Is Abiogenesis possible, and what is life?

[Radical Edward]

viruses tend to use a mechanical or chemical method of injecting their DNA. they don't just float around and get sucked inside a cell. Some Viruses are very clever about how they do this.

[iglak]

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

If they inject it by chance (just shooting it at random) I doubt we could get sick easily at all. They would have a tiny chance of reproducing.

but my question is: do they actually shoot it? do they apply force to it and actually inject it? or is it just a result of the kinetic energy it has when it hits a cell?

 

if the latter then i say it's not alive

if the former then i say it is alive

reason: directly uses energy vs. indirectly uses energy

[Radical Edward]

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

In school we learn that they aren't alive.

I thought Homeostasis was when warm-blooded animals keep their bobies at a constant temperature? Reptiles aren't structly alive?

 

well schools tend to be a bit simple. Viruses are a grey area. they are sort of a lifeform, but sort of not. Best not to worry really, it doesn't actually matter whether they are alive or not, just that they do their job.

 

As Sayo said, Homeostasis is just maintaining a static internal environment away from what would be the "natural equilibrium" (i.e. dead). Warm blooded animals just maintain one thing more constant than other organisms, which cannot control their temperature, however all living organisms expend energy maintaining their internal environment, either adjusting the amounts of chemicals, water etc where possible.

[Radical Edward]

iglak said in post # :

but my question is: do they actually shoot it? do they apply force to it and actually inject it? or is it just a result of the kinetic energy it has when it hits a cell?

 

if the latter then i say it's not alive

if the former then i say it is alive

reason: directly uses energy vs. indirectly uses energy

 

they use chemistry and physics

 

(moderators note. I just split this thread off the old one and shuffled it into biology as it is turning into a decent discussion)

[Skye]

Viruses all bind to cell surface proteins which leads to them penetrating the cell in a few ways, some utilising the energy released in conformational changes in the proteins coating them to insert their naked DNA into the cell.

[Radical Edward]

Thanks, I thought it was something like that. Are there a few different mechanisms though? my favourite looking viruses are probably the Phages... the ones that look like a syringe on legs.

[Skye]

Yeah there's those, like the T4 phage. Most of the viruses we get are more complicated though, they pick up a layer of cell membrane when they form in the previous host (called enveloped viruses), which is a coat outside the protein coat. This basically lets them bond to the cell membrane and peel off this outer coat (same as for endocytosis, hard to explain in words) and the whole protein coated virus enters the cell. The problem then is that the virus needs to get it's DNA out of the coat, some let the cell attack the proteins, others (like pox viruses) have proteins inside that open them up.

[Neurocomp2003]

if you have ever had doubts that a simple thing such as 'goo' can turn into 'life'. Try programming Fractals Graphics or Cellular automata. They show that simple things can produce phenomenal complex systems. Not only that, some CAs even show sustained form. That is structure that has taken shape(solids) and has and can be translated through space but not really through space but by the rules that govern the CA.

 

IF a solid can be formed in a CA with simple rules and if you have seen it been done in a simulation, it should not be hard to believe that something as complex as life could result from such a simple thing as 'goo'.

 

Life first must take a structural or solid form before it begins to move and then it just does what it does.

 

To put it in another perspective a simple CA

has 2 states

8 rules

in nxn space

THere for you have 2^nxn situations with 8 rules aplied to each

grid cell, do the math.

 

our universe has how many rules and how many states.??unkown but mostlikely more than 8...you cna do the math

[mooeypoo]

I read the entire thread (well MOST of it thoroughly) but for my own personal answer I would, with your persmission, go back to the first question:

 

-Demosthenes- said in post #1 :

Does anyone truly believe that goo can turn into an organism? It's never been reprodced, and it sounds impossible.

 

I have, actually, a few things to say.

 

[*]The definition of life was done by the living - HUMANS in particualr, therefore it is biased.

We look at ourselves and say "We are alive". We called OUR own situation "LIFE" and define other existances by our situation. It's not a wrong definition, it's just biased.

I am sure that if Viruses would define life, they'd get an entirely diferent defintion - and perhaps would argue among themselves if WE (humans) are in fact life.

And don't tell me "Viruses can't define", a) it would be petty because you should get my point and b) you don't know that. It's logical to assume they don't, but the might be "defining" by other methods we just don't understand.

