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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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Origin of Life
    #4219506 -

From a scientific viewpoint, the exact theory describing the origins of life isn't even that important if we are to use it as an inkling of the knowledge it could present us with.

For simplicity, let's take the RNA world hypothesis, because to the layman, this theory and all the other scientific ones aren't that different.

According to this theory, the early world was abundant in nucleotides, and out of the trillions of trillions of trillions of nucleotide molecules, some randomly joined to form the most primitive of RNA. Most of this RNA was unstable and terminated immediately, but for those that survived, natural selection took place and the RNA sequences quickly grew longer and more stable as they created more of themselves.

Eventually, the nucleic acids turned into even more stable DNA, and as they built shells and cells around them to protect their nucleic acids and reproduce more of themselves, life as we know it, and eventually humans, were created.

According to this, humans are just viruses surrounded by a complex fortress, eh? We have no significance other than the stability we give to the nucleic acids we contain. (I say nucleic acids because I would not discount the possibility they will grow into something even evolutionary more advantageous than DNA over billions of years.)

Any belief in God we create, any faith we have, any love or unity we experience, are just ways of natural selection making our survival make more stable and assured. We're only here to protect our nucleic acids because of a combination of abiotic factors, and we will return into the simple molecules from which we were sprung. Our stability is just a temporary coincidence of nature, and life has no real purpose other than being an accident.

This would explain a lot, eh?


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219566 -

I buy that.

However, to play Devil's (God's) advocate, some would say that the 20 or so finely tuned parameters that make chemistry and stars work were set by $DIETY for our benefit. A change in, say, the Gravitational Constant could put all stars inside the Swartchild radius rendering the universe devoid of the elements that comprise DNA.


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Diploid]
    #4219588 -

That's true, but I've always been a fan of the multiverse theory, which answers that quite easily by saying there were a vast (infinite?) number of universes created, and only those that could support life were the ones where life evolved.

We wouldn't see the failures because life doesn't exist in the failed universes, so to existing life it seems that the universe is fine-tuned for their existence, when really life just evolved in the conditions where it could be created. The universe isn't fine-tuned to us, but we're fine-tuned to it, otherwise we would've been destroyed.

After all, the universe doesn't need us for its existence.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219593 -

I buy that too.  :thumbup:


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219599 -

Our stability is just a temporary coincidence of nature, and life has no real purpose other than being an accident.

This would explain a lot, eh?

_________________________________________________________________

Well being a layman, This whole thing just starts another round of questions for me. It seems humans seek some kind of meaning. Why? Maybe thats just an accident. But who can say? What is the purpose of a virus? And if it has no purpose, why is it here? Is it a building block toward something? And our stability may be just temporary but is life itself temporary? So far it has survived and thrived.

It's hard to imagine everything being an accident. The  reason for us being is that we're here. That's all the answer I have.

No matter how much we talk about this, nothing ever gets explained to my satisfaction. :mushroom2:


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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Icelander]
    #4219615 -

It's hard to imagine everything being an accident.

Life isn't an accident, it's a necessary consequence of the arrangement of our universe.

If you set another universe in motion with the characteristic physical properties ours has and wait long enough, eventually life will spring forth. It couldn't be otherwise.


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Diploid]
    #4219626 -

You seem to have a great deal of faith in science.

Isn't it possible that what we consider scientific truth today could be laughed at in 100 or 1000 years?

Didn't scientists conclude that the earth was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, etc... based on the level of understanding they had reached in their time?

I enjoy considering scientific evidence, but cannot summon up much faith in it being the last word.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219631 -

How did you teach your nucleotides to type?


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The proof is in the pudding.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219648 -

so do you think that the universe is eternal, or that it was a result of a big bang/explosion etc...

after all, you are speaking of accidents  :sun:


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Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: kaiowas]
    #4219676 -

So, is a virus a life?
I recall not recalling what i once recalled about it..
seems to need some refreshment.. he he it is?


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Disclaimer!?

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Swami]
    #4219678 -

Genetically, our DNA predisposes us to create a brain, which, depending on the environment it's in, can develop a wide range of abilities. This was developed for survival purposes, but the vast networking of the brain can, in a human society, be taught to connect certain items with symbols, and from those symbols we broke them down into letters, created the keyboard, and voila.

Our genetics do not automatically give us the ability to type anymore than they give us the automatic ability to create fire, but they do create an organ necessary for survival that can be affected by the environment to learn to type or create fire. Similar in the way we learn anything else, whether it be creating a spear, a wood hut or a movie of naked actresses.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Veritas]
    #4219689 -

You seem to have a great deal of faith in science.

I have no faith in anything, least of all science.

Isn't it possible that what we consider scientific truth today could be laughed at in 100 or 1000 years?

Of course. That's the beauty of Science and the Scientific Method; it is a self-correcting system.

