[r.p.bibra]

Originally Posted by Lloyd Gillespie

"One minus the many, is absolutely impossible. One plus the many, is the highest probability, of the highest possibility, thus the only possibility___and the real universe, we actually live in..." me

Lloyd

"One plus the many, is the highest probability"

LG. your propsition is most gladly accepted, as each particle represents/is an part/constitues the whole. love&regards.ls

[Graybeard]

Originally Posted by r.p.bibra

Greg; there is nothing to disprove, as everything you or the scientists have contributed to the knowledge bank of human intellect is highly appreciative and helpful in its elevation.

Rajinder ... I do understand your explanation of 'worldly knowledge' and 'inward knowledge'.

Originally Posted by r.p.bibra

As nature is the best guru for worldly sciences, Self is the best guru for inward ‘knowledge. .... the answer is within.

My reference to the fossil record was not only referring to the fact that it provides conclusive evidence for the development of life on earth, that it provides evidence for the evolution of all matter throughout the Universe, in fact I suspect that Darwins theories of natural selection will eventually be incorporated, and play the greater part for explaining the evolution of the Cosmos.

My prime reason for referring to the fossil record is that its explanation of Natural Selection is that it conclusively demonstrates that life, the universe and everything is the result of random changes.

A random system does not allow or require an intelligent design or guiding hand to determine outcomes. At this moment, lacking any other evidence we could conclude that Homo Sapiens is the most intelligent life form in the Cosmos. But for all that we have never played even the minutest part in determining the evolution of the Cosmos, except on this small blue sphere.

For myself, I see no evidence for anything other than Natural Selection, where ever I look. My 'inward knowledge' is turned towards the understanding of Natural Selection. For me, my 'soul revelation' is in the understanding of this process.

The fact that the most improbable events become the most probable given time and circumstance is truly a 'soul revelation' when you comprehend it.

As you can see truth in a grain of sand, or a forest inside an acorn .. so can I .. for me the acorn is an acorn because every mutation prior to this point was not as successful as this mutation, and this mutation will hold sway until another random mutation occurs that more suits the circumstances it finds itself in. You and IC and Michael all feel that random events could not have possibly bought about all you see.. but in this you are wrong .. this is the true soul revelation ... we are on our own .. and we are doing it ourselves.

What do you see when you look at the acorn, or any seed ??

kind regards ... awaiting your answer .. greg

[mkirkpatrick]

Greg me old hoppo.just reportıng ın from the sunny clımes of Turkey.ın a frıendly ınternet
cafe.

What I see ın an acorn ıs the absolute.what I see ın you mate ıs the Absolute.what I see
ın the trash can ıs the Absolute.what I see.feel.taste.touch.sense.all ıs absolute.there ıs
ın truth mate NO-thıng else-other than Absolute?You and I and all (else) are ıllusıons.as
ıs the thread tıtle here.what happens when you dıe.ıs exactly the same as when you are
(lıvıng)you contınue lıvıng.wıthout the dense physıcal body.ınstead you are usıng the astral etherıc body.untıl the urge to return to physıcal expressıon becomes overwhelmıng
then we fall asleep (there) recross the rıver of forgetfullness (Styxx)and awake here?


regards mıchael.

[r.p.bibra]

[quote=Graybeard;31513]

Rajinder ... I do understand your explanation of 'worldly knowledge' and 'inward knowledge'. "
Greg; if you understand about "outside-world", which is "Consciousness" and the inside-world, which is "Awareness", then you are a "Realised-Soul", the Omnipresent-Omniscient-Omnipotent.congrat. fellow traveller. about the rest,some other time,am busy in some other work.love&regards.ls

[r.p.bibra]

dear Greg, here is copy from an article on the subject of "natural selection" by an Indian nuclear scientist:

By Prof. G Venkataraman)

The essence of Darwin’s theory might be stated as follows: In the beginning, there was one living being – the ancestor of all of us. Darwin assumed this. being was far from complex. From this being emerged, in due course, other species, of greater and greater complexity, species that were better suited to survive.