 

[*] The theory of Evolution is DIFFERENT than the theory of Evolution-From-The-Apes.

(This is a little bit LESS related directly to this thread, but it explains what I am about to say next, so I added it anyways.)

Evolution is the adaption of a cell - or an organism - to its environment. For instance, how humans get taller from generation to generation, or how our feet pinky gets smaller and smaller with generations, or why there are different coloured-people in the world. It's adaption to the environment you lived in for GENERATIONS and GENERATIONS (not only years! it takes a lot of time).

Evolution-from-the-apes theory is actually another theory BASED on the theory of evolution that states that since organisms are adapted to their environment through time, if we look at our physiology and biology through thousands and millions of years - we assume that we evolved from apes.

It's NOT the same theory.

When I say "Evolution" in this post - I mean the first one, and not necessarily the second one. So please don't throw "how can we come from apes". It's irrelevant here.

 

[*]Life can be - and by my belief, most probably IS - accidental.

Us humans - we're really smart, aren't we? We look around at our world and say "Oh, holy cammoly - look how well adapted we are! it is by no means an accident, it MUST be higher planning! We have noses to smell, ears shaped to intercept sounds, brains big enough to think, a skin to protect our body from the powerful rays of the sun, and so on. How can one think this is an accident!? It's too well planned!"

Well, NO. It ISN"T.

If it was, we wouldn't be changing.

 

Once upon a time there was a "Goo". A mush of .. STUFF. Unrelated stuff made of different variations of atoms and molecules.

They were "swimming" together oh-so-peacefully for a long long long long time.

But they weren't REALLY that peaceful. Their movements created reactions, that aventually made that mush CHANGE and become a different mush. A "Salad" if you will, of variations of matters made by those reactions. A Salad of different materials.

Those materials changed in relation to their invironment.

 

But the environment kept changing, too. The earth became cooler, its crust was forming, the continents were moving - and so the "Salad" mush, changed too. In relations to its environment.

We are talking abou thousands and millions of years here.

 

Now - aventually, those mushy salady components took shape of something that needs to grow. Why? Unknown. Perhaps it's the way of the universe - it LOOKS like it. Or perhaps it's just another one of those unknown riddles of life. But that is, still, what happened.

 

Thousands and Millions of years passed, and those salad stuff became seperate, and each started evolving to its OWN personal environment. Ground, Water, Air, and so on.

 

Thousands and Millions of years later - humans, who were aventually also formed along with animals and plants, looked around them and started wondering why this all happened.

 

They are completely fitted to their environment. Isn't that amazing.

 

NO. It's NOT amazing, it's EVOLUTION.

 

If we WEREN"T FITTED to our environment, we wouldn't be here. And if the environment was DIFFERENT our method of defining life would be different too.

[/list=1]

 

Today, we say "Life was created from the initial goo".

It's just a way of simplifying things. It *might* have a higher design, but the logic says it doesn't.

If ANYTHING was made by a higher and better-understanding design to fit the environment, WHY are we changing all the time? Is the plan crooked?

 

 

Those are my thoughts about evolution.

Its not bad to see things in a biased way - in fact, i don't think we can AVOID that - being humans and all - but we should also know that we do that when we define life and think about how life were created.

 

If you go to Alpha Centauris (about 4.2 LightYears from our sun) you would DEFINATELY find different compounds. You might not define them as LIFE (perhaps eventually we will? who knows) but you WILL NOT be surprised about "how those compounds were created perfectly adapted to their environment". Because it's CLEAR that if those weren't adapted, they wouldn't BE THERE in the first place - or would be there and perish.

 

That is the point of evolution.

 

The explanation in my opinion is MUCH MUCH simpler than everyone makes it look.

Life is an accident. Since we are THINKING beings, we try to find the "why" behind it. Since we are also FRIGHTENNED little creatures, we would like to believe it was someone's plan to create us.

 

It's much easier and nice to know that than to think we're just simply an accidental coincedence of the universe.

 

 

~moo

[-Demosthenes-]

The definition of life was done by the living - HUMANS in particualr, therefore it is biased.

It's not biased, we made up the word, it means what it means. IF you think that a table should be called a desk then that's your business, but we made up desks and made up the word so we can't be wrong. Life is a word we use to represent a definition, if want it too represent a different definition then i guess you can, but that doesn't mean that the oringinal is wrong.

