Let's go over this again, shall we, about chances--

[Polymath257]

Do you think that the information storage potential in the RNA could have been used accidentally initially?

The wording is problematic. I would not say it was accidental. I would say it was automatic.

And yes, the information storage is simply the chemical nature of the RNA. We *know* it has such information naturally because it can catalyze biologically relevant chemical reactions.

It sounds like one of those things which would have to be working right from the start or there would be no passing on of anything and no evolution.

All that needs to be there is the ability to self-reproduce. And we have examples of small RNA sequences that do that. After that, it is a matter of mutation and natural selection.

This is what God said that He did. He said that He created plants and animals initially.

First, that is what is said according to your specific religion.

Second, plants and animals didn't appear until *long* after the initial life. The first life appeared by about 3.8 billion years ago and there were no multicellular life until about 1-1.5 billion years ago. That is *at least* 2.3 billion years as single celled organisms--no plants or animals.

Just how far that creation relied on what chemistry could do naturally is not known. Science says it is all natural, but that is the presumption.

Since there is no evidence that anything non-natural is present in life (quite the contrary), that is a reasonable presumption.

I go for the God of the gaps in this area of what God said that He did and science goes for the science of the gaps in this area of the unknown but with the presumption that it was natural.

Again, your specific religion says that God said these things. other religions say otherwise. Even *if* there is a 'metaphysical side' to things, it is very far from clear its properties agree with one particular interpretation of one particular set of religious books.

And whether they do would be a matter of investigation and testing. In other words, a question of science as applied to the metaphysical side of things.

It's all chemical and potentially could have come about by chance I guess.

Again, the word 'chance'. it isn't chance if it is according to the laws of physics and chemistry. It is automatic.

Other situations are also complicated of course and as I said we don't really know the intricacies of the origins even if we may know that chemical reactions along the way are possible for a naturalistic answer.

Yes, there are still many questions. It isn't clear how postulating a 'metaphysical side' answers any of them. If anything, it opens up even more unanswerable questions.

Consciousness can be defined as a property of matter of matter but that imo and because of my faith I say that is stepping over the bounds of science.

There is a HUGE issue of getting people to agree what is and what is not conscious. For example, they way I use the word, a bacterium is not conscious. But humans and dogs are. other people would say that bacteria are conscious. I have even seen a claim that thermostats are conscious.

The way I see it, consciousness is a property of certain living things (I allow that at some point in the future silicon constructs may be conscious, but that isn't the case now). By looking at those living things and seeing what affects consciousness and how it does so, we can determine that it happens in the brain and is affected by the physical and chemical properties of the brain.

This is NOT a definition. it is a conclusion based on observation and testing.

If you want to say it is what the brain does that I guess is a belief you have by not only following only the science of material but denying the metaphysical possibilities.

Please detail the metaphysical possibilities and how they can be tested. Until then, yes, the testing we have done strongly points to the physical and chemical properties of the brain being the determiner of consciousness.

Getting answers to how things work is what science does well. So science can get answers to how a brain works but science cannot say that the actual material brain is what is conscious even though science can define consciousness materially and make it look as if the brain is our consciousness by the elimination of or non mention of the metaphysical possibilities. And of course many people who are not aware of what science is doing will end up believing that science has found the correct answer when in fact it might be a long way from the correct answer.

Nobody, as far as I know, is *defining* consciousness materially. Instead, we look at the properties of conscious beings and compare them to being that are not conscious and determine the differences. The *conclusion* is that consciousness is a material phenomenon.

Sounds like scientism to me. No derision there of course. Just pointing it out.

It looks to me like you label it scientism when the results of investigation disagree with your presuppositions.

 

[Polymath257]

The scientific method does not allow science to run the proper type of experiments needed to define fully consciousness. This has to be done from the inside using consciousness to observe consciousness. This is not easily subject to peer review.

I disagree. We can ask for reports. While they may be in error, they are actual evidence of how consciousness works (even if it lies).

For example, I can observe and analyze my dreams inside my head. However, the details of my dreams, although valid consciousness data cannot be proven by the scientific method.

Not completely true any longer. We can, for example, look at brain scans while you are sleeping and often determine some aspects of the dream experiences. We can take your reports as basic data (and acknowledge the reports might be in error).

There are many ways to probe experiences that have been discovered.

Nobody can crawl into my head and verify what I claim, even if true. The scientific method drew a line in the sand that precludes itself from looking there. It falls short of what is needed.

