Comments by "Lawrence D’Oliveiro" (@lawrencedoliveiro9104) on "The physics of entropy and the origin of life | Sean Carroll" video.

  1. Science has a history of surprising those who said it could never answer particular questions.
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  2. Science is about confronting the tough questions, not running away from them. Is life too complex to have arisen by itself?
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  3. Viruses seem to be the ultimate form of parasite: descended from a regular living thing which gave up every capability for independent existence -- even its own metabolism -- in favour of preying on other living creatures.
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  4. My answer is: the purpose of life is to be dissatisfied with any explanation of what the purpose of life is. Does that leave you feeling dissatisfied? I rest my case.
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  5. Is entropy a state of high information or low information? I ask because, say I buy a new hard drive. Initially all the sectors are filled with zeroes. I add it to my system and keep putting files on it. The more files I put on, the less predictable the bits on the disk becomes. This particularly happens with compressed or encrypted information, because the more efficiently computer data is stored, the more it looks like random noise.
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  6.  @anywallsocket  Does the entropy of a system depend on the presence of a conscious observer, then? Kind of analogous to the “Copenhagen Interpretation” of quantum theory, but for thermodynamics?
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  7.  @anywallsocket  “As a general principle, all values measured by humans are subjective, and only hold meaning relative to othered measured values ...” -- can that be described as a “measured value”, or is it something different?
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  8.  @anywallsocket  So what did you mean about measurements being “subjective”, if the models they support do indeed “accurately reflect the world”, i.e. are “objective”?
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  9.  @anywallsocket  I wonder how you reach that conclusion about science, other than via “empirical studies”.
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  10.  @anywallsocket  Is that a form of “epistemic philosophy built around empirical studies”? Or is it concocted out of thin air?
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  11.  @anywallsocket  You say “cling” as though you have some objective basis for playing down the value of the idea?
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  12.  @anywallsocket  So you admit these are your personal opinions, yet the way you state them suggests you are claiming them as facts.
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  13. ... but who was it who actually carried out that instruction?
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  14. Science is about confronting the tough questions, not running away from them. Is life too complex to have arisen by itself?
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  15.  @RickDelmonico  So you would answer “yes” to my question, then?
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  16. Science is about confronting the tough questions, not running away from them. Is life too complex to have arisen by itself?
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  17. Suppose the answer is “yes”. If life is too complex to have arisen by itself, then it must have been created by something ... or someone.
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  18. But surely this entity that created life must be even more complex than life itself.
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  19. Science is about confronting the tough questions, not running away from them. Is life too complex to have arisen by itself?
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  20. Science is about confronting the tough questions, not shying away from them. Is life too complex to have arisen by itself?
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