Philosophy Discussion Forums

The universe is governed by rules/forces that direct matter is specific ways to become organized systems. For example: The strong interaction or strong force binds quarks together to from protons and neutrons. On a larger scale the strong force binds protons and neutrons to form the nuclei of atoms. The electromagnetic force places electrons in orbit around the nuclei, which leads to the formation of an atom.

Every single system of matter we observe in nature is an inevitable consequence of the governing rules/forces. Atoms, molecules, elements, amino acids, proteins, stars, planets, moons, black holes, etc. Why then, should life, the most intricate and complex system of matter, which is constituted of of these smaller systems of matter named above, be any different?

As a matter of abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation), the conclusion life is an inevitable consequence of governing rules/forces, is the best one to arrive at. Agree or not?

revo74 wrote: ↑February 7th, 2020, 5:56 pm The universe is governed by rules/forces that direct matter is specific ways to become organized systems. For example: The strong interaction or strong force binds quarks together to from protons and neutrons. On a larger scale the strong force binds protons and neutrons to form the nuclei of atoms. The electromagnetic force places electrons in orbit around the nuclei, which leads to the formation of an atom.

Every single system of matter we observe in nature is an inevitable consequence of the governing rules/forces. Atoms, molecules, elements, amino acids, proteins, stars, planets, moons, black holes, etc. Why then, should life, the most intricate and complex system of matter, which is constituted of of these smaller systems of matter named above, be any different?

As a matter of abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation), the conclusion life is an inevitable consequence of governing rules/forces, is the best one to arrive at. Agree or not?

Welcome to the forum.

"The universe is governed …" -- that be a stretch. We don't know if it is governed or not. It may just behave any way that it wants. It is a human hypothesis that it is "governed."

" ... rules/forces that direct matter is specific ways … " we only know of gravity and nuclear fusion, and that's a very short list.

" … to become organized systems." We have observed these to be galaxies, star clusters, and solar systems. That also be a short list. There is actually very little that we humans know about the Cosmos.

"For example: The strong interaction or strong force binds quarks together to from protons and neutrons." This is merely human theory crap. You must not assume that this crap is for real.

As a matter of ... inference to the best explanation … the conclusion life is an inevitable consequence of governing rules/forces, is the best one to arrive at. Agree or not?" These are indeed inferences via inductive reasoning. We do not "know" them we only "suspect."

All trains of thought ultimately lead back to Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, and Aquinas. Creation seems to be a result, NOT a cause.

You are ass-u-me-ing it to be a cause.

Fallacy.

In order to avoid posts that continue to grow in size I will just respond to your first two points for now.

h_k_s wrote: ↑February 7th, 2020, 10:35 pm "The universe is governed …" -- that be a stretch. We don't know if it is governed or not. It may just behave any way that it wants. It is a human hypothesis that it is "governed."

When I say governed, I mean that there are natural laws that govern various aspects of the universe. With our contemporary technology we are only able to observe and describe what we see. We give labels to phenomena we observe, such as the force of gravity and the strong interaction/force. However, we don't know what these things are fundamentally. With that said, these phenomena do govern the universe in a regular, reliable, measurable manner. Do you object to this. If so, please elaborate.

" ... rules/forces that direct matter is specific ways … " we only know of gravity and nuclear fusion, and that's a very short list.

There are 4 fundamental forces. Then what about things like the speed of light in a vacuum? Embedded in space-time in some mysterious force that is controlling the speed of light, if not photons would vary in speed, would they not. Fractals, like the Mandelbrot set would be another governing rule. Once again, there is some mysterious rule/force that causes matter to take of specific forms. Please elaborate if you disagree. Thanks!

revo74 wrote:Every single system of matter we observe in nature is an inevitable consequence of the governing rules/forces. Atoms, molecules, elements, amino acids, proteins, stars, planets, moons, black holes, etc. Why then, should life, the most intricate and complex system of matter, which is constituted of of these smaller systems of matter named above, be any different?

What do you mean by the word "inevitable" here? Are you saying that the particular arrangements of matter that we observe in the Universe (including those that constitute living things) are the only arrangements that could ever have been possible, given what you refer to as the "governing rules/forces"? If so, are you essentially talking about determinism?

Quite possibly life is inevitable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElMqwgkXguw

The lecture is over an hour, so for the tl:dl's, at 37:20 he gets right down to it. I don't think any meta explanation from me will help, other than to say that life is perhaps necessarily brought about by the chemistry of vulcanism in water.