And we are getting closer to being able to take a brain scan to determine if you are lying. The thoughts have a physical signature that can be measured and used to test against your reports.

Consciousness is more like software than hardware, with science better at hardware, but lacks observational provisions needed to learn the software side of consciousness. It takes an automaton approach and ignores the software side.

Again, I disagree. We can, for example, watch to see how different chemicals affect the processing of the brain 8and* affect the reports about internal experiences. We can use probes during surgery to relate areas of the brain and different aspects of memory, movement, planning, etc.

Simply asking you to relate your experiences *is* a probe of those experiences. Like ALL probes, there are potential misreadings, but we can also look for inconsistencies over time to help reduce those.

From the hardware side, science is not even approaching this properly. Consciousness is connected to the second law of thermodynamics.

Well, ALL chemistry is so connected.

Neurons pump and exchange sodium and potassium cations segregating them on opposite sides of the membrane. This is energy intensive and results in the cations forced to go the opposite way of the second law.

Which is why such ion travel is coupled to ATP--to shift the entropy balance.

If I placed salt in water, it would slowly dissolve to increase entropy.

The referent for 'it' is unclear here. Does 'it' refer to the second law (the last noun prior)? or the segregation of ions? Either way, the sentence doesn't make sense.

It will never suddenly precipitate out again since this would lower entropy. But neuron expend energy to reverse this, constantly segregating and concentrating ions, against the second law.

First, there is no violation of the second law. The coupling of ion motion to energy via ATP shift the second law conditions.

And it isn't just neurons. ALL cells do some aspect of ion transfer. The ions would NOT precipitate out unless the chemistry is radically changed.

This decreased cationic entropy, sets up a potential with the second law.

Huh? Lots of hot words, but no understanding apparent. The phrase 'cationic entropy' can only mean the entropy of the cations. And what in the world does it mean to 'set up a potential' with the second law?

It becomes inevitable that neurons will need fire and cationic currents will need to flow to satisfy the second law; need to increase complexity. Your memory will to string its data together in new ways to increase complexity.

OK, wow. The second law is satisfied by the use of ATP to move the ions (both cations and anions). neurons will need fire? Need to fire? Your meaning is very unclear.

What is interesting is all our sensory systems are designed to fire based on various stimulus; need to increase entropy. The second law drive us to fire our sensory system; explore the world to trigger your senses. Sensory deprivation will result in internal neuron firing since second law still needs to be satisfied.

The second law drive this only in the sense that it drives *all* chemical reactions. There is nothing special about the second law and neuronal firing. And 'exploring the world' happens at a much higher level of description.

Consciousness can be seen as an entropy fountain that pumps upward against entropy like water is pumped against gravity. It falls and then returns to lower the potential, cascading downward to be pumped again. It always looks the same, but is forever changing; 2nd law wild card for complexity and uncertainty.

Um, no it can't. Consciousness and entropy have little to do with each other outside of the fact that entropy drives chemical reactions and the brain is a physical and chemical construct.

 

[Brian2]

You make what appears to be an incredibly bogus claim and refuse to support it? You just refuted yourself.

It was not said very eloquently but I don't see that I refuted myself.

Not for people who do not believe in the metaphysical but only in the material worldview.
Meaning that there are no metaphysical possibilities for people who only have a materialistic worldview without any metaphysical stuff.

 

[Brian2]

The problems with metaphysical possibilities, it never explain WHAT the natural phenomena and HOW the phenomena work.

Sciences, real sciences focused on tests, evidence and experiments, through observations and the observations provide information what the phenomena is and how it work. And it those information that are essential data for understanding the natural phenomena.

The tests and data also show which models are scientific and which models are not scientific, which is the whole points of Falsifiability and Scientific Method:

(A) evidence and data can refute hypothesis,

(B) or evidence can verify hypothesis.​

The reasons why I bring up Falsifiability & Scientific Method so much, are because it is the most objective way to weed out weak or faulty hypotheses, and only accept hypotheses that are rigorously backed by evidence and experiments.

The worse possible concepts are the one that unfalsifiable (hence untestable), because they cannot be tested in any way, have zero evidence.

Intelligent Design fits the bill as unfalsifiable conjectures, because there are no evidence to support the Intelligent DESIGNER.

The Designer, like God, cannot be observed or detected, cannot be quantified, cannot be measured, and cannot be tested.

The “Designer did it”, like the “God did it”, isn’t an explanation, nor it is evidence.

