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Author | Topic: Water As An Element of Fine-Tuning | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Nic Tamzek Inactive Member |
Rusty,
These are some good questions.
quote: This is occasionally suggested. I have seen no particularly likely examples, but you don't know what you don't know. Our life is carbon-based. Carbon is good for life because it is in the middle of the periodic table and so can form 4 covalent bonds, which allows for complex chemistry based on carbon chains. In fact, let's look at the relevant bit of the table:
Across the top you can see: Carbon (4 bonds)Nitrogen (3 bonds) Oxygen (2 bonds) Flourine (1 bond) CNO are, along with hydrogen, the dominant compounds that make up life. The next most common elements are Phosphorus and Sulfer in the next row. Chemical properties are similar vertically, so it is sometimes suggested that you could have silicon-based life instead of carbon-based life (some would say that computers could be silicon-based life, but this is a different category entirely as they are not using complex silicon chemistry in computers). Whether silicon-based life could occur in water or some other solvent I have no idea.
quote: Lakes would clearly freeze solid in cold places (whereas with real water just the top freezes. Whether this would happen to Earth's oceans seems to me somewhat debatable, issues like global circulation, hot tropics, geothermal heat, the effects of pressure from accumulating ice, etc. make this a very complex hypothetical question. I think only 1% of the Earth's free water is frozen right now.
quote: *If* you had, say, carbon based life that worked in an ammonia solvent, it would probably last as long as the ammonia, which could be billions of years in a cold environment. I think the key difficulty with ammonia is that it has to be very cold to have liquid ammonia, and when it is that cold, none of the activation energies for the various carbon covalent bond reactions procede at any reasonable rate. This might be overcome with some kind of energy input to drive reactions, e.g. cosmic rays or something, but it is a big hurdle to overcome. Perhaps you could get liquid ammonia at a reasonable temperature under high pressure, e.g. in a small gas giant with an Earth-sized core like Neptune, I have no idea. It would be interesting to have a chart showing the temperature/pressure ranges where various small polar molecules are liquid. More likely solvents that occur to me (I have not investigated any of their actual properties, I just have general reasons/recollections to think they might be liquids in vaguely the right temperature range: H2S (actually boils at -67 C, perhaps under higher pressure though)CH3OH (methanol) CH3CH2OH (ethanol) CH3CH2CH2CH3 (butane) CH3(C=O)CH3 (acetone) H2C=O (formaldehyde) You could imagine similar compounds including sulfur or nitrogen also. I expect there are known reasons why some of these wouldn't work, and most of them are more complex than water (though most are probably found prebiotically, e.g. titan). Different mixtures and pressure might make some of them possibilities. Another area to investigate would be high-temperature chemistry, where things like silicon and silicon dioxide are liquid. Perhaps you could get complex chemistry in one of those situations. On the other hand, perhaps only small molecules would be stable at that temperature.
quote: Who knows? Maybe. However, keep in mind that this kind of "cosmic fine-tuning" contradicts the intelligent design movement's "special creation" arguments. If you combine the two, you get this scenario: the Intelligent Designer is going to oh-so-carefully fine-tune the physical laws and chemistry of the universe so that after the big bang, after you wait billions and billions of years, you have a universe huge enough that all of the right conditions combine to get a planet in the "just right" zone where there is lots of liquid water...and then the IDer snaps his fingers and "poofs" bacteria into existence? And then waits several billion more years to "poof" eukaryotes, then another billion to "poof" multicellular creatures (or to "poof" the modifications or whatever you like), then the major vertebrate classes, and finally at long last, a few dozen poofs later, humans? It just doesn't make much sense. Anthropic coincidence "fine-tuning" arguments were born and raised based on a cosmological picture where evolution produced life, they become internally incoherant if you introduce divine intervention. The modern ID movement has latched on to them, I think, because their own arguments about biology have just not gone anywhere, and they hope they'll get taken a bit more seriously on the anthropic bandwagon.