Essentially, biology and vulcanism are stages of the same phenomenon.

I'm not a realist on physical laws. There aren't literally abstract real things that matter obeys. However, there are regularities, and we fashion those into laws re how we think about the world. Life definitely is part of how matter regularly behaves under certain conditions, so it would be very improbable for it to only happen in one instance. It could be relatively rare, though, because it seems to require a number of specific conditions that seem to be relatively rare in conjunction with each other. However, we might find that life occurs under a much wider variety of conditions than we assumed.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑February 8th, 2020, 4:57 am

revo74 wrote:Every single system of matter we observe in nature is an inevitable consequence of the governing rules/forces. Atoms, molecules, elements, amino acids, proteins, stars, planets, moons, black holes, etc. Why then, should life, the most intricate and complex system of matter, which is constituted of of these smaller systems of matter named above, be any different?

What do you mean by the word "inevitable" here? Are you saying that the particular arrangements of matter that we observe in the Universe (including those that constitute living things) are the only arrangements that could ever have been possible, given what you refer to as the "governing rules/forces"? If so, are you essentially talking about determinism?

I am not claiming every single aspect of the universe is deterministic. Atoms are an inevitable outcome because of the strong force and electromagnetism. Every single system of matter that we have observed for which we do know what causes them to form, is an inevitable result of governing rules/forces that seem to be embedded into the fabric of space-time. Fundamentally, we don't know what these rules/forces are. We can only describe their effects upon matter/energy using mathematics. Why then should we not also conclude via abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation) that life also in an inevitable consequence of governing rules/forces?

Greta wrote: ↑February 8th, 2020, 6:59 am

The lecture is over an hour, so for the tl:dl's, at 37:20 he gets right down to it. I don't think any meta explanation from me will help, other than to say that life is perhaps necessarily brought about by the chemistry of vulcanism in water.

Essentially, biology and vulcanism are stages of the same phenomenon.

I have never heard of Dr. Smith; I will check out that link when I get a chance. Here is an article I found mentioning him: https://www.nature(dot)com/news/2006/061113/full/061113-9.html

There is also a physicist named Robert England who put forth a theory: https://www(dot)iflscience(dot)com/physics/life-inevitable-consequence-physics/all/

revo74 wrote: ↑February 8th, 2020, 12:11 pm

Greta wrote: ↑February 8th, 2020, 6:59 am

The lecture is over an hour, so for the tl:dl's, at 37:20 he gets right down to it. I don't think any meta explanation from me will help, other than to say that life is perhaps necessarily brought about by the chemistry of vulcanism in water.

Essentially, biology and vulcanism are stages of the same phenomenon.

I have never heard of Dr. Smith; I will check out that link when I get a chance. Here is an article I found mentioning him: https://www.nature(dot)com/news/2006/061113/full/061113-9.html

There is also a physicist named Robert England who put forth a theory: https://www(dot)iflscience(dot)com/physics/life-inevitable-consequence-physics/all/

Nice. Further, as galaxies, stars, planets and life order and maintain themselves, they accelerate the entropic processes around them.

As a matter of abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation), the conclusion life is an inevitable consequence of governing rules/forces, is the best one to arrive at. Agree or not?

Hello fellow newbie.

The natural "laws" are as they are and we have life, therefore, deterministically speaking I suppose life is/was inevitable as is the current state of the universe generally.

However, I don't think it significant that the laws facilitate life for two reasons:

We can only have a discussion like this in a universe where the laws facilitate life.(Anthropic principle....I think )

It also reminds me of the analogy where any well shuffled deck of cards will result in a particular order, and the chances of that particular arrangement occurring are - a very big number :1. - in other words, hugely improbable but totally unremarkable.
Similarly, in which ever way the universe developed it would have been hugely improbable. This univese is hugely improbable and supports life but I do not think the two are necessarily connected.

Life is not inevitable. The universe tends towards entropy. However, in particular locales of the universe (earth being one of them) there is a net energy increase. While energy dissipation leads to what we would refer to as deterioration of structure, or "chaos", a net surplus of energy leads an increase in structural complexity.