What you said sounds right, however just because certain chemical reactions etc can happen to produce certain results, that does not mean that they did happen millions of years ago. It might be that they are a possible answer but it is not certain and not testable or falsifiable etc.
If we have no reason to think things happened any other way we are probably going to accept it, at least provisionally. If we have a reason to think it may not have happened that way (as in I might believe God said that He did a certain thing and science says that it happened another way) then I might choose to go with the metaphysical answer and see it as requiring as much faith as someone who goes with a naturalistic science answer.
Different believers draw lines in different places and some just go along with anything that science says with the belief that God did it that way. I'm sort of like that, and don't jump up and down about scientific answers until I think I need to, for the sake of my faith.

 

[Brian2]

Doesn’t “dust from the earth” or “dust of the ground”, mean some sorts of “soil”?

Did god not create Adam in the field before there were vegetation?

Read it:

​

To me, dust of the ground can be interpret as “soil”.

The passage above include ground, field and earth. What else could Genesis 2 be talking about, if the “dust” wasn’t soil?

If you disagree, then I think you are the one making erroneous interpretations.

I can see what you mean.
Genesis does not say how God formed man from the ground. Genesis 2 imo is telling us when God started that process of forming man. It no doubt started with some form of microbial life that evolved into plant life and that would have provided any carbon that was needed in the soil, organic compounds.
So imo the forming of man from the ground can be seen in the Bible as having happened by evolution.
When Gen 2 says that there were no plants in the soil but everything was being watered with mist or springs (it seems) that would equate to day 3 maybe of Genesis 1 and so it was then that God started to form man from the ground through evolution.
So the end product may or may not have needed tweeking physically to become a human body and not the body of another hominid and God breathed the breathe of life into it for it to become a living human person.

 

[Brian2]

All that needs to be there is the ability to self-reproduce. And we have examples of small RNA sequences that do that. After that, it is a matter of mutation and natural selection.

I don't see how information got into the RNA however from that point on.

First, that is what is said according to your specific religion.

Second, plants and animals didn't appear until *long* after the initial life. The first life appeared by about 3.8 billion years ago and there were no multicellular life until about 1-1.5 billion years ago. That is *at least* 2.3 billion years as single celled organisms--no plants or animals.

That's fine. The Bible is not a science journal and does not go through the details that happened to evolve plants from these single celled organisms. The photosynthetic single celled organisms evolved first and into plants. These cells used to be called plants before they started calling them prokaryotic.

Since there is no evidence that anything non-natural is present in life (quite the contrary), that is a reasonable presumption.

Consciousness is not really something that could be found naturally before it is said to have developed from matter. Maybe it did not just develop from matter. So everything that is here is here but that does not mean it is "natural" and did not need input to come about.

Again, your specific religion says that God said these things. other religions say otherwise. Even *if* there is a 'metaphysical side' to things, it is very far from clear its properties agree with one particular interpretation of one particular set of religious books.

And whether they do would be a matter of investigation and testing. In other words, a question of science as applied to the metaphysical side of things.

Possibly science could investigate that and eliminate certain religious claims. A problem I have found with that is that I see science as making claims that are no more than speculations, educated guesses and based on the presumption of naturalistic methodology. This happens with historians who study the Bible also. So that means science is not really a good way to check out which scriptures are right or if the miracles and prophecies in the Bible actually happened.

Again, the word 'chance'. it isn't chance if it is according to the laws of physics and chemistry. It is automatic.

So from my pov it might mean that given certain conditions and certain building blocks and laws of physics then things would just happen and life develop and diversify. But it is speculation that this is what happened and that certain parts of living organisms did not need input to a certain point so that they could carry on from there.

Yes, there are still many questions. It isn't clear how postulating a 'metaphysical side' answers any of them. If anything, it opens up even more unanswerable questions.

IMO science is at a point where there are things that are unanswerable anyway and all that can be done is get the best speculation given naturalism. Science has limits but science is just a tool and cannot, by itself, see those limits. The people of science do that and hopefully recognise that a metaphysical path is no more unanswerable than a pure naturalistic path.

There is a HUGE issue of getting people to agree what is and what is not conscious. For example, they way I use the word, a bacterium is not conscious. But humans and dogs are. other people would say that bacteria are conscious. I have even seen a claim that thermostats are conscious.

The way I see it, consciousness is a property of certain living things (I allow that at some point in the future silicon constructs may be conscious, but that isn't the case now). By looking at those living things and seeing what affects consciousness and how it does so, we can determine that it happens in the brain and is affected by the physical and chemical properties of the brain.

