Universal Perfection

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To be fair to Mike, most Physicists would agree that the universe does seem to be tuned for life. Most ways in which we might conceive of the universe being different would result in a universe in which no life at all was possible.

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Wrong. Most physicisits would argue that this universe is tuned for LAWKI (Life As We Know It), not life in general. Here's a good talkorigins FAQ about probability calculations of life given different laws of physics:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.htmlThe author played around with physical constants of different universes as far as 10 orders of magnitude out, to see what he got for the size of atoms, the lifetime of stars, etc. In almost all universes, it would be around long enough for some sort of life, however strange, to evolve. For example:This is a distribution for 100 random universes (changing proton & electron masses, and the strength of the electromagnetic and strong forces) were tweaked. In over half the universes, stars live over a billion years.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 10-31-2003]

You do realize that your argument is the equivalent of a child stating "If my parents had married other people, I never would have been born! That would be horrible, so I'm glad that they got married!". Yes, you would not have been born - but other people would have been born instead. And to those people, it would had been horrible if your parents had married the way they did in reality.Whatever reality life forms develop in, they will be immeasurably thankful that the laws of the universe were precisely in the way that they were. They will be immeasurably thankful for whatever planet/planetoid that they were born on being precisely the way it was. Without these things, they'd be dead.*Regardless Of What Universe It Is*The issue is whether probability states that in other universes, life of any form (not LAWKI) is probable. What running the numbers shows, is that it looks like it is. There is ample time, and plenty of complexity in chemical reactions, to allow for it.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 10-31-2003]

As would be any other being in any other reality, Mike. You're not grasping this.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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As would be any other being in any other reality, Mike. You're not grasping this.

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Oh, what have I not grasped?

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The "As would be any other being in any other reality" part.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

You know, if you are completely unable to picture any other possible realities, debating with you about other the chance of life in other possible realities would be pretty silly of me, wouldn't it? ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Heh... sort of the inverse of this post? ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

It's basic html. That's a HREF command.You can do really fun things with html... for example, take a look at this, in the impersonations thread. This took a while to get right.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

The analogy is faulty. That would be the equivalent analogy of taking a lifeform from a random universe and placing it in a random, different universe and seing if it survived. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about whether life can develop in a random universe to begin with, not whether current life can survive in a random universe.As I referenced in my earlier post, random universes will at the very least survive long enough for complexity - however different - to arise.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Rei: The analogy is faulty. That would be the equivalent analogy of taking a lifeform from a random universe and placing it in a random, different universe and seing if it survived.

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/*DNAunion*/ What?????? Where'd you come up with that???

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Because your analogy only works if this is the only type of universe that can contain life; it assumes its conclusion, by having the person killed in every other scenario. This may be the only type of universe that can contain LAWKI, but to claim that it's the only type of universe that can contain life is quite unsupported by you.

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/*DNAunion*/ Yes, you stated that unsupported and untestable presumption previously. So what? Are you claiming that it is indisputable fact...that we are all forced to accept it as true?

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Apparently you didn't even bother to check the article that I referenced. Figures.P.S. - Why the pretentious code comments around your name? We know its you writing, you don't need to clarify. /*Rei*/------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Your position - that life not as we know it does exist or even could exist (in some hypothetical universe that cannot be examined or tested) - is the one without any empirical observations whatsoever.

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Nor are there any observations to contradict it. Of course all life discovered so far is similar - it's all in the same universe, and we've only looked at the tiniest fraction of it. So? We're not discussing this universe. Back to the basics here: You need to evidence that it is only realistic that any form of life would exist only in this universe.Carbon and oxygen don't allow life. The properties of carbon and oxygen allow life. While this may seem like a trivial distinction (such as "Guns don't kill people, bullets fired from guns kill people"), it is critical to this discussion: carbon and oxygen themselves need not even exist in any form - only the types of complex interactions that we see in organic chemistry, which in our universe are partially due to the interactions of carbon and oxygen.What is the basic subset of "capabilities" in nature required for life to occur? That's a good question, and is currently a subject of much debate. Certainly, it would seem that turing compatability of the universe is the basic requirement, but not every turing-compatable universe will create life. Looking at some alternatives - such as Conway's Game of Life - you quickly learn that complexity requires a mix of randomness and order. There need to be stable states, as well as unpredictability, to get interesting behavior that lasts for a reasonable length of time. And, of course, the larger your universe (regardless of its composition), and the more processing time it has, the more interesting results you can get.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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/*DNAunion*/ I already have. It is an unimpressive computer game that uses a two-dimensional array to represent the positions of organisms with some rules for the creation and deletion of organisms based on neighboring cells in the matrix; once the correct rules were found and a correct starting setup used, some figures would amazingly reappear throughout a run of the program. The organisms dont self-replicate: they are poofed into existence with a single line of code. Its not even the organisms that amazingly reappear, but shapes. Finally, theres not even any self-replication of shapes: in fact, theres no self-replication in the system at all.

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/
1) Conway's game of life is not a really a game -It is a cellular automata. The "organisms" aspect is simpy an analogy. There are no "correct rules". For example, gliders can occur in a wide variety of rulesets (see here).2) Conway's game of life is Turing-complete. As a consequence, it can simulate itself, or even simulate reality.3) There *are* cellular automata self-replicators, although the ones discovered so far are pretty simple. Yet, on its own with random startups, it exhibits amazing pieces of complexity, and since it is turing-complete, it leads one to the realistic possibility that on a large enough universe with enough processing time, such an automata can create complex, advanced self-replication and adaptation. Quantum theory makes our own universe appear to be closer and closer to a cellular automata evry day 4) To read about some of the types of complexity that have occurred from Conway so far, check out this site.I'm guessing that you just looked up Conway's Game of Life before writing your last post.