As a matter of probability in the universe, we could say that life is inevitable, in that there are enough locales with energy surpluses to give rise to the complexity that is life. If you would consider it "inevitable" to win the lottery if you bought 500 million tickets (random draws) and the odds were 500 million to one, then I the same sense you might consider that it would be inevitable for life to occur in the universe.

Prof Bulani wrote: ↑February 8th, 2020, 9:11 pmLife is not inevitable.

... As a matter of probability in the universe, we could say that life is inevitable, in that there are enough locales with energy surpluses to give rise to the complexity that is life.

So life IS inevitable. Just because something is scarce, does not mean it was a fluke.

The fact is that the universe is so large that just about any conceivable (and no doubt many not-yet-conceivable) conditions can potentially arise on different worlds. Given that, at least once, biology emerged from simpler organics to more efficiently break down charged material, and that water and organics are plentiful in the universe, the premise can only logically be answered in the affirmative.

This is not only a problem of the laws of physics, it's a problem of the topology as well as the algebraic topological constants of the universe. It's perhaps even a problem of number theory and function theory. The laws of physics induce that life is possible, that life is inevitable could depend on the homology group of the topology of the universe. It's perhaps the special structure of the universe that induces that life is inevitable, physics although the descriptive theory of the universe doesn't imply that life is inevitable, it's just possible. If a manifold or something similar has a certain topology on which the equations and laws are given this could mean even that life is inevitable.

Greta wrote: ↑February 9th, 2020, 12:27 am

Prof Bulani wrote: ↑February 8th, 2020, 9:11 pmLife is not inevitable.

... As a matter of probability in the universe, we could say that life is inevitable, in that there are enough locales with energy surpluses to give rise to the complexity that is life.

So life IS inevitable. Just because something is scarce, does not mean it was a fluke.

The fact is that the universe is so large that just about any conceivable (and no doubt many not-yet-conceivable) conditions can potentially arise on different worlds. Given that, at least once, biology emerged from simpler organics to more efficiently break down charged material, and that water and organics are plentiful in the universe, the premise can only logically be answered in the affirmative.

No. Even if you bought 1 trillion random lottery tickets and the odds of winning was 1 billion to one, it would still be possible to NOT win the lottery, i.e., winning is never inevitable. The more lottery tickets you buy, the closer your probability of winning approaches to 1, but it never gets there unless you can buy either an infinite number of random lottery tickets, or you deliberately (a guided approach) buy at least one of every possible combination. As long as the tickets are being generated randomly, the possibility will always exist that the winning combination is not one of your tickets.

We can argue that the lottery analogy might be inaccurate, and that life can occur under a range of general conditions rather than only under one combination of exact combinations. And this is likely the case. Still, we have to understand that all these conditions are randomly generated. It will always be within the realm of possibility that the right general conditions for life occurred however in the universe. That's why I would argue that life is not inevitable. Just most likely very highly probable.

Prof Bulani wrote: ↑February 9th, 2020, 7:03 am

Greta wrote: ↑February 9th, 2020, 12:27 am
So life IS inevitable. Just because something is scarce, does not mean it was a fluke.

The fact is that the universe is so large that just about any conceivable (and no doubt many not-yet-conceivable) conditions can potentially arise on different worlds. Given that, at least once, biology emerged from simpler organics to more efficiently break down charged material, and that water and organics are plentiful in the universe, the premise can only logically be answered in the affirmative.

No. Even if you bought 1 trillion random lottery tickets and the odds of winning was 1 billion to one, it would still be possible to NOT win the lottery, i.e., winning is never inevitable. The more lottery tickets you buy, the closer your probability of winning approaches to 1, but it never gets there unless you can buy either an infinite number of random lottery tickets, or you deliberately (a guided approach) buy at least one of every possible combination. As long as the tickets are being generated randomly, the possibility will always exist that the winning combination is not one of your tickets.

We can argue that the lottery analogy might be inaccurate, and that life can occur under a range of general conditions rather than only under one combination of exact combinations. And this is likely the case. Still, we have to understand that all these conditions are randomly generated. It will always be within the realm of possibility that the right general conditions for life occurred however in the universe. That's why I would argue that life is not inevitable. Just most likely very highly probable.

But, do we have any basis for saying there is a chance, a billion to one or otherwise, for life to begin where there is no life? We may know the environment that can support the life forms we have encountered, but do we know the process by which inert matter can become alive? Aren't we just assuming that there must have been or could have been a 'happy accident', here or elsewhere?