What's your theory?

Question

The world is rife with answers that have yet to pass our collective litmus test, but I just KNOW some of you have your own theories. How did this all come to pass? How has life spawned - proliferated even - across the vast expanse of our planet? How did life begin? (Be as scientific, creative, philosophical or acerbic as you wish). Surprise me.

There are some truly thoughtful answers here, and I am grateful to all of you for stretching my synapses. Picking a 'Best Answer' takes time when there are so many excellent ones to choose from... I'm thinking over here (can't you smell the wood burning?), and will select "the best" as soon as my brain lets me.

Answer 1

wow! good question. the thing about personal theories is that there is nothing new under the sun! so i'm sure all this is not new.

life began with birth. my theory is that the birth of consciousness (meaning the traditional "what separates us from the animals" type of consciousness) in the human race is the same moment as the birth of self awareness in an individual. that as each person experiences personal development, he or she is actually experiencing a recapitulation of the development of human consciousness as a species. it's basically "ontongeny recapitulates phylogeny", but in the metaphysical. i think it is possible for humans to examine their personal experience and derive REAL truth about the history of society and culture. i think there are analogous situations between individual experience and cultural events. to me it makes sense to make a connection between "yesterday i finally realized that my actions were causing my family/company/team harm" and "polls indicate that 75% of americans wish to withdraw from iraq, a jump of over 20% from last year".

as far as the evolution of what we call life, currently entertain the notion that the dna molecule or some precursor is alien to the planet earth. it probably arrived via a special asteroid or comet. conditions on the planet have allowed it to propogate using ever more complex organic arrangements as vehicles. eventually it will succeed in moving to other viable environments once the resources of the earth are depleted. the idea is beautiful in it's simplicity. a molecule as cosmic consciousness and space traveller. who knows, the symbol may be a basis for communication with alien life forms. of course it still makes sense to preserve the planet, since there is no way of knowing currently when or how the transition to a new environment will take place.

there is another advantage to thinking of dna as it's own consciousness. it allows reflection to occur among all forms of what we call life. the idea of human "seperation" from other life on the planet leaves us no reflective consciousness other than ideal projection (ie. "god") which, being created for that purpose by humans, are subject to the inherent schizoid flaws that result from the idea of seperation.

basically the 2 keys to my theory are

1. that the evolution of human consciousness is reflected in the development of the individual. this forms a basis for examining world events in terms of self knowledge.

2. that dna represents a unifying consiousness which existed before the earth, and will outlive the earth. this idea allows humans to liberate themselves from the shackles of some religions and experience reflection in all life.

Answer 2

The way a theory is formed and is universally accepted takes time. The video is very informative but I will explain how a hypothesis becomes a theory. 1st Facts are gathered up. Those facts are irrefutable but they do not explain a process or a type of incidence. Ex. The sky is blue. Fact. But it does not explain how the sky became blue. 2nd Step is to gather more facts to form an alternative hypothesis. There are two types of hypothesis null and alternative. To simplify the null hypothesis says the alternative hypothesis is false. Ex. The sky is blue because God made it that way. This is the alternative hypothesis. Since God is not a fact nor can be proven the alternative hypothesis is rejected and null hypothesis is accepted that "God did not make the sky blue". 3rd Step is if an alternative hypothesis is true then it is tested over and over. Ex. Erik Erikson psychosocial developmental theory. The hypothesis to Erik Erikson's theory is then tested over and over. It appears the theory is accurate. 4th Once theories are tested over and over it become accepted by the scientific community. But it does not mean a theory is always 100% correct. If some scientists discover some flaws the theory slowly becomes modified. Ex. Freud theory of penis envy in little girls. This theory may have been accepted a long time ago in the infant stages of psychology but in today's world it seems ridiculous. Theory is tested over and over. It can be modified slowly and gives a good explanation of things. Just because something is unknown does not mean it is an act of God. It is a hypothesis yet to be proposed, tested, and become theory. Science is always evolving.

