Sigh?! Handwaving beyond here. It is a human BEING that knows the difference that programmed(!) the drone to navigate based on the use of various sensors that provide data that is *hand programmed* to "do something specific" as a result of that data.

A perfect example of handwaving: "do something specific". You're intentionally leaving out the crucial detail that the "something specific" is the ability to spatialize non-spatial data.

The person who programmed the drone has no idea what terrain or obstacles the drone will encounter. The drone must be able to learn every environment it might find itself in, and this requires a generalized spatial mapping system. The programmer can't hold the drone's hand, so to speak -- she has to give the drone the ability to map its surroundings for itself. Sophisticated drones use LIDAR and other sensors to create an internal map of their surroundings. This map includes spatial metrics such as the distances and heights of the objects around it. And with this map the drone has [i[spatial awareness[/i], and only then can the drone's rote anti-collision routines do their thing.

Yes, a human programmed this general capability. But the drone itself is spatializing non-spatial data. This is evidenced by the fact that the programmer had no idea how my living room is arranged, yet the drone somehow does. You can't handwave this crucial fact away!

The HUMAN that knows the DIFFERENCE between non-dimensional information and dimensional space.

And the human taught this difference to the drone. Using a programming language, the human essentially said, "Whatever (non-dimensional) data is stored here, it is to be interpreted dimensionally."

It's strange to me that you don't recognize that humans were also taught how to spatialize. We aren't born understanding distances and angles. At birth we're a bit like un-programmed drones: we have the hardware but not the software.

If physical space and objects therein exists and are the basis of knowing what anything is, it MUST have spatiality. You can't have any existence with "non-D" data! How can you refer to yourself in space without some degree of spatiality?

I haven't been arguing that there is no spatiality. I'm only arguing that we don't know how closely the spatiality of our experience corresponds the spatiality of physical space. Physics tells us that it's definitely not the same thing, so I think this is a fair question.

It's crazy-talk to assume that if information is separate from physical space, that physical space does not have SOME kind of dimension to it as a baseline of what it means to know anything!

I never said that information is separate from physical space. Quite the opposite. States are the "stuff" of physical space, and changes in state convey physical information, which is how we can experience stuff.

Answer me this: Is the "dog in the light" or ANY object, if it is separate from information, *what is it*, and how do you account for light bringing non-dimensional information about it to you and you turning into 2D or higher without nature/God itself knowing the difference??

You keep attributing to me things that I don't believe. The "dog in the light" is information, not "separate from information". We only know/experience things through changes of state, which is information.

 

If you can't allow for the potentiality of a Leibniz-Newton-Pythag level metaphysical explanation, then we have the same issue.

Oh, but I do allow for the possibility. My baseline principle is I do not know. The only thing that I'm probably unwilling to bend on is the certainty of formal theorems. But everything else is fair game for skepticism and doubt. I fully acknowledge and accept the possibility that there is a benevolent god and we are its creation. Same for the possibility that there is a malevolent god, or a neutral god, or a Jen-esque infinity source, or that this is all a simulation, or that I've been in a coma for the past thirty years.

Pretty much anything is possible. That said, I assign Bayesian probabilities to the various possibilities based on my experiences and what I think I know. As I (think) I learn more, I update my priors. After a lifetime of this skepticism and learning, metaphysical explanations have a low probability for me, somewhat higher than the "I'm in a dreaming coma" explanation, but lower than the "I'm in a simulation" explanation.

I do not rule out metaphysical explanations. I do find them hard to believe.

What if consciousness, for example, is an indivisible, "infinite non-componental phenomenon" that causes awareness independent of any information or componental value through "feeling" in space?

"What if" questions aren't very useful, especially those that ask me to imagine something unimaginable or incomprehensible. What if consciousness is a hypercube in the mind's eye?

Can you picture, for example, a 3D form that exists in space that cannot be divided, and can "know" its surroundings without machinery, but uses the "extra-informational" concept of FEELING to describe it?

I'll try. I imagine a 3D form -- a coffee mug -- that exists in space. Not sure what you mean by "exists in space" in terms of my imagination. Am I to visualize the mug on my desk? The "cannot be divided" part is impossible for me to imagine. No matter how small I make the object in my imagination, I can always visualize zooming in and breaking it.

