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Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

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Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#181

Post by saalweachter »

digging wrote: post #118
throwaway143829 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes you wonder what comes after AI. What's the "higher order" after AI that exists today or that will exist in 10 years? I'd guess we will never understand that level of intelligence, unless AI augments our brains somehow.

> unless AI augments our brains somehow Frankly, the more I think about AI, the less sense it makes to me that biological, single-body humans have any place in the future. As soon as we can digitize our minds, why wouldn't people begin to do so? Bodies could be inhabited at will, and death will be a thing of the past as we're able to store backups. I'm sure some will refuse and be left behind, just as we have Amish c…

Once flying cars are as cheap and easy to own and operate as regular cars, why would anyone buy a non-flying car?

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#182

Post by onetimeuse92304 »

gfodor wrote: post #167
lutusp wrote: post #164

"Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe? (arxiv.org)" Easily answered: * We don't know how consciousness comes into being, indeed we can't rigorously define it or unambiguously identify its presence or absence. * We believe we have it, but we aren't sure whether other animals and/or objects possess it. * Therefore, based on Occam's razor, we may provisionally assume that all ma…

That's not an answer, that's an argument. Occam's Razor isn't like the second law of thermodynamics. It's a heuristic.

Yes. You can't prove anything by proving it is the simplest explanation. The only way to prove things is to prove that it is the only possible explanation.

Occam's Razor is just a useful mind tool that helps us navigate the world based on the observation that oftentimes the simplest explanation tends to be what is actually happening.

BTW lots of other logical mistakes.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#183

Post by FrustratedMonky »

mavili wrote: post #28

There is nothing "expected" in a truly random universe. You cannot have your cake and eat it, there is either some sort of 'order' in the universe or there is none. You cannot place forms of order where it suits you but reject it when it doesn't.

Think you are conflating just random pool balls, and particles with properties.

If a few hydrogen and oxygen atoms get together and form water. That is expected, even if they are bouncing around randomly.

This occurs at many different scales.

There is random motion of particles of air in a room, but the overall 'pressure' can be measured and be constant.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#184

Post by bongodongobob »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #177
lutusp wrote: post #164

"Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe? (arxiv.org)" Easily answered: * We don't know how consciousness comes into being, indeed we can't rigorously define it or unambiguously identify its presence or absence. * We believe we have it, but we aren't sure whether other animals and/or objects possess it. * Therefore, based on Occam's razor, we may provisionally assume that all ma…

Is there evidence of consciousness in a rock?

It's a reducto ad absurdum argument. Either consciousness only emerges in living things, or it exists in everything. The brain is made of tissue and tissue is made of matter, therefore, it exists in all mater or doesn't exist at all.

I believe this is the thrust of panpsychism/panentheism.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#185

Post by namaria »

dvt wrote: post #180
namaria wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this view at all. We are what we are. Entropy is a concept in our mind and heat death is a very particular phenomenon that depends on the systems experiencing it being very specifically defined in ways that the Universe cannot be. We are. Descartes had the right idea. The experience of consciousness is irreducible. To say "we are atoms thinking" and variations thereof is utterly meaningless. All wo…

> Existence is a property of consciousness. Kant would vehemently disagree. Not that I'm a Kantian, but he makes some pretty good points. So I think there's a lot of work here that needs to be done to make your argument stronger.

I'm not into winning debates. I just find interesting that conscious beings think they can imagine the absence of consciousness. For us consciousness is the fundamental reality.

Furthermore I find the verbosity of German philosophy nearly unbearable, to be honest.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#186

Post by svieira »

lachlan_gray wrote: post #79

It's fascinating to me that the complexity of life always goes up. Outside extinction events, complex life generally seems to become more favourable over time. It's interesting that (to my knowledge) we don't see an ecosystem lose complexity in its entirety unless it's dying. Simple organisms make a bedrock for complex organisms, and while the complex organisms have more specific needs, they are better at exploring,…

In Count to the Eschaton the "grand project" is "the sophistication of all matter" and it's been going on since the beginning.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#187

Post by jonhohle »

namaria wrote: post #168
mapreduce wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How did that lump of plutonium become a lump? That part wasn’t natural." Allow me to become a little philosophical but since human beings which are product of nature made plutonium, isn't the making of plutonium natural too? I mean everything that is happening in this universe is natural! I know the general usage of the words "artificial" for human-made and "natural" for everything else. But when we are talking at t…

I love debating this with people but ultimately it's just playing games with semantics. The notion of artificial x natural is very recent and very localized. Some cultures would differentiate raw from cooked in a similar sense. But it's like talking about what is really green vs what is really blue. Completely circular since it depends on the definitions of the terms.

It's easily extendable to the animal world as well. Is a nest created by a bird or a den created by one of various mammals natural or artificial? Is a nest made by mice in my garage from synthetic fabrics, flexible plastics, and whatever plant matter it can find natural or synthetic?

My wife was recently asked to make a meal for someone who didn't eat "processed" foods. What level of manipulation needs to happen before a food is "processed"? Can beans or rice be dried and put in a bag? Can chicken broth be used if it's homemade, but the chicken came from a commercial farm? Or is extracting broth from a chicken processing it?

I've increasingly noticed many sub-cultures adopting odd definitions and interpretations of commonly used language with the expectation that everyone who interacts with their group understand their dialects. It's not really jargon or vernacular since the words are common to the language, just used to mean something different than the general population would understand. Similarly, artificial is now assumed to mean bad and natural good, when neither ascribe value by definition or in practice.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#188

Post by saalweachter »

mavili wrote: post #24
schnitzelstoat wrote: post #9

I think life is going to be quite common as it seems it just requires liquid water and an extremely common type of rock in order to form alkaline hydro-thermic vents. It appears that life developed quite quickly in this manner after the formation of the Earth. The leap from bacteria and archaea to eukaryotes, however, took billions of years. So complex life may be rare.

Should be so common, right? Yet we're struggling to find any form of life. Not complex, just anything that lives.

Humans, living on one planet: "Life is everywhere!"

Humans, after soft landing probes on two other planets: "Life is nowhere out there! It must be only here!"

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#189

Post by zukzuk »

johngossman wrote: post #162

There is a whole genre of these, starting with (as mentioned in the paper's introduction) "What is Life?" by Schrodinger. I've been idly working my way through a bunch of them, including Monod's "Chance and Necessity" (dated but excellent), Nick Lane's whole series of books (notably "The Vital Question"), Nurse's "What is Life?" (good if you want to learn about yeast), Zimmer's "Life's Edge" (haven't finished it yet,…

I'd add "Into the Cool" by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan to that reading list.

I'm pretty sure that one was originally recommended here on HN, so I guess I'm feeding it back into the echo chamber. But well worth a read!

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#190

Post by cameldrv »

lutusp wrote: post #164

"Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe? (arxiv.org)" Easily answered: * We don't know how consciousness comes into being, indeed we can't rigorously define it or unambiguously identify its presence or absence. * We believe we have it, but we aren't sure whether other animals and/or objects possess it. * Therefore, based on Occam's razor, we may provisionally assume that all ma…

I don't think Kauffman is making any claims about consciousness here. I agree that consciousness is a big mystery. Kauffman's theory (haven't yet read this paper, but have read a lot of his other work), is that self-replicating entities are essentially inevitable in environments that have above some level of chemical complexity. That chemical complexity also weakly implies that there is useable free energy, which is also a requirement for self replication.
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