CDZ Three unanswered yet interesting questions pertaining to life

[RWS]

And we don't actually know if we exist...

We are actually highly likely to be an AI experiment in a simulator run by folks way more advanced than us... At least that's what I tell the IRS...

 

[Bonzi]

So how old is the earth, according to scientists?

 

[sealybobo]

I;m listening to 1999 right now... RIP!

We're like bacteria in our colon...

We are so great because we can break things down and make new things from it.

But the universe has been doing that for almost 14 billion years... We are definitely not special, and very inferior. We are a part of universal life... If you want to call universal life "god", then that's cool with me.

But god is definitely not an old man in the sky telling us to kill people!

And we don't actually know if we exist...

We are actually highly likely to be an AI experiment in a simulator run by folks way more advanced than us... At least that's what I tell the IRS...

I love it when theists with limited imaginations can't believe or imagine there are universes besides ours. That's insane. What is beyond our universe? Are they saying God can't go there?

 

[RWS]

According to scientists? 3.5 billion years. Give or take a little based on daylight savings adjustments throughout that time...

How old do you think it is? And why?

 

[RWS]

I;m listening to 1999 right now... RIP!

We're like bacteria in our colon...

We are so great because we can break things down and make new things from it.

But the universe has been doing that for almost 14 billion years... We are definitely not special, and very inferior. We are a part of universal life... If you want to call universal life "god", then that's cool with me.

But god is definitely not an old man in the sky telling us to kill people!

And we don't actually know if we exist...

We are actually highly likely to be an AI experiment in a simulator run by folks way more advanced than us... At least that's what I tell the IRS...

I love it when theists with limited imaginations can't believe or imagine there are universes besides ours. That's insane. What is beyond our universe? Are they saying God can't go there?

Why does God need to go there? What is God to you?

 

[RWS]

There could be an infinite amount of universes, outside of our own. What does your definition of "God" have to do with it?

 

[sakinago]

I disagree. I think that it is coming faster than we thought. Hell, 10 years ago, I would have said that a self driving car would not be possible in my lifetime, but they already exist.

I think you mistake intelligence for computation. Our tech has the ability to surpass us in specific tasks using parameters we define for it and acting according to a ruleset that we give it. Our tech has no ability to do anything given no terms to define...it doesn't have an ability (and isn't close to the ability) to seek out information that it wasn't specifically programmed to do or learn new tasks it was never designed for.

A simple example is our basic calculator. Other than maybe a few basic problems we have memorized or can easily compute ourselves (like 3 + 8 or 10 x 21) we, generally, are no match for even this basic tool when it comes to a bit more complex problems (like 18,203 x 4,384). But I don't think anybody is going to say that the basic calculator as being intelligent or being close to intelligent. Similarly, our tech has exponentially grown in its ability to compute...the google search engine is probably one of our greatest examples of being able to take a wide variety of input variables (your search string), run that against its vast database of websites, and generate favorable results. It even has the ability to "learn" what things you tend to search for the most and attempt to generate results closer to what it perceives you are looking for. However, by absolutely no definition would anybody say that the google search engine is intelligent. It is doing a complex computational job and has been programmed to try and personalize itself and generate better results, but the google search engine isn't going to all of a sudden learn to play chess. It isn't going to generate it's own opinion on our current political landscape. It isn't going to reprogram itself in order to become a self-driving car program (like we can change career fields).

We have wondrous computational tech and our tech's ability to do things is growing exponentially. Don't mistake our tech's computational ability, however, for being close to intellect.

I was referring to artificial INTELLIGENCE. Operative word there being intelligence. Big difference between computation and intelligence

Like I said, we aren't even close. If you want to point towards a modern example of something close to self-thinking and intelligent, then please feel free to fill me in. Maybe I've missed something as I don't follow tech as closely as I used to. Just remember that you shouldn't confuse the ability to do complex tasks with intelligence...as it is, in every single case I am aware of, simply a matter of complex computational output versus given inputs.

This is a wildly off topic conversation that started with another wildly off topic post that I made a response to. I don't even know why I'm still discussing it...but we are within reach of creating an AI within the next 15 or so years. Meaning that outside of probably being much smarter than us, we will have a very hard time disproving that it is not as conscious as you or I. The only thing we have over computers currently, is that we can process many multiple things at the same time, while computers still do one thing at a time, but they do it very quickly. What happens when we start to develop quantum computing more? We have already developed it, its capabilities are currently comparable to the touring device, but that will certainly change. Have I made my point clear enough about the disparities between animal vs human intelligence?

