Apr 4, 2023 09:58 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 4, 2023 09:59 PM by C C.)
https://iai.tv/articles/cracking-the-cre..._auid=2020
INTRO: The question of ‘why?’ has often been seen as a dirty one in biochemistry. But Nick Lane isn’t your ordinary biochemist, not even your ordinary scientist. In this interview, Nick offers us an exciting account which not only starts to reveal how we all came to be but addresses some core philosophical problems. We delve into some of these questions and what he thinks his work in biochemistry tells him about the nature of the world, the physical laws and consciousness.
EXCERPT: . . . You’ve said previously you want to avoid the idea of emergence in your work. But your lab work tries to show that a few chemicals put together in hydrothermal vents lead to metabolic pathways arising. Is this not worryingly close to a teleological view that life would always emerge due to the laws of chemistry and thermodynamics?
I find the idea that the emergence of life was unavoidable, part of the teleology of the universe, to be a worrying idea. But I tend not to think about it. If it is true, then it would take a long time to find it to be the case.
What we are beginning to learn is that if we find carbon dioxide and hydrogen in a specific environment most of metabolism happens spontaneously. It recapitulates in the absence of genes and cells.
It seems uncanny that this should all be written in thermodynamics. I can see there is a feeling of teleology about this. But there is also something of the cosmological or anthropic principle about this, the idea that the universe is so finely tuned for our existence.
When you are thinking about biochemistry, it's hard to think of different rules of chemistry. So, why? It seems too simplistic or perhaps naïve to say this is all inevitable as so much of it is contingent on so many conditions. But it is again uncanny that we have this whole metabolic network which seems to shadow all living things.
What genes do is encode for catalysts they speed up reactions which happen anyway. If you only sped up one then not a lot would happen, it would be negligible. So, catalysts had to act more generally. And the earliest genetic systems had to amplify reactions and deal with biological information, that didn’t have any genes acting on them.
What you would predict is then to see the amplification of these systems. Life is an amplification of these basic systems; genes nail it down. Maybe it is not so surprising then, maybe therefore there were ranges of systems which could be amplified and ours is just the one that occurred and was then encoded in genetics.
Then the whole thing is even more contingent. But that is really interesting from an experimental point of view. Maybe we can discover not only the origins of life that led to our system but also see where it could have happened and what those conditions would be. Whether there could be divergent systems. Lots of philosophical questions there.
It doesn't have to be mysterious. Though I am not a theist myself, I do understand the interest in some explanatory principles. I use the word thermodynamics and God interchangeably. Einstein’s God is something I would consider, or something similar to Spinoza. God as a collective whole. That means there is a logic and something we begin to pick out bits to understand... (MORE - missing details)
INTRO: The question of ‘why?’ has often been seen as a dirty one in biochemistry. But Nick Lane isn’t your ordinary biochemist, not even your ordinary scientist. In this interview, Nick offers us an exciting account which not only starts to reveal how we all came to be but addresses some core philosophical problems. We delve into some of these questions and what he thinks his work in biochemistry tells him about the nature of the world, the physical laws and consciousness.
EXCERPT: . . . You’ve said previously you want to avoid the idea of emergence in your work. But your lab work tries to show that a few chemicals put together in hydrothermal vents lead to metabolic pathways arising. Is this not worryingly close to a teleological view that life would always emerge due to the laws of chemistry and thermodynamics?
I find the idea that the emergence of life was unavoidable, part of the teleology of the universe, to be a worrying idea. But I tend not to think about it. If it is true, then it would take a long time to find it to be the case.
What we are beginning to learn is that if we find carbon dioxide and hydrogen in a specific environment most of metabolism happens spontaneously. It recapitulates in the absence of genes and cells.
It seems uncanny that this should all be written in thermodynamics. I can see there is a feeling of teleology about this. But there is also something of the cosmological or anthropic principle about this, the idea that the universe is so finely tuned for our existence.
When you are thinking about biochemistry, it's hard to think of different rules of chemistry. So, why? It seems too simplistic or perhaps naïve to say this is all inevitable as so much of it is contingent on so many conditions. But it is again uncanny that we have this whole metabolic network which seems to shadow all living things.
What genes do is encode for catalysts they speed up reactions which happen anyway. If you only sped up one then not a lot would happen, it would be negligible. So, catalysts had to act more generally. And the earliest genetic systems had to amplify reactions and deal with biological information, that didn’t have any genes acting on them.
What you would predict is then to see the amplification of these systems. Life is an amplification of these basic systems; genes nail it down. Maybe it is not so surprising then, maybe therefore there were ranges of systems which could be amplified and ours is just the one that occurred and was then encoded in genetics.
Then the whole thing is even more contingent. But that is really interesting from an experimental point of view. Maybe we can discover not only the origins of life that led to our system but also see where it could have happened and what those conditions would be. Whether there could be divergent systems. Lots of philosophical questions there.
It doesn't have to be mysterious. Though I am not a theist myself, I do understand the interest in some explanatory principles. I use the word thermodynamics and God interchangeably. Einstein’s God is something I would consider, or something similar to Spinoza. God as a collective whole. That means there is a logic and something we begin to pick out bits to understand... (MORE - missing details)