by harscoat on 1/23/24, 2:06 PM with 380 comments
by Stukauffman11 on 1/25/24, 4:15 PM
The origin of life field is many decades old, wonderful, and wonderfully fragmented. The two main approaches are: i. Template replication. ii. Metabolism first. I am a guilty party with respect to "metabolism first". In 1971 I realized that in a sufficiently diverse and complex chemical reaction system, self reproducing collectively autocatalytic sets would arise as a first order phase transition. Such sets have now been engineered using DNA, RNA, and peptides.
A stunning set of recent results led by Joana Xavier has now demonstrated small molecule collectively autocatalytic sets, with NO DNA, RNA, or peptide polymers, in all 6700 prokaryotes. I am a co-author. Joana did all the work, entirely.
It is not yet certain that these sets actually reproduce in vitro - a critical set tests to be done. If yes, I think this almost rules out a template first view. Such a template system would have to evolve RNA enzymes to catalyze some "connected metabolism" to create the building blocks for the template replicating systems. But there is no reason at all why such a connected metabolism on its own, without RNA polymer enzymes, would be collectively autocatalytic.
Joana's sets create not only amino acids and ATP, but the central rudiments of linked energy metabolisms.
I truly think the on line paper is basically correct. Living cells really are Kantian Wholes that achieve Catalytic, Constraint and Spatial Closure. Via these, cells literally construct themselves. Their very boundary condition molecules constrain the release of energy in many non-equilbirum process into the few degrees of freedom that construct the very same boundary conditions. Entirely new, and due to Mael Montevil and Mateo Missio. I missed it for 15 years. Rather dumb, thrilled that they did it.
The marriage of the TAP process with the theory for the first order phase transition of collective autocatalysis, TAP-RAF really works. The evolving complexity and diversity of the system increases, then the first order phase transition arises with probably almost 1.0. If YES, the emergence of life in the evolving universe really is expected.
Then two major surprises. Due to Constriant Closure, the way a cell reproduces itself is not at all the way von Neumann envisioned in his self reproducing automaton. The familiar distinction between hardware and software vanishes. This must be deeply important, but its meanings are still very unclear to me.
The second major surprise is that Andrea and I are confident we have demonstrated, and punished as "A Third Transition in Science?" J. Roy. Soc. Interface April 14, 2023, that we can use no mathematics based on set theory to deduce the ever - creative emergence of novelties in the evolving biosphere. If correct, as we believe, this takes the evolving biosphere entirely beyond the famous Newtonian Paradigm that is the basis of all Classical and Quantum Physics.
The evolving biosphere is a non-deducible propagating construction, not an entitled deduction. The evolving biosphere is not a Computation at all, it is a non-deducible construction. If so, why do we believe with Turing and AI, that the becoming of the world, mind, everything is algorithmic? It is not. Andrea and I published, "The world is not a theorem". If correct, physicists will have to consider what this means. So do we all.
Warm wishes,
Stu
by johngossman on 1/23/24, 6:08 PM
"Biologists cannot even agree on a unique definition of life itself; but that hasn’t stopped them from unraveling aspects of the cell, the double helix, photosynthesis, enzymes and a host of other living phenomena"
by jyounker on 1/23/24, 4:32 PM
For those of you following along at home, Kaufmann has been developing the ideas here for decades. The paper is less a "here is a new idea" and much more "here is a concise summary of 50 years of work". The words and thoughts seem opaque, but this is case where they actually have concrete and specific meanings. It's worth noting too, that towards the end of the article he outlines experiments that could be used to falsify the theory.
If you want a really hard-core dive into the ideas, then check out his 1993 book, "On The Origins of Order" (ISBN 978-0-19-507951-7).
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-origins-of-order...
by lachlan_gray on 1/23/24, 3:41 PM
Simple organisms make a bedrock for complex organisms, and while the complex organisms have more specific needs, they are better at exploring, gaining, branching out. So they also kind of make a nest for the simple organisms by sprawling into the void and finding habitable niches that simple organisms wouldn't reach on their own.