Again, I'll point to the fact that you watch too many sci-fi movies. I just pointed out that we have the ability to decide what to learn and the ability to learn things outside our original scope or purpose (you can go from being a farmer to being in business administration to being a police officer...you have the ability to do whatever you want, whereas a computer has ZERO ability to change its original programming or design intent). You speak about quantum computing like it is a reality...news flash...it isn't, it's only being researched there are zero quantum systems up and running in the market, so you don't know what it will bring if anything when it does arrive. Also, the fact that you believe that we would create an AI that would be more intelligent than us (at least at the beginning) rather than something more similar to a small child or basic beast is absurd and kinda speaks to the fact that you are putting yourself in some sort of hyper-realistic world that we don't currently live in. This isn't the Matrix, this is real life. If you were to say that we were a minimum of 50-100 years out from true AI then I could accept that as at least an optimistic assessment rather than an unrealistic one. I mean we have been dreaming of flying cars since the 50's doesn't make it any more real. There are complex issues we aren't even beginning to understand when it comes to constructing an AI.

As far as your OP, I've already given my answer...random chance. Attempting to assign reason or meaning when we currently have no evidence to support such theories may be popular (I mean Zeus worked for explaining and giving reason to lightening for hundreds of years) but that doesn't make it any more true.

What you are describing is computation. We have that now. Artificial intelligence is a whole different level that goes past simple programming within certain parameters. And if it just mere sci-fi material, than why is there a huge global race to be the first to create it?

Secondly just because you cannot buy a quantum computer on the market does not mean it doesn't exist. I can't buy a self driving car on the market, not yet at least.

 

[RWS]

What if there was a different "God" for every universe?

Wouldn't that kinda like suck?

Would beg the infinite question of "who's God is better?"...

And that's the ridiculousness that we face here, as bacteria in the colon of our universe...

 

[Bonzi]

In a nutshell, what is the process? How does life form?
The short answer is we don't really know how life originated on this planet. There have been a variety of experiments that tell us some possible roads, but we remain in substantial ignorance.

(Andy Knoll - Andrew Herbert Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History and a Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University)

 

[sealybobo]

I;m listening to 1999 right now... RIP!

We're like bacteria in our colon...

We are so great because we can break things down and make new things from it.

But the universe has been doing that for almost 14 billion years... We are definitely not special, and very inferior. We are a part of universal life... If you want to call universal life "god", then that's cool with me.

But god is definitely not an old man in the sky telling us to kill people!

And we don't actually know if we exist...

We are actually highly likely to be an AI experiment in a simulator run by folks way more advanced than us... At least that's what I tell the IRS...

I love it when theists with limited imaginations can't believe or imagine there are universes besides ours. That's insane. What is beyond our universe? Are they saying God can't go there?

Why does God need to go there? What is God to you?

1. So now you need to know why God needs to go there before you understand there exists?
2. Why? To visit other universes. After a while we bore him.
3. My goal is to help you grasp the words infinite and eternal.
4. I don't believe a God exists but if I did I wouldn't try to put him in a box. Our universe is just one of many. Infinite in fact.

If time and space can't be infinite why can God?

 

[Bonzi]

I;m listening to 1999 right now... RIP!

We're like bacteria in our colon...

We are so great because we can break things down and make new things from it.

But the universe has been doing that for almost 14 billion years... We are definitely not special, and very inferior. We are a part of universal life... If you want to call universal life "god", then that's cool with me.

But god is definitely not an old man in the sky telling us to kill people!

That is for sure (your last sentence). If you believe in God, he is incapable of being wrong. He's perfect.

 

[Bonzi]

Also, if you believe in God and he is perfect and all knowing, you have to acknowledge that you will NEVER understand His ways..... how can you possibly know or understand a Being that knows and understands EVERYTHING?

 

[sealybobo]

In a nutshell, what is the process? How does life form?
The short answer is we don't really know how life originated on this planet. There have been a variety of experiments that tell us some possible roads, but we remain in substantial ignorance.

(Andy Knoll - Andrew Herbert Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History and a Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University)

At least you are asking the question rather than accepting the creation story. I'm giving you a winner for that

 

[sakinago]

I get this might not necassarily belong in CDZ, but since I can't stand any of the other forums, this is where I'm posting it. I hope that this becomes a fun conversation

First question: How did chemicals from lifeless reactions, turn into life?

Second: How did the early simple, single cell prokaryotic forms of life that had reached their available energy threshold, jumped to a higher energy threshold and turn into a eukaryotic form. A much more complex cell, that becomes the building block for complex life.

