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Author Topic:   Does Death Pose Challenge To Abiogenesis
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


(1)
Message 63 of 191 (533262)
10-29-2009 3:24 PM
Reply to: Message 52 by Cedre
10-29-2009 11:19 AM


Emergent proerties.....
The example of a motor car given by Bluejay and JUC in the early posts was a good example and I’d like to carry this further in analogy to emergent properties to make a comparison with life processes.
Cedre in message 5:
It's more than interesting I believe it's a real challenge to abiogenesis; the fact that it's close to impossible to maintain life after a certain period with all the essential components for life in tact show that life is not just a matter of having all the components and having them in place it's more than that.
So components, on their own, won't make something unique or emergent?
Well let's look at the motor car:
If I supply you with all the materials needed metal, oil, fuel, instructions how to build a car etc you will eventually build that car.
Now if you start it up and drive it away that car will possesses something we label as 'speed'. It is moving - going from 'A' to 'B'. But nowhere in that list of materials were you supplied with an item called 'speed'. That is what the scientists here have been telling you about 'emergent properties'. These are properties that come about as a result of the special way you put the physical things you have been supplied with together.
And it has to be done in that correct way. Fuel on its own won't cause speed....it just burns. Metal lies in chunks on the ground, oil seeps into said ground. But put all those materials into the correct order (i.e. build the car) and those materials cause 'speed' to come about. How a bronze-age man would consider that magic!!
Let's take the comparison further. If the car breaks down, say the cam shaft breaks, the engine seizes or runs out of fuel then the car will stop - and the 'speed' disappears.
When religious people say to me 'where does your soul go when you die' to me this is analogous to saying 'where does 'speed' go to when a car breaks down? It is (to me) a nonsensical question. Once the order of working parts break, for any reason, the emergent property (speed in the case of a car, life in the case of organic components) simply ceases.
There is no issue at all here to abiogenesis. It's exactly what you’d expect. Think about this analogy - I think it is quite revealing in more than one way.
Edited by Drosophilla, : Spelling mistake rectified.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by Cedre, posted 10-29-2009 11:19 AM Cedre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by Cedre, posted 10-30-2009 2:18 AM Drosophilla has not replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 71 of 191 (533278)
10-29-2009 6:01 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by Buzsaw
10-29-2009 3:52 PM


Re: Soul
Hi Buz,
Regarding the soul, and the puzzle to understand it....can I refer you to my message 63 of this thread (sorry not sure how to put a link to it when message 63 itself has not been refrenced by any other link yet).
Basically I carry the analogy of the motor car and organic life to the finale of 'death'. Happy to chat on this one....

