Do you ever wonder what consciousness is?

Nice article. And from time to time, yes, I do wonder. The article said some things are observable, brain neurons firing, planets orbiting and that’s the easy part. But getting a first person experience is hard. I take that personally as being able to observe right in front of us our own neurons firing, or us becoming that neuron, and being able to analyse on the spot how they are part of what forms into our consciousness.

I’m afraid it’s impossible in our present physical state to really know. It would take some form of another independent higher energy being to explain it to us. Something that would even bother to do it. Who knows, maybe physical human death is just the beginning of some kind of consciousness evolution for us in which we become another form of being with a higher if not complete understanding of how things really are and why.

@mazingerz88
I think it is good to question such things.

“Consciousness” is pure awareness. What we really are.

It’s the awareness of awareness.

The witness of the thoughts, not the thoughts themselves. :-)

@Coloma
True.
That sounds like I think therefor I am. LOL
Technology is able to measure things now and the accuracy will improve.

@philosopher

Yes, except really it should be ” I am therefore I think” lolol

I wonder that, also: “How does matter, arranged in certain complex patterns, become aware of itself?”

@HungryGuy
That is a question Philosophers have asked throughout time. They may have said, it differently.

Now that you come to mention it…yes I do.

@lloydbird
That means you know how to think.
Sadly many people can not think on their own.

I used to.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
Why not now?

Yes, I frequently wonder that. Best guess I have is it is our brain functioning in a way to keep the whole organism alive.

@cockswain
That is logical.

@philosopher “Why not now?”

Because I know what consciousness is.

Doesn’t that seem arrogant to say? I think it sounds arrogant. It’s not meant to be. I’m just stating what I know. And although I may not know exactly what consciousness is, and exactly how it works, or exactly why it arises… my confidence is very high that I understand it enough to satisfy my curiosity. I literally don’t believe it is possible to understand it any better than I do currently. I’ll only be capable of understanding it better when I’m dead.

btw… You said “now”. I don’t believe that a “now” exists.

I disagree. They’re very different.

Black holes are mysterious. Consciousness is mysterious. But they aren’t mysterious in the same ways or for the same reasons. Consciousness is an emergent property that arises from a complex system (brains). We aren’t sure what factors make it happen. We aren’t sure what level of complexity is necessary for consciousness to arise—surely humans and primates have it, probably dogs and cats, but what about fish? Insects? Whatever the answers are to these questions, however, there’s nothing about the existence of consciousness that challenges our fundamental theories about physics or chemistry.

Black holes, on the other hand, are simple systems—arguably the simplest systems possible, since, like particles, they can be fully described with merely their mass, spin, and charge. And we know exactly how black holes arise. We know the Chandrakar limit that describes the “level” of star mass necessary to make a black hole. What we don’t know is how black holes fit into our fundamental theories about physics.

@Qingu ”...there’s nothing about the existence of consciousness that challenges our fundamental theories about physics or chemistry…”

Except how thought can arise from non thinking elements.

Science begs for the biggest miracle of all.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies, computing arises from noncomputing electric charges and silicon. The existence of computing does not challenge anything in physics.

You don’t have all the necessary ingredients for computing to arise. And actually, electric charges and silicon aren’t required. The medium is unimportant. You can compute with an abacus or a sun dial.

Computing requires consciousness… codified thought which describes physical or theoretical phenomenon by way of a measuring standard (which is also created by consciousness)… i.e. thermometer.

Computing is independent of the medium used to compute upon. It can be accomplished with sand flowing through an hourglass.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I’m not going down this rabbit hole with you again. You’ve never wavered from your circular argument that consciousness is magical, because consciousness is magical.

I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe in the supernatural either.

The rabbit hole is dug by those who insist consciousness can be explained by physics and chemistry without one proven mechanism to base the claim upon. The rabbit hole is dug by those who would insist that PhotoShop is reducible to electric charges and silicon.

Just because something is reduceable to its constituent parts doesn’t mean it lacks emergent higher-level properties.

Electrons and quarks do not have color. And yet bulk materials do. Color is something which does not exist on the most fundamental level of physics, but it exists nevertheless.

But it isn’t reducible.

Electricity and Silicon does NOT = PhotoShop

This won’t make sense to anyone who doesn’t see the Information of PhotoShop or Life as being any different than the lack of Information in an atom.

Of course it’s different. It’s a lot more complex. In the sense of a complex system.

The term complexity has numerous meanings… and in the case of a so called complex system, can be apparent in various incarnations.

First, we must note that complexity… is a notion… an idea… a description. Like evolution, complexity isn’t a thing. It is a concept of process.

With a mindful observation… Complexity can exist as either the result of an observation, or a design of intention.

Without a mindful observation… Complexity cannot exist. It’s just cause and effect. The concept of complexity is simply new voodoo math applied to an old standard. Fine fine… that happens all the time. But not because nature changed. The new voodoo math arises because our descriptions change… descriptions which depend upon consciousness.

Thus I cannot accept that consciousness, (or computing) is reducible to a complexity which requires consciousness in order for it even to be conceived.

Termite mounds are complex systems. They existed before there were smart hominids observing them.

It takes a moment to unscramble your words.

“Termite mounds are complex systems”… because we say they are.

“They existed before there were smart hominids observing them.”… but not as complex systems. The Phenomenon existed. But the notions of complexity about them didn’t.

Complexity is an idea from a conscious mind. It is a description. It can’t exist until someone describes it into existence.

Alright, this is what I meant by rabbit holes. If you believe that nothing exists until human beings label it then your philosophy reduces to nihilism and this conversation is pointless.

