| A Letter To Cairn-Smith |
[Mar. 9th, 2014|08:51 pm] |
It supposed to be a developing letter, because it is hard (as usual) to embrace all the dedailes and (more importantly) relations between them at once.
Edition: 0.0
We can (and i think we shall) apply evolutionary ideas to evolution itself, to the way it runs, to the basis it developed upon, which seems (from our "post-factum" perspective) to be required.
Our hindsight can (and i am sure it does) mislead us (well, to the hunting for spontaneous RNA emergence).
Our search for the origin of life is too narrow -- RNA must have simpler predecessors in the role.
It looks like we agreed on this point.
But.
We must assume that literally EVERY known property of the evolution process is itself a subject of evolution, and its trajectory may lead retrospectively to something completely different.
We need to abolish some important limitations dictated by common sense which is as inapplicable to our problem as it is inapplicable to quantum physics.
(1) A replicator does not have to be an object/item.
(2) It does not have to maintain clear distinction between self and the environment.
(3) A code does not have to be digital!
...something else? there must me much more items on the list, i suspect.
So, according to (1,2,3) i nominate to the role of a replicator a chemical chain reaction.
More precisely, various chains of reactions that are capable of producing some of its own ingredients. It is not theoretically impossible, since we have virtually unlimited supply of raw materials and energy intake. These reactions does not have to resemble any of contemporary bio-chemical reactions.
Imagine, the primordial soup was not a primal chaos, but an orderly structure of self sustaining/propagating clouds of certain concentrations of particular chemicals.
And then, in such an environment we can much easier speculate about emergence of "special" molecules that are capable of parasitic life cycle. Although, it must not be another "single step".
If we want to reconstruct the scenario of the life creation, it is bound to be very smooth stack piling of tiny layers of "new order" upon an existent order. And we have very profound order to start with: energy flow, and all the rest physical aspects. (So i discard the notion of "initial chaos" which sometimes appears on the topic.)
Also, since evolution is purely informational process we can say: evolution creates notions. On each phase it creates at least notions of usefulness for another phase's agents. In fact it creates much more "ideas"...
to be continued. |
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| Comments: |
Слушай, а что случилось с твоей русской клавиатурой? :0)
and for good -- it is now clear to me. | |
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