On the time scale of technology, we began reaching out to other intelligences the second that we could, began trying to make them the second we thought we could know how. It's very reasonable to say that percolation is a defining property of life and intelligence.
I also think a lot of scifi's like hyperion, neuromancer, foundation. In human writing of the future, it seems like the endgame of higher intelligence is to find or create other intelligences, and get closer to them. Then interesting things happen in the wake of that.
by HarHarVeryFunny on 1/23/24, 3:56 PM
The thesis of Kaufmann's book is that the emergence of life, given supporting conditions (variety of source chemicals in environment, sources of energy, maybe water/mixing) is all but inevitable (hence life being "at home" in the universe) rather than being some rare event.
The reasoning is that when these preconditions are met there will be a variety of chemical chain reactions occurring where the product of one reaction is used as the input to the next, and eventually reaction chains that include products that act as catalysts for parts of the reaction chain. These types of reaction can be considered as a primitive metabolism - consuming certain environmental chemicals and producing others useful to the metabolism.
From here to proto-cells and the beginning of evolution all it takes is some sort of cell-like container which (e.g.) need be nothing more than than something like froth on the seashore, based out of whatever may be floating on the water surface. Initial "reproduction" would be based on physical agitation (e.g wave action) breaking cells and creating new ones.
Different locations would have different micro-environments with different locally occurring reaction chains and "proliferation/survival of the fittest" would be the very beginning of evolution, as those reactions better able to utilize chemical sources and support their own structure/metabolism would become more widespread.
Anyway, a good book and plausible thesis in general (one could easily adapt the specifics from seashore to deep sea thermal vents etc).
by ta8645 on 1/23/24, 2:45 PM
by asow92 on 1/23/24, 2:46 PM
This sentiment has always made me question when people say things are "unnatural", "artificial", or "synthetic": If we ourselves are of nature, and these things are a byproduct of us, then aren't they naturally occurring?
edit: added "synthetic" to reduce ambiguity.
by FrustratedMonky on 1/23/24, 2:39 PM
E/Acc -> Second law of thermodynamics leads to 'life' as way of increasing entropy. https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-o...
Constructor Theory -> A constructor is an entity that can cause the task to occur while retaining the ability to cause it again. - and Life is constructors.
Assembly Theory -> Lee Cronin. Assembly Theory defines all objects by their capacity to be assembled or broken down using minimal paths. https://iai.tv/articles/a-new-theory-of-matter-may-help-expl...
Whatever Donald Hoffman is saying lately. Which might not be about underlying layers, just how we can't know them.
etc...
by ruffrey on 1/23/24, 8:00 PM
by lutusp on 1/23/24, 6:09 PM
Easily answered:
* We don't know how consciousness comes into being, indeed we can't rigorously define it or unambiguously identify its presence or absence.
* We believe we have it, but we aren't sure whether other animals and/or objects possess it.
* Therefore, based on Occam's razor, we may provisionally assume that all matter possesses some degree of consciousness -- this is the simplest assumption.
* The alternative would be to argue for a consciousness exceptionalism in "life" forms for which there is no evidence and many counterarguments.
* Therefore it follows that ... wait for it ... life is not a special state of matter or energy.
* Therefore the emergence of life doesn't represent a phase transition that confronts physical laws or requires an explanation.by schnitzelstoat on 1/23/24, 2:51 PM
It appears that life developed quite quickly in this manner after the formation of the Earth.
The leap from bacteria and archaea to eukaryotes, however, took billions of years. So complex life may be rare.
by javajosh on 1/23/24, 7:38 PM
by tobbe2064 on 1/23/24, 3:06 PM
I've since tried to find it without luck. Does anybody here know where I can read it or remember the article I'm talking about?
by hamburga on 1/23/24, 3:02 PM
His perspective was that (if I may take the liberty of paraphrasing him) there’s nothing particularly special about life from the perspective of physics. What we call life simply correlates to parts of the physical world that have the highest degree of complexity and internal structure.
