Assumptions and Principles

We have to remember that chemical origins of life, or life-by-accidental-non-intelligent causes, is simply an assertion that has been made so often it became dogma (literally).  It is neither the ‘likely’ scenario, or one that particularly makes any sense whatsoever.  It is a response to the (false) premise that if not strictly chemical causes, we’re left helpless – being required to invoke a magical G-d, in which case there is nothing to learn.

But what if we approached other artifacts this way?

What if we discovered structures or designs on other planets? Designs or structures that cannot conceivably have been created through ‘natural’ causes – isn’t there still much to learn when we accept that some form of intelligent thing made these structures?  We could then ask how an intelligence would create such things, and why, for what purpose?

In fact, the only way we can learn anything about these structures is if we assume someone or something designed them… because a natural process cannot produce a house or a car or a sky scraper, it goes without saying that studying them as if some natural sequence of chance events brought them about yields no truth, no knowledge – because the premise is not true, it is ridiculous.

How can I learn architecture, if I am told nature produces skyscrapers?  That some combination of wind and ocean currents and occasional storms lead to these improbable ‘chance’ structures.  I will inevitably be blind to the true principles of the craft.  As are we blind to the principles of life and life-formation.

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Bias vs. the Obvious

In a world just like ours, with creatures as intelligent as ourselves, but built upon a totally different system of life, a Scientist presented a single living cell from our world would quite non-controversially conclude this object was created by some alien form of intelligence.  Or, if not drawing this specific conclusion, in the absence of positive knowledge regarding the origin of this elegant and bizarre machine, would at least assume as much.  For, in the world of reality -- a reality equally present in our world as in the world of an alien intelligence -- machines don't design themselves, nor do they build themselves, nor do they seek out the energy they need if left to their own devices, and most certainly they don't become infinitely more advanced than the original prototype. 

Closer to home, if not for the fact we ARE biological and therefore biased by definition, our scientists would see no controversy in declaring living systems the obvious effect of a cause that exhibits the selective application of principles for the sake of outcome.  Imagine, if we were distinct in every way from living cells, that we would argue and insist that these systems MUST be the product of an unknown series of unlikely accidents no one has witnessed; a process that has no counterpart whatsoever in our world and is in fact at odds with how things behave in the world -- a process as imaginary and fictitious (in spite of the convictions of some) as a trans-dimensional magical dragon who breathes life into chemical soups.  Which is to say, there is just as much evidence to believe in such a dragon, as to believe material processes guided by entropy whose destination is equilibrium should create information and the precise machine capable of reading (but more importantly giving meaning to) this information, and that together they should conquer the world!  And not one world, but many worlds!  -- to be advanced enough to peer into the language where it all began, and where it all begins. 

Bias, Again

It is one thing to make an assumption; it is another entirely to insist that the assumption be true.  Or that the event of bio-genesis “must have been” such a way.

Question: “How did life begin”

Dawkins: “No one knows”

Question “So you don’t know?”

Dawkins: “We know what type of event it must have been.”

This insistence that life begins as a result of a blind chemical process is a clear indication of bias – worse, it is indefensible as a scientific approach, worse still, the dominant paradigm. 

Many intelligent people and scientists are trapped in this form of thinking – simply because they have accepted the premise of a false dichotomy: namely, that natural ‘blind’ causes or magical ‘fairy-tale- like gods are the only possible explanations.  This community is seemingly incapable of grasping that intelligent causes beyond our understanding are to be credited.

Ironically, if these complex nano-engineered highly sophisticated, extremely precise systems were found in any other domain, if they were not who we are(!), we would have no problem recognizing them as the product or extension of a superior intelligence.

[Figure x  Nano Bots, inferior and therefore superior?]

Nano Assembly

A degree in nano-engineering will take you years of study.  To actually engineer a nano device requires special equipment under precisely controlled conditions.