> I'm not asking you to 'believe in' chance, only to grant that given our current state of knowledge it is the explanation which requires the least assumptions. Beating huge odds is something we know happens in the real world. Magic isn't.-If the Earth cooled down enough to allow some early exotic form of life as described in this article, it was allowed to happen in a short period of geologic time. The odds become enormous, the shorter the time frame.-http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/science/earth/22fossil.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

The problem that exists for abiogenesis, is several fold. Life now---the simplest life--requires 20 amino acids in order to exist. From what we currently know, 12 of the 20 need to be somehow synthesized, but organic chemistry under the conditions currently inferred to exist result in an impossibility, precisely because certain catalysts are necessary. 
> 
> For me, this doesn't necessarily open a door to a creator to me, but in this particular environment, we are 99.999% unlikely to synthesize the necessary amino acids by pure chance, meaning that the right parts just sit around in the soup for enough years that the right amino acids just fortuitously appear. -Science is trying to answer Matt's comments. We have 20 left-handed amino acids that are essential for life as we know it. Since organic reactions make resultant products that are 50/50% right and left-handed we can't use half the product. But we'll skip that issue. What has been discovered by computer analysis is how special are the 20 a-a's we know about? The authors conclude that the 20 are perfect, and were selected by natural selection. (Of course, what else could do it if you are a Darwinist.) Problem, we have only found eight of the a-a's in the meteors that have hit Earth, as naturally synthesized. We MUST find the other 12 to show a natural process that could have created life on Earth, an inorganic planet at first after its formation. Of course we could guess that the eight a-a's got together, held hands, and danced around in a circle creating the others. Fat chance!- http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-amino-acid-alphabet-soup.html

I have a great deal of respect for your study and your work, but if you were focused on the medical world, then in the realm of biology you are certainly NOT the equal of someone who has put in the same sort of time specializing in that specific arena!-You don't think the people I treated were biologically alive? Medicine is living biology. Unles you haven't studied organic chemistry, you don't have enough learned thought patterns to think clearly with. Just the faith that you want to be right.- Try on this description of the problems of origin of life. You are able to follow it, and should; let there be light!:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/origin-of-life/a-substantial-conundrum-confronting-the-chemical-origin-of-life/

You are simply raising the same issues we all have. We know many of the secrets of life today. No one knows how we got to this point. -Fair enough. Just making sure we're at least on the same page up to a point.-> Starting in a less complex fashion is a reasonable proposition, but it hasn't worked so far in the labs, starting in the mid-1950's.-No, it hasn't. That neither surprises, nor bothers me. We've been working on the problem for 60 years and while we may have the 'advantage' of intelligence, the original experiment was run on such an incomprehensibly massive scale (both time and numbers-wise) that 'advantage' is far outweighed. Brute force does have a certain, well... power. =)

Viruses are living parasites that enter a living cell and use the genetic material in that cell to reproduce itself. If one claims that the full definition of life requires the organism to be totally self-sustaining and self-reproducing, then viruses are not truly 'fully' live.
> 
> Ok... so who/what says that the first steps to life as we know it had to be 'fully' live on our terms?
> 
> > > So how do you draw a line between living and not? What is your definition for life?
> > 
> > There are conflicting definitions; mine is simple. Grow to a certain size, maintain that structure, reproduce itself, using a chemical digestive system for protein production and energy consumption.
> 
> As above, what if the process that led to a living thing/population (by your definition) were simpler than that... but still got there in the end? (Or the beginning as it were.)-You are simply raising the same issues we all have. We know many of the secrets of life today. No one knows how we got to this point. Starting in a less complex fashion is a reasonable proposition, but it hasn't worked so far in the labs, starting in the mid-1950's.

Viruses are living parasites that enter a living cell and use the genetic material in that cell to reproduce itself. If one claims that the full definition of life requires the organism to be totally self-sustaining and self-reproducing, then viruses are not truly 'fully' live.-Ok... so who/what says that the first steps to life as we know it had to be 'fully' live on our terms?-> > So how do you draw a line between living and not? What is your definition for life?
> 
> There are conflicting definitions; mine is simple. Grow to a certain size, maintain that structure, reproduce itself, using a chemical digestive system for protein production and energy consumption.-As above, what if the process that led to a living thing/population (by your definition) were simpler than that... but still got there in the end? (Or the beginning as it were.)

