How did the first life forms evolve? Have you heard of prion-based diseases, like CJD? They happen when a protein that is supposed to fold a certain way misfolds and ends up in a different shape. What's more is that this mis-shapen protein then acts as a catalyst to convert the properly-shaped proteins into ones like itself. It's a self-replicating protein, though one that relies on very specific environment.
While the first life--if you can call it that--looked nothing like our prions, the principle is similar. It was a protein that converted molecules found in its environment into more copies of itself. The first one was probably very bad at self replication and could only achieve it under very specific circumstances. But as long as the protein lived long enough to make more copies of itself, the reaction sustained itself. Over time different versions of the protein emerged, ones that were more successful at self-replication, or ones that took competing replicators (which were now plentiful in the environment) and made them into copies of itself.
Anyway, this post is getting too long, so I'll cut it short. These replicators started incorporating RNA into their structure and another layer was created, using RNA to store the genetic code and enzymes to make proteins out of RNA. As these primordial life forms consumed each other they evolved defenses like cell walls to keep the environment out and to protect themselves from predation. Likewise, other replicators developed ways of attacking and getting through these basic defenses.
But RNA is not a good storage medium as it mutates easily. Eventually DNA evolved and that's the life we have today. It's all DNA-based.
There is nothing magical about life. It's the consequence of the second law of thermodynamics. The universe is going from a more ordered to a more disordered state, with life being one tool to achieve that, a catalyst. In that broad sense it's the same process that happens in stars where hydrogen is fused into helium, or when burning a piece of wood. In the case of stars the star itself is the catalyst. The temperature and pressure inside a star is what allows fusion to take place. It unlocks potential energy of hydrogen atoms and releases it as heat. Again we go from a low entropy state to a high entropy state. Or when burning a piece of wood, fire acts as a catalyst to rapidly oxidize the carbon molecules, releasing thermal energy in the process. Again, low entropy to high entropy.
When life does it there are more steps involved, but it's still a process by which the universe goes from lower entropy to higher entropy, with life acting as a catalyst. All life forms are machines designed to extract useful energy in its environment to make copies of itself, and in the process increasing the entropy of the universe.
So you're baselessly asserting that order comes from chaos. When it is actually always order replicating itself despite the constant affects of entropy (chaos). For instance, a child does not randomly spawn from the centre of a cabbage, that was randomly manifested out of shit from a horse.
Try not to get bogged down in explaining the full details and mechanics of proteins or prions, because that still doesn't address the main point that I have an issue with. You can't seem to focus on the gap between nonexistence and existence, even if you assert it was a gradual process, there still must be a point where something 'manifested' to act in a certain way that then led to the next increment, which eventually, apparently, led to the manifestation of the most complex code we know. Do you understand what my issue is? So take the spastic prion, what caused it to manifest and what gave it the instruction to start "bending" itself?
In fact, the last two questions, you don't seem to understand but I'm not even sure how I could communicate them adequately. Magic doesn't come into it, something is 'magical' when you don't understand the mechanism behind it, our technology would seem magical to our earlier ancestors.
If the laws of physics or all the laws that determine our physical reality, were random, they wouldn't have any definition or order to them, by saying they came about randomly from nothing, you are asserting an impossibility. When your entire worldview is underlined by this, that opens the door to accepting a lot of crazy shit, just as much as being superstitious does.
You're making two points:
- Life as order coming from chaos
- Life as something coming from nothing
For the first one, it's fine for order to come from chaos if we're just moving order from one place to another. Think of it like having two boxes, one with order, and another with chaos. If we swap the contents of the two boxes, if we look at the box that had chaos it will look like order came from chaos. With more rigor: It's true that the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy can't decrease. But this is true only for a closed system. If the system is not closed, such as Earth receiving sunlight from the sun, there is no problem with entropy decreasing.
For the second one, you're making an artificial distinction between alive and not alive, as if there is some hard barrier between the two. All matter obeys the same laws of physics whether it's part of a living organism or not. Under the right conditions, such as the primordial soup of early Earth, these laws of physics lead to molecules forming that can make copies of themselves, and which though (imperfect) replication eventually evolve into humans. The early self-replicating life forms are not around today and can't come about in our environment because every niche on the planet is teeming with life, from the smallest bacteria to the largest mammal. The primordial soup can't exist as it would be gobbled up by life forms that are already here.
As for laws of physics being random, I don't know where you're getting that from. I certainly made no claims about where the laws of physics come from. Saying they are random doesn't make sense. How do you pick a random number between 1 and infinity? It's nonsensical. And even if you could somehow make the concept rigorous, there is a degree of self-selection happening. If the universe had physical laws such that life was not possible, we wouldn't be here to ask the question.
"You're making two points: Life as order coming from chaos Life as something coming from nothing"
I'm guessing you have no answer to this- "So take the spastic prion, what caused it to manifest and what gave it the instruction to start "bending" itself?"
"For the first one, it's fine for order to come from chaos if we're just moving order from one place to another. Think of it like having two boxes, one with order, and another with chaos. If we swap the contents of the two boxes, if we look at the box that had chaos it will look like order came from chaos. With more rigor: It's true that the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy can't decrease. But this is true only for a closed system. If the system is not closed, such as Earth receiving sunlight from the sun, there is no problem with entropy decreasing."
Sorry, but this isn't convincing at all. If you think order and chaos are amorphous and interchangeable then I don't know what to tell you, honestly. One is literally the absence of the other, just like darkness is absence of light.
"For the second one, you're making an artificial distinction between alive and not alive, as if there is some hard barrier between the two. All matter obeys the same laws of physics whether it's part of a living organism or not. Under the right conditions, such as the primordial soup of early Earth, these laws of physics lead to molecules forming that can make copies of themselves, and which though (imperfect) replication eventually evolve into humans. The early self-replicating life forms are not around today and can't come about in our environment because every niche on the planet is teeming with life, from the smallest bacteria to the largest mammal. The primordial soup can't exist as it would be gobbled up by life forms that are already here."
That is a massive cop out. There is nothing to say to anyone that asserts there is no distinction between alive and not alive.
"As for laws of physics being random, I don't know where you're getting that from."
If everything else originated randomly from nothing, it can only be random. There is nothing it can come from in Atheism, that is the point of being an Atheist.
"How do you pick a random number between 1 and infinity?"
I have no idea what you're trying to say here, this is nonsensical. Are you saying that it's nonsensical to pick a number? Or are you saying that because numbers are ultimately indefinite they are inherently chaotic?
"If the universe had physical laws such that life was not possible"
Why wouldn't it be possible? There are rules that dictate what makes life is possible, and they are apart of the whole picture that I'm talking about, although I am open to suggestions on what to call such things. You are saying "Well, that can't be anything other than it is because that would mean 'X'" But why would it mean X? Because of the rules within the physical world, the ones I am saying you are saying must be random.
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