Would this Origin of life model work?

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22

I am not following you here. What exactly do you mean?

I am not sure how many more times I have to explain this to you guys. Let’s start from the top shall see:

Falsification

In order to falsify this hypothesis, the biochemist needs to make sure his interference is reasonable or consistent with Miller-Urey experiments when he/she chooses a particular set of pre-biotic conditions to work on.

If the biochemist applies the procedure to a different pre-biotic condition, it would be another attempt at falsification.

If, at some point, someone produces digital information within a pre-biotic condition in nature that does not require a conscious agent, then this would falsify the hypothesis completely.

This is because it would show how a possible condition could have created or developed life before the existence of finite conscious agents.

Verification

In order to verify this hypothesis, the biochemist must perform the same experiment with the same set of prebiotic conditions following the previous one but insert himself into experiment in the second round of experiments.
The combined outcomes of these experiments would produce evidence for the hypothesis. If we apply the same procedure to a different pre-biotic condition, it would produce additional evidence for this hypothesis.

This is because even though the experimenter who produces digital information within each prebiotic condition is finite and contingent, there could not be any conscious life before simple life emerged, hence why we have to include the first experiment to support the “necessary” attribute of this intelligent designer.

This aspect of my experimental design is what separates itself from ID arguments since they involve methods that are supposed to test for unknown contingent designers.

I really encourage you to watch the two videos I suggested because your objection shows you have a fundamental misunderstanding on what I am arguing here.

I don’t understand what you are getting at here. Were you even responding to my proposition?

We cannot apply the same reasoning to present day events because humans exist and, thus, could have been responsible for the results equally as well. Thus, my testable model only applies to past events.

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How would you know whether an interference is reasonable or not?

What would digital information look like? I’m thinking we could make digital information pretty easily, most any amino acid would do.

How would we know if it required a conscious agent or not? Consciousness, according to you is non-local, so what if another person down the hall provided the interference without the researcher’s knowledge?

You say this a lot, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it has to do with anything. I’m pretty sure most Christians (and theists in general) would suggest that there was consciousness before simple life emerged on this planet. You know, God. And since you’re using human consciousness as a proxy for God’s consciousness, I’m not sure why you would say that God couldn’t exist before simple life.

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24

Great question!

Because all experiments are performed by an experimenter, they must involve investigator intervention. However, there are experiments that must be viewed as an ineligible prebiotic simulation when certain aspects of observer interference are crucial to their success.

In constructing a prebiotic simulation experiment, the investigator creates the setting; supplies the aqueous medium, the energy and, the chemicals; and establishes the boundary conditions (Thaxton 1984 p.99-110; Jekel 1985). This activity produces the overall background conditions for the experiment, and although it is vital to the success of the experiment, it is relatively legitimate because it simulates conceivable natural conditions.

However, the intrusion of the researcher becomes critical in an illegitimate sense whenever laboratory conditions are not defensible by association to consistently credible features of natural processes and conditions. Thus, the illegitimate intervention of the investigator is directly comparable to the geochemical implausibility of the condition arising from the researcher’s experimental design and/or procedure, and the level of such intrusion would be the greatest when such plausibility is missing altogether (Thaxton 1984 p.99-110; Jekel 1985).

With this in mind, it appears reasonable to propose that acceptable interference by the investigator would comprise constructing reasonable design features of the experiment, regulating the initial reaction mixture, starting the input of free energy to drive the reaction at the outset, and performing whatever minimal disturbance to the system is necessary to withdraw portions of the reaction products at various stages for analysis (Thaxton 1984 p.99-110; Jekel 1985).

Thaxton et al. (1984) established these criteria for the amount of observer interference acceptable for attempts to prove that unguided material processes produced life:

Degree of investigator interference

  1. Selected chemicals, isolated from other soup ingredients

  2. Selected wavelengths of UV, heat, isolated from other energy sources

  3. Spark, shock waves, isolated from other energy sources

  4. Concentrated solutions where reactions depend on concentrated conditions (e.g., HCN polymerization)

  5. Traps

  6. Photosensitization

Threshold of illegitimate interference

  1. Concentrated solutions where law of mass action is validly extrapolated +

  2. “Synthesis in the Whole”: dilute solutions mixed together

As shown in the outline, the demarcation line between legitimate and illegitimate interference is between 2) and 3). Any situation higher than 3) (i.e. 2) and 1)) would be illegitimate because the experimenter is deviating from plausible prebiotic conditions, and there is no analogy between the techniques and reliably plausible prebiotic conditions (Thaxton 1984 p.99-110; Jekel 1985).

Remember what I told you before…

We cannot apply the same reasoning to present day events because humans exist and, thus, could have been responsible for the results equally as well. The statement “there could not be any conscious life before simple life emerged” would just be rendered moot.

Correct! this is what (I argue) makes my scientific argument for God valid. My theoretical reasoning is supposed to support the God hypothesis specifically and not just any type of intelligence. For instance, someone cannot suggest that super aliens or humans from a different universe was the cause for us because they couldn’t exist before simple life. But, God could have existed before simple life because he possesses the additional attribute of “necessity” that those other causal agents would not possess by definition.

BTW, thanks for jumping back into the ring with me. :wink:

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THIS. Because it bears repeating.

No. And for the very same reason that I and others have stated on every single one of your posts: You cannot falsify ID by demonstrating evolution.

I could construct a similar experiment comparing the hypotheses of “gravity” and “Intelligent Falling”. If the first I note that objects in zero-gravity will tend to stay in a constant state of motion, and in the second demonstrate that pushing on the object can cause it to move as if influenced by gravity. Gravity doesn’t happen randomly tho, therefore I conclude that some intelligent force (angels?) must be responsible for gravity, Therefore Intelligent Falling is confirmed?

