For a Big Bang cosmology, in which the early Universe was extremely hot, a discussion of the origin of life is of course appropriate, since life could not have been with us from the beginning. But for a Steady State model, in which the Universe is without beginning, perhaps life itself could be without beginning. However, the question then arises: how could it spread from solar system to solar system or from galaxy to galaxy? Somehow it seems that life must have had a start, that somehow life must arise spontaneously from non-living matter. Yet thus far there is no evidence for this.

Pasteur thought that he had shown that life does not arise from non-living matter but only from previous life. Darwin seems to have taken the other view, namely, that it might have arisen from "some warm pool". The evidence, of course, is simply that life does exist on this planet, which presumably had a beginning; so if life didn't come from elsewhere, it must have arisen here. But how? What could pull non-living matter across the border into life?

Natural selection as Darwin sketched it is a very good mechanism for selecting between two or more genetic programmings, but it makes no suggestion as to the origin of the programs. And as yet this is an unsolved problem. But how about the origin of sentiency and intelligence? Could they have arisen from inert matter?


Sentiency
For any cosmological model in which the Universe is considered to be "actual", the problem of the origin of sentiency and intelligence is insoluble. But if the Universe is apparitional, sentiency is in it from the word "go". Even the atoms are "sentient". We have senses for the perception of gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism, because the individual protoplasmic cells can respond to these same five kinds of energy. And the cells can respond to them because the atoms respond to them. The atoms themselves respond to gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism. The plumb bob "knows" where the Earth is, and the electron "knows" where the proton is. Sentiency is in this from the word "go", because the underlying existence is "involved" in what we see and must show through.

It is hopeless to expect that something like sentiency or intelligence, or anything, for that matter, could arise by "evolution" (as a rose evolves from a bud), unless it was first put in by "involution". The reason the oak tree can "evolve" from the acorn is because it was first put in the acorn through "involution" by the parent trees. But in the case of the tree and the acorn, the involution is by transformational causation, parinama. Whereas, in the case of the underlying existence and the Universe, the involution is by apparitional causation, or vivarta . What underlies the Universe is involved by apparition in us and what we see. And since what underlies all this is infinite, there is no knowing what may evolve. (1)

The expectation that sentiency and intelligence might arise from "inert matter" is contrary to all the experience of our race. But matter is not inert. It is "ert", (it moves by itself) because what underlies the apparition shows through. And the notion that what is more might evolve from what is less is beyond the domain of reason.
---------------[john dobson]

Hi Guys,

I'm rushed for time and hadn't read all the latest yet, but I will. In the meantime, I posted a Possible Philosophical Theory of Everything under that thread, today Mar 29, '02.

Take care, talk soon, will be back, Ivan


Happy Easter Holidays!

Questions:

Givens: We tend to measure physical heat dissipations (rate-wise) in terms of forward-moving temporal sequentialities. We find cooling trends...of energy at first most cohesive from its source, gradually scattering in progress through space-time. Our prevailing (Cosmologic)source models assume a top-down/first-later energy decay.

Should 'Consciousness' be treated as a factor in equations of Cosmology (never mind that we are yet short of defining what 'Consciousness' is)? G-man

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1925000/1925956.stm

BBC News: "Dust from the Dawn of Time"

Shows strong Quasars that may have already died more than 10 billion years ago.

"It`s amazing enough that these quasars, powered by billion solar mass black holes, should already exist only a billion years after the Big Bang."

Fact or fiction? Perhaps the Big Bang never happened as theorized, but the Qasar/Black Hole mega-solar-mass duality is a reality. Is this another clue for the Theory of Everything?

See article at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1925000/1925956.stm

Physicist at LANL has other theory for black holes

By JEFF TOLLEFSON/The New Mexican April 22, 2002

"ALBUQUERQUE - A local physicist wants to take black holes out of the astrophysics textbook and put them back in the realm of science fiction. These dark, massive and mysterious objects might be an entirely new form of matter, a cosmic bubble dubbed the gravastar, according to Emil Mottola, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory..."

From the Santa Fe New Mexican. Santa Fe New Mexican

Are Black Hole Gravstars?

"'I suspect astronomers are going to be hugging their black holes for a while," Maran said. "It will be up to the proponents of a new theory to propose an experiment that can distinguish between the two.'"

Or 'Infiniton' stars? New theories, anyone?

Ivan

In lhe beginning...

The Big Bang Theory posits the hypothesis that from a speck (where?) and
an explosion (how?) EVERYTHING was released. I almost said born. But
it was all there, all of it. Ready. I quiver mentally trying to fit my
brain around a thing-what a useless word-that has no end, no boundries,
yet grows, expands and may reverse itself and return to a bit of
everything.

We are all in it, we share with the whole of our and other unverses
common elements. The motes dancing in the sunlight on this bright Fall
morning are strardust. When I read this it changed forever the way I
regard the dust on my books.

We are balancing on the very edge, says Stephen Hawking, of the machine
outstrippping our human brains. Machines are made up of our shared
elements.

As I push my cart up and down the supermarket aisles and meditate on my
family, my home , my writing, I am grateful. Shared elements gather
themselves in evil ways but cannot escape our sameness, nor can we deny
them. This is my time and I'm afraid. I am afraid of infinity, the
nothing that goes on and on. It is also exciting to gather up stardust
and shake it out my kitchen door. When I allow myself the freedom to
ponder nothingness while llving in a world of boundries I hope that I
will come to a what? Time?-doesn't exist-space?-nope. A glimpse, just a
peek at the edge. Who is to say my dust won't be carried there.

The whole picture is me, you and mostly hydrogen.

...what word was it?

Questions: Do the findings at the particle accelerators (i.e. CERN...) tell us anything about a "Big Bang"? Also, does a BB Theory require that 'before' its explosive, originary expansion matter existed as a non-relational coagulant, of sorts, such that the existence of matter makes its 'prior' non-existence (i.e. 'Nothing') irrelevantly moot? Something from Nothing begs the question of 'How?'. Does BB Theory successfully by-pass this problem?:) G-man