Was life created in the big bang?
Was it something that formed later from various chemical compounds?
Was it not in the design of the big bang to supply a universe conducive to life?
Is life within the essence of intelligence, is intelligence the result of many years of evolution or are they (life/intelligence) both somehow interdependent?
Hi Rex,
RexRed wrote:Was life created in the big bang?
Along with the Universe, which began with the Big Bang, the potential for life was created. But life itself, as we know it, is composed of elements which didn't exist until millions of years after the Big Bang. It took at least one generation of stars to construct the heavier elements which compose organic life of the type we are familiar with.
RexRed wrote:Was it something that formed later from various chemical compounds?
Yes. Stellar evolution leads to heavy elements which then accumulate to form planets and moons, some of which have combinations of elements and conditions which make life as we know it possible.
The reasong I keep saying "life as we know it" is because there could be a myriad of other forms of life based on different compounds or energy forms, which we don't yet know exist. But at the very least, we know of one: The Earth, and its biology, so I'll stick with that as the basis for answers here.
RexRed wrote:Was it not in the design of the big bang to supply a universe conducive to life?
If naturalism (as a concept) is true, then the Universe itself has within it the capacity to construct life, and awareness. Whether that capacity was put there intentionally, or just *is* there as natural aspect of the Big Bang itself, nobody knows.
RexRed wrote:Is life within the essence of intelligence, is intelligence the result of many years of evolution or are they (life/intelligence) both somehow interdependent?
Bacteria and Plants are alive, but not intelligent.
Intelligence seems to be a result of Information density. With memory for storage, and billions of high speed neurons for organization, information systems seem to evolve from an ocean of impulses just as organics evolved in the sea. The process of evolution seems buried at the heart of the Universe itself, almost as if the rules themselves were the first seed of life.
I feel that the big bang does not really explain much about the beginnings of life.
I feel the the scientists are just speaking light into being (just like the Bible) and not considering that light or the lack thereof existed before the big bang.
Life like a seed must be planted and does not grow under improper conditions. Life does not grow where there is no seed. Life was planted in the big bang like a seed... Which this only makes one wonder who sows such a seed? It takes life to procreate or pass on life. So what type of creature would give birth to a "big bang" but another universe?
Rosborne
Please forgive me I am rambling... I know when I do this it show my lack of understanding in this subject but I am still curious.
Comment:
Cannot science at least consider or theorize that the universe had to be created by a similarly physical entity that has the function of creating universes?
Science teaches us we humans were not just placed here on the earth by a "God" at some point in time in the past... but then traces the universe back and says implies that it just came out of absolutely nothing... this is the puzzle of science.
The Christians have claimed this about humans that we were "just created" on the planet 6ooo or so years ago. This is preposterous against the scientific evidence that supports evolution. Yet the same science tells us that, there is nothing perceivable before the creation of our universe. This must be meant as a joke on the Christians...
What about the simplest rules in science do they leave off right before the "big bang"? Rules like... "matter is never created or destroyed"? Yet they have all physical matter, all time and space being created at a single point in the past. Does this not seem hypocritical?
The same intelligence within life is in the big bang. The big bang inertly sets the parameters to form the resulting universe based upon it's inherent character.
If intelligence is the fruit than intelligence is the parent. Creation breeds intelligence thus before creation was intelligence. Intelligence evolved into creation...
Was it not in the design of the big bang to supply a universe conducive to life?
I feel that the big bang does not really explain much about the beginnings of life.
Yet the scientists do not tell where the substance (or lack thereof) came from to create the conditions for a big bang in the first place.
The chemistry or composition of the substances that produced the "big bang"... did they always exist? Could they not have had life somehow pre-composed in their eventual outcome.
I feel the the scientists are just speaking light into being (just like the Bible) and not considering that light or the lack thereof existed before the big bang.
Life seems to be the only true purpose of the physical universe.
No, but rather in life, the design to form in a manner conducive to existing in the universe
http://www.resa.net/nasa/origins_life.htm#earliest]
HMMM, had a problem posting this, its a nasa site I found on google. It summarizes the chemistry well. Im particularly a fan of the Murchison meteorite as its contents compared to the original Miller experiment
the possibilities of the step beyond autocatalysis and macromolecules is as big a leap for many scientists as is the pre-Big Bang universe.
As for the
trialballoons" in autocatalysis and life, Ive often wondered whether , in the right conditions we would all be made of Silica or Sulfur ,Phosphorus, or even Selenium (since all of these are p-chem structural equivalents of carbon) or other combinations of core elements, rather than carbon.
did you see th statement that nasa feels that life was inevitable ( in a rich nutrient "soup" that this planet provided in the first few minutes after the BB as atoms differentiated themselves)
Welcome to A2K AntiBuddha
In other words, if the Universe is entirely natural, and I think it is, then can we infer any deeper aspect to it by recognizing that life and awareness evolve out of it naturally?
rosborne979 wrote:Welcome to A2K AntiBuddha
Thankyou. Glad to be here.
