It is if Y = ¬X

John

Can you prove that?

if Y = ¬X and x ∈ Y ∪ ¬X then Y ∩ ¬X = 0 ∴ x ∈ Y or x ∈ ¬X

John

Bull shit!

Damn, busted again.

John

rainbow wrote:

Rumraket wrote:
The interesting facts to ponder are that these various compounds are synthesizable under conditions where no mind is investing it's will in their production.

Not really. Small compounds are generally easily formed by undirected reactions. So I'd not think that the formation of glycine would be of any greater importance than say glyceraldehyde:
Would you?

From first blush I believe the significance is that it is a zwiter-ionic compound...it contains an acid and a base on the same structure. More specifically, the presence of the amino acid group and the CO2H acid group separated by the carbon is the footprint for almost every amino-acid which are the building blocks of life. Proteins are chains of amino acids.

Glycine
H2NCH2CO2H

The general formula for an amino acid is H2NCHRCO2H, where R reactant side chain.
Alanine - R = CH3
Glutamine R = CH2 CH2 CONH2
etc.


http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/chemistr ... noacid.gif

OnCue wrote:

rainbow wrote:

Rumraket wrote:
The interesting facts to ponder are that these various compounds are synthesizable under conditions where no mind is investing it's will in their production.

Not really. Small compounds are generally easily formed by undirected reactions. So I'd not think that the formation of glycine would be of any greater importance than say glyceraldehyde:
Would you?

From first blush I believe the significance is that it is a zwiter-ionic compound...it contains an acid and a base on the same structure. More specifically, the presence of the amino acid group and the CO2H acid group separated by the carbon is the footprint for almost every amino-acid which are the building blocks of life. Proteins are chains of amino acids.

Glycine
H2NCH2CO2H

The general formula for an amino acid is H2NCHRCO2H, where R reactant side chain.
Alanine - R = CH3
Glutamine R = CH2 CH2 CONH2
etc.


http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/chemistr ... noacid.gif

The amino group and the carboxylic group simply allow the amino-acids to polymerise. There are other biopolymers that form without amidic linkages, so there can't be any certainty that they are essential for life.
The phrase 'building blocks of life' is itself misleading. Life without glyceraldehyde is also unknown, does this make it also a 'building block'?
Carbon dioxide is required for the formation of many biomolecules. Is it also a building block of life?
What about water?

Let us hope then that this mythological 'building blocks of life' can now be relegated to the woo bin.

rainbow wrote:Let us hope then that this mythological 'building blocks of life' can now be relegated to the woo bin.

What's so mythical about it? You can't have life without it's building blocks, obviously.

Rumraket wrote:

rainbow wrote:Let us hope then that this mythological 'building blocks of life' can now be relegated to the woo bin.

What's so mythical about it? You can't have life without it's building blocks, obviously.

Defining amino-acids as 'building blocks of life' is like stating that nuts and bolts are the building blocks of a motor car.
It provides no explanation of anything.
You can't have a car without nuts and bolts, obviously.

Perhaps cars don't have building blocks.

John

z8000783 wrote:Perhaps cars don't have building blocks.

John

You have little Faith.

Say you found a packet of nuts, washers and bolts in the desert.
Would you reject this as evidence that cars can assemble themselves?

I would see this as evidence that someone had overloaded his camel.

John

Possibly.

rainbow wrote:

z8000783 wrote:Perhaps cars don't have building blocks.

John

You have little Faith.

Say you found a packet of nuts, washers and bolts in the desert.
Would you reject this as evidence that cars can assemble themselves?

Cars aren't made of molecules, and their parts usually don't have natural affinities for each other, can't chemically interact with each other like atomic size structures can, and they are't subject to natural selection, neither are they produced in nature as far as I know. So yes, I would reject it as evidence that cars can assemble themselves, but from this it doesn't logically follow(because of the differences in properties I just detailed) that I should also reject existence of the building blocks of life as constituting evidence that life can "assemble itself", however poor I also think that phrase reflects the nature of the subject.

rainbow wrote:Say you found a packet of nuts, washers and bolts in the desert.
Would you reject this as evidence that cars can assemble themselves?

