At the outset: Yes -It has been demonstrated that photosynthesis operates via quantum processes. Aha-quantum coherence, a new concept to me. As you can tell from my "handle," I am into birding, and the speculative, tenuous example of bird migration really tickles me.
Nunya, you have made my day!

Youre welcome!

A man in Kentucky recently won a battle with the state and now has an auto license plate saying “IM GOD’.

I’ve heard people say having children gives their lives purpose. In that sentence, “reason” would serve a synonymous function.

Davi, if you happen to know which laws of physics, I hope you will share your knowledge.

@yvilletom Really all of them. If gravity was different for example we would be different. We adapted to the laws thst existed. Physics was not designed around us.

I'd say the composition of our environment is the primary reason for our evolution in this manner. A different rotation and revolution cycle of the earth could have also led to differing results.

@DSGavde Right. The composition of our environment is directly due to the laws of physics. If just one factor was different we may not exist as we know it.

That some languages their verbs place last me has long intrigued.

@yvilletom Their commas typically place, where those types of languages do? About such minor matters as punctuation wonder, I do.

I oft hitch at this juncture with many people, raised in the same indoctrinated culture as I. A culture so rife with religious ideology that is has usurped parts of the language itself, which we use to communicate. To me, this oft leads to what I see as a very odd turn of phrase.

"Why does life exist?"
I would ask this very same question very differently
"How did life come to exist?"

Why, to me, implies intent behind the process. If I am cooking dinner and a fire starts, I don't ask WHY, I ask HOW. If my son crashes my car I might ask how and why. How did this happen and why did you do that.

I see this in a lot of us and our use of language, to me it looks like very subtle, religious/cultural adoptions in our thought proceeses, one we are not fully aware of and notice more and more of as we leave religion or religious culture.

I'm not faulting anyone for this, I think we all do it. Like we have all been infected, survived the infection, but it lingers on in the cultural assumptions we all labor under.

@Davesnothere I happen to be reading Nietzsche s Philosopher, by Prof. Arthur C. Danto, borrowed from a friend who used to teach Philosophy, at N.Y.C.'s Brooklyn College. Nietzsche's original field of study was Philology, the study of language, and he was very much of the opinion that our language directs our ways of perceiving and thinking,

Meh .. god did it.

Dude. Rocks roll downhill because of gravity.

Objects accelerate towards earth because of their mass (Galileo). If their mass is sufficient to overcome the friction of the surface and the air resistance around them, they will roll downhill.

This is not that complicated. Yes, we can take it as a trivial thing that already has a trivial explanation. There is no "from whence" for the fundamental laws of nature to come; they just are. Nature exists because nature exists.

@OwlInASack Yes, there seem to be some on this forum who bristle at any mention of reverence. See Paul’s response.

@OwlInASack, @Paul4747 Can you explain gravity? Do you really know what a rock is? According to physicist Carlo Rovelli particles of matter are not things but are interactions. Space is nothing like what we envision but is composed of a finite number of granules. Time does not exist. Without time the idea of motion is meaningless.

“Nature exists because nature exists” is a non-answer if I’ve ever heard one! You might as well just say that God did it.

Wake up!

@WilliamFleming Oddly enough, yes. Gravity is the attraction between massive bodies in space-time. And a rock is particles held together by magnetic fields in such a way that they appear solid to our perception. And on that level, Galileo's physics are sufficient to explain why the rock rolls down the hill. Quit trying to obfuscate things. A rock is just a rock, a hill is just a hill.

Space may be "nothing like what we envision" on a sub-atomic level, but on a mechanical level it let us put men on the moon. And time may not "exist" but that doesn't mean I don't have a doctor's appointment this "morning".

The existence of the universe is the only answer you will ever have for its existence. It's a circular argument, but since there is no prime mover, no first cause, there will never be a better, since we can't go back and witness what brought it into existence. We can only make scientific guesses. Imagining that something "caused" the universe just creates an infinite regress, since something had to cause that, ad infinitum, and then indeed, you might as well say "god did it".

"Wake up"? To what?

@WilliamFleming You have to have something to revere. Enjoy nature, fine. But "reverence" implies religion.

@Paul4747 Since you seem to agree that from a cosmic perspective time does not exist, then you must agree that from a cosmic perspective questions about creation are meaningless. Also meaningless: causation, motion, location,

If you are shrugging off reality as something trivial and easily understood you are wearing a blindfold. I prefer shock, awe and profound bewilderment. It seems more honest.

BTW, I know that gravity is the attraction between massive bodies. I’m waiting for your explanation for that attraction.