Young Charles Darwin

Now how did this happen? Darwin suggested that it was due to random mutation of the genes. When genes of a species suffer mutation, it leads to the emergence of another species, with slightly different characteristics. So from one species, there come a family of species; these then compete for survival, and the fittest species emerges as the victor. And once again, mutation, more descendent species, competition for survival, and finally a victor. This goes on and on for millions and millions of years and at the end of it all we have fishes, amphibians, birds, mammals of various kinds, monkeys, and finally man.
We must remember that Darwin did all his hypothesising in the middle of the nineteenth century when Science was yet to cross many, many new frontiers. In effect, it was a broad-brush theory. Of course, Darwin himself made additions and subtractions later, but in spite of it all, at the time of the John Scope trial, Darwin’s Theory still had huge gaps. Yet it provided a plausible, scientific framework, and that was what excited biologists.
Science Seeks Answers to Our Origins
OK, let us move on and come to say the sixties of the twentieth century. By this time, many developments had taken place in the field of Science. The most important from the point of evolutionary biology was the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA by Crick and Watson in 1955, for which they duly received the Noble Prize. Thanks to this, one could now talk about mutation at a molecular level, which of course made a lot of sense.
The second important development concerned intensive studies on the origin of life itself. You will recall that Darwin assumed a primitive ancestor. Where did this ancestor come from and how? It was known by then that the age of the Universe was around fifteen billion years, the age of our earth is about five billion years, and life probably first appeared on earth about four billion years ago. The question was, how?

The fusion of molecules

This made scientists go back to the condition that existed on the face of the earth four billion years ago. They had a reasonably good idea of the nature of the atmosphere, which, incidentally, was very different from what it is today. Believe it or not, there was little or no oxygen then. But there were various other gases like methane and so forth. So people started doing experiments to see what would happen in such atmospheres if there were powerful lightning discharges. They found that a huge variety of complex molecules would be formed in the atmosphere, which would then come down with rain - methane rain perhaps - and get into the ocean. Thus, in due course, the ocean was expected to be teeming with all kinds of molecules colliding with each other constantly.
Now, when molecules collide, many things could happen. They could, for example, break up. But they could also combine to form a bigger and more complex molecule. It was then hypothesised that this process of constant collisions threw up one day, purely by chance, a big molecule that contained life.
This raises the question: What exactly is life? We still don’t have a precise scientific answer to this question but in those days, most people went along with Academician Oparin of Russia who said that a living entity must exhibit three characteristics: Firstly it must exhibit metabolism, meaning it must take in high-grade energy and, after using it, throw out the waste as low-grade energy. Next it must grow, then decay, and finally die. In addition, it must be able to reproduce. This was a reasonably good working definition and this is what most people accepted then.
Life: A Matter of Probability?
OK, has anybody been able to find anything definite about this primordial and prehistoric ancestor of ours? The answer is NO. The speculation still remains but meanwhile, many people have questioned the entire idea on purely probabilistic grounds. These people simply said, “Let us assume that indeed, due to random collisions, a living molecule was produced about four billion years ago. But let us do a little calculation involving collisions and check how long it would take for such a chance event to occur.” When that mathematics was done it was found that it would take a billion times the present age of the Universe.
Let us pause and absorb the whole argument. There are three points to consider here. The first is the outcome, the second is the process by which the outcome is realised, and the third is the probability. In this case, the outcome is the production of a living molecule in the ocean of those times, which is often called the primordial soup. As for the process, it is, as I have already mentioned, random collisions. Lastly, there is the probability business.



To appreciate this point better, let us consider the following example: I start tossing a coin. As you know, when I do that, I would get either heads or tails. Everyone knows that on the average, heads would occur fifty percent of the time and tails would occur fifty percent of the time. OK. Now it is quite likely that sometimes I may get two heads in succession. Let us suppose that I go on tossing in the hope that I get a thousand heads in succession. In principle, this is possible, but in practical terms, it is highly improbable. How does one quantify this highly improbable business? One says, using math, that the chance of this happening is one in trillion, trillion, trillion or something like that, and then one adds, “If I do one toss every second, this would mean so many billion, billion years of wait before I get thousand heads in a row.”
One has to carry over this kind of argument into the business of a living molecule being formed in the primordial soup as the result of random collisions. When that is done, one finds that the current age of the universe is too small for such a molecule to have emerged. Remember, in Darwin’s theory, not only the primordial living molecule, but everything including plants, trees, crocodiles, tigers, monkeys and humans, must come through as the result of random processes within fourteen to fifteen billion years, the approximate age of the Universe. So you see, probability puts a huge roadblock up right at the beginning. Keeping in mind the enormous complexity of living systems, Fred Hoyle, a great astronomer, put it like this: “The current scenario of the origin of life is about as likely as the assembly of a fully operational Boeing 747 by a tornado whirling about in a junk yard.”
A New Piece of the Puzzle: DNA and Genes

