Abiogenesis and life on Earth - thoughts and pet theories?

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Abiogenesis - how life on Earth arose from non-living matter, simple organic compounds that either originated here or that arrived from space.

Anyone have have any thoughts on this subject and how other hypotheses or theories might feed into it? I suspect that a multiverse and quantum mechanics might be required to overcome some of the low probabilities involved. I have no favourite theory as to the place where the metabolic cycle (probably an ancestor of the Krebs cycle) required for life started - warm little pond, tidal pool, black smoker, alkaline vent... The imbalance in proton concentration (pH) and consequent charge difference that is required across a membrane to lead to this cycle is perhaps unachievable unless two scenarios are somehow combined. The Moon was much closer to the Earth four billion years ago - at a tenth of the current distance - so its tidal effects would have been 1,000 times greater.

I tend to adhere to metabolism first, rather than membrane first or inheritance first - but I have been strongly influenced by communicators such as Nick Lane:

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One might also speculate how - perhaps nearly a couple of billion years after the origin of life on Earth - eukaryotic cells developed from the endosymbiosis of archaea with aerobic bacteria (the latter to develop over time into the mitochondria found in nearly all eukaryotes - a few have lost them) and later with photosynthetic bacteria (the latter to develop over time into the chloroplasts found in plants) and somehow became so much more complex than their ancestors. We don't see evidence of intermediate eukaryotic forms. Those that do seem more primitive have been shown to have lost their complexity over time through evolution by natural selection.

 

[StarCruiser]

I chose other - mainly because I suspect it's more likely to have started more than once and probably via more than one source/method.

The basic chemistry of live isn't really that complex in itself. It's in the ludicrous variety that the complexity comes...

And since this is only one world - who knows what origins live on other worlds would have?

 

[Oddish]

Abiogenesis is just giving spontaneous generation (which Pasteur debunked in the 19th century) a new coat of paint.

Given that it took 2.5 billion years just for prokaryotes to evolve into eukaryotes, it's statistically impossible that we went from random molecules to fully formed bacteria in a mere 800 million.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Because they share basic metabolic pathways, archaea and bacteria do seem like they might have diverged when extremely primitive, only to come back together through endosymbiosis.

Archaea and bacteria are both prokaryotic organisms that lack the membrane-bound organelles and nucleus of eukaryotes. Archaea have more complex RNA polymerases as do eukaryotes; bacteria have only one. The cell walls of archaea lack peptidoglycan and their membranes use glycerol-ether lipids instead of glycerol-ester lipids. Archaea have three RNA polymerases like eukaryotes, while bacteria have only one. Introns are present in the chromosomes of archaea and eukaryotes, whereas they are absent from the chromosomes of bacteria. Differences also exist between the t-RNA of archaea and bacteria.

The diversity in membrane and heredity characteristics between archaea and bacteria suggests that what we might term life governed by evolution by natural selection could have started at least twice. I doubt we'll ever know for certain, although Bayes Theorem could perhaps suggest probabilities.

ETA: The comment above about Pasteur is valid, although he didn't run his experiment for millions of years under the same conditions as Hadean Earth. I also suspect Everettian branching (or similar per David Deutsch or Stephen Wolfram) quantum mechanics is involved. The annoying thing is that none of this speculation seems to be falsifiable. It's metaphysics. We are perhaps Boltzmann Brains with requisite life-support systems. Are we not men? We are not Ego.

 

[Oddish]

I see evolution very much the same way I see Lee Harvey Oswald... it made us what we are today, but it didn't act alone.

Wherever in the ocean life came into being, I sincerely believe that the event was guided by an omnipotent hand.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I can believe in retrocausality - that is, the far future determines the past. Physical theories predict advanced as well as retarded waves, but we never observe the former, only the latter. In Relativity theory, the past and the future coexist as the bulk - there is no such thing as "now". Whatever the ultimate fate of a branch of the multiverse, perhaps it initiates its own creation. Now, that's what I call metaphysics.

 

[publiusr]

Soda Lakes are all the rage these days.

Where modern life needs a calmer planet, abiogenesis needs a hell world of massive tides, greater volcanism, etc. Whip that batter.

A too-peaceful exoworld with no Moon, an oxygen atmosphere and plenty of water might just be sterile.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Oxygen is nasty, reactive stuff to archaea, but co-opt a bacterium that can exploit it and you become supercharged with ATP energy battery production that allows evolution to transform your descendents into massive biochemical factories with the latest whirring nanomachinery. May the forge be with you.

The location and nature of the initial vital spark (or sparks) may well always remain an elusive mystery. Equally mysterious is how researchers get the funding to search for it. However, like all fundamental research, it can be very illuminating in surprising ways.

 

[Spider]

The origin of life is a natural result of chemistry and physics, or some God or aliens did it. I prefer the natural science explanation. And if it's a natural occurrence, we just simply don't have a clue yet to how it actually happened. Scientists have created self replicating RNA, but it doesn't turn into "life".

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The origin of life is a natural result of chemistry and physics, or some God or aliens did it. I prefer the natural science explanation. And if it's a natural occurrence, we just simply don't have a clue yet to how it actually happened. Scientists have created self replicating RNA, but it doesn't turn into "life".

I'm in the metabolism before membranes and heredity faction. But you're correct in that we'll never know for certain. There are many circular dependencies and it's hard to deduce the original simple and probably inefficient chemical reactions and environment that were necessary.