Finally: How did the jump happen from standard animal intelligence to human consciousness? Sure there are some smart animals out there, but they do not hold a candle to human intelligence.

Out of curiosity, why have you even posed the questions you have, as you have posed them, for discussion in this venue? I'm asking that question because the best answers to your questions are found in published documents easily Googled. For example, below is a graphic and high level depiction of the most current answer for your first question:



(click the image to access the article from which it comes)

Asking the "peanut gallery" here is only going to incite puerile "debate" among folks who by and large haven't a clue about the chemistry, the scientific method, the full theory of evolution, or deductive and inductive reasoning. Nobody here is going to objectively address the merit (or gaps) in the science that attempts to answer your questions; they're just going to tell you what they think, as if that has a damn thing to do with what the actual causes and processes were/are.

The answer to your second question is also easily Googled. Ditto the answers to the third question you asked. You can even use Google Scholar to get even better and more detailed explanations.

So, yes, I agree with you that this, as you've presented it, isn't even a topic for debate outside of highly skilled/trained scientific communities where the members will delve in great detail into the research methodologies applied by the various proposers of critically objective researchers into the several approaches that have been proposed.

I asked these questions for a couple of reasons. One being that they are the questions that really don't have solid answers too, yes there are some good new theories out there, but so was chemical evolution, the version that was very popular for about 80 or so years (and they taught that for about 10 years after it wasn't looking like that was the case). Honestly I think they're good questions to ponder about, the fact that there is more than we started out as bacteria and turned into what we are now. These are the questions that the greatest evolutionary biologist scratch their head about. Just like physicist still scratch their head about dark energy, it's there but what makes it there. And I also wanted to see people's reactions to these questions. See how deep they think

Look at how quickly we turned wolves into dogs. Imagine what nature can do in a million years.

What is the theory on how our intelligence came to be? I heard if we disappeared there wouldnt be another animal that would eventually evolve to build cars. Why is that? Why was our intelligence a fluke?

I haven't heard that, but it wouldn't suprise me. Nor do I know the answer to your question It is one of the punctuated jumps we still scratch our heads about.

 

[sealybobo]

What if there was a different "God" for every universe?

Wouldn't that kinda like suck?

Would beg the infinite question of "who's God is better?"...

And that's the ridiculousness that we face here, as bacteria in the colon of our universe...

In all the other universes their gods communicate with their subjects. They don't have a jealous God. And they don't have a hell.

We have a bad God. Not even an average one

 

[RWS]

In a nutshell, what is the process? How does life form?
The short answer is we don't really know how life originated on this planet. There have been a variety of experiments that tell us some possible roads, but we remain in substantial ignorance.

(Andy Knoll - Andrew Herbert Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History and a Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University)

I agree. But once we can create a self-replicating amino acid in a test tube... will that make us god? Or just show that it can happen based on chaotic theory? Or that there is a universal god, and that UG made that combination available to its universe? Remember, we may just be a simulation. Either way, I can't wait until we finally create it. We're really close....

 

[RWS]

What if there was a different "God" for every universe?

Wouldn't that kinda like suck?

Would beg the infinite question of "who's God is better?"...

And that's the ridiculousness that we face here, as bacteria in the colon of our universe...

In all the other universes their gods communicate with their subjects. They don't have a jealous God. And they don't have a hell.

We have a bad God. Not even an average one

I can agree with that... Because if there is a god in this universe, it is certainly not something looking out for our best interests as humans!

Hi five!!!

 

[Bonzi]

You are basing that on what YOU think is in our best interests...

Remember, God is perfect, and His ways are not our ways.
There is no "universal human" ideal of what is in our best interests.....

Flawed !!!

 

[sealybobo]

Also, if you believe in God and he is perfect and all knowing, you have to acknowledge that you will NEVER understand His ways..... how can you possibly know or understand a Being that knows and understands EVERYTHING?

Man says, "in the beginning there was man."

What was God doing before then?

Maybe there is no beginning and no end. In fact there isn't. But it's interesting humans can grasp easier that an imaginary creator is eternal and not the cosmos/space/time

 

[sealybobo]

You are basing that on what YOU think is in our best interests...

Remember, God is perfect, and His ways are not our ways.
There is no "universal human" ideal of what is in our best interests.....

Flawed !!!

You should have said "remember, if the God I believe in exists, he is perfect". Because you didn't your post was fatally flawed.

And I can tell you a perfect God wouldn't have cancer murderers and Alzheimer's in his universe. So not a chance this God is perfect.

Define perfect.