That’s not what I said. Don’t be so on or off. There is plenty of space in the middle.

I said “The Phenomenon existed”. But complexity is an idea about the phenomenon. That idea can’t arise until a conscious observer authors it into existence.

Why is it significant that something isn’t complex unless a conscious mind labels it such? Just like the sky isn’t called blue until a conscious mind call it that. Not really getting your point.

Complexity is a method of describing observable phenomenon. It isn’t a phenomenon unto itself. And it is extremely relative to the observer who describes it.
You see an empty 5 gallon paint bucket… But I see a step stool. And we can both describe our observations of the same object as having different complex attributes.

Since it is a method of describing, it cannot possibly be responsible for creating anything that describes… that being consciousness.
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As well, there are different types of so called complexity. We should not presume to attribute all events under identical description conditionals.

Look at the elements around you… A desk, a computer, a pen holder, a coffee cup, a radio, a chair. What does it all stand for? What reason do we attribute to the specific arrangement of specific objects which collectively add up to Tom’s Computing?

See, typical discussions of complexity negate distinguishing between Observed/Described complexity (like a solar system) vs Designed/Observed/Described complexity (like Tom’s Computing). @Qingu wants to equate PhotoShop with a Solar System… simply on the merit of them both being a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties… not obvious from the properties of the individual parts. But one is simply observed and described as complex. The other was designed, observed and described as complex.

Since complexity is a subject of mathematics, then we should respect that designation as one of description alone. It is NOT an observable phenomenon. It is a way of describing an observable phenomenon.
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Now somehow the concept of complexity has been hijacked by hard materialists and taken further than what it is capable of describing accurately. It is very easy for one to build a complex description which is so detailed that it seems natural to add the additional false property of emergence… Forget evidence, because we have new math to describe the probability curve of emergence arising from complex systems. That’s why I call it voodoo math. Some would use it to infer the emergence of consciousness when it doesn’t do anything of the sort.

I feel like I get what you’re saying, but I’m not grasping why it’s fascinating or interesting. I’m not saying that to be a dick, it’s just that you seem truly enthralled by this concept, yet it isn’t really clicking for me like that.

I get that complexity is a human construct. Like a tree is just a tree, yet we can analyze the tiniest minutiae of its cellular activity and then it becomes complex in that way, yet it is still a tree whether we study it or not.

Like I said, not clicking yet.

Yes, nicely said @cockswain. I’m glad you understand that complexity is a human construct. It’s almost odd to hear someone else say that.

“We” tend to learn words from science (random mutation, evolution, singularity, information, complexity) and toss them around without ever really understanding what those words stand for. I know this sounds silly, but I feel that we make false idols out of those words, and use them inappropriately to satisfy any argument we want to make. We don’t understand the full implications of tossing them around. We send scientific pursuit off on wild goose chases… chasing ghosts that don’t exist. We begin to believe those words are real things rather than placeholder words to describe unknown inferred data required to make hypothetical theories sound. We literally create false gods out of those words, and even claim them as being responsible for existence… and consciousness.

This is not good for science.

Before you know it, someone claims that consciousness emerges from complexity… and without understanding the full implications of that, an unconscious universe has become conscious, and explains it all with the consciousness that is required for complexity to be conceived in the first place. It forces science to accept the preposterous magic and miracle that it otherwise mocks. It turns science into a circular fools game. And my passion, my “clicking”, is the desire to prevent science from suffering that fate.

Oh. I actually think we’re pretty much in full agreement on this subject if I understand you correctly. I think the way you and @Qingu are defining complexity is unnecessarily causing disagreement. I don’t think he would argue that labeling something as complex is itself a human construct. But I also get his point that the evolution of the brain into a relatively complex organ compared to that of, say, a bug, yet still comprised of the same atoms and quarks of anything else means that those elements can be simple in themselves yet arrange themselves into patterns that can create synergies, the likes of which what we call “consciousness” is simply one of a myriad such synergies. From my point of view, one of the coolest of all.

We’ve come full circle to my first statement to @Qingu.

If you believe that consciousness is ”...patterns that can create synergies…” and they consist of nothing more than ”...the same atoms and quarks of anything else…”, then you have missed my argument altogether. You agree with @Qingu that computing is reducible to electricity and silicon… and so is consciousness.

Yet there is no proof of this. Consciousness has nothing to do with “patterns”. It has to do with code. Code and patterns are polar opposites.

Cognitive Studies uses language tests to determine a patients conscious awareness. Wash U has over 70 different language tests. To the degree that a patient can author, transmit and receive codified messages, that is relative to their consciousness. Don’t jump to conclusions… there are many forms of codified language. But patterns are not a part of the equation.

If consciousness is simple patterns with synergy… then the universe has become conscious… made manifest through us. We are the consciousness of the universe. Yet we have no example of unconscious agents manifesting conscious ones… Why? Because rocks can’t author code. And believing they can, is believing in miracles and folklore of talking trees and whispering streams… burning bushes that speak to Moses. Science becomes a parody of the magic it refutes.

Hmmm. I’ll have to cogitate on this a bit. I have to leave the house. I’ll get back at some point.

An atom is a synergistic pattern of quarks and electrons. Atoms, in turn, combine into molecules in very novel ways. Particularly carbon atoms. You can even call the specific ways atoms interact a “code.”

It’s true that “atom” is a human construct. You can elect to simply talk about quarks and electrons. In fact you can elect to simply talk about the underlying quantum wavefunction of those quarks and electrons. Because the quarks and electrons are, themselves, synergistic patterns of that wavefunction.

But they are patterns nevertheless. And these patterns, in turn, interlock to form new patterns at higher levels.

