Chris Hughes

Er, right. After some googling, I can see a connection, if not an answer. Apparently, the Library of Babel website, to which you provided a link, is b...

Not sure diagnosis helps (unless you're a parent of a severely autistic child needing serious help). Peace of mind can come from acceptance, I'd say. ...

I give up. Delete me now.

I'm grateful for the four pages of responses, but there's a lot of unimaginative knee-jerk mechanism.

I was hoping someone here would get what I'm saying, kind of agree (or accept it for the sake of argument), and develop it.

The difficulty with tbe origin of DNA lies not in the (inevitable!) lack of observation, but in the lack of a plausible theory.

It's high improbability arises from the difficulty of getting from the component chemicals to the highly complex molecule without the benefit of evolu...

Thanks. :cool:

Re "meaning" and which academic field it belongs to, I'm suggesting that the improbablity of the occurrence of DNA inplies the possibility of a meanin...

I haven't invoked supernatural intervention. (However, as an agnostic, I don't rule it out.)

How true! We pompously say, "science hasn't yet discovered...". Yes, I like to imagine that, say, cosmology or particle physics will (eventually!) con...

No it doesn't. Evolution is a brilliant design process that requires no designer.

No, I'm not - I'm an agnostic. I'm speculating that, given the improbability of the ocurrence of DNA, there may be a design-like process analagous to ...

Yes - now we're safe in the Premiership I can go down the road to watch my favourite team, Man U. Not that I ever have :gasp:

Yes, we should - and we are. And we can help each other.

If you mean we should assume there's separate DNA life elsewhere in the universe, then yes, the ocurrence of DNA is less improbable. That's kind of ci...

Was it predictable that a life form would get the ability to use complex language?

Thats just silly. :wink:

Perhaps a design-like process, a super-blind-watchmaker, is at work - and the universe is "evolving" (in inverted commas out of respect for the brilli...

What do you mean?

Yes - DNA is life, which evolves meaningfully. Was the evolution of humans, able to think about this, predictable?

I hope you mean evolution, not genetic modification. Either way, I'm asking about what meaning DNA's improbable ocurrence might have.

Well, you've done better than anyone else - come up with the explanation for the origin of DNA.

Thanks. Love your work!

Feel it!

That's another way of saying "design". Design doesn't need a designer. Look at evolution. It only needs a process. In this hypothesis, one not yet und...

Exactly - and my metaphysical question is: if the effect was DNA, and it was not randomly generated, was its cause cosmic meaning?

It's similar to how you get from primeval soup to DNA. Until the ocurrence of DNA there was no evolution, so how did that amazingly complex molecule c...

The thought experiment is: imagine a device producing random characters indefinitely. Probablity maths says it'll reproduce the works of Shakespeare.

Hi. For some reason I used my real name. Surprisingly, the universe didn't implode. I live in Leicester, a small city in the UK midlands. I’m 71, semi...

Actual monkeys and typewriters aren't needed for the thought experiment. Mechanistic probabilitarians are imagining random character generation which ...

What if before heat death (assuming we survive climate crisis) human consciousness meets/attains universal consciousness?

Fair enough. :worry:

Its field is metaphysics.

Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge. Meaning - the meaning of meaning, if you like - isn't confined to that field.

Words can be used to obfuscate. Is my OP unworthy of acknowledgement and response? If so, perhaps it should be deleted.

Clearly my clarity challenges mechanism. Does that disqualify it?

Clearly, I'm talking about the idea that the universe is imbued with meaning; that DNA and our goldilocks planet are not the product of chance. This i...

How do you explain the origin of DNA, then?

My OP suggests that both events, the hypothetical random reproduction of Shakespeare and tbe hypothesised random formation of DNA, are so improbable a...

I don't see the problem here. The works of Shakespeare (the product of his mind) are the subject of the monkeys/typewriters thought experiment, which ...

I'd say it's not a matter of belief - rather one of common sense. How?

An interesting question is one that people respond to. If the OP is poor, but gets a response, a responder can reframe it, and rescue it from deletion...

A poem, if I may, by Hugo Brucciani:

God is a mixed metaphor.

My point being: The origin of DNA can't be materialisticaly brushed aside. As long as it can't be explained, it must be acknowledged a mystery.

Give me abductive every time.

That would be almost as bad as Brexit.

Yes - hypothetically the universe would probably implode and cause the next Big Bang.

Good point. Someone should have done that: recallibrate the discussion.