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by Buzsaw, posted 10-29-2009 3:52 PM Buzsaw has not replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 116 of 191 (533350)
10-30-2009 9:35 AM
Reply to: Message 98 by Cedre
10-30-2009 6:17 AM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
Your argument is puerile junk I'm afraid Cedre:
Junk? Well:
All you have done is replace the human driver with a non-human driver, in the end the car still requires a driver without a driver its not going to move and won't display any speed.
You can start a car, put it in gear, wedge a bit of wood on the accelerator and bingo the car will move...with no driver....and displays 'speed'. So your argument is junk.
Puerile? Well the whole point of the analogy was to show you that if you build something out of a list of components, and as a consequence of that build, the object displays a property (speed) in this case, that was not in the component list....then you have demonstrated an emergent property. It is utterly irrelevant whether there is a driver, a block of wedged wood or a gorilla at the helm - the 'speed' is only possible because of the special arrangement of the initial component build.
You seem really confused re life processes in this regard so let's build further and look at the car/ biological life comparison.
An analogy is simply used to compare something which may be difficult to understand (life/spirit/soul) to something more familiar (car/speed). No analogy is perfect and differences and similarities are always apparent with an analogy.
Here the similarities are:
Both have material building block components, organic molecules for life, metal etc for car (some of the car's components are also organic - oil, cloth for seats, plastic). Both need fuel - life needs organic compounds such as sugars, cars need petrol/diesel. Both uses the oxygen in the air to burn the fuel to provide energy that then does useful work (moves the car or allows bodies to function). Even the ultimate source of energy for both is the same - our sun provides the energy of both the petrol/oil (from fossil fuels) and the food animals eat.
Differences in the analogy: animals can self-repair (to a limited amount, cars obviously can't - one up to animals!
When a car runs out of fuel, although it loses its speed it can recover with more fuel added. If you add more fuel a month later, the car will be OK again - not so with biological life. That's because continuous energy is needed to maintain the structural integrity of an organism - one to the car!
Let's design a car more like an animal in this last respect: The metal sodium is explosive in contact with air. It is kept in oil to protect it from the oxygen atmosphere when stored as the metal. Although sodium is too soft to be as useful metal in building cars, let’s just pretend that we have, in fact built such a car. One problem would be that we would need to have a pump going that continuously sprayed a film of protective oil over the expose sodium surfaces of the car. The oil would wear off in a short time, and so this pump would have to be continuous.
In such a car, if it ran out of fuel and broke down, the power supplying the pump would cease and the oil film would stop. Then oxygen would get to the sodium surfaces, react explosively and the car would never work again - not even when fuel is put back in...Because the structure of the car is now no longer able to perform its function - lack of energy to maintain it has resulted in deformation of the material structure to the point of organisational collapse of the components.
This is now more comparable to our life analogy - though life is even more critical in the time before degradation to start. Our energy comes from 'burning' oxygen and organic fuel (sugars)and a mere 4 minutes without oxygen starts causing brain damage as the brain cells begin dying - the corresponding analogy to the sodium engine of the car starting to 'burn' as the oil film protector starts failing.
It's a sobering thought - but your emergent 'soul' has no more protection against a failure of energy supply, than a car described above would have against its loss of speed when its engine rusts away.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by Cedre, posted 10-30-2009 6:17 AM Cedre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 117 by Cedre, posted 10-30-2009 9:40 AM Drosophilla has replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 132 of 191 (533451)
10-30-2009 7:36 PM
Reply to: Message 117 by Cedre
10-30-2009 9:40 AM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
Cedre:
You needed a driver to start the car, you can't escape the driver so my argument isn't junk.
But it IS puerile junk! The driver is utterly irrelevant to the analogy/argument...I’ll return to that shortly. But the issue of the driver being needed is junk. So, your car is parked at the top of a hill. Handbrake left off but the car is on the level on the top and is not moving. A sudden earth-tremor judders the car - it rolls slightly forward onto the slope and sets off merrily down the hill....voila - speed and no driver. Are all creationists so unimaginative in their thought processes that simple scenarios like this don't come to their mind?
But I have only brought up the above to show you that your assertion isn't even correct. However, on a more fundamental basis, your assertion about a driver is utterly irrelevant to the issue - which is that correct organisation of matter will cause an emergent property (i.e. organise matter into a car and 'speed' emerges which was never part of the component build).
The issue of the driver is irrelevant. You can put a driver in a pile of oil, metal lumps, petrol and rubber/plastic, and no matter how much that driver tries he can't make that heap of matter move and have 'speed' - the emergent property cannot exist until the structure is in it's required form.
You remind me of an 8 year old boy who once said to me that modern man is not a 'meat-eater' because we (as in the majority of us) don't go out and chase and club animals to death prior to eating them (he'd seen a film on the assumed habits of our early ancestors). Amused, I asked him why we modern people don't count as meat-eating animals anymore and he said "Because we have butchers to cut up our meat now".
Do you see the irrelevance? To him a meat-eater has to kill his own animals first, whereas we know that the true definition is simply one who consumes meat - the method of its procurement is irrelevant. And that is exactly what you have done with this insistence of a driver. The issue is: emergent properties as a result of organisational ordering.
It is excusable in the case of the 8 year old who won't have reached Piaget's level 4 reasoning. With you it is inexcusable!
Cognitive Development - Overview Of Cognitive Development, Piaget's Theory Of Cognitive Development, Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory - Children, Object, Infant, and Display - JRank Articles
To carry your insistence on this point means one of two possibilities:
1. You are genuinely not advanced mentally to Piaget level 4 abstract thinking (that is not a sneer; many adults in fact struggle to attain the highest level 4 sublevel). If this is the case for you, we will be unable to make you follow abstract thought challenges.
2. You realise where the argument is going and know you are going down in flames, and are seeking to be pedantic and cling to any line of argument to prevent the logical end process being followed - in which case we are 'pissing in the wind with you'.
Did you even read the rest of my post Message 116 or did you stop after the 'driver of the car' bit at the top and thought you had 'victory by default'?
If so, it was a pyrrhic victory!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 117 by Cedre, posted 10-30-2009 9:40 AM Cedre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 144 by Cedre, posted 10-31-2009 8:56 AM Drosophilla has replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 157 of 191 (533541)
10-31-2009 7:06 PM
Reply to: Message 144 by Cedre
10-31-2009 8:56 AM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
OK Cedre - let's add 'inability to read' to your list of attributes:
Cedre:
Nonsense you're just trying to duck the need for a driver, but a car does need a driver to start it up and get it on the road before speed appears and to assume that a motionless car has speed is rubbish, it sure does have the potential to have speed but that potential won't be realized until the car is driven.
Did you not even read the part of my message Message 132 dealing with your junk argument?
Let me re-quote it to you:
Drosophilla writes:
So, your car is parked at the top of a hill. Handbrake left off but the car is on the level on the top and is not moving. A sudden earth-tremor judders the car - it rolls slightly forward onto the slope and sets off merrily down the hill....voila - speed and no driver.
Please do not duck and dive in a pathetic gesture to avoid the obvious. In a point by point debate you are supposed to answer, specifically each point your opponent raises - not ignore them, like they weren’t brought up in the first place.
I have shown, easily that there is no need for a driver for the car to show the phenomenon of speed - have the decency to admit you are wrong - or show how the scenario above is invalid!
No your analogy makes no sense to me I don't even think it ties to what we are discussing.
Of course it does....that analogy is showing how it is possible to ignore the main point of an argument (meat eating) by referencing an irrelevance (butchers to cut up the meat) in exactly the same way you are (emergent property of speed as a consequence of organisational matter) by referencing irrelevant (and not even accurate as I show above) need of a driver.
You do resemble a brick wall, Cedre in a point by point discussion. You are supposed to reply to each and every discussion point and, by replying, I don't mean just by dismissal of said points - you are supposed to actually add something of value. You have tried to use an irrelevance (if you don't understand why it is an irrelevance then we've got problems), and when I’ve showed how your irrelevance is not even accurate - as in my hill roll, you simply ignore it...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 144 by Cedre, posted 10-31-2009 8:56 AM Cedre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 166 by Cedre, posted 11-02-2009 6:41 AM Drosophilla has replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 158 of 191 (533542)
10-31-2009 7:14 PM
Reply to: Message 150 by Vacate
10-31-2009 1:10 PM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
Hi vacate:
No its not necessary for the analogy, an analogy is not an exact representation of reality. Whether the car has a driver, the tires have air, or if the road is icy, it does not detract from the point he (or she) is trying to make. Emergent properties are the point, the analogy is an attempt for you to perhaps understand, but instead you show a misunderstanding of what an analogy is meant to do. Would you care to take a look at the point instead of whether the road in the analogy is gravel or pavement?
Thanks for stepping up to the front with me on this one - I feel that talking to Cedre is like talking to a brick wall. Most of what you say is simply ignored or rephrased in a way that s(he) wants. And s(he) doesn't (I believe) understand the proper use of analogy or how to tell when something is irrelevant to the scenario. Either that or s(he) is just plain stubborn...mind you that comes easily to creationists!
By the way, for your future reference....I am a 'he'.
Regards...
Edited by Drosophilla, : correction of spelling

