Why is there life on Earth in the first place?

[Animalistic]

Hi there,I'm new here so maybe I don't really know how it works here.

Anyway,I'm curious about this issue so I'm going to discuss it.

 

Some of you must know that there's a theory/hypothesis (forgot the name,probably Richard Dawkins') says that the very first life on earth were spontaneously formed and created by 'decomposition' of some compounds,and this just an accident/coincidence that our Earth were filled with such life supporting matter that allow life form to exist. Life exist because the condition is suitable,and it has nothing to do with Earth.

Of course some people with inquisitive mind like me know that this not just an accident where one compound meet another right compound and form the very first nucleic acid as the very basic element of life form,there must be something more than that that remain unexplored. I mean,why the Earth need life on itself,does it really serve a purpose for Earth? Earth just like other planets in this galaxy where all of them will still exist no matter what happen and will have nothing to do with complexity of life. So why there are life on Earth? What is the reason behind the existence of life on Earth? Even though Earth isn't a living thing it has the power and ability to maintain and create cycle on itself.

 

Please try to support your opinion with hypothesis/theory if you could since there could be no accurate answer for this particular issue. I think the idea about we were created by aliens as their experiment object will sound ridiculous to most ears but that is the most plausible explanation in this issue,beside the accident hypothesis,of course. The idea about alien can't be proven/tested because we are incapable of doing such thing,but it provides a bigger portion of rational explanation toward this particular issue.

 

 

Please understand and forgive me if I said something in the 'wrong' way as English isn't my official language.

[Klaynos]

You appear to be implying the earth has some capacity to do actions or have thoughts, that is not the case. I don't see why life requires a reason?

 

The problem with extraterrestrial life starting is that the origins still has to have occurred somewhere...

[CaptainPanic]

I don't know how the first life came here, or how it started... and I don't wish to be involved in that discussion with the knowledge I have.

 

But I do know that "life" is incredibly contageous. Life goes everywhere. There is no place on earth without life, except for some special labs - and it takes an incredible effort to keep life out. So, once it started or arrived here, it was here to stay.

What really helps is that at some point, plants evolved. The circle with plants absorbing CO2 and water, using the sun, and the rest of life eating those plants or each other makes life incredibly abundant here. The fact that we have plants does not mean that we're the only place with life.

 

I'm surprised that we haven't found life on other places yet. But then again, the robots we sent to other planets (Venus, Mars) weren't exactly highly mobile, or sophisticated - I mean, it's pretty impressive that man has sent such robots to another planet, but those methods of analysis are nothing compared to a fully equipped earth based laboratory with several researchers. What I mean to say is: we may not have searched hard enough.

[Edtharan]

Check out this video by CDK007 on youtube:

 

It has a good explaination of how life could have got started (and I think is one of the better ones I ahve heared).

[rigney]

Check out this video by CDK007 on youtube:

 

It has a good explaination of how life could have got started (and I think is one of the better ones I ahve heared).

 

Ass kicking Guy! The video? Total chutzpah. I'm just not smart enough to take it all in. Life may have began here thru many different venues, but somehow got started. Our problem? How to keep it going to advance mankinds goals without killing us off?

[Dan6541]

Of course some people with inquisitive mind like me know that this not just an accident where one compound meet another right compound and form the very first nucleic acid as the very basic element of life form,there must be something more than that that remain unexplored.

 

How do you know this?

 

I know this has all been said before but there are HEAPS of planets in the universe and as far as we know only our one has life on it. This shows we have the right conditions for life so why do you say it has to be formed by aliens?

 

I mean,why the Earth need life on itself,does it really serve a purpose for Earth?

 

It doesn't matter if it Earth needs it or not, it just happened. You could say "why does earth need it?" for many non-living things as well.