If you want to stand there and deny that there are any patterns at all, that the patterns are just inventions of a necessarily pre-existing “conscious mind,” this strikes me as pointless solipsism at best, nihilism at worst.

I agree with everything you say @Qingu except:
“You can even call the specific ways atoms interact a “code.”

No… that’s a pattern. Not a code… It can’t be. There is no transmitter, receiver, error correction, redundancy, noise reduction, syntax, symantics, or probability space A being mapped to probability space B. All requirements for a code to exist.

DNA has all of the requirements. That’s why it’s called the genetic code.

English, German, Japanese, Sign, Smoke Signals, Binary, Trinary… all codes because they have the proper requirements.
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We can author a code to describe a pattern… (atom, proton, particle, carbon…), and we can author a code as a pattern with every repeating chorus in a song. But patterns are not codes… and there are many other differences that I haven’t mentioned here.
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Thus, if consciousness is determined by the level of language usage a being can exhibit (bees are less conscious than humans), and patterns of chaos are incapable of codifying thought, then, it follows that consciousness can not be explained by energy and matter alone.

There must be another agent at play… mind.

Have you ever considered that every human made object around you is a physical representation of someone’s thought? Sure, its corporeal elements are energy and matter. But those elements would never have formed to become a DVD Burner unless a codified thought instructed them to.

Same thing with PhotoShop, or Windows 7, or Mac OSX… those are codes which represent the thoughts of others.

It’s like magic… But it’s not. We take raw materials of the universe and with code, we describe our thoughts into existence before the physical manifestation ever arises. The Empire State Building didn’t begin with brick, glass and mortar. It began with a plan… architectural plans. Just like you didn’t begin with cells. You began with a plan… a genetic code which predetermined your existence before you ever existed. Your plan was authored via recombination of mother/father code within hours of conception.

Rocks don’t do that.

When does a pattern become a code? A simple crystal is a pattern. This pattern can seed the creation of a larger crystal. The pattern dictates the accretion of material and its arrangement. There is even an element of “error correction” in crystals as the structure has a tendency to work around topological defects—at least, the structures that end up growing to be recognizable as crystals.

Crystals, then, are on the boundary between simple repeating patterns and “codes” that dictate the creation of patterns.

RNA, by itself, also seems to be on the boundary. It’s a replicating molecule; it can create more of its own kind potentially if exposed to the right environmental constraints. Most scientists think RNA is the predecessor to the more-advanced DNA.

I don’t see where minds come into play here.

Minds come into play because patterns and crystals can’t dictate.

Don’t you see what you’re saying? By claiming that anything from chaos can “dictate”, you’re claiming it can speak and transmit a message to a receiver. That gives scientific credence to talking trees and Moses’ burning bush that told him to kill everybody.

huh? You just described the process by which DNA “dictates” the unfolding of proteins that eventually builds a human being. No mind is required for this process. And there is nothing fundamentally different about this process than the process of a crystal seed “dictating” the accretion of further crystal material in the same pattern.

If “dictate” is too anthropomorphic of a word for your taste, try “determine.” My argument obviously does not rest on the anthropomorphic valence of a word I used.

Nothing from chaos “dictates or determines”. It wouldn’t be chaos if it could. We should not personify chaos.

If there is no fundamental difference between transcription and a crystal seed, then why isn’t it called crystal seed code? It isn’t called that because there are huge differences.

If you’re going to claim that a crystal seed is a code… then please demonstrate:
The Transmitter mechanism.
The Alphabet of the Transmitter.
The Receiver mechanism.
The Receiver Alphabet.
The Syntax, Semantics, and Noise Reduction Protocol.

Codes can be copied exactly. Why can’t Crystals?

Codes always represent something other than themselves. Crystals only represent themselves.

There are very specific reasons why some things are called a code and some things are not.
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Yes, DNA dictates through transcription. It determines a specific outcome before it manifests into physical reality. Crystals don’t dictate or determine anything in advance.

And since we’ve gone here… ALL Codes require Sentient Authors. Anonymous authorship is no reason to claim a code arose by chance. But codes can be written with the capacity to re-author themselves. So DNA doesn’t necessarily need an author for every individual code. But science tells us that an original author is absolutely mandatory.

You don’t understand the concepts you are discussing. The whole point of chaos is that it is both random and deterministic. Though we weren’t even discussing chaos to begin with, so I’m not sure why you brought it up.

You also don’t appear to understand how DNA works. DNA is physical reality. Its pattern determines another, larger, pattern of physical reality. In this it is exactly the same as a seed crystal which determines the pattern of a larger crystal. You don’t need to bring in metaphysics. You certainly don’t need to bring in minds.

As far as all the things you are asserting are the hallmarks of a “code” as opposed to a “pattern,” who cares? I never claimed a seed crystal was a code, I claimed that there is a fuzzy boundary between pattern secretion and code replication. And there is.

Beyond that you are simply repeating your assertion over and over again. “Codes require minds. Therefore anything that is a code must involve a mind.” I am not interested in your proof by repeated assertion, and I am not interested in the solipsism to which your commentary inevitably devolves.

Interesting. So chaos can determine. Combine that with your idea that chaos is responsible for consciousness, and you’ve created the Gawd of Chaos. Nice.

And yes, we were talking about chaos. Though the word wasn’t spoken until recent conversation, that is the mechanism responsible for the phenomenon of complexity by way of cause and effect. What is it that you seem to think I don’t understand here?

@Qingu “DNA is physical reality. Its pattern determines another, larger, pattern of physical reality.”

