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Origin of life theories

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-26 23:05

So I finally got around to reading Frankenstein, and I'm a ways into it, and it's gotten me interested in the origin of life. Apparently no one has any firm idea how life 'happened', as it were.

I'm reading the abiogenesis article on Wikipedia (in before "Wikipedia can be changed by anyone, it's totally false!", it's reliable enough for me.), and the only guy that had any clue what was going on was Alexander Oparin.

Now, I'm no scientist, but it seems completely mind-boggling to me that simple molecules could spontaneously become autonomous due to the chemical properties of their constituent atoms.

Any intelligent anons care to spread the intelligence, or can recommend any reading other than Wikipedia to try to comprehend this concept?

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-27 1:35

This thread is a religious debate waiting to happen.  That said, I am also interested in the topic.

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-27 5:52

I can tell you than when the moon was being studied by japanese scientists regarding meteorite and asteroid impacts; attempting to find out the approximate sizes of the asteroids by impact crater size and depth they simulated an impact using compacted elements that are most commonly present inside of asteroids, some of the basic elements in any living creature including water, carbon, etc. When the compacted elements were shot down a tube about 2000 miles an hour and impacted the metal plate at the other end, a miraculous finding was made by these Japanese scientists.

The elements including water had changed from their basic elemental forms into amino acids.

Just to let you know.

:/

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-27 21:50

>>3
I knew that high temperatures and impacts with basic elements formed amino acids, but it's still confusing as to why these amino acids just gained a certain autonomy.

Why is it that Oparin thought a reducing atmosphere would hinder the formation of amino acids and spontaneous generation of life? Does a reduction reaction happen more readily than the process to bring about amino acids and blocks their formation, or is it something more basic (or complex)?

Name: Anonymous 2010-02-28 5:31

>>4
jesus, can't you tell by now that with each inclusion of conflicting elements achieves a state of new functionality? Find out what conflicts with what you have and unify it. This continues on forever to form life from life. Life is conflict, two form unity but are always in conflict. Conflict breeds creativity.

Get it? If no conflict is made than that which is unified becomes its parts and the creativity that it was ceases to be. So what conflicts with amino acids? What creativity comes of that unity? What conflicts with this unity?
etc, etc, et al, ad infinitum. Life; always in motion, always in conflict, always in flux.

learn it
live it
love it

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-01 13:46

HAX MY ANUS

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-01 15:46

Get it? If no conflict is made than that which is unified becomes its parts and the creativity that it was ceases to be. So what conflicts with amino acids? What creativity comes of that unity? What conflicts with this unity?
etc, etc, et al, ad infinitum. Life; always in motion, always in conflict, always in flux.

The elements including water had changed from their basic elemental forms into amino acids.

oh dear, this board...


OP, perhaps you should search PubMed for the phrase "RNA World."  The consensus belief is that RNA-based organisms were the first to appear.  Many ribozymes that have been selected for allow complex chemical reactions, supporting the notion that a life form completely composed of RNA could exist.

That being said, how nucleotides were so abundant for these things to appear is still a mystery.  The reducing atmosphere would be essential, as an oxidizing atmosphere would not allow these complex organic molecules to form on their own (they would be oxidized and destroyed in an oxidizing atmosphere).

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-01 15:57

>>7
Oh yeah, that's that guy that always ends his sentences with the :/ emoticon. Apparently he's our resident troll spouting inane nonsense from time to time.

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-01 23:18

self-organization happens

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-01 23:26

there is some stuff called auto-catalytic sets
in the primordial oceans
perhaps in clay near volcanic vents
(going from 3D to 2D makes the probability of
collisions between random chemicals go way up)
things stick to surfaces because of charge
and because they are greasy
hydrophobic amino acids in proteins w00t
stick in the membranes of fatty bubbles
some catalysis happens
A is transformed into B
happens all the time
then B gets turned into C
and maybe there's a lot of extra B
so lots of C gets made
and it turns out that some other molecule
turns C into A
and you get an explosion of self-replicating molecules

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-01 23:31

Read Robert Rosen's Life Itself
if you enjoy category theory that is
discover the category of SelfRep

also Stuart Kauffman

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-02 0:03

>>10
To be a little more precise, and simpler, imagine a set where A catalyses the formation of B, and B catalyses the formation of A, and there's plenty of substrate around to make A and B out of. Then you get exponential growth until all the substrate is used up.
Of course life is more complex than just self-replication, some fancy information storage evolved somewhere along the way.
All the computer dweebs will recognize that the triplet code is an error-correcting code (in terms of BOTH amino acid coded for AND its hydrophobicity).

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-02 2:30

:/

I'll just leave you to your thoughts.

