David L. Abel has written a compelling article about the capabilities and limitations of chaos and complexity with specific reference to the origin of life. His article, “The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity”, is peer reviewed and published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. You can find it in its entirety here.
Dr. Abel is a molecular biologist. He has advanced degrees from the University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, and the University of Georgia.
Abel is concerned with this central question: “If all known life depends upon genetic instructions, how was the first linear digital prescriptive genetic information generated by natural process?”
This is a basic, yet profound question, for it is the question on which atheism rises or falls. Regardless of any intellectual posturing by those who push for non-belief, without this question being sufficiently answered, atheism is a non-starter.
Since the advent of biogenesis, first articulated by Rudolf Virchow and further championed by Louis Pasteur, the maxim that “all life comes from preexisting life” has never been scientifically overturned. Until this maxim is empirically falsified, atheism, as a robust, credible, philosophical position remains a modern fantasy.
Abel deals with a plethora of concepts related to any thorough discussion regarding the spontaneous generation of life from unaided natural processes including chaos, complexity, autopoesis, CAS (Complex Adaptive Systems), chance, necessity, selection (both natural and artificial), symbol systems, symbolic dynamics analysis, contingency (both chance and choice), configurable switches (emphasizing the necessity of binary decision nodes as the basis for all formal function which is a pre-requisite for life), GAs (genetic algorithms), systems theory, formalism vs. physicality, the cybernetic cut (the great divide between physicality and formalism), and self-ordering vs. self-organizing.
The discussion on self-ordering and self-organizing is particularly helpful. The two concepts are often erroneously conflated. Many natural phenomena are self-ordering, such as the vortex that water forms when it swirls down a drain, or the consistent shape and form of a flame produced by a burning candle. Take the picture at the top of the post. The young boy, who is an organized being (but not self-organized), is organizing the bubbles. He is demonstrating intent, decision, choice, and purpose to create the bubbles. The bubbles, however, are not organizing anything. The bubbles possess no intrinsic intentionality, no decision making, no choice selection, and no purpose. They are merely the self-ordered result of the intention and choice of an organized agent (the young boy).
When it comes to self-organization, there has never been a single instance of self-organization produced exclusively by natural phenomena. Abel states, “Self-ordering of many kinds occurs spontaneously every day in nature in the absence of any organization. Spontaneous bona fide self-organization, on the other hand, has never been observed. “Self-organization” is logically a nonsense term. Inanimate objects cannot organize themselves into integrated, cooperative, holistic schemes. Schemes are formal, not physical. To organize requires choice contingency, not just chance contingency and law-like necessity. Sloppy definitions lead to fallacious inferences, especially to category errors.
Organization requires 1) decision nodes, 2) steering toward a goal of formal function, 3) algorithmic optimization, 4) selective switch-setting to achieve integration of a circuit, 5) choice with intent. The only entity that logically could possibly be considered to organize itself is an agent. But not even an agent self-organizes. Agents organize things and events in their lives. They do not organize their own molecular biology, cellular structure, organs and organ systems. Agents do not organize their own being. Agents do not create themselves. They merely make purposeful choices with the brains and minds with which they find themselves. Artificial intelligence does not organize itself either. It is invariably programmed by agents to respond in certain ways to various environmental challenges in the artificial life data base.
Thus the reality of self-organization is highly suspect on logical and analytic grounds even before facing the absence of empirical evidence of any spontaneous formal self-organization. Certainly no prediction of bona fide self-organization from unaided physicodynamics has ever been fulfilled.”
The thrust of Abel’s article is to thoroughly delineate fundamental, essential, and indispensible hallmarks of living organisms and then drive home the overwhelming and blatant point that these things are starkly absent from any and all unaided physicodynamic and natural processes. Serious scientific inquiry into the capacities and capabilities of random natural phenomena – untouched, undirected, and unaided by a living being – underscores how absurd and how misguided is the notion that life could arise from any ostensible big bang explosion, primordial slime, vent interfaces in the ocean floor, tide pools, or any other purely natural process.
Abel concludes his article with a challenge to his colleagues in the scientific community. He says, “The capabilities of stand-alone chaos, complexity, self-ordered states, natural attractors, fractals, drunken walks, complex adaptive systems, and other subjects of non linear dynamic models are often inflated. Scientific mechanism must be provided for how purely physicodynamic phenomena can program decision nodes, optimize algorithms, set configurable switches so as to achieve integrated circuits, achieve computational halting, and organize otherwise unrelated chemical reactions into a protometabolism.”
He continues, “To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: ‘Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse TheCybernetic Cut [9]: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.’ A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis.”
Abel’s analysis is worth a serious perusal by all who are genuinely interested in how life began. His observations are a significant obstacle to all who would court atheism as a viable philosophical paradigm.