@Paul4747 As a religious naturalist I don’t care if “reverence” implies religion, but I’m sure you know that reverence does not always refer to religion.

William, it’s not ridiculous that some of us “...take this utterly profound and miraculous reality for granted, ....”
You probably know our earliest ancestors believed they were at the universe’s center, and that as human knowledge increased we saw ourselves as less and less important. A man I once knew and worked with acted as if he was the most important of us all. The local authorities came to see him as a narcissist and dismissed him.
In short, what we call narcissism was an early trait.

Are you sure of the "arcane?" And you know that? For a fact? There is no "Why?" for the existence of the universe. Theists can proclaim the their god "created" it for whatever their god's reason, but that is a serious non-answer.
Your man Carlo Rovelli, has a vise grip on truth? And, yes, we do know about gravity, it is the result of the curvature of space-time, as per Alfred E. His theory, and yes it is a theory, has not yet been falsified, over 100 years later. No evidence has been found to place it in the old dust bin, to this date. Evidence, not, "Oh, it's simply got to be this way," that brings us incrementally closer to whatever the processes of nature are.
"Miraculous?" That is a word laden with MAGIC meaning, requiring a magician: the language we use can lead us far astray. There are no miracles, there is a random universe, that produced the chemistry, based on its physics, that led to organic life.

@yvilletom What I am proposing is certainly not about narcissism or about seeing humans as the center of the universe. The fact is that humans understand nothing. We don’t even know what we ourselves are, much less anything about nature. It’s the exact opposite of narcissism. It’s total bewilderment in the face of the staggering implications of the mysteries of existence.

What is narcissistic is to assume that reality is only that which we detect with our senses, and to think that nature is simple and easy to explain in terms of space, time and matter.

@WilliamFleming there is a quote from a physicist about how they live for finding new things that "break" with the previously believed, in this article:
[livescience.com]

@yvilletom, @BirdMan1 My man, Rovelli is at the cutting edge of physics. In that you seem to be touting science I think you should read his books before making judgments. Reality is not What it Seems would be a place to start.

Here’s a definition for miracle from my dictionary: “2any amazing or wonderful occurrence“. Apparently some people can not tolerate anything that is amazing or wonderful. They want to believe that reality is simple, commonplace, and of no significance.

“Magic” and “supernatural” are useless words, mere labels for what is not understood. I am not talking about magic here I am talking about nature, a nature mysterious and dazzling, inspiring awe and wonder in those with open minds.

@WilliamFleming I have put his book on my reading list. I am now reading about Nietzsche, who would agree with Rovelli's title, as would many other philosophers, going back to Plato. His Loop Quantum Gravity Theory is, apparently, at the cutting edge of physics, competing with String Theory. the latter, after many years of work, has as yet remained incomplete, and untestable. I do not know about LQG, but it may be in that same category. I will read up on it.
"Zany, amazing or wonderful occurrence," works for me, though I do not like the theistic connotation which "miracle" seems to usually carry with it. Nature is amazing, and awe inspiring, as in regard to the recent discovery of 10 previously unknown bird species in Indonesia.

@BirdMan1 OK, sounds like we are on the same frequency. Out of consideration I won’t say the m-word again.

My dictionary doesn’t actually say Zany. It says 2 any...
The primary definition involves the supernatural and the 2 is the second definition. Sorry about the confusion and I hope you are having a nice evening.

@WilliamFleming
" I know that gravity is the attraction between massive bodies. I’m waiting for your explanation for that attraction."

That is the explanation. Gravity IS. It is self-explanatory.

Now here's the long version: Gravity exists because mass exists. Mass exerts stress on space-time. These stresses create complicated wells in space-time that tend to draw these bodies toward one another to a greater or lesser extent based on the mass of each. The more bodies are proximate to one another, and the more massive they are, the more complicated the relationships become, until one sees a very complex interplay of gravity effects indeed, as in, for example, our star system, or our universe.

If you're asking "why is the universe the way it is?", you're asking the wrong person, and, I believe, the wrong question. The universe IS. The laws of physics ARE. The universe had to be this way for us to be asking the question, at least in the kind of bodies we inhabit.

The existence of life at the base of boiling underwater volcanic vents and in the frozen tundra, and the discovery (if I remember correctly) of fossilized microbes on Mars, makes me at least consider that life is a phenomenon that will arise anywhere it can, and under conditions we find unimaginable. So the idea that ours is an "ideal" universe, and if a single constant of physics were off by a hair, life couldn't exist, is something I view skeptically. Then again, I'm just a science enthusiast, and people who are much smarter than me insist the above is the case; they insist the universe behaves as though it were designed for life to exist.

But we would say that, wouldn't we?

