Article On Issues As to The Existence of Life: Yates - "Fantasizing About The Origin Of Life"

Martin has brought the attached article to my attention. First let me state the usual caveats: no endorsement of the author or the author's views (here or elsewhere) is expressed or implied by posting this here. At first glance, however, it does appear that the article does a good job of bringing up competing explanations for the existence of life, although it arrives at answers that disagree with Epicurus. For those who find this subject interesting (as do I) I am posting this as another exercise in our ability to understand and respond to issues regarding the existence of life both here on earth and elsewhere in the universe.

Fantasizing About the Origin of Life

A hundred years of materialist science comes up empty.

stevenyates.substack.com

Hi Scott:

To me, these discussions are almost as interesting for what they say about the terminology as what they say about the science. What does "definitive answer" or "certainty" really mean? In order to say that anything is definitive do we have to stand in the shoes of a Plato in contact with ideal forms, or a supernatural god who can claim "I know the real answer because I created everything"?

I think the answer to both those is of course "no, we can't and shouldn't and don't claim such levels of authority." And in fact anyone who does claim them is a sham and a fraud.

On the other hand what we can talk in terms of is "confidence" give the observations that re possible and our logical reasoning based on those observations.

And what it appears that Epicurus has done is to take as starting point that the universe is eternal in time (nothing can come from nothing) and infinite in size (there can logically be no ultimate boundaries, and combine those with the observation that what we see here on earth is that nature never makes a single thing of kind, and that what happens here we would logically expect to happen whereever conditions are similar.

And from those and similar observations it's a hop skip and jump to conclude that there is really "nothing new under the sun," and that life as a category (not the same living things, but "life") has always existed throughout the universe.

At least for me, once I discard the fake standards of certainty suggested by religion and Platonists, I have no problem accepting Epicurus, line of reasoning, so I personally am as confident that "life" has always existed in the universe just as all other natural processes have existed, and will exist, forever.

Of course my confidence and a dollar will buy you a cup of coffee, but I think an approach similar to this is inherent once the problem of skepticism is identified for the self-contradictory nonsense that it really is. Sure there are lots of specifics that we don't have enough evidence to be confident about. Has life existed on Mars subsequent to its formation? That's a specific question where we can do nothing but weigh and balance the evidence as it changes, but the "universal" or "cosmic" scale is different, and generalizations about infinity and eternality are as logically compelled as just about anything can be -- at least enough that it is more rational to be confident that life does exist elsewhere than earth than it is to say that we are unique in the universe.

I would argue that saying "I don't know, maybe life only exists here" is as good as laying down to be walked over by the religionists or Platonists on every other issue as well. So the issues of eternality and infinity of both the universe and of life within it seems about as good a place to start in standing up to those guys as anywhere else. And again regardless of what I think, that seems to have been Epicurus own approach.

Quote

Quote But this says nothing about the origins of such life, either here or elsewhere. The salient question: is it physically or chemically possible for living, self-replicating organisms with internal metabolic processes to come about through entirely naturalistic processes unaided by intelligence? The evidence seems to say, resoundingly, No.

Quote from Joshua

The evidence is inconclusive. To say that the evidence is inconclusive is not at all the same as saying that the evidence suggests (resoundingly or otherwise) that abiogenesis is impossible.

My slight twist on Joshua's point would be to differ on whether the evidence is inconclusive. I think Epicurus would likely say that the evidence IS conclusive.

We do see the existence of living self-replicating organizes with internal metabolic processes in existence, and the examples include us as human beings.

We (Epicurus) also holds that the eternality of the universe as (1) uncreated by an intelligence force, and (2) infinite in extent, to be rendering impossible that there is an intelligent force before or over or outside the universe. Our observations and the logic supporting these conclusions are "conclusive evidence" in the only real meaning that that term can have.

There are no gods or supernatural forces or higher realms to overrule these conclusions, and absolutely no reason to believe that any "new evidence" will be discovered to overturn that conclusion. Speculation without evidence is not admissible in most court, nor should it be admissible in a rational discussion of these issues.

And if someone wants to appeal to irrationality, then that's why there are wars and all sorts of lesser levels of expressing disagreement. But while wars and the like do exist, if you're going to approach life as an Epicurean, you aren't going to be considering irrational and groundless speculation about important issues.

So I would not admit that the existence of life without the supervision of intelligent design is an open or undetermined question or that the evidence is inconclusive. We have all the evidence we need to conclude firmly that life is a product of natural processes and did not originate from a supernatural intelligence. And we have absolutely no evidence on which to base a supposition that the gods of the supernaturalists or the platonists or anyone else are going to appear tomorrow or at any time in the future.

Yes Don, I don't think the article came to Martin's attention because it was the best science available or particularly well written. It's more of a data point give a current generic summary of arguments we seen thrown around by average people (to the extent average people get around to discussing the issue). You're certainly right about how easy it is to publish things nowadays.