbohydrates is gigantic, especially the part how carbohydrates are hooked together (there are many options how carbohydrates can be hooked together) ... i did not realize that before .... . who understands this topic, and still claims that all that happened just so, the right way, not once, but over and over again, such a person must be insane ...martin_r_{February 21, 2021
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Querius @24 OOL-researchers: "we’re closer than ever" Actually, the exact opposite is true, as Dr. Tour stated several times, the OOL-researchers are FARTHER AWAY THAN EVER !!! The whole OOL-research is a fiasco... A Darwinian layman has no idea how desperate this research is ... Since the MULLER-UREY experiment (70 years ago), NO PROGRESS IN THIS FIELD, and Darwinian laymen think that OOL-question have been solved - it is like in some mental hospital ....martin_r_{February 21, 2021
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Seversky also states "if (quantum) information can be neither created nor destroyed, then all information must be eternal, must it not? This means that, Big Bang Theory notwithstanding, this universe – or the information that describes it – must always have existed and will continue to exist forever." Well I can see why Seversky, (who foolishly defends atheism day in and day out), would put the caveat of "Big Bang Theory notwithstanding" in his statement. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Yet the Big Bang violates the first law of thermodynamics in the most spectacular way possible in that all the energy of the universe was instantly brought into being at the creation of the universe approx. 14 billion years ago. (As well space-time itself was brought into being at the creation of the universe) Thus clearly the first law was spectacularly 'violated' at the beginning of the universe by something, or SOMEONE, who is beyond all the space-time matter-energy of the universe. Likewise, the conservation of quantum information holds ONLY for the universe itself and does not hold for SOMEONE who exists outside the confines of this physical universe. i.e. God, being transcendent of, and the foundation of, all the space-time matter-energy of the universe, can impart as much quantum information into the universe as he see fits, when He sees fit. And indeed HE does see fit to impart (quantum) information into the universe every time HE created life, created a new species, or currently imparts quantum information into developing embryos. To repeat part of post 8, "the information to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000."
In a TED Talk, (the Question You May Not Ask,,, Where did the information come from?) – November 29, 2017 Excerpt: Sabatini is charming.,,, he deploys some memorable images. He points out that the information to build a human infant, atom by atom, would take up the equivalent of enough thumb drives to fill the Titanic, multiplied by 2,000. Later he wheels out the entire genome, in printed form, of a human being,,,,: [F]or the first time in history, this is the genome of a specific human, printed page-by-page, letter-by-letter: 262,000 pages of information, 450 kilograms.,,, https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/in-a-ted-talk-heres-the-question-you-may-not-ask/
Verses:
Psalm 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
bornagain77_{February 21, 2021
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Seversky states,
This is incoherent. In one sentence, you contradict yourself by describing information as both “immaterial” and “physical”. It can’t be both, so which is it?
In so far as it is incoherent it is incoherent in that it is 'counterintuitive' to what we would presuppose. And it is especially counterintuitive for Darwinists who presuppose that reductive materialism is true. i.e. who hold that immaterial information is merely emergent from some material basis. Yet immaterial information, contrary to the presuppositions of reductive materialists, is now shown, via the experimental realization of the Maxwell demon thought experiment, to be its own independent entity that is separate from matter and energy. A independent entity that has a quote unquote 'thermodynamic content' that enables immaterial information to interact with matter and energy. Indeed, as I have referenced in this thread, it is the imparting of 'positional information' into matter and energy, by an Intelligence', that allows life to operate in a state that is far from thermodynamic equilibrium. And since immaterial information, via the experimental realization of the Maxwell demon thought experiment, is now experimentally shown to have thermodynamic, i.e. 'physical', effects on matter and energy, then it is indeed 'physical' in the sense that it does indeed have detectable physical effects. This 'thermodynamic' effect on matter and energy simply would not be possible if immaterial information were not 'physical' in some real and meaningful sense. And indeed, the following researcher stated, ""Landauer said that information is physical because it takes energy to erase it. We are saying that the reason it (information) is physical has a broader context than that."
