Abiogenesis and life on Earth - thoughts and pet theories?

[Will The Serious]

I think the video is fascinating. I can't say there is enough information for me to fully appreciate the nature of the work, and therefore the full extent of the dangers they are talking about. It asks for a small amount of faith in their arguement from me. However, I can see how a biological anti-biota might lead to total global annihilation. I suspect the nature of life on our planet won't allow such a scenario, but, as the video points out, maybe human life won't be what survives.

The argument is based on assumptions of threats that we don't know are real, and can't know unless we risk that threat. That is why I posted the excerpt from Typhoon. It is about the decision to experience a danger vs assuming a danger and going to the trouble and cost of avoiding the existential threat so that it never manifests.

As for the particular threat of mirrored biology, I am in favor of backing off on actual, viable construction, until we have many more decades of technological knowledge about the nature of such things. Also, wait until we can isolate the treat in an off-planet laboratory.

Great material for sci-fi story though.

-Will

 

[Candleicious Ghost]

I think the video is fascinating. I can't say there is enough information for me to fully appreciate the nature of the work, and therefore the full extent of the dangers they are talking about. It asks for a small amount of faith in their arguement from me. However, I can see how a biological anti-biota might lead to total global annihilation. I suspect the nature of life on our planet won't allow such a scenario, but, as the video points out, maybe human life won't be what survives.

The argument is based on assumptions of threats that we don't know are real, and can't know unless we risk that threat. That is why I posted the excerpt from Typhoon. It is about the decision to experience a danger vs assuming a danger and going to the trouble and cost of avoiding the existential threat so that it never manifests.

As for the particular threat of mirrored biology, I am in favor of backing off on actual, viable construction, until we have many more decades of technological knowledge about the nature of such things. Also, wait until we can isolate the treat in an off-planet laboratory.

Great material for sci-fi story though.

-Will

Indeed and I have written ideas about this before as the topic has been around for a while before that video even came out. It' a really fascinating rabbit hole to go down.

 

[publiusr]

Here are some odd findings

Consciousness as the foundation: New theory addresses nature of reality

Consciousness is fundamental; only thereafter do time, space and matter arise. This is the starting point for a new theoretical model of the nature of reality, presented by Maria Strømme, Professor of Materials Science at Uppsala University, in AIP Advances. The article has been selected as the...

phys.org

Examining why some species developed consciousness while others remained non-conscious

What is the evolutionary advantage of our consciousness? And what can we learn about this from observing birds? Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum published two articles on this topic.

phys.org

Human brains are preconfigured with instructions for understanding the world, evidence suggests

Humans have long wondered when and how we begin to form thoughts. Are we born with a pre-configured brain, or do thought patterns only begin to emerge in response to our sensory experiences of the world around us? Now, science is getting closer to answering the questions philosophers have...

medicalxpress.com

 

[Zero Kelvin]

It's much simpler to simulate the possible quantum states of a few kilograms equivalent of mass-energy within a radius of say 10 centimetres than an entire cosmos with a radius of at least 46 giga light years. If so, all possible mind states would be Hilbert space configurations and space-time would be an illusion as would the rest of reality - basically the quantum equivalent of a Boltzmann brain where all consciousnesses share the same substrate. I have no idea how to falsify such a notion.

 

[Will The Serious]

To apply Occam’s Razor, the universe as mind is the simplest explanation, but it removes the possibility of understand, since with mind, all things are possible.

Not a very scientifically workable scenario.

-Will

 

[Zero Kelvin]

To apply Occam’s Razor, the universe as mind is the simplest explanation, but it removes the possibility of understand, since with mind, all things are possible.

Not a very scientifically workable scenario.