@WilliamFleming The Rovelli book I read two years ago was NOT at the cutting edge of physics. It was so far away from the cutting edge that I didn’t try to remember its name.

@Paul4747 Actually I am not asking why the universe is the way it is I am pointing out that we humans are fundamentally limited in our ability to understand reality, conscious awareness and ourselves. While Einstein’s theories about space-time are enlightening as far as they go, any such theory is and will always be superficial. Even Einstein said as much:

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

@Paul4747, @yvilletom The book Reality is not What it Seems was given a prestigious award in 2015. The reason I am drawn to Rovelli is that he writes clear but penetrating books for the layman. His area of research, Quantum Gravity Field Theory, is probably “cutting edge” in that it seems the most promising way forward to many physicists.

I know that Quantum Gravity Field Theory is a work in progress and has not been fully accepted.

@WilliamFleming Then I don't understand what you mean when you say you want to know what my explanation for gravity is.

Humans are unlimited in our ability to understand the universe. Every day we learn more. Our instruments become more advanced, our understanding becomes more sophisticated, our knowledge of the fundamental forces of the universe is expanding dare I say by the minute.

That doesn't mean it's not a wondrous place. But it's a natural place. And Einstein's humility was very typically Jewish and very misplaced: he was one of the greatest minds of any age and his theories are anything but superficial. They're key to our understanding of the universe.

@WilliamFleming, @Paul4747 If you understand the Doppler shift, read what Edwin Hubble wrote.
“If the red shifts are a Doppler shift . . . The observations as they stand lead to the anomaly of a closed universe, curiously small and dense, and, it may be added, suspiciously young.
“On the other hand, if red shifts are not Doppler effects, these anomalies disappear and the region observed appears as a small, homogeneous, but insignificant portion of a universe extended indefinitely in both space and time.“
— Edwin Hubble, 1937 Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices

From Hubble’s first hypothesis, which suggests the universe is expanding, the Catholic priest/mathematician Georges LeMaitre wrote equations with time the independent variable. He ran time backwards, giving Catholicism support for Genesis and America’s fundamentalist xians a response to Darwin. Many astronomers disagreed, but wanted to do astronomy. They did not want a political battle with America’s xians.

@WilliamFleming Your saying Rovelli’s Quantum Gravity Field Theory is a work in progress implies that you understand at least some of it. Please briefly explain what you understand of it.

@Paul4747 It was a rhetorical question. Nothing you say can explain nature except in a superficial way. Humans can not truly understand reality because we are immersed in an illusory sense-world. Physicists might write equations that model observed phenomena, but they would be the first to tell you that the deep questions of existence are not understood.

In the introduction to his book QED, Richard Feynman explained that his equations describing the probable paths of photons were just that, descriptions, and the underlying principles or causes were not known or understood and probably will never be understood. He said that if students ask “why?” they are told to shut up and compute.

I disagree that humans are unlimited. Every day we learn more, but that knowledge is superficial, founded on quicksand. If we could somehow escape our bubble of illusion, if we understood conscious self-awareness. If we knew who or what we really are, then we might gain intuitive knowledge, but you can be sure that it won’t be empirical knowledge based on laboratory experiments and modeled with mathematical equations.

@Paul4747, @yvilletom I don’t have the background to fully understand what they do. Quantum Gravity Field Theory I believe is an attempt to reconcile Relativity with Quantum Theory and arrive at a unified theory that accounts for all observations. In Quantum Gravity Field Theory, the basic units of existence are not particles moving in space and time. They are quantum fields. Quantum fields are abstractions, not easy to visualize.

Space is described as consisting of a finite number of granules the size of a planck length. At the micro level, reality is described as a foam made of the granules. Particles of matter are not things. They are interactions between covariant quantum fields—events.

Read the book.

@yvilletom According to Wikipedia LeMaitre was first. He proposed a robust theory that was testable and which was based on observations.

“He was the first to identify that the recession of nearby galaxies can be explained by a theory of an expanding universe,[3] which was observationally confirmed soon afterwards by Edwin Hubble.[4][5] “

Churches might have seized on the work to reinforce their silly dogmas, but LeMaitre was a highly intelligent and honored professional, a creative physicist in his own right and that had nothing to do with the church.

@WilliamFleming Once again, you ask the wrong questions (in my opinion). There's no point asking "why gravity" because there IS NO "why".

"An illusory sense-world"? It's the ONLY world. Once we can observe, for instance, sub-atomic particles, we have sensed them, and they're real to us. They are in our world. Knowing that the only reason I can't walk through the wall is because of the atomic bonds does not render those all an illusion and let me walk through the wall. Call it an illusion, but the illusion is real.