Scientists show how to erase information without using energy - January 2011 Excerpt: "Landauer said that information is physical because it takes energy to erase it. We are saying that the reason it (information) is physical has a broader context than that.", Vaccaro explained. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-scientists-erase-energy.html
And as the subtitle of the following article further explained, "Running a brain-twisting thought experiment for real shows that information is a physical thing,,,"
Matter, energy… knowledge: How to harness physics' demonic power Running a brain-twisting thought experiment for real shows that information is a physical thing – so can we now harness the most elusive entity in the cosmos? - 11 May 2016 Excerpt: WE LIVE in the age of information. We are surrounded by it, and more of it year by year. It is the currency of human understanding, our indispensable guide to navigating a complex world. But what, actually, is information? As we have wrestled with the question over the years, we have slowly begun to realise it is more than an abstraction, the intangible concept embodying anything that can be expressed in strings of 1s and 0s. Information is a real, physical thing that seems to play a part in everything from how machines work to how living creatures function. Recently came the most startling demonstration yet: a tiny machine powered purely by information, which chilled metal through the power of its knowledge. This seemingly magical device could put us on the road to new, more efficient nanoscale machines, a better understanding of the workings of life, and a more complete picture of perhaps our most fundamental theory of the physical world. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23030730-200-demon-no-more-physics-most-elusive-entity-gives-up-its-secret/
And as the last line in this following video (which was referenced in the preceding article) stated, 'it (information) is the thing that converts the random chaos of gas in a box into something useful. Kinda like how the information in DNA is the thing that makes a bunch of random molecules into a squirrel. Information,, can bring order out of chaos. If it (information) is not real then neither are we'
'it (information) is the thing that converts the random chaos of gas in a box into something useful. Kinda like how the information in DNA is the thing that makes a bunch of random molecules into a squirrel. Information,, can bring order out of chaos. If it (information) is not real then neither are we' - What is information? https://youtu.be/2AvIOzVJMCM?t=135
In short, immaterial information is now shown to be a 'physical thing' in that it it is now shown to bring about real, tangible, i.e. thermodynamic, effects on matter and energy, (i.e. bringing order out of chaos). Again, this thermodynamic 'physical effect' that immaterial information has on matter and energy simply would not be possible if immaterial information were not 'physical' is some real and meaningful sense.bornagain77_{February 21, 2021
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Bornagain77/21
Another way to clearly, and perhaps more easily, demonstrate that immaterial information is its own distinctive physical entity that, although being immaterial, can still physically interact in a top-down manner with material substrates is with quantum teleportation:
This is incoherent. In one sentence, you contradict yourself by describing information as both "immaterial" and "physical". It can't be both, so which is it? Also, as has been pointed out many times before, you haven't defined what you - or the researchers you are quoting - mean by "information". To be fair, you're not alone in this. We all talk about it as if it's an monolithic concept that we all have in common. But is it? Remember that William Dembski quoted a researcher - who's name, I'm sorry to say, I can't remember - who had compiled a list of around 40 different usages of "information" and "complexity". Some of those may be duplicates but that's still a lot of opportunities for equivocation. Is the information a dendrochronologist infers from tree-rings about the history of the tree the same the same as the information we are exchanging now or the information that appears to move instantaneously from one point to another in quantum teleportation or the information that makes up WJM's information universe? Another question, if information can be neither created nor destroyed, then all information must be eternal, must it not? This means that, Big Bang Theory notwithstanding, this universe - or the information that describes it - must always have existed and will continue to exist forever. And if something - be it a universe or information or a deity - exists forever, can it be said to have a point or purpose? A purpose implies something that can be achieved and that achievement is the end-point. So, while there may be an infinite number of smaller purposes that can be fulfilled can there be any ultimate purpose to it all?Seversky_{February 20, 2021
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WJM, While I partly agree with some of your assertions about QM, the fact that wavefunctions have shape, location, and movement, and that they can interact with each other, that particles can become entangled, and so on, doesn't obviate that there are observable physical effects, that wavefunctions can collapse, and that there effects transcend the conscious observational/measurement choices of any single individual. I think what Bornagain77 is trying to communicate to you is that quantum realities manifest themselves as physical realities as well. Here's my analogy. The fact that atoms and molecules exist doesn't mean that the objects built from those atoms and molecules don't exist. This bits recorded on my hard drive and observed by no one else, will certainly be accessible after I'm dead. How is this possible in your scheme of things? -QQuerius_{February 20, 2021