Science, by definition, is NEVER right. It is always in a state of flux sifting through the available evidence and constantly converging on the Ultimate Truth yet never reaching it.

While I concede that what Science has to say about the origins of life may be wrong, at the moment there is an overwhelming avalanche of evidence from such disparate fields as chemistry, physics, cosmology and others that all point convincingly at the answers Ravus and I gave above.

Again, Science may be wrong and may correct itself in the future, but given what we've learned so far, that seems unlikely and it seems that any informed, rational person would have to agree in the face of the overwhelming evidence.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (05/26/05 07:40 PM)

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Gomp]
    #4219692 -

Technically, a virus is not a living organism because it does not fit all the criteria of life, due to the fact that it depends on a host cell to reproduce the virus. Personally, I've always considered viruses to be primitive living organisms though. They contain DNA or RNA after all, they mutate, they follow natural selection, they create more of themselves, what more do we need to classify something as living? But scientific semantics say that because a virus cannot reproduce on its own it's not living.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219704 -

well don't we also depend on a host (bunch of) cell(s) to reproduce the body? :P
I dont get it.. well, I kinda get it combined with what your saying, but, just uhm?

:confused: :thumbup:


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Disclaimer!?

Edited by Gomp (05/25/05 06:42 PM)

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: kaiowas]
    #4219715 -

I believe in the Big Bang, of course. I don't see any other credible theories to explain the universe, and philosophically all theories have the same problems, so the most scientific one is the one that makes the most sense.

Is the universe eternal though? Possibly. Everything will decay into photons according to the heat death of the universe theory which seems most probable, but what after that? Will they exist for infinity, or create something new in a way we do not yet know?

If we look at infinity, there are many questions left unanswered to any theory. Nothing can account for an eternal amount of time, as humans only theorize concepts in a finite amount of time. That's all we can comprehend, after all.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219739 -

actually when thinking of DNA.. it kinda remind me of language it self.. 26 letters.. vs, X "of those 4 (?) letters"...
ah well back to school. (man i wish i had bothered to listen more vigorously)


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Disclaimer!?

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Gomp]
    #4219740 -

That's not exactly what science is saying.

Let's say we create an organism that, for some reason, cannot reproduce. It can't reproduce asexually like bacteria, and it can't reproduce sexually like humans. The only way this organism can create more of itself is to find a special machine, shoot its genetic material into the machine, and have the machine manufacture more of these organisms. Technically, since this organism cannot reproduce using itself or its species, and relies on the machine to ensure the survival of its genetic code, it doesn't fit all the definitions of life.

Viruses do this with cells. Viruses can't reproduce on their own, but just shoot their genetic codes into a cell and trick that cell into reading their DNA or RNA as its own and create more viruses. It's just a matter of scientific semantics in my opinion, but if you rely on this to survive, you're not considered a living organism.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219770 -

So, what characteristics are required of an organism to be considered life?

We've established at least one: it must be able to reproduce self-sufficiently.

What else?

Eat? Excrete? Respiration?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Origin of Life [Re: Ravus]
    #4219774 -

""Viruses can't reproduce on their own, but just shoot their genetic codes into a cell and trick that cell into reading their DNA or RNA as its own and create more viruses.""

ha ha, i gotta say, a man can't reproduce on his own, but just shoot his genetic codes into a woman and 'trick the egg into reading their DNA or RNA as its own' and create more human.

so i finally saw it, human can reproduce, within its own specie, but viruses can not?


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Disclaimer!?

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Re: Origin of Life [Re: Icelander]
    #4219789 -

Quote:
It seems humans seek some kind of meaning.


Humans seek meaning for the same reason they have hope and faith. Mainly, with the way their brains are wired, having these subjective human emotions and feelings helps their survival, and when they feel hopelessness and meaninglessness, their brain is actually using this as a key to tell them something is wrong. Why do we do this? Because that's the most stable way for our brains to function based on the DNA that created us.

Quote:
What is the purpose of a virus? And if it has no purpose, why is it here?


Why do things need a purpose? How is the purpose of life any different from the purpose of a rock?

And most importantly, why do humans continuously attribute everything to having a purpose? Is this a genetic mutation that helps with our survival, but a trait that does not actually exist outside the functioning of the mind?

Quote:
And our stability may be just temporary but is life itself temporary? So far it has survived and thrived.


My goal is to live forever. So far, so good. :smirk:

Live has survived so far because you are here to witness it. If life didn't survive, you wouldn't be here to notice it didn't survive. But do you honestly think in a finite, growing, chaotic universe as our own, life can exist for eternity? Even the stars and the galaxies won't exist for eternity, so what more of life?

Quote:
It's hard to imagine everything being an accident.


Life isn't an accident anymore than a star or a planet is an accident. Life is just the result of factors that came together and by natural selection grew to become more stable. Just because God or the supernatural isn't evolved, I don't necessarily think it's an accident.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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