Grand Canyon Made By Noah's Flood, Book Says (Geologists Skewer Park For Selling Creationism)

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | January 8, 2004 | Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times

[betty boop]

If I can't scientifically explain the "why" of each element (if there is a "why"), how does that change the underlying chemistry of mutations?

Perhaps if you were to understand the "why" of the element, you might be able to recognize that there is more to life and the Universe than just elements. In particular, it seems to me there may be a "noetic" structure -- perhaps something like a universally-accessible "information set" or (to put it more fancifully), a kind of "cosmic DNA" -- that structures existents, "according to their available degree(s) of freedom." Matter needs information to "tell" it what to do.

In other words, you need more than matter for an entity to exist in the first place.

It has been conjectured that an atom has (at most) three degrees of freedom, corresponding to the three (ordinary!) spatial dimensions. When atoms combine into molecules, cells, etc., etc., the number of degrees of freedom goes up correspondingly. For great complexity to arise in an organism, there needs to be vastly greater degrees of freedom than what we see at the level of a comparatively "simple" cell. It is thought that self-organizing complexity and emergent behavior can arise once a sufficiently large number of degrees of freedom are available.

I concede this is just a highly interesting (to me) speculation at this point, Patrick. The idea did not originate with me. But I keep seeing it in my dreams, as recently as last night. The frustration arises when I awake, when I realize I do not remember everything I've seen.... I know that's not proof of anything, except that sometimes I have extraordinary and quite lovely dreams about the structure of the Universe. (This has been going on fairly regularly ever since I was first dazzled by the implications of quantum field theory. Here's an interesting tidbit: Universal fields contain an infinite number of degrees of freedom....)

You tell me what this all means! Thanks for writing, Patrick.

[marron]

how would you design an experiment where the subject possesses free will?

By the mere act of doing it. Nothing in nature would lead you to attempt such a thing.

[PatrickHenry]

[sometimes I have extraordinary and quite lovely dreams about the structure of the Universe.] You tell me what this all means!

I think it means that we need a vacation from all this. Perhaps to one of those quiet little tropical islands, with no internet, no cell phones, and no Fox network. Just the palm trees, swaying gently above, and the waves lapping on the beach. Let the universe worry about itself. It's a big boy, and it will get along just fine.

[balrog666]

Can I tell you my dream now?

[PatrickHenry]

Can I tell you my dream now?

Your continuing fantasy about a threesome involving Barney Frank, Hillary, and you, all trapped in an elevator for days, is simply too horrifying to be revealed in an open thread. (Your secret is safe.)

[Dataman]

I get the strange feeling that people who do not want to look at beginnings, or first causes, are like folks that come into a movie theater after the film has already started rolling; they speak and act as if they believe that the film actually began when they got there. What happened before their arrival simply doesn't matter. But in actuality, the film's entire set-up can be found in the portion of it that wasn't seen by the late-comer. Absent that set-up, it wouldn't be at all unusual for the movie goer simply to believe and say that everything he saw after his arrival was "random." He would of course strive to make sense of it; but he'd be missing information critical to a proper understanding.

Very good analogy. I'll have to remember that one.

[betty boop]

Let the universe worry about itself. It's a big boy, and it will get along just fine.

But of course I know that, Patrick! It's just it's so much fun to try to figure out how the Universe manages to do that. For good or ill, I look forward to vacations precisely because I then have the leisure, almost totally free from distractions, to contemplate such matters. But then, everybody's got a "hobby"....

[betty boop]

Thanks, Dataman!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for that excellent frog/bird analogy - and also thank you for the "missing the beginning of the movie" analogy! I shall be using both of them.

[PatrickHenry]

... provided you can explain to me how the Periodic Table of the Elements acquired its properties. Or are we to understand that the Table is itself the product of a random walk?

I've been doing some searching, because I know we discussed something like this not long ago. I've found it here, post 257. And there's more at post 262.

[Alamo-Girl]

What a beautiful post at 581! Thank you! I strongly relate to your dreams of the universe, betty boop. I also strongly agree with your observation:

In particular, it seems to me there may be a "noetic" structure -- perhaps something like a universally-accessible "information set" or (to put it more fancifully), a kind of "cosmic DNA" -- that structures existents, "according to their available degree(s) of freedom." Matter needs information to "tell" it what to do.

That is the unresolved issue seldom mentioned in abiogenesis theory!

I also appreciate the very engaging summary of degrees of freedom:

Universal fields contain an infinite number of degrees of freedom.

Indeed as the field exists in all points of space/time.

[SunkenCiv]

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