Earth and biological matter

[Quest of knowledge]

I would like to know your thoughts and opinions on how the biological system came to exist on Earth and its possible existence in other star systems.

[Shinylight]

Do you mean life?

[Quest of knowledge]

Do you mean life?

I suppose you could call it life, but that presumes that the rest of the non-biological system is inert. I postulate that what humans identify as the Universe is not all there is, but rather all that our senses can comprehend at present, and that the Universe itself is alive.

That is the reason I specifically narrowed the discussion to the biological system.

[Minimalist]

and that the Universe itself is alive.

In what sense?

[Welsh cake]

A biological system is the group of organs that work together to perform a certain task.

A group of systems such as the circulatory system, nervous system and so on makes up an organism. The human body is one such example of an organism.

This can't be what you've come here to debate surely? Do you mean the Biosphere instead?

[Paul the Human]

I postulate that what humans identify as the Universe is not all there is, but rather all that our senses can comprehend at present, and that the Universe itself is alive.

That sounds familiar. Are you saying that you believe that the entire universe is the manifestation of a single conscious being? Everything is a manifestation of god?

[LastPoet]

We don't know! The universe may be like a buble that forms when the water is boiling, but we are trying to understand. As Carl Sagan said, we are star stuff, we are part of the universe, trying to understand itself. It may be the case that in the whole of matters humanity, the earth, even the milky way will fade in a rounding approximation. But still, we exist, we are able to grasp that, that we exist, and we strive to know more. Is the universe intelligent? There is no proof of that, despite alot of people tried to prove so. Other beings may develop, if you take the vastness of possibilities in planet formations, chemical reactions, etc. But, to communicate or travel here, they would have to be terribly advanced. The answer is that I don't know, and I am not afraid of it, I am courious.

[Quest of knowledge]

We don't know! The universe may be like a buble that forms when the water is boiling, but we are trying to understand. As Carl Sagan said, we are star stuff, we are part of the universe, trying to understand itself. It may be the case that in the whole of matters humanity, the earth, even the milky way will fade in a rounding approximation. But still, we exist, we are able to grasp that, that we exist, and we strive to know more. Is the universe intelligent? There is no proof of that, despite alot of people tried to prove so. Other beings may develop, if you take the vastness of possibilities in planet formations, chemical reactions, etc. But, to communicate or travel here, they would have to be terribly advanced. The answer is that I don't know, and I am not afraid of it, I am courious.

I share with you the knowledge that I don’t know and my feelings of curiosity and lack of fear of the unknown.

I like your train of thought in describing the universe as possibly akin to a bubble in boiling water. I thought of it as something akin a sneeze, eruption, or some other explosive short release. That would be in line with the idea of an expanding universe. I don’t think the universe has any more awareness of us than my liver has of the atoms that form it. I think our current senses would not allow us to conduct any form of empirical analysis to that effect, but perhaps one day before we become extinct, we might.

[Welsh cake]

I don’t think the universe has any more awareness of us than my liver has of the atoms that form it. I think our current senses would not allow us to conduct any form of empirical analysis to that effect, but perhaps one day before we become extinct, we might.

Sorry, but no, that assertion that we cannot conduct any research given our senses is far from the truth. We do have a whole array of evidence of the phenomena in question, we can use celestial mechanics to work out structures and dynamics of the universe through equations and there's this whole scientific study called "Cosmology" we've only been working on for thousands of years.

That's not how the scientific method works, we don't build up an understanding or knowledge base in one field of study, like for example human biology, only then to refute our own knowledge by stating "We don't know" when we can't find a second heart in our bodies. That's a ridiculously unreasonable position that rejects everything we do know about reality. Now sure, there are many grey areas that lack a clearer more transparent explanation but that's to be expected given how complex reality is.

Last time we checked 'Life' is the condition or self-replicating sequence which distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter. All the available empirical evidence points to the universe displaying no characteristics of signalling and self-sustaining processes present in living organisms.

Now its maybe your own intuition that this cosmos is a living being, but like with theist's asserting some god-thingy outside space-time did everything if the universe is actually alive we need evidence of these characteristics first. I encourage open-mindedness and we're free to speculate what might constitute as other life forms or seek a more accurate definition of "life", but its counterintuitive to shun the available evidence as "We don't know" when it points us to the universe demonstrating no signs of being alive simply because you hold to your gut feelings that it might be.

[Quest of knowledge]

Welsh Cake,

I don’t ignore what we know, and I have a strong background in mathematics and probability. Mathematics has taught me that we create “rules” to explain observed patterns of phenomena. We review, correct our “rules” or theorems as further observation identifies flaws in the previous rules. This is true of Newtonian laws and many others.

My other background, psychology, has taught me that everyone’s perceptions are their realities, and that everyone’s reality is unique even when those realities share common threads. History is one of my many hobbies, and it has taught me that every generation of humans has assumed that their knowledge is the correct one, and that includes medicine.

The particle acceleration tunnel in Switzerland is working on demonstrating the infinity of what to us is the micro world. The Americas did not exist to Europeans until Christopher Columbus found them in his way to the Indies. The Portuguese King laughed at Columbus’ calculations of the size of the Earth and the Portuguese knew the size of the Earth much better than Columbus. The Portuguese were only off by 600 nautical miles. Columbus had assumed that the Earth was only 2/3 of it size. The Spaniards’ calculations were very similar to those of the Portuguese and King Ferdinand of Spain also laughed at Columbus. Torquemada was the private confessor of the Queen of Spain, Isabella. He convinced the Queen to support Columbus because Columbus was a devout Catholic. Torquemada was the fanatical cardinal that later convinced Isabella to establish the Inquisition.

Torquemada knew nothing about math, navigation, or geography, and Columbus was luckier than intelligent. He found the Americas because they were there, not because he was looking for them. Science, mathematics, and other knowledge would have prevented all rational humans from navigating west from Europe in search of land because all the land they knew existed in Africa and Eurasia and the trip west would represent a longer trip through open ocean. At the end, it was ignorance and influence that won over all the scientific knowledge of the time.

I am not advocating for ignorance but for open mindedness and creative thinking. In spite of how much every generation has assumed they knew, and we think we know, it would be safe to say that all the scientific knowledge we have to present could be turn on its head over night. The alternative is not to adopt a belief, but rather to constantly look for the flaws on what we assume we know. That is how we debunk false assumptions. Drawing comfort from what we think we know and defending it as “true” amounts to conformism.