What pattern does DNA have? Why do you claim that DNA is a pattern when all of biology and genetics claims it as a code? Yockey developed the transcription protocols and specifically states that DNA/RNA is NOT a pattern, a template, or a blueprint.

DNA is a code @Qingu. Find me one scientist that claims otherwise.

Patterns don’t determine anything @Qingu. Answer my questions above before claiming that again. I want to know the communication protocols listed in my last post which would allow patterns to determine anything. Patterns are Fractals… they can’t communicate determination.

@Qingu “You don’t need to bring in metaphysics. You certainly don’t need to bring in minds.”

When discussing consciousness, mind is an appropriate agent to discuss. And I didn’t bring up metaphysics. I simply noted the requirement for code to have a sentient author. You can let your mind run away with that truth statement if you like… but there is no need to. It’s just fact.

@Qingu “As far as all the things you are asserting are the hallmarks of a “code” as opposed to a “pattern,” who cares?”

Anyone who cares about discussing this issue intelligently, should care about the vast chasm separating patterns and codes. I cannot allow them to be conflated as similar in any way. They aren’t.

@Qingu “there is a fuzzy boundary between pattern secretion and code replication”

It may be fuzzy to you. But for anyone who understands the differences between patterns and codes, those agents are clearly different… practically opposites. For the patterns of chaos are the very entropic forces which diminish signal to noise ratios. Patterns from chaos kill communication protocols. They don’t assist them. Just try tuning in your radio on a stormy night, or make a cell phone call during a solar flare. Patterns are the enemy of Codified communication.

The fact that code requires a mind to exist is supportable with the scientific method.

It is testable, repeatable, predictable, and can be falsified as soon as you or anyone else can provide another demonstrable mechanism beside sentient authorship to account for one… just one.

Yes, chaotic processes rule much that is interesting about our universe, including complex systems like storms and evolutionary biology.

I never claimed DNA wasn’t a code.

If you don’t think patterns determine anything, what determines the structure of a large crystal that is grown from a smaller seed crystal?

Minds have nothing to do with DNA transcription. You are asserting that they are, and then assuming they do as the basis of your argument. It’s circular.

And… this is the last I’ll respond, because, like I said, I don’t really want to waste time on your rabbit holes.

Just because you are defining codes and patterns in very specific ways doesn’t mean you can apply everything about your definition to DNA. I get the impression you have developed a very elaborate definition of “code”, so therefore since other scientists call DNA a “code” you are assuming they are all interpreting such a definition the same way as you. I think that’s creating a problem in this discussion.

@cockswain I didn’t invent the definition of code. Purlwitz, Burks and Waterman did. The formal definition of code is “Mapping Omega Probability space A to Omega Probability space B”. That means there must be two distinct alphabets… one for the transmitter and one for the receiver. DNA to RNA (binary to trinary) fulfills that protocol.

DNA was not decided to be a code. DNA WAS DISCOVERED to be a code.

Hubert Yockey mapped the DNA to RNA transcription protocols directly from Claude Shannon’s Mathematica Theory of Communication. DNA is the only thing in nature that fulfills the Shannon Protocols. The first step of which, even before transmitter… the first step is MESSAGE.

If Ice Crystals send messages and receive them, then Ice Crystal can talk. Does anyone really want to admit that Ice Crystals can talk?

I’m not familiar with The Shannon Protocols, but I have worked in biotech for 11 years and am very familiar with DNA-RNA-protein. Knowing what I know about RNA, viruses, and cellular activity, I’m having trouble accepting your premise, “All codes are created by sentient beings,” so therefore can’t just accept the notion that since DNA is a code, it must have been created by a sentient being.

Atoms somehow figured out how to arrange themselves into nucleic acids, then RNA somehow began to self replicate. First simple things like viruses, but eventually became instrumental in the genomes of far more complicated single-celled organisms. These became multi-cellular aggregates, and eventually various cell types, which arranged themselves into various tissues, all in support of keeping an organism alive. The brain is truly astounding.

Why does all this happen? Beats the shit out of me, but I find it fascinating. Since I don’t know any better, I can’t assume anything sentient has written the code since I think the code formed itself.

You can’t accept how codes are written billions of times per day for the past thirty thousand years of human communication? Much longer for animal communication?

But you can accept that code formed itself (the universe speaks), when none of your “somehows” have ever been demonstrated once?

We don’t even realize how we speak on these things… Doesn’t anyone realize that we are personifying chaos? “Atoms somehow figure out…”? Atoms have no mind, brain to figure anything out with.

Abiogenesis is a lie. Would you like me to quote all the abiogenesis proponents that say so? It is impossible, as the late Leslie Ort says “without an informational catalyst”.

The infinite monkey theorum has been soundly refuted. Code cannot arise by chance. In their book, Thermodynamics, Kittle and Kroemer put the probability at 10^183,800… therefore zero.

Not one supportable hypothesis. Not one precedent. Yet people want to believe that code arises by chance. And refuse to accept the only known method proven billions of times per day. What has happened to science?

You know, I said earlier that every genetic code doesn’t need sentient authoring. Remember, initiating codes can be written with the capacity to rewrite themselves ad infinitum. And I’ve never once mentioned anything about a God or Diety. All I said was a sentient author. That could be anything from Space Aliens to Time Travelers or even a life form right here on earth that we are unaware of. I don’t care what people speculate on that. But we must acknowledge what science tells us is the only mechanism for authoring code.