 

[Santaman]

I think it just must have been a wlld mix of most of the above, so chemicals in a alkaline vent that got hit by an asteroid that brought more chemical elements, some black smokers appeared and you all know that smoking is bad so when it all calmed down it created a tidal pool combined with the sun's radiation and tadaa! something happened.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Phosphorus is a vial element for life on Earth - being a component of ATP and Acetyl-CoA used in metabolism, of RNA and DNA, and of cell membranes - but it appears not to be ubiquitous in the universe. Life might be possible without it, but we have only the one example to go on and its principle ingredients are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus.
https://www.livescience.com/32983-what-are-ingredients-life.html

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[publiusr]

How shallow have smokers been found?

I imagine there were more of them in the past…when tides were more massive and soda lakes perhaps breached.

The reason ordinary folks disliked the “warm pond” deal is likely because scientists perhaps imagined abiogenesis taking place in today’s calmer conditions…and to the religious…it seemed substituting one kind of miracle for another….like spontaneous generation.

The reason I focus on vortices is that chemistry alone can take you so far forward…and evolution so far back. Mechanical forcing playing a role in between is all I can come up with.

S.T. Joshi is working on a history of free thinking
http://stjoshi.org/news2024.html

His May 9 trip has a picture of what looks like a goth Cosmostrator

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Before plate tectonics started up around 3.5Ga ago*, there were probably more of both varieties of vents and these might have occurred anywhere. White smokers are thought to have been more conducive to the origin of life because of their pH, although the theory also requires the ocean to have been relatively quite acidic. The electrical potential across mitochondrial membranes is typically 150mV over a distance of about 5nm - that's a field strength of about 30 million volt per metre, similar to a bolt of lightning. It has been found that Fe-clays act catalytically for the assembly of organic molecules, so weathering and deposition of minerals was probably important. My opinion was that there needed to be a fair degree of churn, but not so much that complex molecules were destroyed faster than they were formed. The alkaline vents might have formed above sea level as hot springs on land that was later to form cratons - the oldest and most stable part of the continental lithosphere.

I've previously mentioned that the element phosphorus is probably just as important as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur for the formation of life on Earth. One can probably add iron to the list as well as FeS (found in ferredoxin) also appears to be crucial to metabolism. The ability to synthesise enzymes to speed up metabolic processes would have been selected for as soon as RNA appeared, However, phosphates are so crucial to both metabolic cycles and nucleic acids that it's hard to imagine what could have otherwise played the role of phosphorus.

I would also consider the role of relative state formalism interpretation of quantum mechanics. If reality is somewhat akin to a multiverse and/or supports telepoiesis, we live in a branch where all the unlikely conditions occurred through time. We can only speculate about the origin of life because our ancestral line kept on winning the lottery.

A Constructive Way to Think about Different Hydrothermal Environments for the Origins of Life - PMC (nih.gov)
Clays and the Origin of Life: The Experiments - PMC (nih.gov)
Abiogenesis: a possible quantum interpretation of the telepoietic conjecture (2403.12955.pdf (arxiv.org))

* This is disputed, with some arguing that it got started as soon as the crust formed.
When did plate tectonics begin? - Rollinson - 2007 - Geology Today - Wiley Online Library

 

[Moviefan2k4]

I didn't vote in the poll, because the only option close to my actual viewpoint was a mocking one. Strictly speaking, I don't believe in abiogenesis, because it says that life basically came from non-life, which makes no sense to me.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I didn't vote in the poll, because the only option close to my actual viewpoint was a mocking one. Strictly speaking, I don't believe in abiogenesis, because it says that life basically came from non-life, which makes no sense to me.

Isn't that what creationism also proposes? Whether it was random chance in a multiverse or the act of a supreme being is unlikely ever to be determined. Perhaps the two are aspects of the same thing, although that is tantamount to the heresy of Pantheism.

 

[Finn]

I didn't vote in the poll, because the only option close to my actual viewpoint was a mocking one. Strictly speaking, I don't believe in abiogenesis, because it says that life basically came from non-life, which makes no sense to me.

Genesis 1:24 says God said to let the land to produce life...

There are several versions but basically the same. if there was already life, why would he say to have the land produce life?

 

[Moviefan2k4]

Isn't that what creationism also proposes? Whether it was random chance in a multiverse or the act of a supreme being is unlikely ever to be determined. Perhaps the two are aspects of the same thing, although that is tantamount to the heresy of Pantheism.

We may not be able to reach an absolute conclusion, that is true...but we can interpret the various forms of available evidence, and come to reasonable positions that way.

Genesis 1:24 says God said to let the land to produce life...

There are several versions but basically the same. if there was already life, why would he say to have the land produce life?

A literal reading of that verse would make it seem confusing at first, but note that the beginning is, "and God said". This would be a verbal command from the highest intelligence, not some random mutation or life coming from an unliving source. Biblically speaking, plants and such are not "alive" in the specific sense, because they were not made in God's image. We were, so our nature and His expectations of us are different.

 

[Finn]

No...just no...absurd.





Just no.

 

[HotRod]

We may not be able to reach an absolute conclusion, that is true...but we can interpret the various forms of available evidence, and come to reasonable positions that way.

A literal reading of that verse would make it seem confusing at first, but note that the beginning is, "and God said". This would be a verbal command from the highest intelligence, not some random mutation or life coming from an unliving source. Biblically speaking, plants and such are not "alive" in the specific sense, because they were not made in God's image. We were, so our nature and His expectations of us are different.

So much for Science in the Science and Technology forum...

While we're at it, maybe we can discuss just how much the Cosmic Turtle can carry on its back? Is it an infinite amount, or does the Turtle have a breaking point?