I don't get the rest of your request. Know what surroundings? My imagined desk? I haven't gotten any particular "feeling" trying this experiment, at least not that I'm aware of. Perhaps a bit of frustration when I tried to imagine a non-divisible thing.

And it's 100% sensory based, so you know.

What does this mean? The theory of evolution is science, and like most science it uses empirical evidence that we derive from our senses. I wouldn't trust a theory of evolution that was not empirically derived.

There is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever . . .

What about the speciation that we observe on islands like the Galapagos? Sure seems like evidence to me. Then there's the entire fossil record.

If evolution through natural selection was not the primary driver behind the great variety of biological life, then what was?

There is NO scientific definition for LIFE from a biology perspective. NONE. Trust me on that one.

This is silly. We don't need a perfect definition of life to do science. A molecular biologist doesn't need to know exactly what is or isn't life before she can study the cellular mechanisms. A marine biologist doesn't need to know exactly what is or isn't life before she can study the effects of ocean currents on fish populations.

Outside of formal systems, definitions are vastly overrated. What's the definition of an electrical engineer? There's no perfect definition, and no one cares!

There are zero physics to that theory, and almost no information theory that makes any sense.

You are wrong. The science of biophysics is a very active field with promising research. One of the results so far is the extremely exciting connection between non-equilibrium entropy and self-replicating molecules. Self-replication, of course, is one of the primary ingredients of life. The guiding hand of natural selection may have its roots in the guiding hand of entropy.

It's a "Correlation Replaces Causation" religious myth at its finest. Prior to this religion, you would have thought of a metaphysical element as the core of your reasoning, as did the greatest minds who have ever walked this earth. It's due to this specious failosophy-turned-science that the question of metaphysicality has been occluded.

That's a lot of vitriol without an actual argument.

 

How are we supposed to build a Theory of Everything if we do not scientifically define what a "thing" is?

If you agree information is separate from physical space, then what precisely is physical space, and what are things in physical space? And are you a thing in physical space? What role does light play in yielding you non-dimensional information concerning a "space" outside of the non-dimensionality of information?

Any Theory of Everything must rigorously pursue the issue of defining a thing to the best that we can.

Earlier you said something poignant — "Can information refer to itself?" It's as if you defined yourself as information there, almost as if existing AS an element of information independent of the "thing" that is your body in physical space. Am I correct here? Why is a physical spatial object not considered a thing?

Information is not separate from physical space. There is a pernicious confusion that pervades any discussion about a model from within the model. Our literal discussion is happening within a model (experience), but the content of our discussion is about a model that attempts to explain the outer model (the one we're experiencing). Very confusing.

For this particular conversation, I'm going to label the level of our discussion -- the experience level -- the outer model. The inner model refers to the model (the purported ToE) about the outer model.

Within the inner model, there are only states and transformations on those states. The laws of physics (an axiom of the inner model) determine the initial condition of those states, the degrees of freedom the states have, and what kind of transformations are possible. At the outer model level, we call the states "physical space", and we use the word "information" to describe the differences between states.

So, the outer model question "can information refer to itself?" is interpreted within the inner model as "can differences in one set of states be due to differences in another set of states?", and the answer is affirmative. Indeed, a basic assumption of the inner model is that all states are dependent on each other to varying degrees. The universe is one big collection of changing states, all influencing each other to varying degrees.

I believe that this "degrees of dependence" phenomenon of the inner model is what allows us to conceive of spatiality in the outer model. At the outer model level, we say that two objects are close in distance when their corresponding states in the inner model have a strong dependency. States that have a weak dependency correspond to objects that are very distant from each other. This correlation provides an effective map between non-dimensional states and the perception of spatiality.

 

The big, big, difference between a LIDAR system and a human, is that LIDAR sends out light pulses and then is using these pulses to build the spatial map based on what a human innately knows and has instructed it to translate magnitudes of light into. That is spatial “data matching.”

Spatiality for us has no such “emitting” measurable reference point. The spatiality is innate.

 

Information is not separate from physical space. There is a pernicious confusion that pervades any discussion about a model from within the model. Our literal discussion is happening within a model (experience), but the content of our discussion is about a model that attempts to explain the outer model (the one we're experiencing). Very confusing.