And this is no simple code either. Binary DNA is one thing… But RNA is trinary… extremely advanced. Makes it even more difficult to spring into existence by magic. And now Gariev has discovered it emits sound and light too, which could make it Quintic Logic. We don’t know how to do that. And it’s even more difficult than that… what about the protocols? Did the transmitter and receiver jump into existence by chance as well? Evolution is a use it or lose it game. The syntax, semantics, error correction, redundancy and noise reduction would never have waited around for a code to arise. It just doesn’t ad up that magic or some supernatural miracle could allow for chaos to write a six billion letter sentence that means @cockswain.

I have to be brief again, as I’ve got to leave soon.

I accept codes in the form of language, yes. Words are code to describe something, sure.

All I’m saying with my “somehows” is that “I don’t know.” I truly don’t. I have some educated guesses, but no, I don’t have a supportable hypothesis. And I’m perfectly comfortable admitting that I haven’t solved the secrets of the universe. But I also know this, and don’t take this as an insult: you have’t either. But you have lots of company, because no one has.

I don’t think you can say abiogenesis is a lie. But that’s sort of like me saying God isn’t real too, since I can’t prove it. But unlike not being able to prove God, there is at least an abundance of evidence that suggests abiogenesis could be possible. The concept is built on our understanding of real phenomena. But then yes, a stretch of the imagination occurs. I’m familiar with the idea that “the code couldn’t happen by chance” but I don’t accept that as proven. The other side of that idea is that given the frequency of reactions over billions of years, it only needed to happen once. But I can’t delve too much into that now.

I did think you were implying God wrote the code, but thanks for clarifying. But I’m equally dubious of anything sentient authoring it, particularly Time Travelers.

I don’t know what you mean by RNA is trinary either.

However, you could be right about all this. I’m just very skeptical to believe it without more than the logic of “Codes are written by sentient beings. DNA is a code, and highly unlikely to have arisen out of chance. Therefore, the only logical conclusion from our understanding of codes is that DNA (and by extension life) was written by a sentient being.”

Sorry, I’m sure that’s frustrating when you keep reiterating your point, but I’m unconvinced. And time-permitting, I’ll look more into the assertion that the code couldn’t have occurred by chance. Keep in mind, I’m not saying the entire and complete genetic code sprung into existence in a flash. Rather I believe nucleic acids gradually formed, then combined through a favorable phosphorus reaction, and DNA eventually came along as it was so similar, and they hybridized, then detached and turned out to have affinities for amino acids, and this sort of thing went on for billions of years until things started really humming along.

Hmm, I guess I wasn’t brief. Now I’m late.

@cockswain “I don’t know what you mean by RNA is trinary either.”

RNA has three bases… thus it is a trinary code.

We’ve proven that RNA spontaneously forms.

No mind required.

I don’t know how to make this any clearer. If something spontaneously forms, and spontaneously exhibits behavior that you are calling a “code,” that completely disproves your premise that a mind is required for a code to exist. Either that, or RNA is not truly a code.

And while we haven’t yet filled in all the gaps between RNA and DNA, it’s highly unlikely that a “mind” was involved in the chemical transition between the two.

Could you please point me to a paper that demonstrates spontaneous RNA emergence.

Last I heard, two of the four ribosomes nessesary to hypothetically accomplish that don’t exist in current earth conditions. And one ribosome used to support the theory is a synthetic lab creation. A synthetic ribosome will never suffice as proof.

And if your paper requires a synthetic ribosome… That would require a mind.

RNA has three bases… thus it is a trinary code.

Unfortunately this indicates a lack of basic knowledge about DNA and RNA. Both have four nitrogenous bases. By your definition, that would make them both quaternary codes, if that matters.

Also, a ribosome is a site where protein synthesis occurs. I’m not sure what you mean by two of the four ribosomes don’t exist. It truly makes no sense to me, as ribosomes are just part of our cells, and are all throughout the endoplasmic reticulum (if I recall correctly).

@Qingu I would also very much like to see the proof that RNA has spontaneously arisen, as it would add support to my current beliefs.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides

And we’ve long known that the components of RNA (nucleotides) spontaneously form in nature under certain conditions as well.

Yes they both have four bases. But DNA codes as base pairs, making it binary code.

The codons in mRNA have three nucleotides. The ribosome builds a protein from the instructions transmitted in each codon. Thus, a trinary code.
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As I recall, from the paper A Hypothetical Pathway from RNA to DNA, the author hypothesized that low oxygen early earth conditions may allow certain ribosomes to exist that are not possible in current earth conditions. The admission was purely hypothetical. The author supported the claim upon another synthesized ribosome successfully produced in lab conditions.

I no longer have my Springer subscription, so you’ll have to find that paper on your own.
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Thanks for the link @Qingu. I’ll check it out. It will be interesting to see how they address all the problems with this, such as equilibrium and biochem reaction reversability… not to mention all the math which states it is impossible. But I’ll check it out. Thanks.

Your link presents another experiment which synthesizes building materials. You know this has been done in one form or another as far back as 1953 with Miller Urey.

This does not account for Information Encoding in any way. There is no programming occurring here whatsoever. A pile of bricks does not build a building without programming.

What math states that RNA cannot spontaneously generate?

And we will never know exactly what conditions existed on the early earth. The point of laboratory experiments is not to duplicate unknown early conditions so much as to show possible pathways of chemical abiogenesis.

Re: your second comment: again, you don’t really seem to understand what is being discussed. You are simply repeating your assertion. Let’s review. We know that RNA replicates. We know that the physical pattern of an RNA molecule can function much like a “seed crystal,” determining the physical pattern of a greater structure. Thus we know that an RNA molecule can take on many aspects of what you are calling a “code.” Since it has been shown that RNA molecules form sponatenously under certain conditions, it calls into question your assertion that a mind is required to create a code.