This is NOT a definition. it is a conclusion based on observation and testing.

It is a conclusion based on observation and testing but it is also based on the naturalist methodology and could be just an area where science oversteps the mark. But of course I can see the dilemma of science in all this and I can also see a responsibility of scientists to educate the public about what is really happening,,,,,,,,,,,,, assuming that the scientists themselves can see what is happening,,,,,,,,,, which may not be the case.
But yes imagine the legal problems we will eventually have when robots seem alive to some.

Please detail the metaphysical possibilities and how they can be tested. Until then, yes, the testing we have done strongly points to the physical and chemical properties of the brain being the determiner of consciousness.

All I can say is that this can be because science can only test the physical and imo our spirit is joined to our body and experiences things through the body so a body receptor in the brain will no doubt appear to be what is conscious just like a remote controlled car might appear conscious when the operator cannot be found.

Nobody, as far as I know, is *defining* consciousness materially. Instead, we look at the properties of conscious beings and compare them to being that are not conscious and determine the differences. The *conclusion* is that consciousness is a material phenomenon.

Fair enough but not necessarily true.

It looks to me like you label it scientism when the results of investigation disagree with your presuppositions.

Presuppositions have a lot to do with the results we get through our investigations.

 

[Polymath257]

It was not said very eloquently but I don't see that I refuted myself.

Not for people who do not believe in the metaphysical but only in the material worldview.
Meaning that there are no metaphysical possibilities for people who only have a materialistic worldview without any metaphysical stuff.

OK, how do any metaphysical possibilities explain the origin of life? Give specifics.

How do metaphysical possibilities explain the origin of a self-replicating chemical system?

 

[Polymath257]

I don't see how information got into the RNA however from that point on.

Information isn't something outside. It is in the placement of the atoms, in the way they react, in how they hold together.

Once there is a mutating self-replicator, the feedback loop of mere survival increases complexity that matches the environment (which is another way to say it increases information).

That's fine. The Bible is not a science journal and does not go through the details that happened to evolve plants from these single celled organisms. The photosynthetic single celled organisms evolved first and into plants. These cells used to be called plants before they started calling them prokaryotic.

No, the procaryotes were never called plants. They were originally called animals. And no, they did not first evolve into plans.

Consciousness is not really something that could be found naturally before it is said to have developed from matter. Maybe it did not just develop from matter. So everything that is here is here but that does not mean it is "natural" and did not need input to come about.

Well, it seems that part of the problem might be what you mean by the term 'natural'. How do you distinguish whether something is natural or not?

Possibly science could investigate that and eliminate certain religious claims. A problem I have found with that is that I see science as making claims that are no more than speculations, educated guesses and based on the presumption of naturalistic methodology. This happens with historians who study the Bible also. So that means science is not really a good way to check out which scriptures are right or if the miracles and prophecies in the Bible actually happened.

And I strongly disagree here. The whole point is to not assume ahead of time that the Bible (or any text) is correct before subjecting it to scrutiny. And that scrutiny includes not just internal evidence from the text, but external evidence of historical context, etc.

Also, while the term 'methodological naturalism' is thrown around a lot, I'm not sure exactly what it means. Yes, I know the definition, that we seek only natural causes. But once again, what does it mean to be 'natural'?

I would say that science needs only to assume that there is testable regularity. And if that is the case, science can proceed no matter whether you label something natural or not.

As an example, is dark matter 'natural'? Are neutrinos? Why, specifically, would you say one way or the other?

When you say that science ignores metaphysical possibilities, what do you think it is ignoring? A claim that an unknowable being, using processes that are unknowable, stepped in and made something alive by magic? Do you really call that an explanation?

So from my pov it might mean that given certain conditions and certain building blocks and laws of physics then things would just happen and life develop and diversify. But it is speculation that this is what happened and that certain parts of living organisms did not need input to a certain point so that they could carry on from there.

OK, what is your alternative speculation? And is your speculation supported by the evidence when put along side the scientific speculation?

IMO science is at a point where there are things that are unanswerable anyway and all that can be done is get the best speculation given naturalism. Science has limits but science is just a tool and cannot, by itself, see those limits. The people of science do that and hopefully recognise that a metaphysical path is no more unanswerable than a pure naturalistic path.

OK, then give your metaphysical explanation of how life got started. How can that speculation be tested? What other speculations arise that are similar? And how can those be tested?