For this particular conversation, I'm going to label the level of our discussion -- the experience level -- the outer model. The inner model refers to the model (the purported ToE) about the outer model.

Within the inner model, there are only states and transformations on those states. The laws of physics (an axiom of the inner model) determine the initial condition of those states, the degrees of freedom the states have, and what kind of transformations are possible. At the outer model level, we call the states "physical space", and we use the word "information" to describe the differences between states.

So, the outer model question "can information refer to itself?" is interpreted within the inner model as "can differences in one set of states be due to differences in another set of states?", and the answer is affirmative. Indeed, a basic assumption of the inner model is that all states are dependent on each other to varying degrees. The universe is one big collection of changing states, all influencing each other to varying degrees.

I believe that this "degrees of dependence" phenomenon of the inner model is what allows us to conceive of spatiality in the outer model. At the outer model level, we say that two objects are close in distance when their corresponding states in the inner model have a strong dependency. States that have a weak dependency correspond to objects that are very distant from each other. This correlation provides an effective map between non-dimensional states and the perception of spatiality.

Right... but my issue is, what are the states WE’RE working with in our brains. We only have voltages, correct? so we have essentially neurons firing on and off (per Von Neumann model), assuming it’s binary... I do not see any vast qualia or dimensionality as a function of those states. Spatial “thought” appears to be an internal environment where the “you” element is separate, interacting within it, and our language system denotes the eminent distinction between the internal and external environment and how they relate spatially. Objects internally vs. externally. There is plenty of evidence to suggest the dog is in the mind as a stand-alone object, especially considering we can create thought definitions like “points with no part” creating infinite-point lines, etc.

 

If 5 kids jump in a pool, all things equal, with no hydrophobic coating, when they all get out, all are wet. This is is an ontological truth that I don't believe should be held in different esteem than theorems.

What ontological truth are we learning from "Jumping in liquid water makes you wet"? The statement is true by definition. There is nothing ontological about it.

Of course, we can say exactly the same thing about "2 + 3 = 5". The statement is true by definition of integer arithmetic (and all that it entails). There is nothing ontological about the truth" of that statement.

The difference between the two statements is in the criteria by which their respective "truths" are affirmed. You may claim "I saw five kids jump in a pool" but someone else may dispute it. Which of you has the more accurate assessment of what happened depends on many factors, but the dispute itself is not impossible. In contrast, there is a certainty to "2 + 3 = 5" that's missing from observational assertions.

An ontology seeks to explain why there is a difference.

One might debate the truths of how much wet, how the water affects the skin, how fast each kid will become dry, etc. But not the FACT that they are wet.

If we define wet as meaning "what happens after you jump in a pool", then if someone jumps in a pool, they are by definition wet. However, the observational assertion is not that they're wet -- that's just a definition -- the observational assertion is that someone jumped in a pool. Besides the issue that the accuracy of this assessment cannot be certain, it has no ontological import.

The statement "someone jumped in a pool" does not speak to the fundamental nature of someones or jumping or pools. Rather, the statement is merely an efficient description of a particular experience. The "truth" of such a statement depends only on the reliability of the experience. If you tell me "someone jumped in a pool", I will probably believe you because I have no reason to suspect that you'd lie about such a thing. I would not, however, begin to question the nature of someones, jumping, or pools.

We must distinguish between experiential assertions and ontological "truths", whatever the latter may mean.

Truth is the ability to declare the states within the being reflect some basic presence or absence of an attribute in space.

This seems more like experiential pattern matching than ontology. As I see it, an ontology explains the reason for the experience, not the other way around.

 

The big, big, difference between a LIDAR system and a human, is that LIDAR sends out light pulses and then is using these pulses to build the spatial map based on what a human innately knows and has instructed it to translate magnitudes of light into. That is spatial “data matching.”

Spatiality for us is has no such “emitting” measurable reference point. The spatiality is innate.

I suppose then that the echo location systems of bats and dolphins means that their spatiality is not innate? You can do better than that.

 

Information is not separate from physical space. There is a pernicious confusion that pervades any discussion about a model from within the model. Our literal discussion is happening within a model (experience), but the content of our discussion is about a model that attempts to explain the outer model (the one we're experiencing). Very confusing.