Having the building blocks is one thing. But hoping for an codified structure to arise with a complete informational processing system in place to do anything with it is a completely different scenario.

So take your scrabble board and toss the letters into the sky letting them randomly land. Possibly, there may be a word or two form… But that’s dependent upon a receiver mechanism already being in place to process the information… which requires meaning to have been established a priori.

I’m not going to jump around the web and assemble the math rejections of this possibility.

I’ll give you two sources to go on and you can research from there if you wish.

Infinite Monkey Theorum is an easy one because it already allows for the building blocks (the alphabet). It also assumes that a transmitter system is in place (the typewriters)... so it puts you way ahead of the game when hoping for random code to arise… although it doesn’t account for receiver mechanism and informational processing and all that comes with it.

Even then… with all the initiating conditions satisfied:
”Ignoring punctuation, spacing, and capitalization, a monkey typing letters uniformly at random has a chance of one in 26 of correctly typing the first letter of Hamlet. It has a chance of one in 676 (26 × 26) of typing the first two letters. Because the probability shrinks exponentially, at 20 letters it already has only a chance of one in 2620 = 19,928,148,895,209,409,152,340,197,376 (almost 2 × 1028). In the case of the entire text of Hamlet, the probabilities are so vanishingly small they can barely be conceived in human terms. The text of Hamlet contains approximately 130,000 letters.[note 3] Thus there is a probability of one in 3.4 × 10^183,946 to get the text right at the first trial. The average number of letters that needs to be typed until the text appears is also 3.4 × 10^183,946[note 4], or including punctuation, 4.4 × 10^360,783.[note 5]
Even if the observable universe were filled with monkeys the size of atoms typing from now until the heat death of the universe, their total probability to produce a single instance of Hamlet would still be a great many orders of magnitude less than one in 10^183,800. As Kittel and Kroemer put it, “The probability of Hamlet is therefore zero in any operational sense of an event…”, and the statement that the monkeys must eventually succeed “gives a misleading conclusion about very, very large numbers.” This is from their textbook on thermodynamics, the field whose statistical foundations motivated the first known expositions of typing monkeys.[2]”
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And from this article, you can pursue the individual claims if you wish:

Example 1
Consider this. The odds of winning a state lottery are about 1 chance in ten million. The odds of someone winning the state lottery every single week from age 18 to age 99 is 1 chance in 4.6×10^29,120. Therefore, the odds of winning the state lottery every week consecutively for eighty years is more likely than the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of an amoebae!

A more detailed estimate for spontaneous generation has been made by Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist. Morowitz imagined a broth of living bacteria that was super-heated so that all the complex chemicals were broken down into their basic building blocks. After cooling the mixture, he concluded that the odds of a single bacterium re-assembling by chance is one in 10^100,000,000,000. This number is so large that it would require several thousand books just to write it out. To put this number into perspective, it is more likely that an entire extended family would win the state lottery every week for a million years than for a bacterium to form by chance!

Example 2
In his book, Origins–A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Robert Shapiro gives a very realistic illustration of how one might estimate the odds of the spontaneous generation of life. Shapiro begins by allowing one billion years (5×10^14 minutes) for spontaneous biogenesis. Next he notes that a simple bacterium can make a copy of itself in twenty minutes, but he assumes that the first life was much simpler. So he allows each trial assembly to last one minute, thus providing 5×10^14 trial assemblies in 1 billion years to make a living bacterium. Next he allows the entire ocean to be used as the reaction chamber. If the entire ocean volume on planet earth were divided into reaction flasks the size of a bacterium we would have 10^36 separate reaction flasks. He allows each reaction flask to be filled with all the necessary building blocks of life. Finally, each reaction chamber is allowed to proceed through one-minute trial assemblies for one billion years. The result is that there would be 10^51 tries available in 1 billion years. According to Morowitz we need 10^100,000,000,000 trial assemblies!

Example 3
Here’s another great example of how chance disproves evolution theory. Suppose we have 10 small blank discs. We number them from 1 – 10 and as we do we throw each into a bucket. So in this example, the question is: How many attempts would it take to randomly draw out the discs in order from 1 to 10? Only one disc is randomly selected from the bucket at a time, noted, and tossed back in the bucket. What is the probability of selecting all ten discs in order?

Since each disc has only one number on it, there is one chance in ten (1/10) of selecting it. The probability of selecting the first one followed by the second one is 1/10×1/10 or 1 in 100. To select all 10 in the right order the probability is 1/10×1/10×1/10×1/10×1/10×1/10×1/10×1/10×1/10×1/10 or 1×1010. This means that the discs would be selected in the right order only once in 10 billion attempts. Put another way, ‘chance’ requires 10 billion attempts, on the average, to count from 1 to 10.

Let’s take that example one step further and say there is a bucket with 27 wooden squares inside. Each square has one letter of the alphabet on it and one square is blank. How many attempts would it take to randomly pull letters out one at a time in order to spell the phrase ‘the theory of evolution?’

Each letter of the alphabet plus one space has 1 chance in 27 of being selected. There are 20 letters plus 3 spaces in the phrase ‘the theory of evolution’. Therefore chance will, on the average, spell the given phrase correctly only once in 27^23 outcomes.

This computes to only one success in a mind-boggling 8.3 hundred quadrillion, quadrillion attempts (8.3×10^32). Suppose ‘chance’ uses a machine which removes, records and replaces all the letters randomly at the fantastic speed of one billion per microsecond (one quadrillion per second)! On average the phrase would happen once in 25 billion years. If, as evolutionists would have us believe, the earth has been in existence for approximately 5 billion years, then nature could not even have created even this simple sentence, much less any protein, even at this phenomenal rate of experimentation.

