OregonTrail
Member
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2009
- Messages
- 138
While I was typing this in another thread, an argument about grammar had apparently erupted.
I'd be interested to hear people's thought's on this, so I made a new thread.
I'd be interested to hear people's thought's on this, so I made a new thread.
OregonTrail said:The way that I visualize the propagation of self replicating organic structures is by thinking of atomic interactions in terms of governing equations, more commonly known as the laws of physics. Whether it be large scale or quantum equations, we as a species have been able to determine patterns in the world around us. These patterns have led to technological advancements that are simply unfathomable to a very large portion of the world's population.
One of the best ways to visualize complex interactions is with the use of a graph or plot. There are families of recursive equations that produce images that seem extremely complex, known as fractals. Take for example, the Mandelbulb, a plot in the real 3d plane of the form z = z^n + c.
Images. Video.
Now, imagine showing one of these images to an average person on the street. If you asked them to recreate the image down to the exact details, they might look at you as though you were insane. It's true that these images seem extremely complex, although they stem from an equation that a 2-year-old could memorize in seconds.
Now think of the universe as a huge set of "instances of equations representing atomic interactions". A given area of the universe a playing field where atomic interactions play out. Now imagine that one of these locales happens to represent one equation of chemical interaction equivalent to a single member of the set of recursive functions. This anomaly being atomic structures that self replicate. If one considers the number of stars in the universe, as derived from observable stellar density, 9 billion trillion stars, it seems highly probably that one out of 9000000000000000000000 locations containing a natural reactor transforming extreme magnitudes of thermal energy would represent an interaction analogous to a single recursive function being randomly written down on a piece of paper.
Over time, atomic structures that self replicate become naturally more resilient to their surroundings, as the successful structures pass on their current mature structure and method of replication to future generations. At a much greater scale than the probability of this system coming about in the first place, mistakes are made during replication. These properties can be observed in bacteria in a matter of hours.
Incredible traits that these self replicating structures now posses, such as the eyesight that you are using right now, may seem miraculous. But just as a Mandelbulb seems incredible to a person on the street, there is a very simple equation to the workings of the human eye: a fairly large array of photosensitive cells that transmit chroma and intensity information in the form of electric signals. Why are your eyes on your head? Because the photosensitive cells survived when they were closer to cells used for neurotransmission. How do our eyes have the ability to focus? When an image is focused, it creates a cascade of positive neurochemical reactions conducive to homeostasis. The organisms with this simple muscular ability were able to have more children than those that didn't.
And one must remember that this progress happened over the course of 4 Billion Years. You think you've been alive for quite a while? Assuming that you might be 20 years old, imagine living your entire life 20 millions times over. Now considering the fact that bacteria can prove resistance to an antibiotic in a matter of 12 hours (something that at their scale would look like a generation of humans that are suddenly born with titanium plating on their face), and you can imagine the incredible evolved traits that must exist on this planet waiting to be discovered.
At this point I think that you understand my point. Our planet may seem incredible, it may seem utterly impossible that it could exist without some sort of intelligent force. But the fact is that we are the lucky ones looking out into the rest of the universe. The fact that you have the logical capacity to consider the improbability of your existence is because you are the improbable statistic. The nitrogen in your body is being used to synthesize the proteins in your brain so that you can look at the night sky. Those atoms of nitrogen aren't millions of light-years away experiencing a supernova. They are lucky atoms. They happened to make their way to potentially the only spot in the universe where self-replicating structures exist.
Rather than waste time thinking up stories about "almighty creators" of the universe who for some reason care about how many sheep you give to your neighbor on a certain day of our year, let us use our capacity for thought to observe what we can about our incredible set of circumstances.
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