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Technocore: By combining these in different ways you can construct every other convievable information-construct, like multiplication, a computer game, an artificial intelligence, or a self-replicating system.

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/*DNAunion*/ Another unsupported assertion.

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ It's turing complete. Of course you can code any of that in it.

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Technocore: The same can obviously be done with metal and springs, thogh it would be a really slow version. Or atoms of your choice. A self replicating system can be made out of of any sets of atoms.

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/*DNAunion*/ Another unsupported assertion.

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ If the laws of a universe are finite, they can be simulated on a turing macine. A turing machine can be made out of any sets of atoms.What you should *actually* be interested in is the probability of self-organization.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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One of my points, which I need to support, is that this universe is fine tuned for life whether or not trillions of trillions of other universes exist. Having a vast ensemble of universes is a potential explanation for the fine tuning we observe: it doesnt remove the fact of fine tuning.

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The problem with that is that you have absolutely no evidence that other rulesets producing life is not rare. You're arguing from statistics, where your sample size is equal to 1 - *and*, that 1 sample is in favor of life. It's a ridiculous argument. If I was testing the probabilities of rockets blowing up on launch, someone handed me a single rocket that they had built, and it launched, would I conclude that this was the only type of rocket that can fly and not blow up on launch?

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/*DNAunion*/ Okay, so what other items in the Universe possess the properties of carbon and oxygen that allow for life?

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ Any computational system can, and computational systems can occur in almost any iterative ruleset. The question here is probability. The key concerning carbon here is the ability to form complex chemicals of different forms. There's nothing that would lead one to expect that that is somehow unlikely in other universes, that there will be a chemical (or even some non-atomic based state). In fact, silicon too can form long chains, just not as readily as carbon.

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None. So all empirical evidence we have shows that both carbon and oxygen are required for life.

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Once again, no. The particular properties (in this case, the ability to store complex state information) is necessary.

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Once again, your argument is not based on empirical evidence, but on imagination/speculation.

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I'll be nice and not return the insult.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

You know, I personally don't care what Conway himself had to say about the issue. The fact is, since Conway's work, people have generalized a way to describe cellular automata rulesets, and complex behavior is found all over (for example, did you notice the list of rulesets in which gliders have been discovered so far?). I seriously recommend that you try plugging in random rulesets from generalized automata before you make this claim. Hexagonal grids, long-distance comparisons, you name it.Is that the only commentary you had? I raised half a dozen points in my post, and you barely replied.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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1) Unlike carbon, silicon does not readily form double or triple bonds.

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ Explain specifically why this is relevant to life. We're not talking about reimplementing LAWKI with silicon instead of carbon - we're talking about whether life can exist based on silicon instead of carbon. You need to evidence why double or triple bonds are a necessity.

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2) Unlike carbon, silicon does not readily form long, stable chains.

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ Not true. Silicon doesn't double bond with oxygen as readily as carbon, and prefers four Si-O bonds. This leads to readily available Si-O polymerization, since the oxygens have an additional bond. Silicon oxides are not only polymeric, but also anionic - they can absorb cations and behave like ionic exchange resins (such as in zeolites). They can also behave as superacids and catalysts (again, as in zeolites).

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3) Unlike carbon, silicon does not readily form stable rings.

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ Why are rings necessary for life? Again, you seem to be having a lot of trouble grasping this, so I'll have to state it again: We're not looking to reimplement current life with silicon. We're looking as to whether the overall properties of life can exist from silicon-based polymers. "Rings" is not an overall property, just one of many possible means to an outcome.

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4) Unlike carbon, silicon adorned only with hydrogen atoms will spontaneously burst into flames if exposed to oxygen.

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ Who is proposing life based around silicon hydrides in an oxygen-rich world? Talk about a straw man

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5) Unlike carbon, silicon tends to combine mostly with oxygen; furthermore, these compounds are not molecules (unlike the main compounds formed from carbon).

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ Silicon tends to combine with oxygen, which tends to combine with silicon, which tends to combine with oxygen... i.e., forming alternating Si-O chains.

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6) Unlike carbon, silicon (in its most common form) tends to bind with metallic cations to form inorganic minerals.

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/*Pretentious Code Brackets*/ If life was based on silicon, they would by definition be organic. Bonding with metallic cations would actually be quite useful; there are anions such as borates and alluminates that can be incorporated into a silcate network, modifying its acidic and catalytic properties.Again, you really baffle me: You're arguing that LAWKI is the only type of life possible in all parts of all universes, by arguing that LAWKI is the only type of life known, in the one small part of one single universe that has been observed.Also, please understand: we are *NOT* trying to argue that LAWKI can exist in other universes, or is likely in other parts of this universe (although it may be). We are arguing that Life Not As We Know It can exist, if the *general properties* that comprise life exist (the ability to catalyze reactions between states, to store state information, a large energetic environment for abiogenesis, etc).------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-03-2003]

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ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE IS EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE

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Just out of curiousity... when a person argues using one of the most fundamental of all known logical fallicies, is it best to simply not respond, or to try and reason with the aforementioned "brick wall"?

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Rei: /*Pretentious Code Brackets*/

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/*DNAunion*/ Rei, would mind explaining to us how code brackets themselves can be pretentious?

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We know very well who you are. You don't need to emphasize it as if you're some sort of royalty entering the room.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-05-2003]