The information on the discs and squares in the examples above represent the genetic information in DNA. DNA is the storehouse of genetics that establishes each organism’s physical characteristics. It wasn’t until 2001 that the Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics jointly presented the true nature and complexity of the digital code inherent in DNA. We now know that the DNA molecule is comprised of chemical bases arranged in approximately 3 billion precise sequences. Even the DNA molecule for the single-celled bacterium, E. coli, contains enough information to fill an entire set of Encyclopedia Britannica.

It would take nature 25 billion years to create the correct sequence of 27 letters. Clearly, it could not have correctly sequenced 3 billion chemicals to make even the simplest life form. So if nature couldn’t create life, Who did?

Regarding the probabilities calculated by Morowitz, Robert Shapiro wrote: “The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle.”

Regarding the origin of life, Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in biology, stated: “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.”

Seriously? You’re using people dumb enough to calculate the odds of spontaneously generating an entire bacterium?

You aren’t paying attention, @RealEyesRealizeRealLies. And I’m seriously done with this now.

I would assume you are finished. Anyone who claims Crick (a Nobel Prize winner) and Shapiro, and Morowitz, and Kittle & Kroemer as dumb people… you must have some might faith in the Gawd of Chaos.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Don’t you think that it is possible a Mind (God, conscious intelligence, etc) could have evolved from an amoral machinelike i-theric grid? Perhaps the i-theric grid was able to organize itself through the power of energy fed chaos? Maybe the amoral machinelike structure of the currently undetectable i-ther (the super small subquantum particles that may be responsible for the accelerated expansion of the universe) was able to develope a gradual dawning conscious awareness of itself in certain sections similar to how artificial neural networks acquire a learning/memory capacity.

This may be possible since the amount of information capacity contained in the universal machinelike structure of the i-theric grid would have a super enormous size (at least 80 billion light years in diameter) and an endless amount of super small subquantum (billions of times smaller than an atom) mesh to process information on this level. This information capacity of the universal i-theric grid would be so enormous along with being fed a perpetual energy source through colliding subquantum particles that may be the cause of the universe expanding (faster than it should be) that different areas of minds could have gradually evolved.

My problem with a disembodied intelligent consciousness always existing is that now we get into the ‘who created the creator’ loop. I think Ron D Pearson (considered a fringe maverick in the scientific world) may be correct on this one with his Big Breed Theory and Exact Classical Mechanics (his replacement theory for Einstein’s Relativity theories). Think about it, if God does exist and is omnipotent why would it need to continue expanding the universe? Maybe Pearson is correct on this one when he says that God is extremely powerful but one thing that God can’t do is to stop the expansion of the universe, since if that happened the external i-theric pressures would drop. If that happened everything that we perceive as matter and even ‘God’ itself would simply fizzle out.

The quantum world is weird and even though it is what all matter, living and nonliving is made up of, that everything on this level behaves as information from a computer rather than real matter with stability. It seems abstract. We are made of the same abstract ‘material’ so we perceive what we can as real. Everything that makes us, well us, is seated in the i-ther of outer space but our consciousness is made to only perceive everything one way (like a check valve) through a brain mind of which everything seems ‘real’ to us. Consciousness on the other hand exists on a much deeper level than the quantum level since only something that has some form of stability such as a growing i-theric ball with a slight net creation rate that operates on the most basic mechanics of all, kinetic energy. This is where I think Penrose went wrong with his quantum consciousness theory. There seems to be no such thing as a ‘quantum consciousness’ since consciousness itself formulated from the subquantum i-theric grid, likely before the matter systems formulated from the Big Bang came into existence. Remember last year when we talked about this before (the i-ther)? Nobody gets into what consciousness really may be like Pearson does :o)

@Paradox25 Don’t you think that it is possible a Mind (God, conscious intelligence, etc) could have evolved from an amoral machinelike i-theric grid?

I’ve never seen evidence that a machine could evolve into an intelligent agent unless programmed to do so from the beginning by another intelligent agent… and even then, we’ve only demonstrated pseudo intelligent machines.

@Paradox25 Perhaps the i-theric grid was able to organize itself through the power of energy fed chaos?

Able to organize itself?... requires intelligence to organize into intelligence? Does not compute.

@Paradox25 Maybe the amoral machinelike structure of the currently undetectable i-ther…was able to develope a gradual dawning conscious awareness of itself in certain sections similar to how artificial neural networks acquire a learning/memory capacity.

Artificial networks wouldn’t do that unless programmed with that capacity by an intelligent agent. I see no reason to cast unreasonable characteristics upon an undetectable agent simply to satisfy a fantasy.

@Paradox25 …the amount of information capacity contained in the universal machinelike structure of the i-theric grid would have a super enormous size…

It takes more than capacity. You also need to demonstrate an encoding/decoding mechanism, transmitter, receiver, alphabet A/B relationship and communication protocols. Sand can act as medium for information representation. But without a programmer, it’s just sand. The capacity is there (the medium). But nothing is encoded.

As well… entropic decay would not lend well to information stability… even if it were encoded.

@Paradox25 This information capacity of the universal i-theric grid would be so enormous along with being fed a perpetual energy source through colliding subquantum particles that may be the cause of the universe expanding (faster than it should be) that different areas of minds could have gradually evolved.

What precedent suggests “different areas of minds could have gradually evolved” out of sheer medium? Information authoring has NEVER been a case of energy and matter alone. Only a mind can account for the creation of information. Energy and matter are just the mediums used to express it.

