>You're playing word games and/or creating strawman arguments,
>methinks, Tom.  I'd guess everyone agrees that the sun was an
>energy source on the earth.  Call it what you will, but at point in
>time T, there was no life; 

But you and I have two different def. of life.
I'm guessing you say it's what follows a fluke replicator that emerges out of
nothing

I'm saying life is any aspect of chemicals reacting to the sun cycle in such a
way that some are more stable than others.
We are worlds apart.



while at point in time T', there was life.
>Call it "forced", call it "emerged", call it
"materialized", call it
>"arose", call it "came into being" - life
"began" between times T
>and T'. 

IMO It began the minute the sun began shining. Life is the echo - the sun is
the voice.



 The factors involved were likely manifold, but I doubt
>*anyone* thinks that life "emerged out of nothing", and there is,
>therefore, no important difference here.


Yet your replicating scenario suggests that over and over.
As I've said there is no advantage for a replicator - no advantage to using
energy - the only advantage is surviving the heat cycle Period.

All the rest is novel variants of surviving that (then later using that forced
energy to better survive - and replicate to better suvive, and hide in a cell
to better survive, and use chem energy storage to better survive etc.
Then everything makes sense.

>What all the factors were that played a part, no one knows, but
>appropriate levels of sunshine (most or all frequencies) was likely
>a major one, as likely was the existence of organic compounds.
>The existence of water was likely a third major factor.  Volcanism
>also may have played a part.  Location within the galaxy may have
>been a factor as well.  And luck, chance, fluke, etc., likely played
>a part, too, whether for the
 initial appearance of life


disagree here - see above.

 or for its
>continued existence (e.g. had a Permian/KT-style event taken
>place in the first few million years of likely tenuous life, it could
>have been wiped out completely - just a guess).

The sun would have started it up again - at least for awhile
>
>My issues with the (fairly popular) "chemical replication, then life"
>scenario is that both replication and initial life are pretty unique
>items, I think.  To have (very rare) *life* piggyback on (rare)
>*replication* seems to worsen the odds of life's emergence
>phenomenally.  That is, not only do these rare items - independent
>replication and life - have to happen, but occurrences of them have
>to actually intersect appropriately in both time and space).


Now you are getting to the problem of the traditional views on the origin - it
requires so much fluke events that it just didn't happen.
It would be easier for me to sprout wings next week and fly away.
>
>If life is to "emerge" anyway (but *not* "out of
nothing"), lets let a
>simple life-form do the replicating


No no no - there is no simple
self replicator.
The simple way is to see what happened - the sun forced energy on chemicals -
there was no
emerged awareness that a chemical system had to get in gear and then (without
energy) evolve to one.
That is an unsurmountable catch 22.




 and not make the odds so much against
>it.  All that being said, I confess that my argument is mainly based on
>gut
>feel and thinking of the odds and not much more.  Regards, Brett.
>
>P.S.  Personally, I like any of my terms in Para. 1 more than "forced".
>
>
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