"Why evolution" makes sense because organic life evolves by a mechanical process of adaptation and selection with the understandable goal of the gene's survival; and insofar as this is a "deep question of existence", we do know the underlying principles and reasons. But a question like "Why are things made of subatomic particles?" admits of no better answer than, "Because things are made of things." Call it a superficial answer all you want, and in return I'll say you're wasting time asking unanswerable questions; questions in the realm of religion, not science. Science answers how things are and, as best we can determine, how they came to be, and science is very very good at those answers. But science can't answer "why does anything exist at all". At that point, just shut up and compute.

@WilliamFleming Wikipedia is a good place to start a search but if you talk with people who use it to search on controversial issues they will tell you of the verbal combat being done there. For instance, you can add material to Wikipedia. I did add material about an event in Phoenix Arizona when I lived there.

The Wikipedia paragraph you quote differs from what other sources say about LeMaitre. Hubble formed two hypotheses and LeMaitre, a Catholic priest who taught math, took the hypothesis that let him write the equations to support Catholicism's Genesis story. LeMaitre ignored Hubble's other hypothesis, which Hubble favored.

Did you study physics and the scientific method? I did study them and learned how to recognize propaganda when I see it or when it's used to deceive. If you want the truth you will widen your research to include work by people who are not NASA employees or agents.

I do however appreciate your attempt at research. You did more than many people do.

@yvilletom You are WAY off base about Georges LeMaitre! It is you who need to do some research. All you have to do is google and you’ll be presented with numerous scholarly articles about LeMaitre. For example:

[physicsoftheuniverse.com]

Specifically, LeMaitre was NOT just a Catholic priest who taught math. He was a highly honored physicist with a PHD who studied under Eddington, and he did indeed present the first idea of an expanding universe.

Wikipedia is not perfect, but I like to use it because I can usually get a good general summary of a topic. The articles are well documented, and there are numerous links to more detailed information.

I don’t know why my personal education is a factor in this discussion—LeMaitre’s life and work are well documented. For the record, I have a BS in mathematics, and I took the undergraduate physics courses required of engineering students. Besides that, I learned the basics of the scientific method in elementary school. I have a deep interest in science, especially physics, and I am constantly reading books about science, although with only an undergraduate degree I am limited to books for the layman. None of that has anything to do with Georges LeMaitre.

It appears to me that your hatred for the Catholic Church has addled your brain

@OwlInASack asked, “Are we supposed to take this utterly profound and miraculous reality for granted, as some trivial thing that needs no explanation?“

I ask, “Or that has no alternatives?”

@WilliamFleming I’ve been researching the Bang for twelve years. I saw LeMaitre bios that were far less complimentary than those.
For instance, Hubble stated two hypotheses and LeMaitre chose the one that let him write the math that would support Catholicism’s position on Genesis. Was that the reason for his promotion to a higher position in the clergy? I don’t know and I don’t need info that might further tarnish his reputation.

You wrote “It appears to me that your hatred for the Catholic Church has addled your brain.” What has addled your brain so much that you needed to say that?

@yvilletom

Hubble’s Law is now the Hubble-LeMaitre Law.

[iau.org]

My brain was temporarily addled by what seemed like condescension on your part. My mistake, sorry.

@WilliamFleming The Hubble-LeMaitre Law? If the dead could turn over in their graves, Edwin Hubble would be spinning.

@WilliamFleming WRONG! Revisit the iau dot org site and read carefully.

“... the resolution to recommend renaming the Hubble law as the Hubble–Lemaître law has been accepted.”

The organization, a fan club, RECOMMENDED renaming the Hubble law. Who will see and probably ignore their vote?

@yvilletom Oops, you’re right. Sorry.

But the IAU sounds like more than just a fan club. From the article:

“The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 13 500 professional astronomers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Its mission is to promote and safeguard astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.“

Do you know who has the final authority for such renaming?

@WilliamFleming Thanks for your speedy response. I too sometimes get things wrong.

I investigate. I asked myself who has the final authority for renaming but did not look for an answer. The IAU’s website has a bar menu across the top and I would start there, looking for its affiliates if any, its funding, what it does, how it does it. Astronomy appears to be a healthy field of study. Astrophysics is not healthy; taxpayer subsidies in the billions of dollars have corrupted it—billions in America, billions more in Europe and elsewhere.

Taxpayer subsidies are not by themselves corrupt. For America’s growing population they built roads and railroads, schools, dams for flood control and for farming, the interstate highways, and more. They required political decisions, government agencies with employees, land owners paid for elections, the elections’ winners decided where to build what, government employees wrote contracts and inspected, and some landowners became wealthy. Bribery works.