For this particular conversation, I'm going to label the level of our discussion -- the experience level -- the outer model. The inner model refers to the model (the purported ToE) about the outer model.

Within the inner model, there are only states and transformations on those states. The laws of physics (an axiom of the inner model) determine the initial condition of those states, the degrees of freedom the states have, and what kind of transformations are possible. At the outer model level, we call the states "physical space", and we use the word "information" to describe the differences between states.

So, the outer model question "can information refer to itself?" is interpreted within the inner model as "can differences in one set of states be due to differences in another set of states?", and the answer is affirmative. Indeed, a basic assumption of the inner model is that all states are dependent on each other to varying degrees. The universe is one big collection of changing states, all influencing each other to varying degrees.

I believe that this "degrees of dependence" phenomenon of the inner model is what allows us to conceive of spatiality in the outer model. At the outer model level, we say that two objects are close in distance when their corresponding states in the inner model have a strong dependency. States that have a weak dependency correspond to objects that are very distant from each other. This correlation provides an effective map between non-dimensional states and the perception of spatiality.

But any programmatic system like a brain must have those states programmed to relate “spatially.” And also, weak/strong connections doesn’t yield direct locality or qualia of states, or a difference between observer and conceptual vs. non-conceptual states. Given light is what’s yielding the information, and doing so with non-spatial photon bits, the brain is doing hella strange things, in addition to mapping experiential magnitudes to each data point (meaning).

A thought experiment of 5 kids jumping in a pool can yield them all as dry when they exit the pool. The laws of physics say otherwise about the same experiment. Keeping countless spatial elements separate and yet interrelated, axiomatically sound, and knowing how and where to file external wave and photon data, etc. is mystery theatre.

 

What ontological truth are we learning from "Jumping in liquid water makes you wet"? The statement is true by definition. There is nothing ontological about it.

Of course, we can say exactly the same thing about "2 + 3 = 5". The statement is true by definition of integer arithmetic (and all that it entails). There is nothing ontological about the truth" of that statement.

The difference between the two statements is in the criteria by which their respective "truths" are affirmed. You may claim "I saw five kids jump in a pool" but someone else may dispute it. Which of you has the more accurate assessment of what happened depends on many factors, but the dispute itself is not impossible. In contrast, there is a certainty to "2 + 3 = 5" that's missing from observational assertions.

An ontology seeks to explain why there is a difference.

Well, I think ontology is the difference between concept and “observed or deduced, theoretic actuality”.

The ontology of a computer is that it exists as an object doing things with voltages. The logic and numeric concepts and computations are conceptually ascribed.

I don’t believe “Kids jumping in a pool are wet” is true JUST by conceptual definition... we had to learn to map the word “wet” or “mojado” to the ontological “presence of liquid.” It could be said experientially we “know and feel” what wetness is on physical bodies BEFORE we map the word wetness and someones and jumping, this is how we know what the word “means.“

How do we know what any word means, including written glyph symbology we use to create theorems, unless we can make meaningful distinctions first before mapping words to them? The alphabet is learned via experiencing/feeling the shapes with blocks and other toys, then drawn etc. Words are then ascribed to the basic experiential “feeler/knower.”

Is it “learned” or is the stimulus unlocking the innate? I think it is the latter, because the myriad theorems and their interrelations are self-evident. The external information is the key that allows is to unlock or “see” or “grok” the existent meaning.

 

I suppose then that the echo location systems of bats and dolphins means that their spatiality is not innate? You can do better than that.

Still using a programmed system by God/nature that knows the difference! The echo system is the nature-programmed LIDAR that is built from a first-order spatial differentiation!

 

Logic and voltages are not spatial in and of themselves. Concepts, shapes, and even numbers are.

Something somewhere knows the difference. There is no “dimension” out of “non-dimension“ because non-dimension doesn’t know the difference.

The light from a dog in physical space has precisely zero dimensional information. A spatial maker in the being exists, or external to it that was used to create the “LIDAR-esque tech,“ yes?

This is the precise difference between experiential feeling-as-knowing and match-based state computing in my estimation.

 

Right... but my issue is, what are the states WE’RE working with in our brains.

There are no brains in the inner model. "Brain" is a concept of the outer model of our experience. Within the inner model, there are states that correspond to what we'd call brains in the outer model. That's it.