I'd probably just eat the packet of nuts.

Rumraket wrote:

rainbow wrote:

z8000783 wrote:Perhaps cars don't have building blocks.

John

You have little Faith.

Say you found a packet of nuts, washers and bolts in the desert.
Would you reject this as evidence that cars can assemble themselves?

Cars aren't made of molecules, and their parts usually don't have natural affinities for each other, can't chemically interact with each other like atomic size structures can, and they are't subject to natural selection, neither are they produced in nature as far as I know.

Cars are in fact made of molecules.
Nuts and bolts, if they have the same thread do actually fit together, so the affinity they have for each other is not natural but by design.
As for natural selection, how did this apply to the first replicator?

So yes, I would reject it as evidence that cars can assemble themselves, but from this it doesn't logically follow(because of the differences in properties I just detailed) that I should also reject existence of the building blocks of life as constituting evidence that life can "assemble itself", however poor I also think that phrase reflects the nature of the subject

Then we agree that the phrase is a really poor one and should be binned?
Clearly the 'building blocks of life" implies that once you have these simple molecules then they can assemble themselves into living entities by themselves.
Since there is no evidence to support this, the phrase is misleading.

LucidFlight wrote:

rainbow wrote:Say you found a packet of nuts, washers and bolts in the desert.
Would you reject this as evidence that cars can assemble themselves?

I'd probably just eat the packet of nuts.

You could bolt down the nuts, but what do you do with the washers?

rainbow wrote:

LucidFlight wrote:

rainbow wrote:Say you found a packet of nuts, washers and bolts in the desert.
Would you reject this as evidence that cars can assemble themselves?

I'd probably just eat the packet of nuts.

You could bolt down the nuts, but what do you do with the washers?

Screw 'em! Good for the nuts.

rainbow wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

rainbow wrote:

z8000783 wrote:Perhaps cars don't have building blocks.

John

You have little Faith.

Say you found a packet of nuts, washers and bolts in the desert.
Would you reject this as evidence that cars can assemble themselves?

Cars aren't made of molecules, and their parts usually don't have natural affinities for each other, can't chemically interact with each other like atomic size structures can, and they are't subject to natural selection, neither are they produced in nature as far as I know.

Cars are in fact made of molecules.

Well sure, and atoms too. But my point is that the equivocation between nuts/bolts and molecules is false.

rainbow wrote:Nuts and bolts, if they have the same thread do actually fit together, so the affinity they have for each other is not natural but by design.

Which is irrelevant, because putting a nut next to a bolt won't make them attract each other and stick. But that kind of behavior is common for molecules.

rainbow wrote:As for natural selection, how did this apply to the first replicator?

The first relicator would be replicating itself, making errors in the process(mutations), the nature of which would subsequently be either neutral, or selectively beneficial or deleterious, depending on the environment.

rainbow wrote:

Rumraket wrote:So yes, I would reject it as evidence that cars can assemble themselves, but from this it doesn't logically follow(because of the differences in properties I just detailed) that I should also reject existence of the building blocks of life as constituting evidence that life can "assemble itself", however poor I also think that phrase reflects the nature of the subject

Then we agree that the phrase is a really poor one and should be binned?

Yes, the phrase "assemble itself" is stupid. Out with it. If one absolutely must describe the origin of life in two words, I'd go with something like chemical evolution instead. Of course, that still doesn't mean one should think the entire subject is summed up in a two-word title, nor that the word evolution necessarily refers to classic darwinian evolution.

rainbow wrote:Clearly the 'building blocks of life" implies that once you have these simple molecules then they can assemble themselves into living entities by themselves.

Clearly nothing like that is implied at all.

rainbow wrote:Since there is no evidence to support this, the phrase is misleading.

"assemble itself" is, yes. I wonder why you would use it.