Life on Earth older than thought?

[Skybird]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-aa3051909.php

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...ept_on_ticking

All a joke, since the universe and life is just 6000 years old according to creationism. But what a good joke it is, and what a display of imagination!

[Stealth Hunter]

One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.

:rotfl:

Fundies Say the Darndest Things! is pure gold.

[Letum]

That fundie quote annoys me doubly because high entropy stated can be well
ordered and it seams a common mistake to think otherwise. It leads to false
ideas like the Boltzmann Brain Paradox.

Ed to expand:
because causal chains that follow simple patterns or rules can form complex,
highly ordered states whilst resulting in a overall increase in entropy.
The B.Brain paradox is wrong because it does not recognize that there are
many (many, many!) starting conditions that can lead to the causal chain
consciousness, there is a certain inevitability about it, given enough time
and space, whilst there are relatively few conditions that are Boltzmann Brians.

ed2: This is a personal bugbear for me.

[Skybird]

Entropy and thermodynamics are paradigms, or better: theories or theoretical constructions. They make sense in that they match a lot of observation data, and are capable to bring new observations into an order that matches their claim. Nevertheless they are just theories. Like anything else in sciences is just subjective observation, and theory.

A responsible scientist does not claim to know the ultimate truth, but he will always say: "our current model explains it like this, and this makes sense according to what we know so far, because..." Only religious zealots and narcisstic missionaries - or stupid scientists - claim to have ultimate explanations that will not see any further alteration in the future.

Hell, even Hawking has given up some years ago his life-long claim that the world could be explained in one final, ultimate formula or model. It seems he made the step from knowledge to wisdom.

Only wisdom can serve as an antidot to being stupid, while most people in responsible positions, who mess up the world and peoples' lives, are very knowing people indeed. It seems that knowledge alone is just a necessary but no adequate and sufficient condition to act intelligently. You can know a lot - and still be stupid.

Or as Spock put it in ST6: "Logic is the beginning of wisdom - not it's end."

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Entropy and thermodynamics are paradigms[...]

Don't you mean: "Skybird's current model explains entropy and
thermodynamics as paradigms", or don't you apply the same
standards to your meta-knowledge as you do to your knowledge?

(ed: not that I disagree with much of your above post, although I am a
little confused as to why you bought such issues up here)

[Aramike]

Entropy and thermodynamics are paradigms, or better: theories or theoretical constructions. They make sense in that they match a lot of observation data, and are capable to bring new observations into an order that matches their claim. Nevertheless they are just theories. Like anything else in sciences is just subjective observation, and theory.

Actually, entropy with regards to thermodynamics is not a theory - its a physical law of nature. For it to be untrue, nature itself would have to change, whereas there would then be a new truth. This is often known as a "vacuum".

A responsible scientist does not claim to know the ultimate truth, but he will always say: "our current model explains it like this, and this makes sense according to what we know so far, because..." Only religious zealots and narcisstic missionaries - or stupid scientists - claim to have ultimate explanations that will not see any further alteration in the future.

You couldn't be more wrong. A responsible scientist claims to know the truth when he does indeed know the truth. Scientific truths are what enables technology to expand. For instance, it is a scientific truth that splitting the atom releases immense energy. It is a scientific truth that the earth is round.

There is a clear difference between a "theory" and a "law". A theory is predictive, whereas a law is an expression that is always true under the same conditions.

[Letum]

That is a little blunt Armike.
Newtonian physics used to be the very definition of a scientific truth, a
universal, unchanging law that allowed technology to expand and new
inventions to be made.
Einstein pissed all over that and showed the floors and inconsistencies in
Newtonian physics. What we thought where laws, where no longer.

It is foolish to claim to know any unchanging and universal truth.


I, however, disagree with Skybird on a further point. Whilst SB believes that
any given theory is just a model used to explain and predict and can not
possibly contain any truth value about the external universe, I believe that
theories and ideas can be relatively good or relatively bad descriptions of
the actual external universe based on their coherency, which I believe is a
reliable indicator how how the universe fits as it is impossible to have
an incoherent external world.

i hope SB will excuse my paraphrasing.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Letum

Don't you mean: "Skybird's current model explains entropy and
thermodynamics as paradigms", or don't you apply the same
standards to your meta-knowledge as you do to your knowledge?

(ed: not that I disagree with much of your above post, although I am a
little confused as to why you bought such issues up here)

What's the word surgery about here? Practically all theoretical statements of sciences are thought models and theories only, no ultimate truths and final answers, and where they form an influencing meta-theory, we call them a paradigm. Theories come and go, some stay long, others not as long, some get abandoned and given up, others get complemented. But always it is human mind's created order of thoughts that decides where we put that new observation that we just made. and this case of observation and this artificial order we created decides on our efforts how to make new observations.

Or to put it more poetically: all science is observations only that dances and plays with human mind.

You just said it yourself, Letum, in your reply to Aramike. You talked of what you believe theories are. Which is another theory - about theories.