We only have voltages, correct?

Again, "voltages" are a concept of the outer model. Within the inner model, there are states that correspond to what we call electrical voltages in the outer model.

All of these states are the same "stuff", just in different configurations and accepting different types of transformations. The laws of physics determines the types of configurations and transformations that are possible.

Spatial “thought” appears to be an internal environment where the “you” element is separate, interacting within it, and our language system denotes the eminent distinction between the internal and external environment and how they relate spatially.

Within the inner model, there is no distinction between internal and external. There are just states. Some of these states have enough degrees of freedom to become what we call in the outer model "stars". Some of these states have enough degrees of freedom to have what we call in the outer model "the property of life". In the outer model, we recognize these "life" states as self-replicating transformations. The states within states capability of the universe allows these "life" states to become more complex, which we describe not just as self-replicating, but self-organizing. This "self-organization" is nothing more than the dependency of higher-level states on the lower level states. To use an analogy from the outer model, the high-level organization of a wallpaper pattern is nothing more than a repeated dependency on a low-level structure.

Of course, the million dollar question is How does this lead to consciousness? If I knew the precise mechanism, I'd be busy working on a publication. But I do know that complexity leads to all kinds of unexpected emergent phenomena. And I can recognize that the apparent degrees of consciousness strongly correlate with the degrees of cortical complexity in biological life. So, it's not a hard leap of faith I'm making here.

 

But any programmatic system like a brain must have those states programmed to relate “spatially.”

We do, of course. Various cortical subsystems are responsible for our sense of spatiality and proprioception. These subsystems were formed from proteins that were encoded for by our DNA.

Our DNA was nearly a billion years in the making. At some point, long ago, a genetic expression for spatiality -- likely a chance mutation of what came before it -- helped the resulting organism survive better than those without it. The rest is history.

And also, weak/strong connections doesn’t yield direct locality or qualia of states . . .

They don't? If an object is too far to see, how does the light from it affect you? If it's too far to smell, how do you smell it? And so on.

Given light is what’s yielding the information, and doing so with non-spatial photon bits, the brain is doing hella strange things, in addition to mapping experiential magnitudes to each data point (meaning).

Light is what we call a specific set of states and state transformations. When the states that we associate with our eyes become dependent on the states associated with light, and the states associated with our brain become dependent on the states associated with our eyes, we "see". It's a complex dance, but it's local dance.

A thought experiment of 5 kids jumping in a pool can yield them all as dry when they exit the pool. The laws of physics say otherwise about the same experiment.

I'm not sure that violates any laws of physics. I'm not even sure how to violate a law of physics with my thoughts. I can easily visualize a shattered coffee cup coming together and becoming a whole coffee cup, but that's only physically improbable, not impossible. I can visualize myself jumping 100 feet in the air, or flying, or lifting the Empire State building, but none of those images violates physics.

There are things that definitely would violate the laws of physics -- such as being in two places at once, or knowing the precise location of an electron -- but those are unimaginable to me. It's an interesting question, if we can violate the laws of physics with our thoughts. Not sure it has any significance, but it might.

 

Well, I think ontology is the difference between concept and “observed or deduced, theoretic actuality”.

What does "observed or deduced, theoretic actuality" mean?! I have no idea how to parse that phrase.

The ontology of a computer is that it exists as an object doing things with voltages.

Then what is the ontology of a telegraph machine, or a calculator? Both are objects doing things with voltages. Using your operational definition of ontology, you would continue to describe properties of computers to distinguish them from telegraphs and calculators and such. But that's not an ontology, that's just a definition.

The ontology of a computer is not to explain what a computer is, but to explain how the computations performed by a computer are different (or not) from those performed by a human. In other words, an ontology doesn't give a sh!t about computers, it cares about the nature of computation.

I don’t believe “Kids jumping in a pool are wet” is true JUST by conceptual definition... we had to learn to map the word “wet” or “mojado” to the ontological “presence of liquid.” It could be said experientially we “know and feel” what wetness is on physical bodies BEFORE we map the word wetness and someones and jumping, this is how we know what the word “means.“

Great, we know what words mean. So what is true about "Kids jumping in a pool are wet" beyond the definitional connections? There is a correspondence between the meanings of the words to some experiential event. But if you wish to explore the ontology of the correspondence, then the "truth" of the statement becomes a lot more complicated. Because now we're no longer talking about simple word-to-concept maps, now we're exploring the nature of what it means to observe and experience.

