Mageth

Why is "faith" needed? I can merely lend credence to one theory or another without having to call on "faith."

IMO, life IS matter - matter that self-organized under basic principles that resulted in the emergent phenomenon of the universe that we call "life."

life = F(matter (ingredients and catalysts), basic self-organizational principles, conditions/environment)

A little bootstrapping, a series of cranes, no skyhook needed (credit to D. Dennett).

We don't yet understand exactly how this happened, but life is glaring evidence that it did. Just because we don't understand exactly how abiogenisis occurred doesn't mean that it didn't occur.

Thanatos

You stated that you don't yet understand exactly how abiogenesis occurred. Believing in something that you don't understand is the very definition of faith!

You also stated that just because you didn't understand exactly how abiogenisis occurred doesn't mean that it didn't occur. This is true, however - on the other side of the coin - just because you theorize the occurrence of abiogenisis does not mean that it occurred.

Food for thought - What is the minimum number of parts necessary for an autotrophic free living organism to live, and could these parts assemble by naturalistic means?

Yes, you got me. My bad! Life is matter. Rather than asking how life came from matter, I should have asked - how does life come from a non-living thing?

Mageth

You stated that you don't yet understand exactly how abiogenesis occurred. Believing in something that you don't understand is the very definition of faith!

No, I believe it occurred, and by a natural, understandable process. That doesn't take faith, merely an examination of the evidence. The evidence points clearly to abiogenisis having occurred. If you add the supernatural, that's when you introduce "faith." And even if you want to call it "faith," what of it? (guessing: you're trying to equate my belief with "religion," a tired tactic, to say the least).

You also stated that just because you didn't understand exactly how abiogenisis occurred doesn't mean that it didn't occur. This is true, however - on the other side of the coin - just because you theorize the occurrence of abiogenisis does not mean that it occurred.

Look at it this way. There is life. I don't believe in god or the supernatural; the evidence doesn't support such a hypothesis, and there are plausible naturalistic explanations that don't require divine intervention. Therefore, abiogenisis occurred. There are several plausible theories on how it occurred; science is still working out the details and coming up with new theories, and it may be a long time before one particular theory emerges that best fits the evidence, if ever.

Food for thought - What is the minimum number of parts necessary for an autotrophic free living organism to live, and could these parts assemble by naturalistic means?

I don't know, and yes. But of course, not all at once. The first "life" forms were undoubtedly very simple, and more complex forms evolved over time (billions of years). If you haven't read Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," you should.

I would also suggest you peruse the SecWeb library so you don't bring up a lot of arguments that have been satisfactorily answered.

Yes, you got me. My bad! Life is matter. Rather than asking how life came from matter, I should have asked - how does life come from a non-living thing?

It's called "abiogenisis." Like I said, there are plausible theories, but we don't know exactly how yet (or we may not know - it may be that one of the theories is correct, after all).

eh

This isn't really an honest question. Saying the first matter had to come from somewhere, is creating an infinite regress of causes. If a god who twiddles his thumbs in the void for an eternity can just exist without coming from anywhere, why not just apply this to the first matter?

But I suppose if you want to know the latest theories on that, the first matter came from bare minimum vacuum energy. Happy?

eh

This is a completely different topic. How about posting this as a new thread? Using Ed's posts as an example, you can clearly see how easy it is for a thread to go waaaayyy off topic fast. Let's keep this place organized and give each topic it's own thread, ok?

eh

Shadow Wraith:

I think I'm missing something here. Doesn't Omega have to do with the overall mass of the universe, with Omega 1 being a closed universe?

I do recall reading that originally a closed universe was required for inflation to work. But with new inflation, it was said that inflation could work with a flat or open universe as well. Seems ad hoc, but is this true?

Answerer

Well Thanatos, as far as I can tell, matter seem to be created together at the same time with anti-matter. In the current physics, both of them are created from photons.

Nihlo

There are still a vast number of unanswered questions. I just finished an intro level astronomy class to fulfill my science credit, and we ended the year by learning that the inflationary model is now the most popular. It was only an intro level class, so I won't pretend to be familiar with the technical side of the theory (for example, I've never heard of "Omega" before now).

A lot of theories have come and gone. Perhaps this one will as well. I'm not going to play a fiddle if it does so in my life time. Scientific hypotheses should not be treated like religious dogmas.

Seth K

Omega (Omega) is related to the flatness/curvature of the universe.

• Omega < 1; Negative curvature - potato chip universe
• Omega = 1; Zero curvature - flat universe
• Omega > 1; Positive curvature - sphereical universe

Mass is one component of Omega but the cosmological constant (Lambda) also contributes. The presence of a cosmo constant also complicates the open/closed universe question a bit. With no Lambda, the three posibilities above correspond to open/borderline/closed universes respectively.

There are two ways we can attempt to determine Omega. Estimate the mass and cosmo constant of the universe, or measure the curvature. In the past the former method was used and the cosmo constant has been assumed to be zero. As a result estimates of Omega have come out rather low.

More recently scientists have made measurements of the universe's curvature, which proves to be flat, implying Omega=1. Also, evidence is accumulating that there is a non-zero Lambda.

Inflation entails a flat universe AFAIK. The change you mention is not a necessaryly ad hoc modification to inflation, but data suggesting a non-zero cosmo constant, allowing an open universe to be flat.

Shadow Wraith is correct in that studies show that Omega_mass is too low for a flat universe (around .3). But that ignores subsequent studies over the last decade showing there's more to it that just mass, and that the universe does appear flat.