Life is not binary.
by madmountaingoat on 1/23/24, 4:36 PM
by 1970-01-01 on 1/23/24, 3:14 PM
by jononomo on 1/24/24, 1:00 AM
by harscoat on 1/25/24, 6:07 PM
by zenkat on 1/23/24, 2:58 PM
by m3kw9 on 1/23/24, 3:29 PM
by BurningFrog on 1/23/24, 7:18 PM
This proves something, but I'm not sure what...
by mseepgood on 1/24/24, 7:15 AM
by api on 1/23/24, 11:07 PM
If the emergence of complex life in the universe is a threshold or phase transition effect, it might not happen until the universe reaches a certain age in which all conditions are satisfied. At this point you'd have the "simultaneous" (at geologic time scales) emergence of complex life all over the place.
If this were the case, what if for some reason (such as multiple overlapping factors all having to be satisfied) the standard deviation in the time dimension is actually small? In other words what if life emerges or hits certain evolutionary milestones at about the same time +/- a fairly narrow window like one million years.
If that were the case then the universe would be full of things more or less about as advanced as we are, but very few that are vastly more advanced. The probability of one of those few very advanced outliers existing in, say, this galaxy might be relatively small. Intergalactic travel is many orders of magnitude harder than interstellar travel (which is already brutally hard) and would take millions of years even near the speed of light, so even something like a Kardashev type II or transitional type III civilization wouldn't be likely to cross between galaxies. Something like that could be out there but insanely distant and completely undetectable.
We wouldn't see alien interstellar probes, starships, or techno-signatures from anything large scale enough to be detectable because for the most part these things don't exist yet.
Would also imply that once we build a starship, that's about the time we should expect to encounter starships. It would be a cosmic-scale version of the principle (and apparent historical pattern) that steam engines appear when it is "steam engine time." Maybe it's just not starship time yet.
If the standard deviation is very narrow, you'd have this weird interstellar trick or treat night event where the probes and starships start arriving at about the same time everywhere in the entire universe.
At this point maybe everyone exchanges knowledge and technology and you have an insane explosion in complexity, sort of a cosmic Cambrian explosion, and then you get Kardashev type II and III civilizations and onward.
Zoom way, way out and it looks like a sudden phase transition of the entire universe from being dominated by non-living physical processes to being dominated by living processes.
by tap-snap-or-nap on 1/23/24, 10:55 PM
by waynenator on 1/23/24, 7:14 PM
by mavili on 1/23/24, 3:03 PM
by martin82 on 1/25/24, 2:47 AM
by bentona on 1/23/24, 11:52 PM
by tulio_ribeiro on 1/24/24, 12:51 AM
by 0xbadcafebee on 1/24/24, 2:47 AM
The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth.
The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only
reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted
plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our
age-old egocentric philosophical question,
“Why are we here?”
“Plastic… asshole.”
- George Carlinby dmvjs on 1/25/24, 1:20 AM
by jayavanth on 1/23/24, 5:16 PM
by huqedato on 1/23/24, 5:22 PM
by ddgflorida on 1/24/24, 12:47 AM
by bluenose69 on 1/23/24, 10:52 PM
by mjburgess on 1/23/24, 2:42 PM
At best it's a sort of mission statement for what would need to be a research programme with many many academic papers behind it. As it is, I'm not sure what the authors aim here is. It's a blog post.
by cscheid on 1/23/24, 2:42 PM
by ltbarcly3 on 1/23/24, 4:28 PM
by TravisCooper on 1/23/24, 2:59 PM
However, life didn't evolve through a random walk of chemical reactions turning into complex systems with the ability to replicate and gain ever increasing complexity over time. Not possible.
Entropy is increasing.
by eye-robot on 1/23/24, 8:08 PM