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-04 8:41

Also read about hyperthermophile bacteria. They've been found inside hydrothermal vents. They have fairly alien chemosynthetic metabolisms, but they still use DNA. These sorts of organisms don't depend on the sun, or oxygen, and could have been alive on the early earth, back when it didn't have oxygen in the atmosphere. Or they could have evolved from more modern bacteria ... but i guess they've sequenced the DNA and counted mutations in some common, conserved gene, like maybe histones? hmm? i dunno.

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-04 8:52

>>14
oh, sorry, hyperthermophiles are archae, not bacteria
archae have completely different biochemistry from bacteria
and have no organelles
from mikepedia: Archaea are particularly numerous in the oceans, and the archaea in plankton may be one of the most abundant groups of organisms on the planet. Archaea are now recognized as a major part of life on Earth and may play an important role in both the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle.

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-05 5:08

Origin of life (philosophy):
Because it didn't/doesn't exist is the purpose for its existence.

Life is conflict against resistance utilizing opponent's paths of least resistance to deflect, divide, and absorb to grow; to move is to be.

:1 "To be or not to be?"
<opposition = 0><choice = 0><goto 2>
<opposition = 0><choice = 1><goto 2>

:2 "To move or not to move?"
<prior choice = 0><opposition = 0><choice = 0><goto 3>
<prior choice = 1><opposition = 0><choice = 1><goto 3>

:3 "To do or not to do?"
<prior choice = 0><opposition = 1><choice = 0>
<prior choice = 1><opposition = 0><choice = 1>

Options are the variables to which choice is applied.

As in reverse mathematics, a person's choice is seen through the option variable (action), and that choice reflects the first choice, "to be or not to be," and rebels against the ego (axiom) or acquiesces to it (maxim).

The ideal behind everything is the antithesis of what it should be.
Example?
If you want something, usually you don't feel like doing what you don't know and this leaves you longing for your destination at the point of your source. This also means you are being grateful for (paying attention) what you don't have and being ungrateful for (ignoring) what you do have. This polarity is the purpose that life exists, moving from stability to instability and back towards stability. If one or the other were all that exists, than stillness would remain and life would cease in its form and begin to break down to get back to what it was (if stable, then unstable; if unstable, then stable)

The motion is the key.
And we can see it in everything around us. The still (rigid) rock is worn away by the moving (flexible) water = erosion.

Without polarity there is no motion, without motion there is no life.

You must want, you must give what you don't feel like giving, you must receive what you want, and you must be grateful for it.
In being grateful for it, you also place importance and value (within yourself) on the process (the motion) as well as the want.

In this way, you always are at odds with with what you don't have, and are at odds with your environment for which you are able to give.

This opposition is key; the fact you don't feel like doing something, that you are uncertain of it, fear it, doubt it, because it is not something familiar, safe, and easily understood beforehand is the reason for you to do it.

Not doing this is forsaking your want, and doing this is forsaking your fear, doubts, and uncertainties.

Which is more valuable to you, your fear or your want?

Not giving what your environment needs is forsaking your want, giving forsakes your fears, doubts, and uncertainties.

Which is more valuable to you, your fear or your want?

Once you read this, I have one final piece of information that will place all of this at odds with you for the rest of your life;

What you think/feel and what exists outside of that thought/feeling are two entirely different things. They are not linked, they are not synonymous; this is your opposition, your only moment to do, to move, and to be.

How you should feel after reading this?

"This is insane, can't be done."
"This is crazy!!! Who thought of something like this?"
"This is entirely inaccurate and does not constitute reality."
"This makes me afraid."
"This makes me hesitate."
"I feel sick."
"YOU'RE WRONG!!!"
"Nope, not possible."

And yes, according to thought and feeling, the action should be the same as the thought/feeling that is dictated; nope, it's the antithesis of it. Rebelling against the rebel; Ego, which is based in thought/feeling.

When it comes to morals;
1st person = 1st person's Ego considered and postponed, All else's ego-wants are now via unbias observable and fulfillable.
When all else provides 1st person with anything that corresponds personally to 1st person, it is moral and unselfish to accept.

When it comes to ethics;
1st person and all else must benefit from the transaction.
The tie-in to morals?
The receiving comes before the giving.
1st person must receive the opportunity to give first. The opportunity to give is more important than any form of reciprocated giving from all else.
The reciprocation should be another opportunity for all else to give to 1st person.

In this way, a vacuum is created in the pre-existing understanding of reciprocation and the process becomes a living system that never existed between all else and 1st person.

...and I haven't even said anything about past, present, and future of thought/feeling (maxim), belief (axiom), and all else external of maxim/axiom.

It's a paradox.

Nor have I brushed on the subject of the purposes of having a "God".

What makes it all work?
Because it didn't/doesn't exist is the purpose/justification for it to exist. <conflicting aspects, miracle of life>

And just think, it all started with the simplest things too. Guess the simple things in life really do matter.

:/

Name: Anonymous 2010-03-05 5:11

>>16
Oh yeah, the reason that thought/feeling, belief, and actions external the prior are different?

metaphysics vs. physics.

:/

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