It is a conclusion based on observation and testing but it is also based on the naturalist methodology and could be just an area where science oversteps the mark. But of course I can see the dilemma of science in all this and I can also see a responsibility of scientists to educate the public about what is really happening,,,,,,,,,,,,, assuming that the scientists themselves can see what is happening,,,,,,,,,, which may not be the case.
But yes imagine the legal problems we will eventually have when robots seem alive to some.

Once again, the term 'metaphysical naturalism' is a red herring. It is literally meaningless unless you know what it means to be 'natural'.

What science does is require hypotheses to be testable. it requires that they be such that if they are wrong, we can learn that they are wrong by some observation. it requires a willingness to let go of cherished ideas if the evidence doesn't support them.

And that process can be done whether or not you consider anything to be 'natural' or not.

All I can say is that this can be because science can only test the physical and imo our spirit is joined to our body and experiences things through the body so a body receptor in the brain will no doubt appear to be what is conscious just like a remote controlled car might appear conscious when the operator cannot be found.

OK, you have a hypothesis that a 'spirit' (whatever that means) is 'connected' (by some unexplained mechanism) to our brains and that 'explains consciousness'.

OK, let's go into details.

Exactly what does it mean to be a spirit? How is the connection made and lost? What properties do spirits have that allow them to make such connections? How does the connection manifest? In what areas of the brain?

Can you give an example of a spirit that we can look at? That we can test to make sure it has the properties you claim?

And, of course, how does the hypothesis of a spirit answer the question of consciousness? How does it determine which things are and which things are not conscious? How can that be tested?

Fair enough but not necessarily true.

Nothing in the real world is 'necessarily true'.

Presuppositions have a lot to do with the results we get through our investigations.

Then suggest other investigations. But expect to be required to give details.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It was not said very eloquently but I don't see that I refuted myself.

Not for people who do not believe in the metaphysical but only in the material worldview.
Meaning that there are no metaphysical possibilities for people who only have a materialistic worldview without any metaphysical stuff.

And if you refuse to support your claims about the metaphysical you have made it possible to refute you with a handwave. Your argument is basically;

If you don't believe my unevidenced claims then I won't support them!!

What sort of sense does that make?

 

[gnostic]

What you said sounds right, however just because certain chemical reactions etc can happen to produce certain results, that does not mean that they did happen millions of years ago. It might be that they are a possible answer but it is not certain and not testable or falsifiable etc.
If we have no reason to think things happened any other way we are probably going to accept it, at least provisionally. If we have a reason to think it may not have happened that way (as in I might believe God said that He did a certain thing and science says that it happened another way) then I might choose to go with the metaphysical answer and see it as requiring as much faith as someone who goes with a naturalistic science answer.

The law of physics - what we currently know about physics and chemistry in regarding to -

• the relationship between mass and energy,
• thermodynamics (eg heat, entropy)
• chemical reaction, along with formation of (simple and complex) molecules and compounds

- their processes should be the same when Earth and life were forming to the present.

If you think molecules and compounds don’t work the same way through “chemical reaction”, then please show that physics and chemistry don’t work the same way?

You are the one making claim that sciences were different when the Earth was younger, then the burden of proof falls upon you, TO BACK YOUR CLAIMS WITH EVIDENCE.

You are the one who suggesting that physics and chemistry work differently.

So, in what ways were they different? Explain.

Are you saying natural processes work differently? Then how? Explain.

Are you going to bring “God did it” into the picture? Supernatural power and magic? If this is the case, explain.​

You talk a lot of BS, making up claims, but whenever anyone ask you to demonstrate your claims with evidence, you would ignore and run away, or you would attempt to shift the burden upon someone else.

When you do either, it reveals your lack of integrity in discussion & debates.

 

[Brian2]

OK, how do any metaphysical possibilities explain the origin of life? Give specifics.

How do metaphysical possibilities explain the origin of a self-replicating chemical system?