Answer 3

If life came from another planet, we still need to figure out how it began over there..... hence the beginning of life is an independent question irrespective of where it came to be.

I do have a strange idea that life must have begun due to evolution of matter through its interface with energy. Energy inputs could have reduced the stability of matter making it inconsistent. Inconsistency may have made it flexible. Flexibility could then have resulted in adaptability. Adaptability might have led to self change to suit changing environment which was a big shift from reaction to action. The self-change capability could then have evolved into consciousness which in my view is the primary element of life, the events being converted to experience that can be stored and extrapolated to get the capability to anticipate. This meant life came to be in an active form for the first time.

Just a thought and perhaps full of gaping holes.... but I have no better option to believe.

Answer 4

At our current rate of we will being spreading across the galaxy in far less than a million years. It only makes sense with the present age of the universe that someone else has already begun to spread. Therefore, I believe that our planet must have been visited many times, and it seems likely that life begun on our planet by aliens that seeded our world with the necessary ingredients for life. I find it unusually odd that Earth came out so perfect, when Mars and Venus, which aren't that far different in chemical makeup had no chance for life.

Answer 5

k try to keep mine short, fist theory to make both creationism and evolution right, god farted which created gases which spawned life on this little planet we call earth

second theory, for big bang or planet creation i would call it. i base this after the though of how things tend to naturally recycle, all starts with a black hole, we all know they just draw everything into them, well at some point in time the suction of the hole becomes so strong that it ends up creating a bottle neck of materials that are trying to pass threw the black hole which in the in the creates then goes threw the stages of a great star all over again, and all other material that where left over from the great suction slowly form into planets that get caught in the gravitational pull that is made by the great star.
sorry that was long

Answer 6

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Oddly, that answer is easy, yet not very satisfying. For it depends on if you are a creationist or believe in evolution. If you believe in creationism, then a pair of chickens were created and the mated and laid eggs. If you are a evolutionist, then you would have to have somethings nearly a genetic chicken, mated, there was some natural selection and from that came what is a chicken. So the former believes in the chicken, and the latter in the egg.

Answer 7

Short...

Any notion of a creator is (to any logical extent accessible to humanity) silliness motivated by escapism from our own incapacity to figure it out. As such notion requires logically that "it" would have to have been created to exist as well... So who/what created the creator? therefore creation is silly(my opinion!!!)
Logically(or not very) everything must just be for the pure objection to nothingness. It has gone over and over in this perception trap we call time for (as we would have to put it) ever...!
It is pretty evident to me (at least) that chaos came to what we believe/accept is order... that both the material as wells as what some would call spiritual world have developed over time in very evolutionary kind of way as far as mechanisms go. There is not much we actually, truly know. We live a existential escapism game that lingers on and on....
So, I had my fun and somehow wasted/entertained making no sense because there is no way to put it in short... anyone's most silly answer would take at least a book. Not a few paragraphs in a few minutes here!

Smile!!!!

Answer 8

I've got one that's a little far from the beaten path- more of an untested hypothesis really. I suspect that a large portion of the unchecked war that occurs in the world, happens because society demands that men check all of their violent urges. Violence is known to be one fourth of the id, the source of all our primal instincts. The other three are sex, nourishment, and fear. It may be that working so hard to divorce ourselves from our violent instincts is no more possible, nor healthy, than completely supressing our sexuality.

Answer 9

We are waves on a sea of collective consciousness. We exist to experience, to grow collectively. We come from pure potential energy and to this we are forever a part of. Our reality is our imagination, all that is, was, all that will be already is. It's all very simple silly...

Answer 10

you are not the first one to ask for opinions of others. and you are not the last one who will only consider theories you like.

that's called, abstractly speaking, natural selection.

all kinds of things (and beings) came up (evolved) in earth's history - by chance - and whatever worked has survived.
(except the fact there really was nobody choosing...)