Posted by:
iceman9090
(
)
Date: September 13, 2020 10:28PM
+schrodingerscat:
1. “Is there a god/heaven?”
==To me, god is a meaningless word. It means many things to many people. Some ancient cultures were into animism: The idea that the wind has a spirit or a god, that the Sun has a spirit or a god, you get the idea.
Modern science blows this away.
Air is composed of molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, CO2, argon, methane, neon, and so on.
Wind just means a large number of these molecules are moving in the same direction.
Some ancient cultures think of their god as a human king with superpowers. The jews were this type of culture.
Modern science blows this away.
The universe is not 6000 y old. The Earth is not 6000 y old.
You could claim that some advanced alien civilizations someone started up this universe I suppose.
I assume that this universe is not artificial.
I assume that life on this planet is not artificial.
“Where did we come from or IOW How did life begin?”
==You are talking about abiogenesis. There are several hypothesis. Let’s set abiogenesis aside for a moment and explore chemistry.
The first step is to take a look at the periodic table of elements. Which element has a vast, a huge amount of possibilities? That would be carbon. This is because carbon is capable of concatenation. This means that carbon can form stable C to C single bonds, stable C to C double bonds, stable C to C triple bonds.
It can easily bond with hydrogen as well and form hydrocarbons.
No other element comes close.
Silicon and germanium sort of come close but it is difficult to do concatenation. It is difficult to form long chains of silicon atoms.
There is methane, which is CH4. The equivalent to this is silane, SiH4.
Carbon has an electronegativity of 2.6 while hydrogen is 2.2. This means that the electron cloud is nearer to the carbon atom and thus, carbon is slightly negative and so, for some reason, this prevents CH4 from reacting with water.
In the case of silicon, its electronegativity is 1.8. This means that in the case of SiH4, the electron cloud is nearer to the 4 hydrogens and thus, silicon is slightly positive.
SiH4 reacts with H2O and there is an abundant amount of H2O in nature. In other words, you can’t have SiH4 in nature.
Once carbon reacts with hydrogen and you get CH4 and the higher alkanes such as C2H6, it is no longer a problem. It can contact water or oxygen and other compounds at room temperature and they are stable.
The lakes of methane and ethane have probably been on Titan for a few million years.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)
The atmosphere of Titan is largely nitrogen; minor components lead to the formation of methane and ethane clouds and heavy organonitrogen haze. The climate—including wind and rain—creates surface features similar to those of Earth, such as dunes, rivers, lakes, seas (probably of liquid methane and ethane), and deltas, and is dominated by seasonal weather patterns as on Earth. With its liquids (both surface and subsurface) and robust nitrogen atmosphere, Titan's methane cycle is analogous to Earth's water cycle, at the much lower temperature of about 94 K (−179.2 °C; −290.5 °F).
There are other problems with silicon. Once it combines with oxygen, you get SiO2 and it is a solid with a high melting point. It is a pretty inert substance and insoluble in water. It forms silicates with metal oxides which are also inert and insoluble in water.
At least in the case of carbon, its oxide is a gas and can take part in chemical reactions.
“Why am I here?”
==Why do I have a watch? I need it to tell time.
Why do I have a VCR. To watch my VHS tapes.
Those are tools that I use.
I do not believe that I am a tool. Well, my arms are tools that I use. My eyes are also tools that I use.
“What is "life"?”’
==Biological machines, I guess.
~~~~iceman9090