However, White avers that today, “there is almost universal agreement that life did not first come about merely by chance.”
I guess in this and the subsequent discussion, I'm not sure what he means by "merely by chance." And I'd like to know what the researchers in the field who "amost univerally reject" the idea of chance, mean by it. If in fact B_N is the correct explanation--if, in de Duve's words, the emergence of life is "an obligatory manifestation of the combinatorial properties of matter"--how do we distinguish it from chance? What does chance mean, if not something consonant with the properties of matter? In fact, if an occurrence doesn't reflect the properties of matter, didn't almost by definition not occur by chance?
Sorry, analogy alert again: Consider water. How likely is it that two hydrogen atoms should come together with an oxygen atom "by chance"? Not very, I should think--except for the way it's "an obligatory manifestation of the combinatorial properties of matter."
...to suppose that impersonal physical laws are likely to constrain the constants in this way can only be based on a confused anthropomorphism. He concludes that “Blind physical laws [(BN] are no more naturally drawn toward states of affairs with value than blind chance is.”
It seems to me that he's the one afflicted with anthropomorphism. Who says life has value? We do, of course. But who says the universe shares that assessment?
Forgive me if I think this analogy is a tad weak. For it puts fish and humans on the same “footing.” True, both are living beings. But of the two, only man is self-conscious, only man is capable of apperception.
True. But our self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. IF "life arose through the succession of an enormous number of small steps, almost each of which, given the conditions at the time had a very high probability of happening," and IF self-consciousness is an emergent property of life once it has developed to a certain point, then can our internal processes really access anything outside the physical laws of the universe?
Bear in mind that I think there are a lot of physical laws we just haven't discovered yet that will prove to be the explanation for many of the things we now consider "supernatural" or "extrasensory."
Who says life has value? Well, the notion of objective moral values have been discussed has been considered by some of the greatest minds in history. The Nurenberg trials were not predicated upon German law but upon the notion of universal human rights. Human rights are derived from the idea that man is made in the image of God. There were no codified statutes which ordered those trials. Without universal human rights there are no human rights. Without objective moral law there can be no right or wrong, only convention. There is no land where murder is virtue and kindness us vice, Everyone knows (by natural law) that there are things which we can't not know. In other words there is objective moral law, and thus a moral Lawgiver. It is impossible to not know it is objectively wrong to kill one's offspring...it is not in our nature. Murders know it is wrong to commit murder. So swinging back to Nuremberg we see those same principles springing from the heart of man, not from the legal code. The latest movements of euthanasia and infanticide as well as fratricide increase in pace in our country. Rather than ringing alarm bells "atheists" are the front line promoters. ":Personhood" has become the rhetorical tool to slide past humanity. Of course, this is nothing new under the sun. Recall the nazi call of lebensunwerten Leben", life unworthy of life.
So, we recreate morality to suit ourselves. But who is we? If morality is created, not discovered, we are left only with the stong man with guns to determine right from wrong. So, in our time, abandoning the Truth of objective moral law, vice has become virtue. That which was considered dirty-minded is now treated as sexual purity. It has become cruel to believe and advocate too firmly that the sick should not be encouraged to seek death; The moral law, today has become the very emblem of immorality. We affirm " being judgmental" and "being intolerant" has been judged and will not be tolerated..
So, without the Moral Law, there are no human rights, no justice or injustice, . But our self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. IF "life arose through the succession of an enormous number of small steps, almost each of which, given the conditions at the time had a very high probability of happening," and IF self-consciousness is an emergent property of life once it has developed to a certain point, then can our internal processes really access anything outside the . But our self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. IF "life arose through the succession of an enormous number of small steps, almost each of which, given the conditions at the time had a very high probability of happening," and IF self-consciousness is an emergent property of life once it has developed to a certain point, then can our internal processes really access anything outside the physical laws of the universe? laws of the universe? way to measure moral differences, no way to know right wrong. no grounds for political dissent, and no rational for punishing wrong-doing.
We do, of course. But who says the universe shares that assessment?
The universe makes no assessment. The universe is not mind. Only mind 'assesses' the universe, not the other way around.
But self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. If LIFE arose......and if self-consciousness is an emergent of life once it has developed....
Perhaps self-consiousness is in the fishbowl (universe) but is not of<>of the universe. That is to say it is not made of time, matter energy or space. It is separate and is not temporally-spacially extended. Once you step from a material cause to an emergent, non spatial, non material property you have entered that which is metaphysical. Collin McGinn asked: "How does mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolutionconvet the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the after-effects of the Big Bang; So how idd it contrive to spring into being from what preceded it?" The darwinist/naturalist/materialist/physicalist owes science and theology an explanation of causal necessitation of consousness, mental properties, and nuniversal abstract entity. If they will not, they need to abandon their worldview of darwinist materialism. Consciousness is ontologically basic for theism since it characterizes the fundamental being. If consiousness is emergent, then it is derivative and supervenient, and both its finitude. So the metaphysical materialist needs to explain itself, or abandon all hope that their view has nay basis in reality.