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26

It’s one thing to have to deal with the intransigent ignorance typical of our creationist members. But someone showing this kind of arrogant condescension really is not worthy of respectful responses, and I think he should just be ignored henceforth. That’s what I intend to do.

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27

I think that’s wise. One thing that’s become evident is that, faced with multiple fatal criticisms of his bizarre views from all quarters, he thinks that re-wording his hilariously bad reasoning is all that’s needed. I would analogize this to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but I think that that would be unkind to Titanic deck-chair-rearrangers. In their case, at least, there is some plausible relation between weight distribution on the vessel, the vessel’s presentation to the water, and the resulting buoyancy. This is much more desperate than that.

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I have mostly forgone engaging with a conflicted stream of consciousness which is somehow both intransigent and capricious.

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I agree. As I told @Jordan, my theoretical reasoning is supposed to support the God hypothesis specifically and not just any type of intelligence.

It’s funny you point this out. There is actually an experiment that is attempting to show that Roger Penrose’s additional postulation of a Universal self-existing consciousness, but this involves the creation and development of the entire Universe or non-biological settings.

Nevertheless, it is an additional experiment that is employed to establish that a self-existing consciousness existed prior to the inception of contingent minds.

The only differences (I see) is that my hypothesis and the methods to test it strictly apply to biochemistry AND past events. But, it is important to note that I am not relying on Penrose’s additional postulation and methods to be correct or proven correct for my hypothesis to work. Instead, I am relying on the Orch-OR theory’s support of human consciousness AND those experiments or observations I just mentioned before.

With that said, as I told @Jordan, the same theoretical reasoning cannot be applied to present day events because humans exist and, thus, could have been responsible for the results equally as well. The statement “ there could not be any conscious life before simple life emerged ” would just be rendered moot. So, in essence, I actually agree with you again in regards to your illustration.

All and all, I hope you can see that I did not ignore past criticisms on my case here. They were definitely valid. But, I could not find a reason to think they were fatal objections or if they were fatal, I did not see anybody respond to my latest response to those objections.

That’s why I encourage you, along with everybody else, to stay with it and follow through on your objection if you still feel my responses were not adequate.

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30

So let me try to rephrase to see if I’m understanding correctly.

means that if we:

  1. run an origin-of-life experiment in which we are able to find a way to make a reaction generate cellular building blocks
  2. then run an analogous experiment, but without any intervention of any kind to “make it work”
  3. Combining 1 and 2, we would then demonstrate that human intelligence is required.
  4. Since humans were not around before abiogenesis, an intelligent being similar to humans in some way must have been involved

Is that correct?

31

That doesn’t work. You just ignore or dismiss all objections, even if they’re followed up.

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32

Not quite. Let me change a bit of what you said to make it more accurate…

  1. run an origin-of-life experiment in which we are able to find a way to make a reaction generate cellular [multistep syntheses mimicking biochemical pathways or genetic replication]

  2. then run an analogous experiment, but without any intervention of any kind to “make it work”

  3. Combining 1 and 2, we would then demonstrate that human intelligence is required.

  4. Since [finite conscious beings could not be] around before abiogenesis, a [self-existing] intelligent being [omitted*] in some way must have been involved [instead]

I omitted “similar to humans”

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Like what? Some of these objections might have been postponed by me so I can address it later in a different topic

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No, it wouldn’t do that.

It would demonstrate that the human activity added something. But it would not demonstrate that the added something could not arise in other ways.

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35

This is a bit too vague for me to respond adequately. Can you elaborate?

36

Harshman is exactly right. All we have, after people have patiently explained to you in excruciating detail just how badly out-to-lunch you are on this, is minimal, inconsequential, non-substantive rewording of your views. The problem isn’t that you’ve expressed those views badly (though you have). It’s that your views are wrong and are, indeed, so wrong that no salvage of them is even imaginable.

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37

Then it’s impossible to stay and follow through, isn’t it?

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38

I’m puzzled that you think elaboration is needed. This should be pretty obvious. You are not thinking of this the way that a scientist would think.

39

Consider the possibility this may have already occurred. :wink:

A problem not previously mentioned, I think: You seem to be conflating consciousness and intelligence.

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40

This does not seem like a sensible approach to me. It looks like you’re essentially saying to first do synthetic organic chemistry with all the “interventions” and manipulation we know how to do, then to … stop doing it. All the things you did in the synthetic experiment, adding compounds in some order, turning up the heat, washing product and using them in other steps etc. etc - don’t do those. Set up the experiment like you began it, but then… don’t do anything. Just do the first step and nothing more. Dissolve some salts in water or w/e(can we even stir it, or must we wait for passive diffusion?), but then… nothing.
Then from this we are to conclude, based on the result of not doing the synthetic organic chemistry, that no other possible way exists to get the same molecules as we got from the synthetic organic chemistry experiment.

I try to imagine doing what you suggest with a concrete example, and what I get is something like this: Let’s find a way to make tar from sugar. Put sugar on the frying pan, set the heat to maximum, let it sit there for a day. Now, how do we get tar without intervention? We’re not allowed to put the sugar on the frying pan, nor are we allowed to turn on the stove. Just sit there and watch the bag of sugar, and the turned-off stove. Now we conclude: Tar is impossible without human intervention.

That simply does not seem reasonable to me. I think the method you propose can’t logically support the conclusion.

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41

Well, of course I have but I am not going to assume it. It’s up to you guys to deal the fatal blow. Let’s recap your guys main objection…

Alright, as I said before, these objections are VALID, but they are not fatal because they only deal with present events. I am still waiting for everyone to explain why this objection applies to past events as well.

Yes, I meant consicioussness