I and others learned politics by investigating a subsidized project in Arizona. Land fraud was common and a car bomb killed investigative reporter Don Bolles. I saw his story in Wikipedia, had newspaper clips about the murder and from those clips added to the story.

Bringing issues of cognition into this discussion seems a bit premature. But, no, I do not believe that single celled anything have such capability, which would be a result of much more complexity and chemical organization. similarly for storm clouds, etc.

@BirdMan1 If something is thinking and shows intellectual capabilities, then it has cognition. Cognition simply means thinking.

Scientists have found that a brainless, single-celled organism is capable of solving mazes and even learning.
[appvoices.org]

@Word cool! But, if it is brainless, it is not "thinking" as normally understood. Thinking with what? Reacting is not thinking. Whatever the organism is, it exists at this time because it has the capacity to adapt to its environment, and has had it since it came into existence. Plants do that, chemically, are you going to posit that plants "think?"

@BirdMan1 what is brain thinking as we know it? Chemical reactions, brainwaves? Here is a Christian video that I am not promoting christianity but, I like this information about DNA being considered a form of intelligence. Skipp to 6 minutes and 20 seconds to here the core discussion with out too much dogma. Otherwise, I like the information he points out about DNA being intelligence.

@BirdMan1 to further explain my point of thought. First, from zygote to new born baby cognition starts. Babies have a very low level of cognition but they still think and increase thinking as information and experiences are feed thru the senses. Second, there difference in a mind and a brain as I would distinguish would be: brain is the physical hardware of brain cells whereas the mind is the fact that the brain is functioning. A dead person has a brain but not a functioning mind.

The cognition is all about the kinetic energy of the brain waves and chemical reactions. It is by chemical reactions that build up the brain structure, so I would say that a DNA is a type of thinking ability. It fact of it chemically reacting and capability to multiply itself could be considered a skill. Very small scale of sorts but still intelligence of following a coded message with in the sequence of the DNA processed by chemical reactions of a mind with small cognition.

@Word That one can not nail down a place for life to have begun is a red herring issue, is irrelevant, otherwise. Steve Meyer's quote is iffy, in my humble opinion. We get information from spectrographs of starlight. Is he going to say that stars are intelligent beings? If so, why are they burning themselves up, burning the hydrogen of which they are made, only to die in supernovas? Thus, information does NOT require an intelligent source. But, if one starts from there, one enters the world of theistic circular reasoning.
the dog's typing is not information, it is random hits in the closed system of a typewriter! Just because the odds of that sequence occurring in the next quadrillion trials is minuscule, does not make it information; it does not convey a message. What theists call "evidence" is/are poor excuses for it.
TT space, TT space, does not define a smart dog, it appears awesome, yes, because we would not at all expect it, and there it is. What if his dog kept that sequence going to 100,00 TT's? Would we assume the dog is smart, or having a massive seizure, for instance. But he's got an agenda, and will twist things around to his liking.

@BirdMan1 You say it is not information. I do a simple google search "define information "

It appears to me defination #2 would consider TT space ... as information. Notice in #2 that it says "things" , so information doesn't have to be letters or word related. Things of information could just be a row of rocks lined up on the sidewalk. Does that mean the row of rocks has intelligence, no. Look at the defination of intelligence. I'll make another post since I have information defination below.

1. facts provided or learned about something or someone.
   "a vital piece of information"
   Similar:
   details
   particulars
   facts
   figures
   statistics
   data
   knowledge
   intelligence
   instruction
   advice
   guidance
   direction
   counsel
   enlightenment
   news
   notice
   word
   material
   documentation
   documents
   info
   the lowdown
   the dope
   the inside story
   the latest
   bumf
   deets
   gen

2. what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things.

@BirdMan1 intelligence - the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

Knowledge is facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

You as a person was once a zygote.

Knowledge is information. DNA has a skill of duplication of itself.

A row of rocks would not seem to have a skill of doing anything other than being subjected to the laws of physics if something were to cause them to move or roll. Could then because of added kinetic energy causing the rocks to roll be considered that the rocks then have a skill of rolling?

Gravity of masses, is that not considered in the equation for gravitational pull or acceleration? If in out space 2 masses of rocks pull toward one another, are they not acquiring the information of the other mass?

That was just a spontaneous think thru. But I think I convinced myself that 2 masses pulling each other with their gravity pull is a means of acquiring the information of the other mass.

Maybe with better articulation of words or verbiage it might be said gravity is a form , howbeit not rocket science thought in and of itself, maybe it could be considered a LOW form of cognition.