quote: No one knows. As I understand it we can't even calculate the properties of atoms and molecules in our own universe (except hydrogen) from first principles; so why should we be able to do it in another universe?
quote: As mentioned, water is not really unique here. I posted this on t.o. awhile back:
quote: And, the Earth's crust "floats" on the mantle -- although this is a somewhat different deal it shows that floating hard stuff on squishy stuff is actually quite common. See much more informed opinion in the rest of the thread.
quote: The kinds of things to look out for that might actually advance your questions beyond speculation: 1. Small molecules that are liquid at reasonable temperatures, especially under heavier pressures that on Earth 2. Energy sources that might exist in cold, Titan-like environments (i.e., what if a Titan-like was orbiting a neutron star or something? Or had lots of radioactive materials in the crust? Or, speaking of Titan, are any there any good geothermal energy sources from radioactivity or tidal heating? 3. Solutions that include water but with a large percentage of something else, e.g. salts, sulfuric acid, ammonia, etc. These kinds of things might exist under "odd" regimes but support life. Edited to format link, restore page to normal width This message has been edited by AdminHambre, 11-04-2004 06:04 AM
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RustyShackelford  Inactive Member |
Let us examine this.If water was not a universal solvent and life such as ours did not exist and there was a universe here without life such as ours but a universe nonetheless.And this universe were filled with wonderous interactions of a sort totally alien to ours and where the laws of physics were different in their outcome would you then consider it to be intelligently designed? No. What's your point?
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RustyShackelford  Inactive Member |
Again, you are using what we know of life as we know it to try to apply to everything that we don't know. Well, I don't know for sure that there isn't some place in the universe that's filled with talking dogs, but I think it's a reasonable assumption........
Just because you like chocolate doesn't mean everybody you don't know also likes chocolate. Bad analogy. A better one would be, I like chocolate, and if I didn't eat chocolate I'd freeze to death instantly......therefore, everyone alive likes chocolate.
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RustyShackelford  Inactive Member |
It's not so terribly hard to imagine a world where the temperature never gets below 5 degrees Celsius, and ice doesn't happen... And the temperature remains that stable for 4 BILLION years?
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RustyShackelford  Inactive Member |
But for sake of argument let's say this is true. Then you simply wouldn't have them developing, or living in, environments with such temperatures. How could marine life avoid ice? You realize that if ice weren't less dense than water, ice would form at the BOTTOM of the ocean.......right?
You need to establish that water's freezing has much of a connection to life at all. I've heard it stated as fact many times that if ice were denser than water, marine life wouldn't survive........since it takes 3 billion years, minimum, to get past the marine life stage, that would mean that intelligent life couldn't have evolved if water didn't have its peculiar properties.
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Nic Tamzek Inactive Member |
I found a nifty thread on EvC on silicon-based life.
Short answer: at STP (standard temperature pressure) under oxidizing conditions, it doesn't work for life. Under exotic conditions, who knows? Apparently one (maverick) scientist has suggested that silicon-based life may exist down in the Earth's mantle, and we just haven't detected it yet: Scientist Hints at Silicon-Based Life Undergroundhttp://www.gsreport.com/articles/art000035.html Comments another scientist,
quote: I also wonder about sulfer, it can do some complex stuff.
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RustyShackelford  Inactive Member |
If you combine the two, you get this scenario: the Intelligent Designer is going to oh-so-carefully fine-tune the physical laws and chemistry of the universe so that after the big bang, after you wait billions and billions of years, you have a universe huge enough that all of the right conditions combine to get a planet in the "just right" zone where there is lots of liquid water...and then the IDer snaps his fingers and "poofs" bacteria into existence? And then waits several billion more years to "poof" eukaryotes, then another billion to "poof" multicellular creatures (or to "poof" the modifications or whatever you like), then the major vertebrate classes, and finally at long last, a few dozen poofs later, humans? You can't invalidate the fine-tuning argument by raising objections to an entirely different argument.
