Origin of Life: early land life (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, August 05, 2013, 11:25 (3919 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Take a close look at nature and physics; little if anything is wasted. Even the gravitational pulls of all those 'wasteful stars' play into keeping everything in balance, aside from being ascetically pleasing. -My 'wastefulness' refers to extinction: e.g. supernovae. One day our own sun will become as extinct as a dodo (see below). Of course you can argue that nothing really becomes extinct, because the atoms will still be around, but in my subjective view, the whole process of coming and going reeks of randomness and not planning.-DHW: Then I test the different theories as to how life got this way: 1) There is no god. This would explain the randomness, but not the engineering. 
TONY: Precisely.-So please bear in mind that I accept NONE of the hypotheses. I am not blind to the engineering! The randomness refers to the course of history.-DHW: The alternative is a form of consciousness whose origin is inexplicable, and whose power is great enough to create and manipulate a whole universe. That for me is as incredible as believing in chance.-You've made no comment on this, but it has the same force in my thinking as the acknowledgement of the engineering. I can't believe in chance, and I can't believe in a spontaneously generated and infinite form of creative consciousness. Acceptance of either hypothesis requires a degree of faith I do not have.-Dhw: However, if there is such a force, we have various possible concepts of it: 1) It planned everything, and nothing in life's history is random. This fits in with your vision of the universe (and with your delightful analogy of the roast turkey), but not with mine. 2) It built the machinery, and then let it run randomly, watching what happens. 3) It built the machinery and occasionally intervened, with a view to making life more interesting (e.g. through humans).
 
TONY: You forgot number 4.
4) He engineered the system, its hardware, software, and interfaces, to work in harmony while allowing for the greatest flexibility and freedom. Also, it is freely given that he occasionally intervened, and in more ways than simply creating humans.-I can't see the difference between your 4 and my 3 (= it built the machinery). I gave humans as an example (= e.g.) not a one-off.-DHW: I'm not sure what you think I've asserted should have been "poofed" into existence, unless you're referring specifically to humans. The point I've made repeatedly is that if God had set out with a view to making humans (as David believes), there's no accounting for the higgledy-piggledy evolutionary bush that preceded our species.
 
TONY: *poofed* as in occurring randomly, spontaneously, or without any form of pre-planning or pre-programming. All of these innovations just *poof* into existence fully formed and operational. Of course, by your account, there is some cellular level of intelligence capable of spontaneously creating functionally perfect innovations in one shot guarantees that it will be passed on 'just so' to its offspring.-That is all part of the engineering, and comes under 2) and 3) ... if God exists, he built the intelligent cell which (like humans and their own inventions) produces functional innovations. Even your own scenario of separately created "kinds" followed by variations requires just such a mechanism. In this context, please see also my last paragraph.-DHW: Why the dodo? Randomness, yes. Experimentation if you like. But my subjective view of the history of life and the universe, as far as we know it, does not coincide with a god deliberately creating, manipulating, and destroying billions of stars, adjusting the climate and the environment of our own little planet, and organizing all the coming and going varieties of life, stage after stage, in order to arrive at humanity.-TONY: Why are you hung up on the dodo? I never hear you question the ostrich, emu, chicken, or other flightless birds. Because of humans, we will never really know what their role was in that ecosystem.-Once again, I'm talking about extinction, i.e. wastefulness. That's why I often talk of dinosaurs and dodos. You are convinced that dodos and other extinct forms of life played a role in the ecosystem, and without them there could have been no humans. I am not. I see it as wastefulness, supporting my 2) and 3) versions of your God (as opposed to 1)).-TONY: But more to the point, I have never once said that each and every variation of a 'kind' was planned individually. Only that the groups were planned with constraints and allowed to go as they will within those constraints.-Nor have I ever once said you said that! You have overlooked what I wrote under "Topsy-turvy evolution" when questioning how your separate creation works: "I don't know how you can separate creation of "kinds" from the countless innovations that combine to make those "kinds". Are you saying that God invented vision, hearing, lungs, livers, nervous systems, digestive systems etc. etc. all at the same time, as it were 'in vacuo', and then incorporated them into the first mammals, fish, reptiles, birds, which were then left to evolve into their various species?" I take mammals etc. to be your "kinds", with different species as your variations. Meanwhile, I would love to know your answer to my question.