[Animalistic]

How do I know? I believe that Earth as non-living thing has the power to maintain and cause cycle on itself. Life may spontaneously exist on Earth but I believe the existence of life has something to do with our Earth. It remains unexplored but I can assume that the presence and development of photosynthetic bacteria and plants kingdom could mean that our Earth needs the presence of other compound that only available from the symbiotic relationship with life form to preserve its atmospheric body.

 

You can say that life serve no purpose for Earth and it just exists like that but if you consider about other hypothesis or 'speculation' about life as the object of alien experimentation you can get the idea that if Earth didn't coincidentally create life form on purpose the presence of life form could originated form 'alien'. As I said this is rational and we just can't validate it because we,as 'lower' life form are incapable of doing such observation/investigation.

Edited September 4, 2010 by Animalistic

[cypress]

How do you know this?

 

I know this has all been said before but there are HEAPS of planets in the universe and as far as we know only our one has life on it. This shows we have the right conditions for life so why do you say it has to be formed by aliens?

 

The earth does have the right conditions to spontaneously maintain life. But we don't know if it has or had the right conditions to spontaneously generate life from non-life.

 

Available evidence suggests that the process of generating life from non-life requires purposeful design because life contains attributes that thus far, only a designing mind has been observed to generate. Since life on earth self-assembles versions if itself, functional specified information is a required element of biologically active systems because plans are required in order to generate specific functional systems. But only a mind has been shown to generate the quantities of functional information observed in live organisms. Until some natural process is discovered that does generate functional information at sufficient rates, we should consider that it is more plausible that the natural world alone does not include the right conditions to produce life from non-life.

Edited September 4, 2010 by cypress

[swansont]

The earth does have the right conditions to spontaneously maintain life. But we don't know if it has or had the right conditions to spontaneously generate life from non-life.

 

Available evidence suggests that the process of generating life from non-life requires purposeful design because life contains attributes that thus far, only a designing mind has been observed to generate. Since life on earth self-assembles versions if itself, functional specified information is a required element of biologically active systems because plans are required in order to generate specific functional systems. But only a mind has been shown to generate the quantities of functional information observed in live organisms. Until some natural process is discovered that does generate functional information at sufficient rates, we should consider that it is more plausible that the natural world alone does not include the right conditions to produce life from non-life.

 

Available evidence suggests nothing of the sort. Argument from incredulity does not count as evidence.

[cypress]

Noting that an object contains a specific component and then noting that that component thus far has only one known cause is not incredulous. It is however making an inference to a logical conclusion using a process of downrating potential causes that, acting in the present, don't generate the noted effects. It is not incredulous to ask that a potential cause should be shown capable of generating the postulated effect and if it can't rating it lower than a cause that has been shown to be capable. After trimming away possible causes that are not known produce the effect, one is left with the remaining causes that seem more plausible because they are known to be capable of producing an particular effect.

[Edtharan]

Cypress, The "Elan Vital" proposition has been disproved (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_vital ). Also see Vitalism ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism ).

 

Ass kicking Guy! The video? Total chutzpah. I'm just not smart enough to take it all in. Life may have began here thru many different venues, but somehow got started. Our problem? How to keep it going to advance mankinds goals without killing us off?

Actually you almost hit the nail on the head.

 

It is not that we don't know who life could have got started, it is just that we know of many different ways it could. the problem is working out which one.

 

So when it is said that we don't know how life got started, it is a bit like saying that we don't know which flavour of ice cream to have. We know that ice cream exists, and can see that all the different flavours exist, we just need to select the one that we actually wnat.

 

With abiogenisis, we know life exists (eg: Ice cream exists), we also know that there are many routes to life getting started without the need for external (divine or othwise) intervention (this is the various flavours of the ice cream), we just need to work out which way it actually got started (the flavour we want).

 

The main importance of this is so we can work out what the chances are that life got started else where, and ways to look for it. It is possible that life got started in several ways here on Earth, and we need to sort that out too.

 

However, the main thing is not that we don't know how to start life without external intervention (we know that it is certainly possible), it is that we are spoilt for choices as to how it did get started.