By Gödel's incompleteness theorems, all things are not possible or comprehensible - if the latter is what you mean by "understand by mind". (See also Wolfram's hypothesis of computational irreducibility.) By scientifically workable, I assume you mean that we can't construct a Hilbert space with a large enough dimensionality - for example, by using a suitable quantum computer. Of course, that doesn't mean that a sufficiently advanced civilisation couldn't do so nor that one might somehow arise by chance in some unknown substrate realm. I prefer the latter option, but there's no way that I know of discriminating between the two, never mind falsifying the hypothesis in the first place.

The notion that consciousness is fundamental appeals to me as it might explain many weird occurrences that are otherwise dismissed as pseudoscience, such as synchronicity, ghosts, telepathy, telekinesis, UFO sightings, the Mandela effect, unexplained astrophysical phenomena and so on. It's an interesting idea and, as I have neither a career nor a reputation to destroy, I feel happy enough to consider it without being an adherent. Your view might well differ and that's fine by me. We might well never know with any certainty either way.

ETA: ...or perhaps I'm too influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Propaganda:

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[Will The Serious]

understand by mind

I think that was a typo. I meant 'understanding', but the meaning comes across.

What I mean is that, if the Universe is generated by mind, and not a phenomenal substance independent of the observer, then any concept or form that is imaginable can exist.

While Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is beautifully crafted and perfectly sensible for a Math system; in a Universe of Mind it is a limitation that can be overcome by imagination.

For instance, imagine an all powerful being, a being that is everything in a universe that is nothing but that being (The Mind). Because of the logic behind Gödel's theorem, that Mind cannot fully know itself. But, it can create (imagine) a universe and an intelligence outside itself. The Mind creates a world that looks back upon the creator, the observer, to provide a perspective that would be impossible from within.

The problem, however, is in that Incompleteness Theorem. That outside perspective isn't really outside anymore once it makes its perspective part of the original Mind. The Mind, to know itself fully, must also be able to speculate on impossibilities. It must be able to account for a nature, a relationship, that is not part of itself, but is reflective. Then it has to know the other self and the relationship that other self has with its creator. This Mind needs something like 'Time' to provide for a future self that can be understood predictively. A self that had not yet come to be, but can be understood will be in the end, an existential self. That way, the outside view of the self can be brought together with complete understanding emerging through the imagination, instead of simply being through logic.

The real problem with that, though, is, what then? So you know yourself. So what? The Big Fade, followed by another Big Bang? Imagine that.

-Will

 

[Zero Kelvin]

Without mind, there is effectively no cosmos. Whether a large, albeit finite, number of timeless quantum states can give rise to the sensation of space-time and conscious beings within it that have the illusion that they are independent and can attempt to make sense of their existence is a question that I do not feel able to answer. It's simultaneously a solipsistic and pantheistic notion that all possible realities might be observed, presumably limited by the Bekenstein bound. There is only the illusion of free will and I assume superdeterminism is a given.

Perhaps the whole thing hangs together by entanglement to provide perceived threads of existence. While it might permit ESP phenomena such as remote viewing, there would appear to be no room for individual "souls", but perhaps the whole quantum system is in some way a conscious entity. A black hole event horizon is the natural maximum entropy solution, but is a singularity the minimum entropy solution? As I mentioned, the system is timeless, which is accord with the Wheeler-DeWitt equation - albeit that describes the whole reality that we observe and not a reality that only needs to generate perceived consciousness from a much smaller amount of energy.

 

[Charlie Xmas]

This bit of quasi-sentient starstuff uses other bits of starstuff to look at the Universe. Is that sufficient?

"We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

 

[Crisp Conditions]

"What would the universe be like without life?" isn't a scientific question, because any answer to it is untestable.

To say that any scientific theory must describe only a universe in which there is life is accordingly tautological.

 

[Stephen James Wolfer]

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.

When the moon was much closer and the tides much higher, the Earth's land was also much flatter with a very low elevation above water. There would have been billions or even trillions of tidal pools and each tide would have mixed their separate chemical evolutions until life existed. that is my humble opinion.