This message is a reply to:
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Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 170 of 191 (533728)
11-02-2009 2:54 PM
Reply to: Message 166 by Cedre
11-02-2009 6:41 AM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
Cedre:
Also in your analogy the car really isn't doing the moving at all, the engine isn't turned on, basically nothing is running inside the car, it's like someone attaching strings to a corpse and moving it around in a way that mimics life, and since movement is a characteristic of life the corpse appears to be alive and then you proclaim: It's alive! Yet in reality the corpse isn't alive it only has the appearance of life, nothing in the corpse is functional and the same thing applies to your car nothing in it is running, you might as well replace it with a ball or a human being, in fact almost anything has the ability to roll, tumble, slide or whatever down a hill/slope therefore in this case the the speed related to the movement is not an emergent property of how the car parts are assembled seeing that the car would even be able to go down the hill on its head and practically anything can go down a hill.
But over and over you keep missing the whole point of the analogy: that the arrangement of the said items cause emergent properties to arise: The pile of metal, oil, fuel, cloth, plastic etc etc will not roll down a hill when there is a tremor because it's (lack) of structural arrangement is not conducive to do so.
IOW as a result of the way in which the parts are organised, an emergent property comes out - speed. That property CANT be realised if the material is not organised as required. The fact that an emergent property arises as a result of organisational structuring should make you very wary against saying "there must be a god to give a life force?" What the fuck is "a life force?" There is NO scientific need to invent one....emergent property is all that is required.
You are 'pissing in the wind' with your insistence to need to reference irrelevancies. You keep doing this over and over, not understanding (despite being told by more than just myself) that your assertions are utterly irrelevant, and your 'god life force' is a fanciful figment of your imagination.
Occam's Razor doesn't need it, science doesn’t need it, only creationists do....sorry bud, when you 'piss in the wind' it's only your trousers that get wet.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 166 by Cedre, posted 11-02-2009 6:41 AM Cedre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 172 by Cedre, posted 11-03-2009 12:40 AM Drosophilla has replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 171 of 191 (533729)
11-02-2009 3:09 PM
Reply to: Message 169 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee
11-02-2009 12:54 PM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
Hi JUC:
It is completely irrelevant how the first life-form came into existence when you are considering why the life-force that someone derived from their mother comes to an end. The fact that someone dies does not in any way prove or disprove how the very first beings came into existence.
You're wasting your time pal. Cedre doesn't like the word irrelevant". He's worked out that if he throws out any old thing and views 'emergent properties' as being a fictional invention of the evilutionists, then he wins by default.
I am torn between believing that he genuinely hasn't advanced to Piaget's highest level 4 abstract reasoning level as in Message 132where I compared his analytical reasoning powers to an 8 year old boy I knew. (Cedre's reply if you follow the messages was to say he didn't see how the analogy I made (re meat-eaters) was comparable. If that is the case we are wasting our time.
Alternatively he could have already realised that by admitting emergent properties do exist, and then this would smash his "life force" theory to pieces, so of course the only option then would be to refuse to allow the analogy by referencing an irrelevance in order to stop the emergent property function from being vindicated. If that is the case we are, again, wasting our time.
Summary: We are wasting our time....