Life came from previously existing life, as everyday experience tells us. How God did it is through joining spirit to a body so that the dead atoms can be animated in more than an automatic mechanical way,,,,,,,,,,, with will and consciousness. I probably cannot be more specific.
Metaphysics explains the origins of a self replicating chemical system by God creating the universe to have building blocks, the atoms which have properties which enable them to form self replicating molecules.
It is the data storage and use in these molecules and systems which I would say could come from God actually making a system with the genetic process in it and data and giving the system possible ways to be altered so that the data changes over time and as evolution happens.
With the building blocks and initial system in place (and maybe God did this more than once in various life forms) the end product could no doubt be set at the start, the embryonic state of the end product, be it plant or bird or water creature or land creature etc.
That sort of eliminates the chance in the whole process I would say. The automatic takes over to head in a pre determined direction and that would be controlled by environmental factors.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Life came from previously existing life, as everyday experience tells us. How God did it is through joining spirit to a body so that the dead atoms can be animated in more than an automatic mechanical way,,,,,,,,,,, with will and consciousness. I probably cannot be more specific.
Metaphysics explains the origins of a self replicating chemical system by God creating the universe to have building blocks, the atoms which have properties which enable them to form self replicating molecules.
It is the data storage and use in these molecules and systems which I would say could come from God actually making a system with the genetic process in it and data and giving the system possible ways to be altered so that the data changes over time and as evolution happens.
With the building blocks and initial system in place (and maybe God did this more than once in various life forms) the end product could no doubt be set at the start, the embryonic state of the end product, be it plant or bird or water creature or land creature etc.
That sort of eliminates the chance in the whole process I would say. The automatic takes over to head in a pre determined direction and that would be controlled by environmental factors.

Life comes from preexisting life now. You need qualifiers. The main reason that we do not see "new life" is because we have life and it is always looking for food. The material that could become new life is almost certainly consumed long before then. And even if a new form of life formed it would almost certainly be consumed in verry short ordre.

Why do so many people keep forgetting that life has had about 3.8 billion years to evolve. A lot of improvement can occur in 3.9 billion years. The first life would have had no ability to move on its own. It would have no defenses against other life. It would have no defenses against viruses. It had no need for any of those measures. Now it may seem that early life had it pretty easy but it is very probable that life formed and failed billions of times on the Earth.

And how does metaphysics explain anything? You have not even explained what you mean by that term. You do not appear to be using the same definition that others use.

 

[Brian2]

Life comes from preexisting life now. You need qualifiers. The main reason that we do not see "new life" is because we have life and it is always looking for food. The material that could become new life is almost certainly consumed long before then. And even if a new form of life formed it would almost certainly be consumed in verry short ordre.

Why do so many people keep forgetting that life has had about 3.8 billion years to evolve. A lot of improvement can occur in 3.9 billion years. The first life would have had no ability to move on its own. It would have no defenses against other life. It would have no defenses against viruses. It had no need for any of those measures. Now it may seem that early life had it pretty easy but it is very probable that life formed and failed billions of times on the Earth.

And how does metaphysics explain anything? You have not even explained what you mean by that term. You do not appear to be using the same definition that others use.

It has always been the case in Biblical terms that life came from pre existing life. And really anything other than that is hypothesis only and needs the naturalistic presumption to go anywhere. But that is OK, that is what science does and has done for a few hundred years, but I don't know if that is what has caused science to progress so well.
Creation by God does get rid of the magic of turning matter into living conscious things.

OK if new life formed now then it would be gobbled up, but I'm not speaking of new life forming now, I'm speaking of how it may have happened.
Life forming and failing billions of times makes me wonder why life has not been found anywhere else yet than earth.

By metaphysics I guess I was using the abstract concept of God, a creator.

 

[Brian2]

The law of physics - what we currently know about physics and chemistry in regarding to -

• the relationship between mass and energy,
• thermodynamics (eg heat, entropy)
• chemical reaction, along with formation of (simple and complex) molecules and compounds

- their processes should be the same when Earth and life were forming to the present.

If you think molecules and compounds don’t work the same way through “chemical reaction”, then please show that physics and chemistry don’t work the same way?

You are the one making claim that sciences were different when the Earth was younger, then the burden of proof falls upon you, TO BACK YOUR CLAIMS WITH EVIDENCE.

You are the one who suggesting that physics and chemistry work differently.

So, in what ways were they different? Explain.

Are you saying natural processes work differently? Then how? Explain.

Are you going to bring “God did it” into the picture? Supernatural power and magic? If this is the case, explain.​

You talk a lot of BS, making up claims, but whenever anyone ask you to demonstrate your claims with evidence, you would ignore and run away, or you would attempt to shift the burden upon someone else.

When you do either, it reveals your lack of integrity in discussion & debates.