I have interjected too much into your conversation. Sorry about that. Just a few thoughts on the matters which you are discussing.
Who says life has value? Well, the notion of objective moral values have been discussed has been considered by some of the greatest minds in history. The Nurenberg trials were not predicated upon German law but upon the notion of universal human rights. Human rights are derived from the idea that man is made in the image of God. There were no codified statutes which ordered those trials. Without universal human rights there are no human rights. Without objective moral law there can be no right or wrong, only convention. There is no land where murder is virtue and kindness us vice, Everyone knows (by natural law) that there are things which we can't not know. In other words there is objective moral law, and thus a moral Lawgiver. It is impossible to not know it is objectively wrong to kill one's offspring...it is not in our nature. Murders know it is wrong to commit murder. So swinging back to Nuremberg we see those same principles springing from the heart of man, not from the legal code. The latest movements of euthanasia and infanticide as well as fratricide increase in pace in our country. Rather than ringing alarm bells "atheists" are the front line promoters. ":Personhood" has become the rhetorical tool to slide past humanity. Of course, this is nothing new under the sun. Recall the nazi call of lebensunwerten Leben", life unworthy of life.
So, we recreate morality to suit ourselves. But who is we? If morality is created, not discovered, we are left only with the stong man with guns to determine right from wrong. So, in our time, abandoning the Truth of objective moral law, vice has become virtue. That which was considered dirty-minded is now treated as sexual purity. It has become cruel to believe and advocate too firmly that the sick should not be encouraged to seek death; The moral law, today has become the very emblem of immorality. We affirm " being judgmental" and "being intolerant" has been judged and will not be tolerated..
So, without the Moral Law, there are no human rights, no justice or injustice, . But our self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. IF "life arose through the succession of an enormous number of small steps, almost each of which, given the conditions at the time had a very high probability of happening," and IF self-consciousness is an emergent property of life once it has developed to a certain point, then can our internal processes really access anything outside the . But our self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. IF "life arose through the succession of an enormous number of small steps, almost each of which, given the conditions at the time had a very high probability of happening," and IF self-consciousness is an emergent property of life once it has developed to a certain point, then can our internal processes really access anything outside the physical laws of the universe? laws of the universe? way to measure moral differences, no way to know right wrong. no grounds for political dissent, and no rational for punishing wrong-doing.
We do, of course. But who says the universe shares that assessment?
The universe makes no assessment. The universe is not mind. Only mind 'assesses' the universe, not the other way around.
But self-consciousness is also in the fishbowl. If LIFE arose......and if self-consciousness is an emergent of life once it has developed....
Perhaps self-consiousness is in the fishbowl (universe) but is not of<>of the universe. That is to say it is not made of time, matter energy or space. It is separate and is not temporally-spacially extended. Once you step from a material cause to an emergent, non spatial, non material property you have entered that which is metaphysical. Collin McGinn asked: "How does mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolutionconvet the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the after-effects of the Big Bang; So how idd it contrive to spring into being from what preceded it?" The darwinist/naturalist/materialist/physicalist owes science and theology an explanation of causal necessitation of consousness, mental properties, and nuniversal abstract entity. If they will not, they need to abandon their worldview of darwinist materialism. Consciousness is ontologically basic for theism since it characterizes the fundamental being. If consiousness is emergent, then it is derivative and supervenient, and both its finitude. So the metaphysical materialist needs to explain itself, or abandon all hope that their view has nay basis in reality.
I have interjected too much into your conversation. Sorry about that. Just a few thoughts on the matters which you are discussing.
Perhaps that may be the case, HHTVL. But what is the probability that a physical law will be discovered that can account for the plethora of extremely finely-tuned physical constants that are necessary for life to be possible in the first place?
(1) For instance, carbon. According to Dean Overman (in A Case Against Accident and Self-organization), the carbon atom is the fourth most common element in our galaxy. "Life would be impossible without carbon and yet because of the precise requirements for its existence, the carbon atom should be very rare." That's because its formation requires a rare triple collision called the "triple alpha process."
The first colliding step in this process occurs when a helium nucleus collides with another helium nucleus within a star. This collision produces an unstable, very ephemeral isotope of beryllium known as BE8 (BE9 is beryllium's stable form). When the unstable, short lived beryllium collides with a third helium nucleus, a carbon nucleus is formed.(2) Then there's the fact that the explosive power of the Big Bang is precisely matched to the power of gravity.
Astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle predicted the resonances (energy levels) of the carbon and oxygen atoms. The resonance of the carbon nucleus is precisely the right resonance to enable the components to hold together rather than disperse. This resonance perfectly matches the combined resonance of the third helium nucleus and the beryllium atom....
By his own admission, Hoyle's atheism was dramatically disturbed when he calculated the odds against these precisely matched resonances existing by chance. Hoyle wrote:
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.
For the universe to form, the force of gravity had to match precisely the explosive force of the Big Bang. If the force of explosion was only slightly higher, the universe would only consist of gas without stars, galaxies or planets. Without stars, galaxies and planets, life could not exist. The matching had to be to the remarkable precision of one part in 1055. If the rate of expansion was reduced by only one part in a thousand billion, the matter in the universe would have collapsed back to a singular point after a few million years.Physicist Bernard Lovell has commented about this situation: "We have attempted to describe the early stages of the expansion of the universe but the description in terms of nuclear physics and relativity is not an explanation of those conditions. Formidable questions arise and it is not clear today where the answers should be sought: Indeed, even the scientific description of these queries produces the remarkable idea that there may not be a solution in the language of science."
"Why is the universe expanding? Furthermore, why is it expanding at so near the critical rate to prevent its collapse? The query is most important because minor differences near time zero would have made human existence impossible.... [O]ut of all possible universes the only one which can exist, in the sense that it can be known, is simply the one which satisfies the narrow conditions necessary for the development of intelligent life."Overman points to several other examples of cosmological constants necessary for the rise of life that appear to be "finely-tuned":
(3) "Delicate balance in strong nuclear force"A detailed discussion of each of these is beyond my present scope. But I'd like to comment on one of them because it is of particular interest to me, (7), the Big Bang's "defiance" of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
(4) "Balancing of gravitational force and electromagnetic force"
(5) "Meticulous balance between number of electrons and protons"
(6) "Precision in electromagnetic force and ratio of proton mass to electron mass and neutron mass to proton mass"
(7) "Big Bang's defiance of Second Law of Thermodynamics and gravity's cumulative effect"
(8) "Delicate balance of values related to weak nuclear force"
(9) "Fine tuning in masses of particles, fundamental values and existence of unchanging types of particles required for DNA"
(10) "Precision in the agreement between abstract mathematics and the laws of the physical world"
As Overman writes, "The Second Law of Thermodynamics requires that entropy or disorder in the universe tends toward a maximum. The contents of the universe are becoming less ordered, and as the universe becomes more disorganized, less of its energy is available to perform work. Because the universe is running down, it must have had a beginning. The universe could not be dissipating from infinity. Reversing the observed process of dissipation, the Second Law of Thermodynamics requires a beginning and a very highly ordered beginning (one with low entropy). If the Big Bang is regarded as only a big, impressive accident, there is no explanation why the Big Bang produced a universe with such a high degree of order, contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, especially considering the cumulative power of gravitating systems in the universe.... [I]n a 1979 calculation Roger Penrose computed that the probability of the observed universe occurring by chance is one in 10300" :
Overman writes:
Given a random distribution of (gravitating) matter it is overwhelmingly more probable that it will form a black hole rather than a star or a cloud of dispersed gas. These considerations give a new slant, therefore, to the question of whether the universe was created in an ordered or disordered state. If the initial state were chosen at random [i.e., by chance], it seems exceedingly probable that the big bang would have coughed out black holes rather than disbursed gases. The present arrangement of matter and energy, with matter spread thinly at relatively low density, in the form of stars and gas clouds would, apparently, only result from a very special choice of initial conditions. Roger Penrose has computed the odds against the observed universe appearing by an accident, given that a black hole cosmos is so much more likely on a priori grounds. He estimates a figure of 10300 to one. [italics added for emphasis.]Relating all this to White's concept of non-intentional bias (BN — which holds that the evolution of life is attributable to physical laws alone — it looks to me that the "undiscovered—yet" physical law that we are looking for to explain the situation would be some kind of law which accounts for the fine-tuning of the cosmological constants necessary for life itself.
But all of these constants are antecedent to the operation of physical laws. And ALL of these antecedent constants must work together for life to arise; so now we need a physical law that can order their interrelations.
Well, at least we know what sort of new laws to look for. The question is: Is it even possible that we will ever find them? What are the odds that such laws could exist? For the operation of physical law ensues after these constants already exist, not before.
To me, it seems much more likely that, as Sir Fred Hoyle says, some sort of superintelligence has been monkeying with the constants so to provide the means for life to emerge and exist, from the beginning. And this would be White's intentional bias hypothesis — BI.
Is there another alternative? For the facts of the case already clearly rule out "chance," C.
Just some thoughts, dear HHTVL. It's marvelous to think about such things. Thank you kindly for your participation in this conversation!