 

[Charlie Xmas]

This is interesting look at how new islands begin to support life

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[camdudetenger2018]

what do you mean by pet theories

as in theorys how animals were on earth

 

[Zero Kelvin]

what do you mean by pet theories

as in theorys how animals were on earth

Is that a question? Who are you addressing?

There is this interesting video by Anton Petrov on the latest research into how eukaryotic lifeforms developed from a symbiosis between an anaerobic Promethearchaeota archaeon and an aerobic proteobacterium, which formed the organelles known as mitochondria. A second episode of symbiogenesis with a cyanobacterium created plants, with the formation of chloroplast organelles.

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My favourite populariser of ideas about how life developed on Earth is Professor Nick Lane of University College, London. I doubt all his ideas concerning abiogenesis are correct and we might never know for certain, but how complex life developed seems much more tractable in terms of being understood.

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[Spider]

Interesting article on the basic building blocks of RNA found in space.

Although these sugars are not evidence of life, their detection, along with previous detections of amino acids, nucleobases, and carboxylic acids in Bennu samples, show building blocks of biological molecules were widespread throughout the Solar System.

https://www.sci.news/space/bennu-sugars-14398.html

 

[camdudetenger2018]

Is that a question? Who are you addressing?

There is this interesting video by Anton Petrov on the latest research into how eukaryotic lifeforms developed from a symbiosis between an anaerobic Promethearchaeota archaeon and an aerobic proteobacterium, which formed the organelles known as mitochondria. A second episode of symbiogenesis with a cyanobacterium created plants, with the formation of chloroplast organelles.

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My favourite populariser of ideas about how life developed on Earth is Professor Nick Lane of University College, London. I doubt all his ideas concerning abiogenesis are correct and we might never know for certain, but how complex life developed seems much more tractable in terms of being understood.

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questions

 

[Zero Kelvin]

questions

Questions are formulated with terminating interrogative punctuation (that is a question mark, eroteme or "?") in English. Some people like to use the backward version (percontation point or "⸮") to indicate a rhetorical question, where no response is expected.

what do you mean by pet theories as in theorys how animals were on earth

"Pet" in this usage is idiomatically equivalent to "favoured" or "preferred". It is not meant to be interpreted as meaning "companion animal". I can only assume your first language perhaps is not English - not that there is anything wrong with that.

 

[Zero Kelvin]

Interesting article on the basic building blocks of RNA found in space.

https://www.sci.news/space/bennu-sugars-14398.html

The article mentions that phosphates were found in the samples, which is crucial as phosphates are vital for metabolism, membranes and genetic material in life on Earth.

ETA: In other developments, it appears that someone had the same thought as me many moons ago and developed that notion into a working hypothesis that both RNA and prions might have been necessary precursors for life on Earth.

The Power of Prions: The Strange and Essential Proteins That Can Cause Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Other Diseases (Audio Download): Michel Brahic, Mike Cooper, Tantor Media: Amazon.co.uk: Books

The Power of Prions: The Strange and Essential Proteins That Can Cause Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Other Diseases (Audio Download): Michel Brahic, Mike Cooper, Tantor Media: Amazon.co.uk: Books

www.amazon.co.uk

There is an article by the author, Michel Brahic, on this notion in New Scientist magazine. unfortunately, it is behind a paywall. His ideas do not seem implausible now that we know prions aren't merely responsible for disease, but are also involved in memory, immunity and epigenetic adaptation to changes in the environment.

A sinister, deadly brain protein could reveal the origins of all life

We have long struggled to determine how the first living organisms on Earth came together. Now, surprising evidence hints that poorly understood prions may have been the vital missing ingredient

www.newscientist.com

 

[publiusr]

I guess oil and water do mix...or grow "arms"

Like living cells, oil-in-water droplets form 'arms' in response to their environment

Oil-in-water droplets respond to chemical cues by forming arm-like extensions that resemble filopodia, which are used by living cells to sense and explore their environment.

phys.org