Even today we see discussions about whether viruses are 'alive' in the same way we are. Yet viruses may well be (must be by my guess) more complex than whatever could be said to have been the first unique step on the road to 'life.'-Viruses are living parasites that enter a living cell and use the genetic material in that cell to reproduce itself. If one claims that the full definition of life requires the organism to be totally self-sustaining and self-reproducing, then viruses are not truly 'fully' live.-> 
> So how do you draw a line between living and not? What is your definition for life?-There are conflicting definitions; mine is simple. Grow to a certain size, maintain that structure, reproduce itself, using a chemical digestive system for protein production and energy consumption.

There explanations that everyone can agree with (science) and there's nonreproducible experiences that defy rationalizaton. We can deride them (Blakemore, Harris) or we can accept their subjectivity and move on. -> The rest of my post you deride as "rationalization." ->Because you think I should only consider the mundane? Your suggestion of an outside radio is a rationalization.-Er, what do you mean by rationalization? You appear to have switched definitions midstream here?-> I am open that consciousness may not be restricted to my own body. I won't discount all stories as automatically false.-You're welcome to be open to it all you like, but don't expect a skeptic and a rationalist (a different word than I was using in the last post, hopefully this is clear in context) to be interested in the idea in the absence of evidence. Your positive claim. Ball is in your court.-> Have you HAD lucid dreams?-Yes. They are fun. Do I trust them to tell me anything about anything outside my own mind? Not a bit of it.

I recognize that my recollection could be shallow...-Re-read this. Everything else is rationalization.-> I would accept the radio signals being interpreted through my braces before the near hallucination you posit, because I'm aware of the power of the part of the mind we term unconscious.-That is also a possibility. I didn't present my suggestion as 'the answer,' but as a possible, mundane explanation. This is another. Either are many orders of magnitude more reasonable than 'my brain magically tuned into Trent Reznor's/some mass psychic experience of my time.'


> > Don't mind me... just over here standing on the shoulders of giants. ;)
> > 
> > It would be more productive it you actually pointed out how precisely you disagree with PZ (he, unlike me, is a professor of biology) instead of just responding to your opinion of the man.
> 
> Kent, he is not a giant, just a bombastic atheist. I take the position that 
> I don't know anymore than he does, whether he or I the correct solution. Dawkins is the same. I have an MD degree and five years of training after that, over 30 years of clinical practice, and 30 years of reading in the areas I have described. But I am quiet about it. My curriculum vitae is an my website; but I don't advertise it. Frankly, PZ doesn't know any more than I do in biology.
> 
> Don't use him, use yourself, as I stated before.-Of course PZ isn't a giant... he's a small, fuzzy teddy bear. I wasn't referring to him (at least not alone,) but rather to the accumulated knowledge of humanity, (nearly?) all of which has been piled up by way of the scientific method in either formal or informal guise.-Bombastic? Yes. As I can be (thus my affinity for him.) So what? Again, tackle the content. Fuck the tone.-I have a great deal of respect for your study and your work, but if you were focused on the medical world, then in the realm of biology you are certainly NOT the equal of someone who has put in the same sort of time specializing in that specific arena!

What exactly is it about this particular event, or any other that you think sets it apart from all the ones that have been blown apart at the seams?
> 
> Lack of an explanation is not an argument for anything. Period.
> 
> In your NIN example, I can think of a perfectly mundane explanation: a radio playing outside the room. Especially in the sort of mindset you describe such a source could seem un-directional or even entirely subliminal. (Hell, it could be that you heard the song at some remove days before and it caught in your memory even though you weren't consciously aware of it at the time.)-Except that I took that into consideration at the time. By that age I had already gotten used to lucid dreams that never predicted anything useful. Its so bad that when I have these experiences as an adult, I have a metanarrative about my metanarrative. (No joke...)-I recall hearing the song *vividly.* NOT muffled. At the time I had no radio, and though I lived in an apartment, I lived in a west Omaha ghetto. My upstairs neighbor was a prostitute, and I can still recall the muffled sounds of her... work. There are a few psychic phenomenon, that while not making me any more likely to believe in a God, make me skeptical about everything we think we know. That includes ideas like synchronicity. -That said, I can assuredly tell you that the song I heard was not preceded or followed by any typical radio jargon. It didn't sound like something that came from a car outside, either. I recognize that my recollection could be shallow, but when it came to weird things, I always zeroed in like a fox. I would accept the radio signals being interpreted through my braces before the near hallucination you posit, because I'm aware of the power of the part of the mind we term unconscious.-You may know that I have a recording studio in my basement. If its one thing I [K]NOW its discerning audio. I can tell you (again) that the audio I heard was NOT muffled in any way.-I would sooner believe that I wrote the same song before believing I didn't hear it as clearly as I did. The lyrics to that song had a special meaning to me at that stage, and I truly felt I had stirred something within myself... when I finally heard that song some two years later, I was rapt... with disappointment as well as awe.-[EDITED]