DNA - mystery molecules

That raises the question: “Where then did Darwin’s ancestor come from?” Hoyle has madesome interesting suggestions concerning that but I shall not get into that topic here. Let me move on to other aspects. Let me get back to the DNA, to which I made a brief reference earlier. This molecule, whose full name - de-oxyribo nucleic acid - has a remarkable structure: that of two spirals twisted around each, with innumerable steps linking them. DNA is sometimes called the molecule of life, and with good reason.
DNA gave genetics its backbone and brought it down from the macro to the micro-level. Naturally, the discovery of the structure of the DNA spurred evolutionists to look at Darwin’s Theory from a molecular point of view. No doubt, this has lead to huge leaps in understanding, but many questions and big gaps still remain. I am not an expert in this topic and I obviously cannot go into the details. But I can certainly point out some of the issues.
By and large, most people seem to be convinced that Darwin’s Theory with all its modern nuances, does offer a concrete framework for understanding evolution. But, difficulties that cannot be swept under the rug include the question of the primordial ancestor, to which I have already made a reference. There was the additional question of random mutations followed by natural selection. I went over this rather quickly earlier; maybe I should say a few more words at this juncture, because it is an important issue.
In Darwin’s Theory, species ‘B’ say, emerges from parent species ‘A’, through random mutation of the genes of A. Along with B, there may also be species ‘C’, ‘D’, and so on. All these newly emergent species, B, C, D etc., would be similar to their ancestor species A, but also different in many respects. Now all these species would compete for survival, and eventually, among the daughter species, that which is best suited to survive would actually survive. This is the basic idea behind the survival of the fittest hypothesis.
It all looks fine, especially on a macro scale, except for one problem thrown up by statisticians. I have already made a reference to this earlier when I quoted Fred Hoyle. In the context, there is one more famous quote that is sometimes used, a quote that goes back to Sir James Jeans, a famous astronomer who lived in the early part of the twentieth century. Jeans said that if we had a group of monkeys all trained to press the keys of a typewriter, and if these monkeys were allowed to keep on typing endlessly, then, even though they would be pressing the keys in a purely random fashion, it is possible for one of the monkeys, perhaps after millions of years, to type out completely a sonnet of Shakespeare, by sheer chance of course. By the way, if you browse the net, you will find a lot of interesting material about this monkey business. What I am driving at is that though in principle, a monkey might one fine day actually crank out an entire sonnet of Shakespeare, it is in practice highly improbable, unless one waits a trillion, trillion years or something like that. In the same way, for a series of lucky random mutations to occur to bring us to where we are would require an impossibly long time. So people started asking the question: “It looks like evolution did occur due to gene mutation, but is it possible that the mutation was not entirely random?”
love&regards.ls

[Lloyd Gillespie]

Bibra, your probability logic is very weak and wrong. I suggest you study the father of modern probability logic and statistics, Christiaan Huygens. And further, I'd like to point out, your and Prof. G Venkataraman's primordial ancestor logic is completely unfounded, and only held by a small minority of social scientists, and has practically no bearing on actual scientific evolution of the real ideas involved... Check your and his facts more closely, as most of your and his article's points are no more than your and his own personal conjectures...

True probability logic, statistics and mechanics' evolution of the universe requires no primordial ancestor falsity. It simply requires random and uniform matter in motion... You keep trying to enter false information, where it does not belong... I think that's quite deceptive of you, don't you...?

Lloyd

[r.p.bibra]

Originally Posted by Lloyd Gillespie

Bibra, your probability logic is very weak and wrong. I suggest you study the father of modern probability logic and statistics, Christiaan Huygens. And further, I'd like to point out, your and Prof. G Venkataraman's primordial ancestor logic is completely unfounded, and only held by a small minority of social scientists, and has practically no bearing on actual scientific evolution of the real ideas involved... Check your and his facts more closely, as most of your and his article's points are no more than your and his own personal conjectures...

True probability logic, statistics and mechanics' evolution of the universe requires no primordial ancestor falsity. It simply requires random and uniform matter in motion... You keep trying to enter false information, where it does not belong... I think that's quite deceptive of you, don't you...?