 

When I say "Evolution" in this post - I mean the first one, and not necessarily the second one. So please don't throw "how can we come from apes". It's irrelevant here.

Am I not allowed to say that I don't believe in that? Why can't I talk about that? Do I have to ge the site owner to start a new forum title: "The evolution of apes to man" Why can't it go into the evolution forum. And how do you even know that everyone else's definiton of evolution is just like yours? Or even if it is the definition that the science community generally believes in.

[mooeypoo]

A few things:

 

It's not biased, we made up the word, it means what it means. IF you think that a table should be called a desk then that's your business, but we made up desks and made up the word so we can't be wrong. Life is a word we use to represent a definition, if want it too represent a different definition then i guess you can, but that doesn't mean that the oringinal is wrong.

 

I didn't say it was WRONG definition i said it was biased. if you ask any other life form - assuming it can answer you of course - about the definition of life you'd get a different answer.

You can also read in my post that I insisted it wasn't FALSE. It was biased. That's what i meant by it

 

Am I not allowed to say that I don't believe in that? Why can't I talk about that? Do I have to ge the site owner to start a new forum title: "The evolution of apes to man" Why can't it go into the evolution forum. And how do you even know that everyone else's definiton of evolution is just like yours? Or even if it is the definition that the science community generally believes in.

 

No, no of course you're allowed. But this is a discussion - and I'm stating my mind here. I didn't say you're not ALLOWED I said I think you're wrong.

I disagree with you (as I wrote ). So you're allowed, and I'm allowed. if you don't want me to say different, though, you might wanna reconsider writing your ideas on a debate forum

 

I also didn't say you can't talk about evolution or that this thread doesn't belong to this forum.. please try to read the entire post before you defend yourself, I wasn't saying anything AGAINST YOU I said what I think of the idea you posted.

Isn't that why you posted it? To hear different ideas?

 

And I ALSO DIDNT SAY that everyone else's definition is like MINE. I Said that *my* definition is what it is, so that when *i* say evolution in my specific thread (I wrote that..) you will undersatnd what I mean.

 

And by the way - it IS a definition a lot of scientists believe in.

It's also not the only one.

 

In short - In my post I described WHY i disagree with you.

I still didn't get any claims that prove - or try to prove - that I'm wrong.

 

 

Sorry that my post made you defensive - I wasn't meaning to attack, I don't even think my post showed any kind of attack, I was just stating my mind and trying to explain myself.

 

Other than that, I'm a complete and very STRONG agnostic. Those who know me knows that it's extremely hard to get a 'No, that's impossible' answer from me, even on subjects of god and creation. Well, maybe on creationism, but rarely.

 

I never said "NO! Thats WRONG!" I said I disagree and also explained why... if you hae any response I'd love to hear and explain my position...

 

 

~moo

[Sayonara]

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

It's not biased, we made up the word, it means what it means.

You are wrong. Word != concept.

 

And how do you even know that everyone else's definiton of evolution is just like yours? Or even if it is the definition that the science community generally believes in.

Presumably because when mooeypoo reads something used in its correct scientific context, she retains it for recall later on; rather than allowing it to shoot straight out again when it becomes convenient to dispense with anything that might constrain daft arguments.

[NavajoEverclear]

I have Demosthenes same problem in understanding. I want to know the truth (even then i can still choose what to believe)---- but abiogenesis and some aspects of evolution are right near impossible for me to comprehend. It just doesn't compute with me how nonliving molecules, even complex ones start replicating themselves, eventually building into something with free will (i know that its scientifically impossible to define or proove if that exists). It would make it easier if someone told me all the proposed steps i'm confused with (i've asked many times). Molecule to cell----- and what happened in between. Cellular colonies to a creature that functions with seperate organs.

 

I've gotten over fear that knowing the possible truth could shake certain beliefs i've chosen--- i will still have my choice. However as i said i just don't understand crucial parts of the theory of evolution. Like not understanding a math concept, i cant see. Would like someone to show me if possible.

[BrainMan]

but abiogenesis and some aspects of evolution are right near impossible for me to comprehend.

 

I have trouble comprehending mundane things like how we can possibly walk around without bumping into things (walking = series of recovered falls; vision = energy striking a 2-D plate lined with receptors and a bunch of neurons hooked up), or why things fall. That you have trouble understanding a complex process that presumably happened billions of years ago and no one really understands isn't much of a problem as I see it. It is the people that think they do know that I worry about.