Physics and chemistry probably worked he same billions of years ago as now but that does not mean that the hypotheses of chemistry and physics about the formation of life actually happened according to the possible chemical processes. I hope that explanation of what I meant is better.
I do bring God into the picture of course as the creator and maker when nature could not get over hurdles it would have faced initially to make life forms that worked.
I will be ignoring and running away tomorrow when I head off on a trip to NZ.
The reasons I have done it in the past has usually been that I have been overwhelmed by half a dozen atheists attacking what I am saying and with posts that get very long and never stop coming. I just give up and walk away. I have not got the time to be posting full time and I'm probably a bit slower than others at times.
You should realise that I have no evidence for what I am saying. What I am saying is really that science and the empirical evidence way of finding out things, together with the naturalistic methodology has taken science into areas that God has said that He did, but that what is claimed is not really science, but is just speculation, hypotheses and if it is believed by anyone then it is believed because of a scientism attitude, which is really a type of religious faith.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It has always been the case in Biblical terms that life came from pre existing life. And really anything other than that is hypothesis only and needs the naturalistic presumption to go anywhere. But that is OK, that is what science does and has done for a few hundred years, but I don't know if that is what has caused science to progress so well.
Creation by God does get rid of the magic of turning matter into living conscious things.

OK if new life formed now then it would be gobbled up, but I'm not speaking of new life forming now, I'm speaking of how it may have happened.
Life forming and failing billions of times makes me wonder why life has not been found anywhere else yet than earth.

By metaphysics I guess I was using the abstract concept of God, a creator.

No it didn't You need to reread your Bible.

And you should never say "hypothesis only". Hypotheses beat myths when it comes to rational thought; It is almost as if you want to refute yourself. And you are mistaken on one more point. Creation by God is magic as laid out in the Bible. Just because God did it does not mean that it is not magic.

As to why we don't see life anywhere else, where have we been? We have not been to other star systems so how can you even begin to say that there is no life elsewhere? All we can say is "We don't know, but it is highly probable".

 

[Subduction Zone]

Physics and chemistry probably worked he same billions of years ago as now but that does not mean that the hypotheses of chemistry and physics about the formation of life actually happened according to the possible chemical processes. I hope that explanation of what I meant is better.
I do bring God into the picture of course as the creator and maker when nature could not get over hurdles it would have faced initially to make life forms that worked.
I will be ignoring and running away tomorrow when I head off on a trip to NZ.
The reasons I have done it in the past has usually been that I have been overwhelmed by half a dozen atheists attacking what I am saying and with posts that get very long and never stop coming. I just give up and walk away. I have not got the time to be posting full time and I'm probably a bit slower than others at times.
You should realise that I have no evidence for what I am saying. What I am saying is really that science and the empirical evidence way of finding out things, together with the naturalistic methodology has taken science into areas that God has said that He did, but that what is claimed is not really science, but is just speculation, hypotheses and if it is believed by anyone then it is believed because of a scientism attitude, which is really a type of religious faith.

Why think so little of your God? Why think that if he exists that he had to make life by hand? Why not set it up so that it occurs naturally? Everything else that we can observe appears to occur naturally. Why lower God to a step and fetch it servant?

 

[gnostic]

I will be ignoring and running away tomorrow when I head off on a trip to NZ.

I do wish you enjoy your trips.

I have never been to NZ, but I do hear it is a beautiful country.

The reasons I have done it in the past has usually been that I have been overwhelmed by half a dozen atheists attacking what I am saying and with posts that get very long and never stop coming. I just give up and walk away. I have not got the time to be posting full time and I'm probably a bit slower than others at times.

You do realize that there are number of theists that have disagree with you and with other creationists, on the matters of sciences.

@Dan From Smithville, @metis, @Saint Frankenstein , @Terrywoodenpic , etc, are all Christians, while @shunyadragon is Baha’i, and they would disagree with you on the subject of evolutionary biology, because they understand biology better than creationists.

So for you to think that only atheists would disagree with you, you are mistaken.

Evolution isn’t about theism vs atheism, but creationists are often wrong on the subject of biology.

 

[Brian2]

Information isn't something outside. It is in the placement of the atoms, in the way they react, in how they hold together.

Once there is a mutating self-replicator, the feedback loop of mere survival increases complexity that matches the environment (which is another way to say it increases information).

The problem seems to be how this mutating self replicator (which is probably RNA) managed to get set up in life forms as this thing which carried information about the life form and controlled much of what the lifeform was or did etc. That is the point imo that science does not know and is probably the point where it steps over into taking God's role away from Him and giving it to natural laws. (and where did they come from anyway)

No, the procaryotes were never called plants. They were originally called animals. And no, they did not first evolve into plans.

