Functionally complex

Originally posted by scottishinnz
The river did create an environment which wasn't there before. The sun created Helium, which can be used in the manufacture of heavier elements, which weren't there before. The only difference between this and evolution is between YOUR ears.

No, the difference is that with rivers and helium we can watch, monitor,
measure and so on, with evolution it is between your ears.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Fine, so life is more than just chemicals correct, even if we leave for
a moment things like spirit and souls out of the discussion?
Kelly

I don't know. What exactly is a "chemical"?

A chemical reaction is where the electrons of atoms or molecules are exchanged or shared, I believe. Now, is something a chemical only while it's doing this? Or is it a chemical if it's theoretically possible that it could participate in a chemical reaction? In this context, the word "chemical" is not the best word to use. I think life is matter and energy organized in specific ways and nothing more.

Originally posted by KellyJay
No, the difference is that with rivers and helium we can watch, monitor,
measure and so on, with evolution it is between your ears.
Kelly

You can watch the helium in the sun? And what about those times rivers aren't being looked at? Maybe they do crazy things when no one's looking.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Fine, so life is more than just chemicals correct, even if we leave for
a moment things like spirit and souls out of the discussion?
Kelly

Bring them in, if you like. First you have to prove that they really exist and are not just figments of a very complex simulation by our minds.

Originally posted by KellyJay
No, the difference is that with rivers and helium we can watch, monitor,
measure and so on, with evolution it is between your ears.
Kelly

Look, we've refuted your point. Complexity can, and does, build up in systems, provided they have an input of energy, even without someone directing them. Why do you find that so hard to accept?

Originally posted by KellyJay
These changes are supposedly taking place at such a slow rate they cannot be seen to that degree, only believed. The changes within bacteria are simply that, changes within bacteria, where you start with bacteria and you end with it.
Kelly

It is not at all clear what you are talking about.
Your origional claim was that nothing can become more complex without outside inteligent input. We have refuted that. Now you are trying to loose the whole arguement by making it more vague and claiming that life could not have gone from single cells the vast variety we see today. Your main evidence being based on the claim that we could not observe it over such vast timescales.
Do you now accept that life can and does (sometimes) become more complex? If not lets tackle that point first as it is observable and takes place on very short time scales.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Look, we've refuted your point. Complexity can, and does, build up in systems, provided they have an input of energy, even without someone directing them. Why do you find that so hard to accept?

You have refuted my point? No, you have taken something out of
context and refuted that, at no time have I ever said that there
wasn't systems in the universe, at no time have I ever said that
reactions don't build up other things.
Kelly

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is not at all clear what you are talking about.
Your origional claim was that nothing can become more complex without outside inteligent input. We have refuted that. Now you are trying to loose the whole arguement by making it more vague and claiming that life could not have gone from single cells the vast variety we see today. Your main evidence bein ...[text shortened]... not lets tackle that point first as it is observable and takes place on very short time scales.

My point has always been about life and the complexity we find in it.
Reactions occur all the time, they start they stop, processes begin
they end, things fall apart. With life supposedly a reaction occurred,
and there was life. DNA as we see it is the code of life, but with the
belief in evolution life’s code goes on changing every so slightly taking
with it the improvements that just happen. The point I've been
making is that there isn't any reason to accept that! You want to
believe that is the case you do so because you want to not because
you can see small changes adding up through time taking something that
did not have a heart or blood over time mutate so that it’s descendants on
the evolutionary tree now have all that is necessary for the heart and
circulatory systems. Code that is written does not mutate into something
so advanced that the balanced required to do these things happen without
direction! That level of functional complexity does not occur without
direction!

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
You stab someone and cut open their aorta. Now they don't have a functioning aorta. That's a broken part right there.

Whatever the cause of death, it breaks one or more "parts". That's why people die.

Well I was going for a more "zoomed in" version of why you die. When someone cuts open your aorta or whatever, you lose a lot of blood. Without this blood, cells in your brain and other parts of your body cannot get the oxygen they need for survival and they quickly die. When your brain cells die off, that is what I would call your actual death.