Quote:In other words, if the Universe is entirely natural, and I think it is, then can we infer any deeper aspect to it by recognizing that life and awareness evolve out of it naturally?
Oh man that's a really tough question. Not that I haven't thought about it before, I have at great length but you're touching not only advanced physics and biology but also religion and the very meaning of life itself. I hope you're not expecting a simple answer here.
I don't think life is at all unusual, the definition is quite a broad one and basically covers things which replicate themselves and grow. Almost any kind of ongoing process can be seen as life. Think for a moment how broad the category is. Life includes, from bacteria to us including everything in between, not to mention that arguments could be made for fire, computer viruses, thoughts (memetics), stars all being alive.
Plus who says that this is the only universe. What if every possible set of laws and physics existed somewhere out there? (not necessarily reachable from our universe). Any creatures such as us would look around and be amazed that life could exist in that universe, when it's simply a matter of statistics that it had to exist somewhere and naturally that's the place where life forms will wonder about it.
No, I don't think life is special.
BUT... awareness? That thought literally keeps me awake at night because I can not come up with a single explanation for human awareness. (or rather my own since I have absolutely no way of determining whether anyone else has this).
If it were simply the laws of physics and nothing else then my body would be a collection of chemical reactions which would act according to the laws of physics. From the outside there would be no way of spotting any difference. However the laws of physics do not (and can not at present level of scientific development) why the thing that is me actually experiences these things.
Apologies if this is not at all clear, the english language lacks the vocabulary to describe these concepts. But simply put rather than my brain acting as a series of chemical reactions I actually feel and experience things. Why?
Not only that, but because I can actually talk about this that means there is some connection not only from my brain to this "conciousness" (in whatever form it takes) but also from my conciousness back to my brain.
I have to leave science behind here for a moment since this is out of the reach of the science we have now. I can come up with four hypothetical explanations, each of which has disturbing ramifications.
1. A certain configuration of molecules, energy, quantum particles, superstrings, WHATEVER... something physical generates conciousness. This means that we could build machines to be concious and perhaps manipulate this consciousness using technology. Also it raises the perplexing question of why our brains evolved this particular combination and what survival benefit conciousness offers to us.
2. Every possible combination of molecules has its own sentience. For example my little finger has a conciousness of its own. That air molecule over there has a conciousness. Also the combination of my little finger and that air molecule over there has its own conciousness. Of course since that conciousness doesn't include a brain it couldn't think or experience human emotions, but rather it would have whatever experiences fingers and air provide. The conciousness that is experiencing "me" currently happens to be the one collected from the molecules that make up my brain.
This raises the disturbing possibility that everything around me is experiencing reality, but not so many pesky moral issues since pain is an aspect of the brain, something that air molecules (for example) would not share. Also since molecules are continually being replaced in our brain that would mean my current conciousness isn't the one that was here when I was born. Since the memory is part of the brain and not the conciousness I wouldn't even know.
Also the question is how the conciousness feeds back into the brain, and if everything does it then how these various conciousnesses affect the world around us. A strange possibility is that quantum "randomness" is actually these awarenesses chosing possible jumps, etc. in order to feed back into the universe.
3. This reality isn't what it appears to be. We're actually based in some universe that generates our consciousness and this "universe" is just some kind of shared hallucination or "computer program"... the reasons this is disturbing is obvious.
4. Some external power artificially imposed this consciousness upon us deliberately picking human brains for some reason. This would be the religious explanation (or possibly 3 if you're talking buddhism or scientology).
...
Okay, very few people have been able to understand what I just attempted to explain. Most people give me blank looks. If you think you understand but have a question I'm happy to answer. If you don't understand I can attempt to rephrase. If you have suggestions or explanations I'd love to hear them. Either way I'd like to find someone who gets what I'm talking about and discuss it with them.
There is intelligence in nature though no single "element" of nature by itself can "think".
Are we really supposed to believe that the entire universe came out of something spontaneously becoming/being?
Also it raises the perplexing question of why our brains evolved this particular combination and what survival benefit conciousness offers to us.
Conciousness might just be a side effect of something else which was being selected for, like language. Not everything that evolves is selected for. Some things are just "hangers on" to associated processes.
Wouldn't it be a great joke if our much valued "conciousness" was just a byproduct of the cognition required to support a conceptual language? And all nature really ever selected for was the ability to say "watch out for that leopard"?