> > 1) I'm confused. Are you using the terms God and UI interchangeably? If not, are you positing a UI which extends beyond the universe, creating the rules we play by and a 'God' which is constrained by those rules as we are?
> 
> See my current reply to Matt. God and UI are one and the same for me. I am a panentheist, believe in first cause. The UI is eternal and therefore within and without the universe.-Then you contradict yourself as you said (in the same post) that UI created the rules, but God was bound by them.-> > 2) Wouldn't a simpler* resolution to your quandary be to assume that the success of chance at creating life is your one miracle rather than compounding extra inexplicable miracles on top of extraordinary miracles to explain that single one that so bugs you?
> > 
> > * I originally typed 'the simplest,' but I can suggest one simpler. ;)
> 
> I think simplest is a fine word. You and I have two choices: chance or design. -I think we have infinite choices, but only one so far that fits the evidence without excessive unnecessary complications. (One complication, but 'boggling the mind' isn't exactly the most overwhelming obstacle any theory has ever faced.)-> Further either the UI is eternal or the universe is eternal. Science is attempting to prove the latter, i.e., Penrose and his CMB circles, etc. I'll agree with you when science proves eternity for space-time or phase space, which ever it is,thank you, Smolin. All my conclusions depend on the science presented, not the Bible.-I... what? Where on earth do you ground the assumption that one or the other must be eternal??? What do you even mean by eternal given that time as we experience and (sort of) comprehend it is a concept which starts and ends with our universe!-And where did the Bible come into this?

Did you miss the part where I said I have examples of third party corroboration?
> > 
> > Kind of like Christians have for their Jesus stories? And saint stories?
> 
> No. The first Gospel is 60-80 years after Jesus is dead. Corroboration is eye witness ,and you should know that. The NT is all oral history, exaggerated and written down years after the so-called facts.-I do know that. I also know what Christian apologists argue when defending their 'extraordinary evidence.'-People can be tricked. People can fool themselves. People want to believe many things and will ignore the obvious intentionally or otherwise. People is plural, not singular.


> > David: Nice use of big words, going nowhere. Non-life is very different than living material. They are entirely dissimilar. 
> 
> How are they different? Ok, that's too broad and is generally what you were getting at with the rest of your paragraph, so how about this: can you put your finger on the crux of the difference?-Matt has covered this today with a very well-explined entry.-> Er, what? Funny, I thought that all life on this planet got its energy (directly or indirectly) from the sun... -Plant and animal organisms injest material or chemicals and then make their own internal energy. Of course the original energy is from the sun. I hope the above comment of yours was serious.-
> > > But it's true that we haven't seen life re-evolving from simple chemicals now, and there's a good reason for that: this planet is now crawling with life everywhere, and life's building blocks that form nowadays don't last long — they're lunch.-Pure supposition. No experimental proof of the assertion. -> 
> > David: And another problem is that even if a brilliant scientist makes a form of life in his lab from inorganic matter, what has he really proven? Intelligent design can make life! And we won't even know if that's how it really happened.
> 
> You are right, it certainly wouldn't mean that 'it happened exactly this way.' It simply demonstrates (proves is a sticky word) that such things are feasible given the chemistry that was available. (Again, meaning the basic materials and rules, not necessarily that we had the starting conditions correct.) It would be a small, but significant step.
> 
> > David: My conclusion: the odds against chance are truly astronomical, approaching infinity. I respect your opinion that chance did it. But you have to respect my choice based on my knowledge of biochemisty and genetics that life appears to be a supernatural miracle. 
> 
> Choice? Is a considered opinion really something you can choose to adopt or not? -Of course I can choose what to believe, just as you do.-> If someone is more knowledgeable than I or has simply turned a phrase well, I will borrow (with attribution) at will.-Fair enough, in this case if the statement is backed up by science.-> I do not trust my own brain. When my own conclusions and understandings run hard up against well-supported disagreements, investigation is called for.-Absolutely agreed with.


> There are several reports of Blind people having experienced NDE/OBE. In one example, I recall reading that a blind woman saw a shoe with a hole in it 3 stories above the ER where she was kept. 
> 
> The social worker she reported this to thought she was nuts, but the woman was so insistent that she went out to go look, and after craning her neck out of a window (the shoe wasn't on an easily accessible location) she discovered the artifact. -Not exactly: the woman was having a heart attack in the ER. She floated out of her body, went up 2-3 stories, saw the sneaker with a shoe lace under the heel and reported it. the social worker is Kimberley Clark and a psychiatrist (Bruce Greyson) who know her corroborates in his book.