I am not minimizing the value of theories in principle. I am all for making pragmatic use of them, to do things that are in our reach to do, and to think thoughts we are able to think. But a theory is nothing more than that, a theory. There are no nature's laws - just our assumptions about nature having this or that regularity. And that again is a theory, based on many observations.

Just too take it as granted that such theories are so unlimited and infinite in validity that they embrace all universe although we know close to nothing about this universe - that is a bit too much. With nature's laws it could very well be that we find out one day that it is with many of them like it is with Newtonian physics and quantum, physics: the one model works wonders to explain Pool, the other is useless. The latter theory is great according to our current standard of knowledge to explain subnuclear events, Newton sucks.

We live on just one little planet, and have thrown a couple of little toys into the air close to us. Let's not antropomorphise the rest of the universe altogether, and let's not fantasize that we really do any form of space travel really worth to be called that.

Most intelligent life out there probably will be eons older, than we are. Most of these intelligences will be so much superior in intelligence that we probably will be unable to even recognize them as what they are: intelligence, as long as they do not help us to recognize them. Like we are also unable to recognize an intelligence that is too much inferior to us. And if we have this problem of not recognizing inferior intelligence, why do we assume that other superior intelligences do not have the same problem in recognizing us? For all the others out there, "universe" will be something very different than for us. And the superior intelligences there are, probably are capable of means and abilities that for us border to pure magic. Astronomy tells us we live in those 10% of this galaxy's volume that are the youngest part of this galaxy. That means 90% of solar systems in this galaxy are much older than Earth. If anybody has dreams about us meeting others on a basis of same eye level or missionary superiority, Star Trek style, you better think twice. for that reason I have said farewell to the idea to send drones into space and trying to make active contact, and want passive listening being done only. Since most of those out there already are superior to us, what makes us assuming that they all are necessarily friendly? The example of human societies on planet Earth?

[Letum]

Your arguing for the points where I do agree with you!

In the post I quoted I was causing you of inconsistency in not applying the
same ideas about theories and knowledge to your knowledge and theories
about theories and knowledge.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Letum

Your arguing for the points where I do agree with you!

In the post I quoted I was causing you of inconsistency in not applying the
same ideas about theories and knowledge to your knowledge and theories
about theories and knowledge.

Haven't I? Isn't that an obvious implication from the first to the last sentence?

Again, I think this is word-picking only.

At the end I even described that I recently have changed one of my former opinions about alien contact. Isn't that illustrating the changing the nature of theories? I could add that I also changed my mind regarding the "originality" of alien life out there, and that I now see good argument to assume that most surviving intelligence out there maybe is not bound anymore to the natural form that once has formed up this intelligence, but into forms built by these earlier lifeforms, that make it more survivable, robust and less vulnerable to the passing of time, like man has begun to chnage his genes, and maybe will be successful to transfer his mind into machines in a still far away future. Maybe most intelligence out there is what we would call - machine-based intelligence. That scenario makes more sense than one may imagine at the first thought about it. True, that is theory, but one I form as best as I can on basis of what I see as reasonable. Ten years ago, i prioritised an assumed correlation between intelligence and higher civilisation, and that civilisation correlates with peacefulness. I have given up that thought, it just does not make much sense. It was no solid theory, but random belief only, or unfoundable wishful thinking.

[Letum]

You misunderstand me.
I am not saying your non-meta ideas are inflexible.


I will try to explain more carefully...

Do you think it is the case that all theories and ideas are models for
explanation only and can not be known to be true facts about the world?

[Skybird]

Yes. So does a number of other thinkling schools and xyz-isms as well, Radical Constructivism maybe one of the most prominent here.

I think I understood you correctly, I just think that it is a discussion about almost nothing. If you plan to illustrate to show me that my thoughts regarding theory also are just a theory, let's call it Skybirdianism, you must not, for I know that. The only question is if there is a theory that makes more sense than mine, or not.

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Skybird

[...] The only question is if there is a theory that makes more sense than mine, or not.

There is the problem. If you are not assigning any truth values to
Skybirdianism, then what does it matter if it makes more or less sense than
another theory?

[Skybird]

To find out how to come along in this life, and get along a way that hopefully is safer and more comfortable and less fearsome than others.

It's like with a boat whose captain got the order to sail to a distant point with some treacherous reef in the way. He must be careful, but no matter how careful he is, he never can gain an ultimate certainty:

He may get through, then all he knows is that the path he has chosen did work, but he does not know whether or not there is a shorter, safer passage, a more comfortable route available. All he knows is that he survived on the route he has choosen.

Or he sails into his doom, the reef damages and sinks his ship, and the captain looses crew, ship and his own life. then all he knows is that the course he has set did not pass beyond the obstacle. He does not know whether it did not fit by a huge or a small margin, and does not even know if there is any free passage through the reef at all. All he knows when dying is that the choice he made, did not earn him success.

[Letum]

Can not a idea that makes less sense than other ideas do all those things?