That is the information I have read, that they were originally thought to be plants. And I can understand that with the photosynthesising ones. Maybe this is where that came from.
The current status of cyanobacterial nomenclature under the "prokaryotic" and the "botanical" code - PubMed.
The prokaryotes seems to have been a life form that helped in the evolution of plants,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and of course current nomenclature probably does not reflect past understanding of plants.

Well, it seems that part of the problem might be what you mean by the term 'natural'. How do you distinguish whether something is natural or not?

Good question. With consciousness I was thinking that it was something given by God, a part of the mystery in life. Natural I suppose would be something that developed from the things already here, iow consciousness evolving from matter would be what I meant by natural.

And I strongly disagree here. The whole point is to not assume ahead of time that the Bible (or any text) is correct before subjecting it to scrutiny. And that scrutiny includes not just internal evidence from the text, but external evidence of historical context, etc.

Also, while the term 'methodological naturalism' is thrown around a lot, I'm not sure exactly what it means. Yes, I know the definition, that we seek only natural causes. But once again, what does it mean to be 'natural'?

I would say that science needs only to assume that there is testable regularity. And if that is the case, science can proceed no matter whether you label something natural or not.

As an example, is dark matter 'natural'? Are neutrinos? Why, specifically, would you say one way or the other?

When you say that science ignores metaphysical possibilities, what do you think it is ignoring? A claim that an unknowable being, using processes that are unknowable, stepped in and made something alive by magic? Do you really call that an explanation?

The naturalistic methodology used by historians seems to be a way of eliminating the supernatural from spiritual books such as the Bible. So prophecies for example are seen as being written after the fulfilments.
A neutral approach would be to just look at the other evidence and leave any presumptions out of it.
That life came from a creator and creation was created by a creator is an explanation for this simple mind and faith. It is something that science ignores of course but that does not mean that is not what happened, just because science cannot find a God or spirit.

OK, what is your alternative speculation? And is your speculation supported by the evidence when put along side the scientific speculation?

I gave my alternative speculation and I would say it is supported in the God of the gaps idea when it comes to where the data in genes came from. If people believe the naturalistic approach then that is a faith belief as much as the God answer. It is the science of the gaps answer.

OK, then give your metaphysical explanation of how life got started. How can that speculation be tested? What other speculations arise that are similar? And how can those be tested?

God did it. If we kill ourselves we will find out for sure. Why do you want scientific tests for the spiritual when science cannot test the spiritual, just as science cannot say for sure what life is and if things were created or just happened.

Once again, the term 'metaphysical naturalism' is a red herring. It is literally meaningless unless you know what it means to be 'natural'.

I presume you mean "naturalistic methodology".
Unless science knows what that is then there is no point having that as part of it's philosophy.

OK, you have a hypothesis that a 'spirit' (whatever that means) is 'connected' (by some unexplained mechanism) to our brains and that 'explains consciousness'.

So you demonstrate scientism and expect me to follow along for you amusement as if it is the only way to determine the truth of propositions.

 

[Brian2]

I do wish you enjoy your trips.

I have never been to NZ, but I do hear it is a beautiful country.

It is, my wife is from there and we spent time travelling the country when we met.
This time there won't be so much travel as we are going there because here brother is dying.

You do realize that there are number of theists that have disagree with you and with other creationists, on the matters of sciences.

@Dan From Smithville, @metis, @Saint Frankenstein , @Terrywoodenpic , etc, are all Christians, while @shunyadragon is Baha’i, and they would disagree with you on the subject of evolutionary biology, because they understand biology better than creationists.

So for you to think that only atheists would disagree with you, you are mistaken.

Evolution isn’t about theism vs atheism, but creationists are often wrong on the subject of biology.

Yes different theists and different Christians understand Genesis in different ways.
I guess with my views it turns into more of a debate point than it should be.
I did not think that there would be so much debate when I noticed that Genesis sort of agreed with what science says but I always get told that it is nothing like it and that the naturalistic methodology has nothing to do with anything science says.

 

[Brian2]

Why think so little of your God? Why think that if he exists that he had to make life by hand? Why not set it up so that it occurs naturally? Everything else that we can observe appears to occur naturally. Why lower God to a step and fetch it servant?

It's just that this is how God has divided things up in Genesis and has said what He has done specifically. It is the Bible that has done it imo and for me that is God speaking to us.