Remember… “ation” = process. In-form = immaterial-thought in-to material-form.
Information = the process of manifesting immaterial thought in-to material form.

And it doesn’t matter how “enormous” a potential medium is. It can’t represent information unless it is programmed to do so. Thus you require a programmer to initiate the mind. Cart before the horse.

@Paradox25 My problem with a disembodied intelligent consciousness always existing is that now we get into the ‘who created the creator’ loop.

A disembodied intelligent agent HAS NO MATERIAL BODY… and therefor is not subject to the constraints of the material realm… that being… space and time.

That “loop” is accounted for. But the “loop” of mind arising from mindlessness can never be accounted for without fantasy to back it up.

@Paradox25 …if God does exist and is omnipotent why would it need to continue expanding the universe?

Why would anyone claim that as a “need”? It could be simple embellishment.

@Paradox25 God is extremely powerful but one thing that God can’t do is to stop the expansion of the universe, since if that happened the external i-theric pressures would drop. If that happened everything that we perceive as matter and even ‘God’ itself would simply fizzle out.

How does a material universe affect a change upon an immaterial agent? The material wouldn’t affect the immaterial. It would only affect our ability to be aware of the immaterial.

@Paradox25 The quantum world is weird and even though it is what all matter, living and nonliving is made up of, that everything on this level behaves as information from a computer rather than real matter with stability.

I’ll believe that when you demonstrate the code that the quantum world runs on. I can demonstrate the code that a computer runs on. In actuality, the quantum world IS THE ENTROPY which DISABLES information… It doesn’t behave like information… it kills it. If you believe the quantum world represents information, then you must have a code to base that assumption upon. We cannot know of information without a code to represent it. There is no code in the quantum world… or in anything from chaos at all.

@Paradox25 We are made of the same abstract ‘material’ so we perceive what we can as real.

There is more to being “real” than abstract material. The quantum world is the foundation of materialism… that’s all. It accounts for the building blocks… that’s all. But building blocks don’t make a building. Only plans… architectural plans from a mind… can build a building from building blocks.

@Paradox25 Everything that makes us, well us, is seated in the i-ther of outer space…

Humans have a code which makes “us”. Outer space doesn’t have a code.

@Paradox25 …but our consciousness is made to only perceive everything one way (like a check valve) through a brain mind of which everything seems ‘real’ to us.

Then why do I say “rabbit” and my friends in Japan say “usagi”? Why don’t all “consciousness” act the “one way”? Why do I hate anchovies and you love chocolate? If our consciousness perceives everything one way… then why did the movie go by fast for you but it lasted an agonizing eternity for me?

I suggest that our differences are not because consciousness perceives in the same way. I don’t believe that consciousness is dependent upon perception. Consciousness depends upon, and is directly relevant to the degree that any agent can express a description with codified language. The bumble bee is unconscious of the coffee cup because it has no language to describe such a phenomenon with.

@Paradox25 …since consciousness itself formulated from the subquantum i-theric grid, likely before the matter systems formulated from the Big Bang came into existence.

How can you assert this fantasy in the form of a truth statement with absolutely nothing to back it up with?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Outer space doesn’t need to have a code. What do you think makes us ourselves? What do you think gives us our own unique personalities? If consciousness is more than a mere brain function then why can’t it be seated in outer space (I’ll admit speculation but I’m not the only person speculating about this)? Consciousness would be a force itself. Consider magnetic fields, we will never see them but we see their effects.

I’ve also read alot of the information you’ve been posting and it sounds like what the cosmic fingerprints website posts. Am I right? The problem I have with this is that they make good arguments about the complexity of life but then make a major assumption themselves, they skip right down to something like,“the God of the Bible is the only god that mentions a beginning, so it must be the God of the Bible that is responsible for creating life so just except Jesus as your Savior”. The complexities of life are not argued in my post, I just don’t believe that God always existed. Where is the backup for this major assumption?

The author I’m referring to makes a strong argument about what dark energy likely is, about what occured before the Big Bang and many other problems with physics such as his ECM theory attempts to solve, which has never been debunked. His 8 experiments were never attempted yet because of the materialistic prorelativity paradigm in science currently. I don’t see Hugh Ross nor Roger Penrose doing these things as Pearson has. Maybe I’m wrong here but even consciousness had to have a beginning I would think.

Force engages “effect”… as you say.

Mind engages “affect”.

There is a vast chasm between cause/effect and thought/affect.
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You’ll find some similarities between my theories and those put forth by Marshal. But to complain about where he takes it is nothing on me.

How can you defend Pearson on the basis of a “materialistic prorelative paradigm in science”, yet still cling to the notion that an immaterial mind must somehow conform to your materialistic perspective?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I know it is odd. I’m defending both atheism and theism. I still think that the answer to changing the materialistic paradigm in science is more serious research of the ‘paranormal’ (many great scientists past and present already did/are) and by researching the origins of the universe itself. I also think that the answers are in physics as well. I did try to explain what I thought consciousness really is, and I said that I believe it is made up of a subquantum medium. Mind then made matter/matter systems which is made up of quantum waves/particles.

Pearson’s books explain how a disembodied consiousness could have evolved from an amoral machinelike i-theric grid in isolated sections of this grid much better than I can. Apparently the majority of the i-theric structure that (allegedly) makes up the entire universe is amoral with a machinelike intelligence. Conscious awareness of itself only formulated out of isolated sections of this grid. Nobody knows what consciousness really is so there will be nothing but assumptions at this now will there no be? I do agree with you that we’ll understand it better when were ‘dead’, unless atheists are correct. Even if atheists are wrong I doubt that we would become all knowing upon passing on.