No one knows. As I understand it we can't even calculate the properties of atoms and molecules in our own universe (except hydrogen) from first principles; so why should we be able to do it in another universe? As I understand it, from a theoretical standpoint, matter would be matter in any universe........therefore, matter in ANY universe would have the same properties as matter here.
5 elements have solid forms less dense than their liquids, according But none except water could produce life, correct?
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sidelined Member (Idle past 5937 days) Posts: 3435 From: Edmonton Alberta Canada Joined: |
Rusty
Then what is it about our universe that makes you think it is inrelligently designed? Life? Why would this intelligence be necesary for our universe but not this other one?
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5848 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
How could marine life avoid ice? You realize that if ice weren't less dense than water, ice would form at the BOTTOM of the ocean.......right? I have already dealt with both questions in previous posts, but I will try to be more clear this time. I am well aware that ice, if it increased in density when frozen, would begin to form at the bottom. The problem for you position is that that would have no practical impact for the development of life, particularly oceanic marine life and terrestrial life (which is the majority of life). The concept of ice forming from bottom up as a "problem" is that for freshwater lakes and streams there is a potential for them to freeze completely, where top down freezing allows for the top to act as a thermal barrier and less water freezes. In practice however, shallow enough bodies of water can still freeze over completely even with top-down freezing, and it is not true that wherever freezing occurs all bodies of water would freeze just because it froze from bottom-up. This is to say that the actual factor for impact on life is the nature of the environment, and not the nature of how water freezes. Moving from practice to real world facts... The oceans are environments pretty much immune to freezing effects. Given solar and geothermal heating of water and air, there is about 0 chance for the oceans to freeze solid regardless the nature of water. Indeed there are great areas of the earth where most life exists and absolutely no freezing occurs. This is at least the second time I have mentioned this to you. Perhaps you may conduct a thought experiment to remember this in the future. Think tropical environment: lots of life and never any ice. Think moving from tropics to temperate and eventually to arctic: there is a gradual reduction in life forms until they are very few and far between. That hardly indicates the nature of freezing water has a major impact on life at all. Thus life could have formed just the same and developed just the same. The only difference would have been around shallow freshwater lakes and streams.
I've heard it stated as fact many times that if ice were denser than water, marine life wouldn't survive..... That's fine. People state many things as facts which aren't. This is usually true when trying to pretend knowledge in science, or just wow people with a factoid that is taken out of context. Here are actual facts. Freshwater "marine" life would have had some problems surviving, though that would only be true as one moved into higher latitudes. Lower temperate and tropical climates, or large freshwater bodies, would have provided continuous living conditiond. Oceanic marine life, which is where life is currently theorized to have begun, would never have been impacted at all. Thermal vents at the bottom would have prevented any ice from forming in their areas, salinity would have prevented much freezing in general, and solar energy would have kept tropical and low temperate ocean environments clear of ice. If you think the statements you heard earlier trump the facts I just laid out, I would like to hear how. I suppose I could develop a theory that water expansion during freezing was fine-tuning by the devil since it did not help life form, and icebergs (which are a result) do hinder humans from getting around by sea. The Titanic was sunk after all, and would not have been. It also lures humans into believing walking across certain bodies of water are safe and they end up falling through and drowning. Fine-tuning arguments can always be shot down. This one is particularly bad as it has no connection to facts regarding the connection between water and life. Since I had dealt with this before, please have the courtesy to tell me if you plan to avoid dealing with the content of this post in the future and simply repeat your position. holmes "...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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Nic Tamzek Inactive Member |
quote: Um, I wasn't trying to, I was trying to point out that the position you are taking isn't really the position of the "intelligent design" movement. Fine-tuning + natural evolution is at least coherant (I have no strong opinions on fine-tuning, and really it all turns into philosophy fairly quickly since we can't get outside the universe to determine what is "lucky" or "tuned".) Interventionist intelligent design + a highly habitable universe (like the flat-earth-with-dome cosmology of the hebrews) would also be potentially coherant. The problem is that essentially all of the universe seems basically hostile to life. It's like having a garden plot and yet only planting one bacterium on one tiny grain of dust. But interventionist ID + fine-tuning doesn't work because the two positions are derived from contradictory premises (ID denies evolution, fine-tuning assumes it). They really work at cross purposes.