Lloyd

lg; instead of casting vindictive, irreverent and irresponsible aspersion, the right course would have been to refute, with your 'absolute' knowledge which has not, so far bought you any takers ( for your FS). Instead of flouting improvable theories and theories, come out with provable ‘model’, not based on hypothetical theories but with rational models. Spiritual knowledge is beyond your mind, it is inner knowledge which has nothing to do with material knowledge. You throw science at us as if we are a bunch of dumb siblings. Grow up man, the world is changing fast, it is catching up with the west. Be ready to ‘meet’ it with love and compassion, but not with venom which is seeped in your veins. Cleanse it with love.
A Thumbnail Sketch Of Prof.Venkataraman
Academic degrees: Honours degree in Physics from the University of
Madras, and Ph.D in Physics from the University of Bombay.
Career summary: Served in the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay,
of the Department of Atomic Energy, from 1955 to 1973 as Scientist. From
1973 to 1987, served in the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research,
Kalpakkam, of the Department of Atomic Energy, as Director Physics and
Electronics Group, Head of the Computer Centre, Head Library and
Information Service, from 1978 to 1992 as Director ANURAG in the Defence
Research and Development Organisation, holding the rank of a Distinguished
Scientist. Retired from that post on superannuation.
Publications: About eighty [80] original papers and review articles in leading
physics journals published in America, England, Europe and India.
Books and monographs: One monograph published by MIT Press, Boston,
one monograph published by Springer Verlag, Berlin, the official Raman
centenary scientific biography of Nobel Prize winner Sir C.V.Raman,
commissioned by the Indian Academy of Science and released in October
1988 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and 14 books on physics in a series
entitled VIGNETTES IN PHYSICS.
Fellowship: Elected Fellow, Indian Academy of Science, elected Fellow,
Indian National Science Academy, elected Fellow, National Academy of
Sciences India.
Professional Awards: Sir C.V.Raman Medal of the University Grants
Commission, Raman Centenary Medal of the Indian Academy of Science,
Indira Gandhi Award of the Indian National Science Academy, and the Sir
C.V.Raman Medal of the Indian Science Congress.
Other honours: Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship conferred by the Nehru
Foundation, and the Padma Shri conferred by the President of India.
Participation in international scientific activities: Have presented papers
in many international conferences, have chaired sessions in international
conferences, have been on the organising committee for international
conferences, have lectured in many universities in India and abroad [from
McMaster University in Canada to Victoria University in New Zealand], have
refereed papers for journals and served on editorial boards of journals.
Compare your credentials with him whom you so derisively dismissed!
learn some manners prof.!love&regards.

[r.p.bibra]

By the way, what is your role in this forum? Ls is conscious of the fact that this site (toequest) is primarily meant for scientific fraternity of material world, of which only a minority is atheist like you. They should not unnecessarily meddle in the forums/threads where the ‘word’ God in mentioned or discussed. Prof., it is rather deceptive of you as you are willfully deceiving yourself, by negating ‘that’ whose abc you don’t know! Science is not anybody’s preserve. Perhaps you are aware it is part of the syllabus & anyone who is pg, aught to have some elementary knowledge of it!
Do you want to tell the world that intelligence is sans consciousness or the later entered the world only with the physical entry of Newton, Einstein and Prof. LG? Why is your fraternity silent about the element of consciousness? Is Creation-sustenance-annihilation the fire works of the scientific fraternity or it is in constant flux guided by some unknown forces?
God/Divinity & Its science, the spirituality, is not your subject, the way PS (physical science) is not the subject of ls. Pl. keep away from it, as you can not contribute anything worthwhile to it. You have ample opportunity to poof off in other forums, where you can rent off your steam of nasty vocabulary. A person of such high esteem & behaving like a street urchin is something to be deplored! Ls had once requested yourself to please excuse him the pleasure of your esteemed company.
Dear scientists; wisdom is not theoretical treatises; it is a way of life of the righteous action. Unfortunately this has become a subject of curriculum. But it is not so. Just an example, once a known ‘thinker’ of east went to America and stayed with a university professor. After the lecture, the Prof. took him to a bar. The thinker from the so-called ‘east’ was taken by surprise, as the Prof. had just preached in the class about the abuses of liquor. When asked he simply replied, “Don’t mind what was said in the class that was only a part of the syllabus, nothing to do with our personal life”.(it is not a pun but based on actual story) See (!) this is the difference! For a wise there is no difference between his thought, word and deed. You always spew hatred towards east? Is your east India specific, Zenism, Buddhism or some other fanciful castles of your fantasies? Love&regards.ls

[Graybeard]

Rajinder ... I have read your article in depth. In this case I must agree with Lloyd but please don't think I am being negative. The article you cite reads from the late seventies, early eighties. These were genuine expressed thoughts of that time.

Much has changed in the understanding of DNA ... and in particular the more primitive RNA.

My opinion is as follows.

If we look at the timeline of the Earth for the last 4,550 million years it quickly becomes apparent that for 90% of that time life consisted of slime.