 

However as i said i just don't understand crucial parts of the theory of evolution. Like not understanding a math concept, i cant see. Would like someone to show me if possible.

 

There are a couple of things going on here. First of all, understand that we are "starting in the middle" so to speak. People noticed that fossils changed over time- evolution was a theory to explain why we saw these changes. Then Darwin spent years collecting huge amounts of new data and proposed a mechanism of change- natural selection. Then genetics, blah blah blah the rest is history. The thoery was meant to explain the evidence he had and it made great sense- and it also allowed many great predictions and discoveries.

 

When you say you have trouble understanding crutial parts of the theory, I think you are slightly mistaken. Abiogenesis, for exampl, is not a part of the theory of evolution. Rather, it is an implication of the theory. We use the theory (along with other facts) to arive at the conclusion that life started from a single anscestor. What you seem to be having trouble with are some of the implications. The theory implies things that seem implausible or difficult to explain. Notice two things: 1) This is not specific to evolutionary theory- all sciences and all theories have standing problems that are difficult to explain, which is why scientists keep thier jobs; 2) not being able to explain these things is not a failing of the theory- it is the sucess of a theory to generate new questions and new discoveries and even new problems.

 

 

The only reason I say all this is because it seems as if you could only be happy with the full story- with perfect knowledge. But maybe we can't have that. Maybe we can't ever know exactly how life started. That converging evidence and scientific advances allowed us to understand that abiogenesis should have occured some 4 billion years ago seems like a huge sucess of the theory to me.

 

 

I feel like Im just rembling pointlessly, so Ill stop now. Maybe something I said was worthwhile...maybe not... :|

[NavajoEverclear]

Not pointless (to me), thanks much, thats a really cool point of view. Come to think of it there are lots of ordinary things that occasionally amuse/amaze me. ----- Sight is a rather incredible ability ------ how can i sense matter that is so far away from me? And smell--- that is just utterly perplexing.

Thanks for reminding me of . . . . whatever that was.

[-Demosthenes-]

"You are wrong. Word != concept."

Ah, but I'm right, we made up the concept.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Don't nitpick.

This is o/t anyways, we were talking about abiogenesis!

[-Demosthenes-]

Hey, I just noticed something. This thread is called "Is Abiogenesis possible, and what is life?" I didn't name it that. In fact I don't remember starting this thread! I don't even know what Abiogenesis means!!

[Sayonara]

I think it was split off from another thread.

 

If memory serves, Radical_Edward split the thread. It sounds like his kind of title.

 

BTW, agreeing with "word != concept" doens't mean you can just shift your invention argument to 'concept' instead of 'word'. It's a fundamental difference that affects the entire outcome of what you're talking about.

[-Demosthenes-]

Okay, I thought it was weird.

 

What is abulanuaous or whatever (Abiogenesis)??

[BrainMan]

Abiogenesis is actually ill-defined (to the extent that life is also ill-defined). It is bascally the process(es) whereby life was formed. In other words, we started with a bunch of chemicals and ended up with evolving lifeforms. Exactly how such a transition took place is what abiogenesis is supposed to be about.

[Dov]

"Abiogenesis" is spontaneous origination of living organisms directly from lifeless matter. Look up Louis Pasteur (1822-1895).

 

If humans will ever learn what have big-banged to become our universe, and from where and how was its origin, they might learn the origin of Life. Meanwhile, by considering what Death is, it may be speculated that Life is a self-replicating system for storing energy in the combined forms of ordered structures and inter-related chemical reactions. During Life the system, the "buble of energy", exists in a format that is counter to the universal process of ever degrading order and dispersing energy. Upon dying, the ex-living system becomes part of the universe.

 

Maybe Life and "black holes" are some manifestations of a phase of the "pre-big-bang" universe when it "impanded" (opposite of expanded) to become what eventually big banged and started expanding circa 14 human billion years ago...

 

And maybe there is not one universe but two or several universes acting on each other, some simultaneously expanding as other(s) are "impanding" thus answering the riddle of the missing weight of "our" universe ...

[Skye]

What's wrong with the word 'contract' as the opposite of expand?

[Dov]

for implying a process reciprocal and complementary to the specific above-mentioned universal expansion...