So even when you get stabbed, you are still dying because of the lack of a neccesary chemical in your brain. Death is just chemistry, or lack thereof.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Fine, so life is more than just chemicals correct, even if we leave for
a moment things like spirit and souls out of the discussion?
Kelly

Well I guess you could say that life is chemicals and cells, but cells are made entirely of chemicals so I would still say life is just chemistry. Yes the chemistry has to be highly regulated and work correctly, but it is still just chemistry.

Originally posted by KellyJay
The reactions stop happening? If all the parts are still there, than
why would life stop, again all the parts are there? If life is just
chemicals why would that be?

The reactions if that is all life is, is just the proper mixing of chemicals
why would it ever stop?

If life is more than just the proper mix of chemicals, why would it ever
start?
...[text shortened]... to it than the sum of the parts, than I suggest you
are not looking at the big picture.
Kelly

I think you need to take a basic chemistry course at your local community college or something. Chemical reactions aren't just mixing of chemicals and having all the right parts. With chemical reactions (as opposed to nuclear reactions), you start and end with all the same atoms. Before the reaction they are arranged one way, after the reaction they are arranged another. These usually happen in the direction which is energetically favored and do not go backwards. Reactions are not mixing of chemicals (although mixed chemicals often react), but reconfiguring one set of chemicals/atoms into another. Like I said, this usually happens one way unless there is energy from outside to push it backwards.

Just because all the same parts are there doesn't mean the reaction will keep happening. And like AThousandYoung said, the point is that in death, all the parts needed are not there.

Please forgive the fact that my wording has been less than precise and my explanations very simplified and incomplete, I am trying to keep this post in terms of the original I am responding to and not go off on too large a tangent.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I don't know. What exactly is a "chemical"?

A chemical reaction is where the electrons of atoms or molecules are exchanged or shared, I believe. Now, is something a chemical only while it's doing this? Or is it a chemical if it's theoretically possible that it could participate in a chemical reaction? In this context, the word "chemical" is not the ...[text shortened]... rd to use. I think life is matter and energy organized in specific ways and nothing more.

This is how the American Chemistry Society (although in an exercise for little kids) defines a chemical reaction. A more advanced definition would be more specific, but I can't find one right now.

Chemical reactions, result in changes which produce new materials with new properties and new compositions. When we burn a candle the wax is consumed as it combines with the oxygen in the air. We produce the new materials, carbon dioxide gas, some black carbon particles, and some water vapor and the wax is gone and cannot be recovered. Most chemical changes also involve other observable changes; often heat and light are produced, as when something burns. Sometimes there is a color change or a solid, liquid, or gas is formed or disappears. The motion of an automobile results from the chemical reaction of burning gasoline. A delicious cake results from the chemical reactions which take place as the batter is baked, and the firefly’s flashing light results from chemical reactions within its body.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is not at all clear what you are talking about.
Your origional claim was that nothing can become more complex without outside inteligent input. We have refuted that. Now you are trying to loose the whole arguement by making it more vague and claiming that life could not have gone from single cells the vast variety we see today. Your main evidence bein ...[text shortened]... not lets tackle that point first as it is observable and takes place on very short time scales.

I like this idea. Lets deal with this argument one part at a time.

Kelly, do you agree that life can become more complex? Not talking about a roundworm to a dog, just can, lets say a bacterium, become a more complex bacterium due to changes in its DNA which occur by errors in replication of its DNA?

If you don't agree with this, please explain why, and we will tackle this argument one bit at a time instead of in huge, vauge chunks. If you do agree with this, we will move on to another part of the argument.

Originally posted by UmbrageOfSnow
I like this idea. Lets deal with this argument one part at a time.

Kelly, do you agree that life can become more complex? Not talking about a roundworm to a dog, just can, lets say a bacterium, become a more complex bacterium due to changes in its DNA which occur by errors in replication of its DNA?

If you don't agree with this, please explai ...[text shortened]... uge, vauge chunks. If you do agree with this, we will move on to another part of the argument.

Works for me.
Not in the since that DNA will with time mutate so that new organs and
systems will arrise where they were not here before.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Works for me.
Not in the since that DNA will with time mutate so that new organs and
systems will arrise where they were not here before.
Kelly

Not to jump in here (even though I am), but aren't you basically agreeing that DNA mutation can lead to greater complexity, while also saying it can't become too complex?

How is that logical?

-JC