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 Message 169 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 11-02-2009 12:54 PM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has not replied

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Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 176 of 191 (533812)
11-03-2009 3:01 AM
Reply to: Message 172 by Cedre
11-03-2009 12:40 AM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
almost any object can go down a slope/hill and even if you had a complete car on a hill it won't ever move to display speed unless a tremor got it moving and without the hill the car won't be able to sustain its motion.
nonsense. How does a patch of oil, cloth, metal et al trundle off down a hill after a small tremor? Any analogy has it's limits - i made that comment back in Message 116.
But if you continually try to twist the analogy to it's nth degree it will strain to make it's original point....which is the emergent properties come from organisation of matter. That is indisputable - and what follows from that is that is is dangerous to imply a 'special life force' is needed on top of the physical works.....Occam's Razor and science says it doesn't.
your OP says 'does death pose a problem for abiogenesis?' and we are telling you - no - the science quite happily encompasses it.
But does death pose a problem for your 'life force?'....ah well that's an entirely different question altogether!
Edited by Drosophilla, : tpos's
Edited by Drosophilla, : missing bracket

This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by Cedre, posted 11-03-2009 12:40 AM Cedre has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 178 by Cedre, posted 11-03-2009 5:12 AM Drosophilla has replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 185 of 191 (533905)
11-03-2009 1:45 PM
Reply to: Message 178 by Cedre
11-03-2009 5:12 AM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
Cedre:
I will try one last time and change the analogy to try and separate emergent properties from 'irrelevant factors'.
Water evaporates from the sea (using the energy of the sun). It collects at cloud level as vapour. The cooler temperature causes condensation, and finally gravity causes the clumping and falling of rain.
Rain is an emergent property of the process of evaporation, condensation and gravitational influence of said water vapour. It didn't ascend into the sky as rain. It only comes down as such as a result of the combined processes of evaporation, condensation and gravitation.
There is no driver, no life force (you can't count the sun which drives the whole process - for this is the ultimate same driver of all our chemical reactions on earth...unless you are saying your God is our sun!). The initial vapour evaporating is not rain, doesn't look like rain, or act like rain. Yet rain is the emergent property of the cycle of events described above.
Literally thousands of physical and chemical processes on earth do similar things ...i.e. they cause emergent properties that are different from the input variables....some very surprising; some that can be worked out like the simple scenario above.
If science teaches us anything it is that you must look to the mundane first before saying "I can't believe this is natural...it must be a God force at work."
By the way, sorry if you thought I was being personal. I don't like personal attacks. My emails probably came across as they did through frustration. In no way do I mean any demeaning attitude by what I say. I enjoy debating, though it can be frustrating in getting points across....especially by analogies. They are meant to be useful, but all too often I have seen analogies attacked as the main argument. We've done it here...which is why I'm trying a different one now.
Over to you...
Edited by Drosophilla, : typo's

This message is a reply to:
 Message 178 by Cedre, posted 11-03-2009 5:12 AM Cedre has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 187 by lyx2no, posted 11-03-2009 3:16 PM Drosophilla has replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 188 of 191 (533950)
11-03-2009 7:25 PM
Reply to: Message 187 by lyx2no
11-03-2009 3:16 PM


Re: Emergent proerties.....
Hi lyx2no,
Nice vid - it does make you realise how interlinked everything is and how many suprises keep coming out of the woodwork in these emerging properties. I think it's either a supremely confident or completely uninformed person who would say "There's no way this property can have arisen except through a 'god force'."
Kind of reminds me of the story about the 18th century doctor (I'm afraid I don't know who it was) who allegedly said "Man cannot travel faster than about 30mph as the air pressure would crush his rib cage!"....kind of a curious statement as I'm sure they had galloping horseback riders back then!!
And yes, analogies can be the very devil. I have to hand it to Cedre...he's kind of hard to pin down (that is a compliment Cedre if you're reading this). Good debating practice though....

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 Message 187 by lyx2no, posted 11-03-2009 3:16 PM lyx2no has seen this message but not replied

  
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