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Life Is Inevitable Consequence Of Physics, According To New Research

PureX

Veteran Member
The problem I see here are the parameters of the computer model. And the question of how accurately they reflect actuality. And my very strong suspicion would be that we don't have sufficient knowledge of actuality in this case to create an accurate reflection of it's behavior. And that, instead, a program has been constructed based on how the theory being proposed would work in reality, if it is an accurate proposal. But it is the nature of computer programming to do what it is set up to do. And if set up"correctly", the results are inevitable, whether they reflect the actuality of the phenomena being modeled, or not.

In a general sense I agree that life is an inevitable consequence of physics. How could it be otherwise? And yet that doesn't make it any less transcendent, or metaphysical.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
It's an old idea. Compelling, yes....but it's been long kicked around.
And the application of thermodynamics to it is needlessly technical.
(It's about energy....not order & disorder.) What their argument boils
down to is that available energy drives chemical reactions, some of
which lead to life. What's really novel is the computer simulation
approach, which allows experimentation on a far grander scale than
possible with physical abiogenesis replication. Fascinating.
This new method could provide insight for more productive experiments
regarding life's origins.
 

Super Universe

Defender of God
So life supposedly starts because clumps of atoms re-arrange themselves when exposed to light/heat? Cooking something changes it but it does not make that thing come to life. Life is not an atomic structure. "Life-like" atomic structures are not even life.

A painting of a person is not the same thing as a person.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member

Laika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member

errrrr....

As enthusiastic as I am in supporting science, I find the crudity of this being treated as a "breakthrough" deeply disturbing. This is primordial soup except you swapped "chemistry evolves into biology" for "physics evolves into biology". the former dates back to the USSR at at least 1922 and is a pretty basic application of dialectical materialism to the issue in terms of the evolution of states of matter from lower to higher levels of complexity with some advanced maths and computing thrown in. I'm not even using any sources other than Wikipedia and that should not be the level of scientific discussion. its positively medieval and primitive in that computers are being treated as credible when you could have used philosophy instead. This is so simple I wouldn't be surprised if this was taught at Soviet Pre-school biology class.

Can someone please tell me I'm missing something here? you're all scaring me. o_O
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
errrrr....

As enthusiastic as I am in supporting science, I find the crudity of this being treated as a "breakthrough" deeply disturbing. This is primordial soup except you swapped "chemistry evolves into biology" for "physics evolves into biology". the former dates back to the USSR at at least 1922 and is a pretty basic application of dialectical materialism to the issue in terms of the evolution of states of matter from lower to higher levels of complexity with some advanced maths and computing thrown in. I'm not even using any sources other than Wikipedia and that should not be the level of scientific discussion. its positively medieval and primitive in that computers are being treated as credible when you could have used philosophy instead. This is so simple I wouldn't be surprised if this was taught at Soviet Pre-school biology class.

Can someone please tell me I'm missing something here? you're all scaring me. o_O

Not everyone accepts Soviet style dialectical materialism, even among scientists. Philosophy is a poor judge of things like these.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
While it is an intriguing speculation, the specifics of running a computer code to test it would make so many assumptions that the result would be useless.

That said, systems that are far from equilibrium will often produce very high levels of complexity. Whether that complexity is enough to be considered to be 'life' is a very different thing.
Don't make me change your moniker to Debbie Downer!
There's exciting potential usefulness here.
And to top it off, there's no mention of you know who in the thread.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Don't make me change your moniker to Debbie Downer!
There's exciting potential usefulness here.
And to top it off, there's no mention of you know who in the thread.

Good point.

This is something I would *like* to have be true. But I am not at all convinced by this 'demonstration'.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Convinced of anything?
Neither am I.
But I like the idea, & hope for the best.


I actually have a more general piece of speculation.

Suppose that the 'physical constants' can actually vary, but that their dynamics is such that they stabilize on values that maximize complexity of the resulting universe. In that case, life would be inevitable and the universe would be as interesting to study as possible.

There go all the 'fine-tuning' arguments!
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I actually have a more general piece of speculation.

Suppose that the 'physical constants' can actually vary, but that their dynamics is such that they stabilize on values that maximize complexity of the resulting universe. In that case, life would be inevitable and the universe would be as interesting to study as possible.

There go all the 'fine-tuning' arguments!
Now if you can just eliminate heat death of the universe, we'll be all set.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
I fancy the idea that once the universe gets below a certain density the quantum fluctuations will be such that new universes 'bud off', starting the whole process over.
From the depths of despair to Mr Cheerful in one afternoon!
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Interesting article linked in the OP.

But at this stage simply an hypothesis, albeit not a wholly silly one.

Time, and people who know more than me about such things, will get it sorted.

(I check the scientific popular press fairly regularly, but if DNA forms spontaneously out in the open as the article says, I missed that page.)
 

FunctionalAtheist

Hammer of Reason
The problem I see here are the parameters of the computer model. And the question of how accurately they reflect actuality. And my very strong suspicion would be that we don't have sufficient knowledge of actuality in this case to create an accurate reflection of it's behavior. And that, instead, a program has been constructed based on how the theory being proposed would work in reality, if it is an accurate proposal. But it is the nature of computer programming to do what it is set up to do. And if set up"correctly", the results are inevitable, whether they reflect the actuality of the phenomena being modeled, or not.

In a general sense I agree that life is an inevitable consequence of physics. How could it be otherwise? And yet that doesn't make it any less transcendent, or metaphysical.
Me thinks forms of 'accurate,' 'reflection,' 'actuality,' are overused here. You might as well say we have no 'actually accurate reflection;' and leave it at that.
 

Laika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Not everyone accepts Soviet style dialectical materialism, even among scientists. Philosophy is a poor judge of things like these.

So the difference between science and pseudoscience is that sciences uses a turbo-charged calculator to develop the same hypothesis 100 years later? o_O
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
So the difference between science and pseudoscience is that sciences uses a turbo-charged calculator to develop the same hypothesis 100 years later? o_O

No, the difference is that science actually tests its ideas, attempting to show when they are wrong. Pseudoscience tends towards confirmation bias.
 

Laika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
No, the difference is that science actually tests its ideas, attempting to show when they are wrong. Pseudoscience tends towards confirmation bias.

In what sense would you say that the hypothesis has the above been "tested"? It would not have thought that mathematics qualifies as a form of testing given that it is not based on direct observation but relies on inference. hence, it could not be said to be objectively true because it relies on assumptions put into the models. (i.e. whilst 2+2=4 that's not the same as "4" representing a physical state or observation because numbers are so abstract. there is therefore considerable room for error in how a phenomena can be quantified).
 
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