quote: This makes no sense. What the anthropic people do is say, "OK, what happens if we change the energy levels for electrons on an atom, how does this effect fusion, star formation, etc." The whole point is to try and see how the properties of matter might change. And we can imagine matterless universes (too hot for matter to condense), etc.
quote: Well, first, water is a compound, not an element, but yes, I assume that none of these elements could serve as a medium for life. The point of bringing up these other molecules is to show that the "key property" that many people identify for water, floating ice, is not unique. I suspect that most properties of water can also be found elsewhere in other compounds. So, an anti-anthropic argument would be: "Look, you've got 100+ elements and millions/billions of compounds that can be formed from them, is it really so amazing that one of these compounds has "the right stuff" for life, especially when the various "special" properties of water can be found elsewhere? Perhaps water is just the one lucky compound out of a large pool of almost-but-not-quites. Just like the Queen of England shouldn't be shocked that she is the Queen, given her large family of potential royals and the billions of nonroyal humans, perhaps water shouldn't be surprised, in any universe with a periodic table with many diverse elements, the resulting compounds would have a lot of different properties, and it wouldn't take much luck at all for one of them to have the right combination."
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RustyShackelford  Inactive Member |
But interventionist ID + fine-tuning doesn't work because the two positions are derived from contradictory premises (ID denies evolution, fine-tuning assumes it). ID doesn't deny evolution, it denies naturalistic evolution.
This makes no sense. What the anthropic people do is say, "OK, what happens if we change the energy levels for electrons on an atom, how does this effect fusion, star formation, etc." The whole point is to try and see how the properties of matter might change. Yeah, but there wouldn't be different TYPES of matter in another universe, as I understand it.......there'd be the same types of matter as here, or no matter at all, or more limited types of matter, but not DIFFERENT matter.......meaning, water would probably be a necessary ingredient for life in any universe.
So, an anti-anthropic argument would be: "Look, you've got 100+ elements and millions/billions of compounds that can be formed from them, is it really so amazing that one of these compounds has "the right stuff" for life No......it's amazing that there's JUST one.......which means we got in just under the wire. It means there were JUST enough elements present and JUST enough potential compounds......and THAT is fine-tuning.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
No......it's amazing that there's JUST one.......which means we got in just under the wire. It means there were JUST enough elements present and JUST enough potential compounds......and THAT is fine-tuning. Tell me, when a guy wins the lottery, do you immediately assume that he cheated, or that God had a direct hand in his winning? Because your argument applies there. Since only one ticket in a million won, clearly he got in under the wire, and the lottery was fine-tuned for him to win.
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RustyShackelford  Inactive Member |
That's fine. People state many things as facts which aren't. This is usually true when trying to pretend knowledge in science, or just wow people with a factoid that is taken out of context. Here are actual facts. Freshwater "marine" life would have had some problems surviving, though that would only be true as one moved into higher latitudes. Lower temperate and tropical climates, or large freshwater bodies, would have provided continuous living conditiond. Why should I believe your single discenting opinion? I need more than just your word, since I've had the word of many others to the contrary. "Atheists are just like theists; they find it highly disturbing when you try to weaken their faith." Myself, a couple minutes ago "I believe in one God,the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets... I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen." The Nicene Creed
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RustyShackelford  Inactive Member |
Tell me, when a guy wins the lottery, do you immediately assume that he cheated, or that God had a direct hand in his winning? If he was the ONLY guy who ever won the lottery? Yes, I would.
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1496 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
If he was the ONLY guy who ever won the lottery? So, the first guy to win the lottery cheated?
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