The fossil record shows (in the main part) compelling evidence that, we, and all other living things have evolved from slime. Further, that this has occured in the last 543 million years. There is no question of the odds against a monkey typing a shakespherian sonnet. It happened. When the odds are extremely high it is no longer true to conclude that it will NOT happen, but simply when, because it will happen.

If the odds are billions to one against, then after billions of attempts the right combination WILL occur. For Slime, each cell living only for a moment with a unique 'fingerprint' of DNA, it took 4,000 million years before the first noticeable change occured. If you take the time to think of how many cells lived and died and mutated in that period before a beneficial (natural positive selection) change occured then you will realise that even a monkey typing the bible would have been a quicker and better bet.

So now our question becomes much simpler. We no longer have to explain the complexity of life as we know it, all we have to do is ask how did slime occur ?

In effect the question becomes, could RNA ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA ), a sugar protein, become DNA, a sugar protein capable of supporting and sustaining a carbon and water based life form.

I believe it did and I could supply many proofs here but would not necessarily convince you and would make the post overlong.



The following is an extract from

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ch...bandwidth.html

Life's origins (3,850 mya)

Evidence preserved in rock layers in present-day Greenland tells us that life existed at least 3,850 million years ago (mya). While this helps us understand when life began, it doesn't explain how life began.

Scientists agree that certain conditions were needed for living cells to evolve from the gases and water thought to be present on the early Earth. These include a concentrated supply of organic chemicals, the most important of which was cyanide; energy to fuel reactions between these chemicals; protection from extreme heat; and some sort of biological catalysts to encourage the building of proteins and assist in reproduction.

One of the more compelling hypotheses offered to explain how living cells formed describes an "RNA world." It holds that chemical reactions sparked by the introduction of energy produced RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences called ribozymes. Some of these ribozymes helped assemble proteins -- the workhorses of living cells. Other ribozymes helped RNA replicate itself. The primitive cells of this "RNA world," like cells today, probably had water-repellent outer membranes to hold together and protect their contents.

If life evolved near the planet's surface, ultraviolet radiation or lightning could have provided the vital spark. But if, as many scientists now think, it evolved underwater, heat generated by Earth itself -- like that found today in hydrothermal vents along volcanic ridges in the deep sea -- probably supplied the energy.

cool bananas ... greg

[austintorn@aol.com]

From Matter to Us

The big bang, or materialization,
One of many, was prosperous for us,
For its constants allowed for life’s basis
‘Though it didn’t have us in mind at all.

It arose from some unbreakable stuff,
Perhaps several such eternal things,
Or the same from previous contraction;
But not from nothing, for how could this be?

Now, if the big bang’s material result
Was not favorable for our becoming,
Then we wouldn’t be here to discuss it.
‘Though auspicious, it guaranteed nothing.

Matter and antimatter formed of it,
In equal parts, most of it anililating;
However, some black holes evaporated,
Leaving a fortunate amount of matter.

Matter’s here that works as building blocks,
The strong force’s stability opposed
To the weak force’s dispersal through decay,
Plus electromagnetism’s motion.

Lucky, not planned, all this gave us a chance,
As from the stars cameth our help and hope,
When they generated all the elements
That brewed a soup of fortuitous accidents.

Earth was a golden distance from the sun—
A large number of other planets unfit;
Earth’s features evolved in a good proportion
To sustain the beginnings of early life.

Soil and sun’s plants generated oxygen;
Death chose the useful forms over the useless,
Kept track of by RNA-like structures
In life’s cradle, though we had not yet appeared.

Our blind fated road was much further paved
When asteroids finished most of the species,
Far from a feature of intelligent design,
But it was just the opening we needed.

Evolution sifted through the accidents,
As it directed the good from the bad;
We began from the fusing of chromosomes
That made us incompatible with “chimps”.

From matter to us—to all our senses,
To our brains, our minds, and consciousness,
In a universe of matter and space,
Past and future, we won the human race.

It only took 13.7 billion years,
For these many rare events to occur;
Though just a few of the coin tosses were good,
The bad tosses went nowhere in a hurry!

Well, I’ve left a lot of good fortune out,
And perhaps you readers can help fill it in;
Know, too, that bad luck may come as well:
Global warming, nuclear war, or more asteroids.

The lure of myth is ever great to man;
But, beyond the apparent solidity
Of the word “faith” is its meaning—of
Belief in the unseen supernatural!

Matter and motion manufactures all
Being and time in the arena of space,
We the complex composites from simple stuff,
The ultimate, so far, in the universe.