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WJM since immaterial information is shown to have real and tangible effects on what we regard as being the material world, i.e. matter and energy, then I hold it to be a physically real entity. The distinction I am making in calling immaterial information 'physical' is fully intended so as to specifically convey that 'counterintuitive' fact.. I know you want everything to be mental. I am sympathetic but not as enamored as you are with your 'everything is mental' model. IMHO, Something is getting 'lost in translation' with your mental model.bornagain77_{February 20, 2021
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Let's explore this line of thougt further. What does it mean to say that information and observation is the "substrate" of material reality? Is it analogous to a painting, where the canvas is immaterial observation interacting with immaterial information, and the paint on the canvas is analogous to "material reality?" What then is the paint made of? Is the paint made of "matter?" No, the paint is also made of immaterial information directed by, or interacting with, immaterial intent and observation. Calling the immaterial information and observation a "substrate" obfuscates the fact that it's "information and observation" all the way up and down. There's literally nothing else to work with, in, or on. Semi-materialist views like this needlessly add a hypothetical extra domain that adds absolutely nothing of value. Why insist a material reality exists when it is (1) utterly unnecessary, (2) cannot ever be evidenced, even in principle, and (2) inserts an unsolvable domain interaction problem into the mix? The only way mind and "matter" interaction can be explained is via the immaterial information/observation substrate at the quantum level. It supposedly "collapses" the immaterial quantum state into a particular, real, "matter" state. Unfortunately, further quantum experimentation has show this perspective to be false. The particular states of matter are not being collapsed "out there" into a particular physical state in some objective, extra-mental world because two factually contradictory states of the same thing have been shown to simultaneously exist in the experience of two different observers. This clearly shows that "factual" states of what we call "matter" only exist per observer. One observer does not collapse the system into a particular state for all observers. So, what then is "material reality" is it is not even universal for all observers?William J Murray_{February 20, 2021
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BA77, I think you are unnecessarily conflating "physical" with "real." Information is real. It is immaterial. It is not physical. It affects what we call "the physical world." Now tell me: how can physical matter be affected by immaterial information?William J Murray_{February 20, 2021
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Querius said:
If this is an appeal to QM, then information is encoded in the patterns of wavefunctions.
Encoded by what?
What physicists working in the field have concluded is that information and conscious observation is a substrate to material reality. It doesn’t mean that material reality doesn’t exist or that information cannot be encoded in it.
Does "material reality" exist without information or observation?William J Murray_{February 20, 2021
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It's scheduled for tomorrow night, Bornagain77. So far, Dr. Tour's commentary and critiques have been amazing! As a participant said in the aftershow, it's wonderful that Dr. Tour took the time to thoroughly analyze one of the referenced papers and one of its references to expose the missing information and then exposed the deceit. People who write such papers should not conceal extremely low yields and claim to have solved one step in abiogenesis. It's unethical to claim that "we're closer than ever" to solving abiogenesis when one has debatably made an inch of progress toward a goal 100 miles away. That's hype at best and deception at worst. It's really tempting to write a satirical paper on how a modern computer was able to "evolve" by a succession of natural steps, including photos of a sandy beach as a source of silicon and geological formations that musta acted as molds for naturally synthesized plastic and so on . . . and then claim that we're closer than ever to a solution. A living cell is thousands, perhaps millions of times more complex than a modern PC. Incidentally, the older term for abiogenesis was spontaneous generation, but that was dropped apparently because it can no longer be claimed that life still emerges continuously and spontaneously everywhere. -QQuerius_{February 19, 2021
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LIVE AFTERSHOW | Professor Dave Gets Annihilated On Abiogenesis - Open Mic https://youtu.be/J98Edtq5ePk?t=148 Next lecture tonight is on Carbohydrates Episode 5/13: Carbohydrates // A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdqd_EvpsZMbornagain77_{February 19, 2021
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