You seem to be using "truth" in a non-ontological manner.

 

Still using a programmed system by God/nature that knows the difference!

Exactly! Sweet, sweet lord. We are all -- humans, dogs, computers -- executing programs, in one way or another.

The echo system is the nature-programmed LIDAR that is built from a first-order spatial differentiation!

What do you mean by "built from a first-order spatial differentiation"?

 

Logic and voltages are not spatial in and of themselves. Concepts, shapes, and even numbers are.

Something somewhere knows the difference. There is no “dimension” out of “non-dimension“ because non-dimension doesn’t know the difference.

The light from a dog in physical space has precisely zero dimensional information. A spatial maker in the being exists, or external to it that was used to create the “LIDAR-esque tech,“ yes?

This is the precise difference between experiential feeling-as-knowing and match-based state computing in my estimation.

It's baffling to me why you keep talking about spatiality. It seems pointless and is getting tedious. I'm ready to just say that everything is "3D", including information, concepts, numbers, voltages, logic, and states. Who cares what the dimensions are?

 

It's baffling to me why you keep talking about spatiality. It seems pointless and is getting tedious. I'm ready to just say that everything is "3D", including information, concepts, numbers, voltages, logic, and states. Who cares what the dimensions are?

Because spatiality is the key to the "feeling-grokker" property of living consciousness in my estimation, and is wholly independent, stand-alone from non-dimensional information, that's why... There is a difference between a "logic state" and a gazelle, a number, light rays, and an iPhone.

 

Exactly! Sweet, sweet lord. We are all -- humans, dogs, computers -- executing programs, in one way or another.

But I'm insistent there is another component that is not just "non-dimensional programs running" and procedural mechanicality. As I said in the previous post, my inner "grokker" feels there is a metaphysical component involving LIFE as a stand-alone metaphysical thing with the capacity to "know" through "feeling". THIS is what is the underlying "mechanics" that can even PROGRAM non-dimensional data to begin with.

What do you mean by "built from a first-order spatial differentiation"?

Built from something/someone that fundamentally is a distinguisher between non-dimensional and dimensional phenomena through a spatial grokking capacity. Meaning is fundamental spatial in nature in my estimation.

 

What does "observed or deduced, theoretic actuality" mean?! I have no idea how to parse that phrase.


Then what is the ontology of a telegraph machine, or a calculator? Both are objects doing things with voltages. Using your operational definition of ontology, you would continue to describe properties of computers to distinguish them from telegraphs and calculators and such. But that's not an ontology, that's just a definition.

The ontology of a computer is not to explain what a computer is, but to explain how the computations performed by a computer are different (or not) from those performed by a human. In other words, an ontology doesn't give a sh!t about computers, it cares about the nature of computation.


Great, we know what words mean. So what is true about "Kids jumping in a pool are wet" beyond the definitional connections? There is a correspondence between the meanings of the words to some experiential event. But if you wish to explore the ontology of the correspondence, then the "truth" of the statement becomes a lot more complicated. Because now we're no longer talking about simple word-to-concept maps, now we're exploring the nature of what it means to observe and experience.

You seem to be using "truth" in a non-ontological manner.

Ontology is a seriously broad-ass word:

First, it's considered a branch of metaphysics by many sources, including Britannica/Oxford:

"The branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such."

I mean, right out of Oxford:

"In philosophy, the ontological argument is the argument that God, being defined as most great or perfect, must exist, since a God who exists is greater than a God who does not."

You ain't hardly digging that axiomata, if I may speak for you here (lol)? ;--)

Anonymous aficionados at wiki concur with the broadness:
"Ontology is the philosophical study of being. More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations."

Considering "being" is so "up in the air here" and we have no idea how to apply it to a "computer" at present, I say we nix the use of it along with REALITY/REAL for now and use "conceptual" vs. "physical" to distinguish these things.

Yes?

 

We do, of course. Various cortical subsystems are responsible for our sense of spatiality and proprioception. These subsystems were formed from proteins that were encoded for by our DNA.

Our DNA was nearly a billion years in the making. At some point, long ago, a genetic expression for spatiality -- likely a chance mutation of what came before it -- helped the resulting organism survive better than those without it. The rest is history.

I'm very glad you are open to ANY possible explanation, but this is not how you are couching the above in "absolute term"-onics, and this is precisely my very problem, and why you perceive "vitriol" with my prior statement.

To be clear, if anyone wants to believe 17 lizards in a Starbucks on Pluto created an evolutionary system, that's fine with me.

But when you make a statement like you did about "the rest being history", I want to see the hard axioms, logic, theorems, observations, and hard physics for every single one of the essentially countless stages and interrelations. Otherwise to say "that's what happened" is truly as philosophical as saying "God made it."

This is a 100% scientifically factual statement.

My perceived "vitriol" against macro-evolutionary theory, and "life as an emergent property" is not against these things themselves. It's against the approach in academia that does not hold equal weight to other explanations and starting axioms, and treats its naturalistic axiomatic basis as essentially "proven SCIENCE" rather than the philosophy that it truly is. In fact, it is often called a "fact-theory" in that "evolution is a fact" but the mechanism is a theory. They are both philosophies until proven.

Consider that 90% or higher of those who espouse a naturalistic, mechanical definition of life's origin and development (specifically "a 1-celled element gradually becoming 'all the diversity we see'") ontologically do so at the direct expense of a metaphysical explanation, because all of it is an axiomatic extension of a naturalistic closed system.

Ergo, most of those who believe it will say "they do so at the expense of God." This is evidence that it is on equal weight of comparability categorically. If technically "macro-evolution" is "just science" then it should speak of nothing to do with any "God/metaphysics."

But that is not the case for most people, because of the polar axiomatic starting place.

Darwinian/evolutionary axiomatic basis may look like:

"Life is a physical, mechanical, emergent, naturalistic machine that arose by chance mutations over billions of years."

Prior to this axiomatic basis in mainstream thought, a metaphysical explanation was considered axiomatically obvious.

A Newtonian/Leibniz/Pythag/Tesla/Einstein, etc. axiom might be:

"Life is a stand-alone, infinite, spatial, extra-dimensional substance independent of material mechanical function and physical complexity, and was placed within a material programmatic frame as its interface to the physical world."

Both of these starting axioms are the philosophical difference, and why they are provisionally at odds in most people's minds. The second definition encompassess origin in it as interwoven into the process, whereas evolutionary thinking treats them entirely separate to the place where one is eclipsing the other, and the difference between one "living thing" and another is merely mechanical functional complexity.

All "evidence" seen in the fossil record is also implicitly speaking to evidence of a physics engine and origin at the same time, because these things are not divorceable ultimately. This is why "the evidence" suggests "no metaphysics" to most. But this is not proper thinking!

This is why we are starting from a ToE approach that is delving deep into the underlying mechanics of thought and definitions as the first order of business.

A man on a gurney is said to not be ALIVE vs. seconds before he died of a heart attack. All of the same "stuff" is in place. By the first axiom above, the man is a "broken machine" no different than a car.

It also means you must treat a car or iPhone no different than a human being in terms of its ontological classification.

Therefore, if the iPhone has no battery, it is "not alive." Same with a human: no battery, no life.

But MOST people default to an axiomatic difference between their computer and another human being, and it's not just a function of "mechanics" and "complexity." Humans FEEL, LOVE and MEAN. Machines do not. Ava from Ex Machina is a heartless machine programmed to exit a maze. "It" is a non-feeling bot who killed Caleb who is a living person with feeling. Feeling does not murder.
Ava does not "know." Caleb does.

This is the "moral implication" for most who watch it, and it registers way deeper than treating them both as "emergent mechanical complexities." If the guy on the gurney got up and started acting like a mechanical machine with square-wave-esque movements and no fluidity, you'd think "WHY is he acting like a MACHINE?"

That statement does NOT sit well for many, and there is ZERO observation that can prove this to be true if life and feeling are metaphysical. Its truth must be derived internally.

The very fact that we as physical beings have a grokkable definition for "METAPHYSICS" and that life as a metaphysical thing seemed axiomatically OBVIOUS to the highest of genius minds is entirely evidence that it exists on some level.