Lifelike Behavior in Physically Simple Systems

[Yazata]

I wouldn't be surprised if similar things are happening on the microlevel when chemical polymers form. So it's conceivable that this is implicated in the original origin of biological molecules like proteins.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/PeHWqr9dz3c

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/dgbooumJ4Tg

[Kornee]

With a bit of development, maybe one has an amusement competitor for 70s vintage lava lamps, or those trendy plasma balls.
Other than that, it's relevance to OOL is imo basically zero.

The most 'primitive' extant life is inherently complex and extremely sophisticated, exquisitely integrated in nature. Nothing less will allow survival and reproduction.
But materialists cannot accept that conclusion. Hope springs eternal. 'Blind Nature can pull it off' - somehow. Dream on ye faithful.

[C C]

I wouldn't be surprised if similar things are happening on the microlevel when chemical polymers form. So it's conceivable that this is implicated in the original origin of biological molecules like proteins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeHWqr9dz3c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgbooumJ4Tg

Yah, basic components fell out of self-assembly tendencies when circumstances were favorable. Question is whether a very simple replicator could arise from them, a stone sundial rather than a wristwatch. This paywall blocked article of New Scientist titled "First self-replicating molecules may have had just two ingredients" seems to refer to Sijbren Otto's work...

Sijbren Otto group: "Under mechanical agitation, such as stirring, long fibers tend to break and produce more fibers which further drives the stacking of more rings onto fibers, until eventually all the molecules of the particular size are converted into fibers. All of this means that the rings are self-replicators — they can make copies of themselves without the help of other enzymes. "
- - - - - -

How did life begin? (video at bottom)
https://youtu.be/nNK3u8uVG7o

EXCERPTS: (10:44) The actual probability is not how the hundreds of complex chemicals can come together to form a modern-day bacterium. But the probability of a few chemicals, maybe 10 or 20, forming and coming together to form the precursors of life. That can chemically evolve over time to form the simplest kind of life form, that likely looked nothing like any evolved life form we recognize today.

But showing how even this chemical evolution could have happened is problematic. Chemical evolution is not the same as biological evolution, which is driven by favoring organisms that have the best chance of survival and reproduction. Scientists have had trouble figuring out what could have driven chemicals to evolve the complexity needed for biological functioning.

But in 2014 Jeremy England, physics professor at MIT, showed mathematically that the driving force for chemical evolution may be hidden in physics, the second law of thermodynamics. That's our old friend "entropy." [Corrected area referred to in COMMENTS below.]

From a physics point of view, the one thing that distinguishes living things from nonliving things is its ability to capture energy and convert it to heat. England argues that when exposed to an external source of energy, such as the sun, any group of molecules will restructure themselves to dissipate more and more energy. This, he says, is the driving force for chemical evolution. And this can, over time, result in living organisms, such as those we see today - organisms that are super efficient at dissipating energy.

This theory is further supported by a 2011 paper by Karo Michaelian, that showed that RNA and DNA are the most efficient of all known molecules for absorbing the intense ultraviolet light of the Sun...

[...] (3:06) These lipid membranes could potentially form around other elements,[1] they could bring disparate parts of various chemicals together, that could potentially interact, combine, react and work together to perhaps eventually form a machinery for self replication.

... Lipid molecules have a unique structure. There is a round part and a long tail part. It so happens that the round part loves water. It's hydrophilic. The tail part however, hates water. It's hydrophobic. So what tends to happen is, when a bunch of lipids are floating around in water, they tend to gather together and self assemble in spheres. Why does this happen?...because the tail part of the molecule, since it wants to get away from water, automatically faces other tails that also dislike water. And the round part which likes water, exposes itself to the water outside and inside the sphere. It is what these types of molecules do naturally. So it has a tendency to self-assemble into natural spheres.

[...] (4:19) It turns out that while lipids do have this quality of self-assembly, when there are certain ions present, such as salts or magnesium, it destroys the lipid structure they disintegrate. ... However ... in 2019 researchers at the University of Washington showed that lipid spheres do not disassemble if they are in the presence of amino acids, which are precursors to protein molecules.

In addition, the enclosing of amino acids within cell walls allows amino acids to concentrate within the walls and interact with each other to form proteins, which is part of the trinity [nucleic acids, proteins, lipids], one of the essential components of life. What is remarkable about this research is that it turns out that nonliving lipid cell walls and non living proteins need each other to exist in an ion rich or salty water. So now we see that lipids and proteins can potentially form in the presence of each other.

COMMENTS (Arvin Ash): Errata. Yes, you did hear me say Newton's 2nd law of (puts his head inside his shirt) of thermo. Totally embarrassing! I could make the excuse that my mechanical engineering background trained me to associate Newton with any mention of the words "2nd law," which is precisely the case. However, I also have a degree in chemical engineering, so this is shameful. Sorry Sadi Carnot, wherever you may be!

FOOTNOTE: [1] David Deamer: "Deamer’s team has shown not only that a membrane would serve as a cocoon for this chemical metamorphosis, but that it might also actively push the process along. Membranes are made up of lipids, fatty molecules that don’t dissolve in water and can spontaneously form tiny packages. In the 1980s, Deamer showed that the ingredients for making these packages would have been readily available on the early Earth; he isolated membrane-forming compounds from the Murchison meteorite, which exploded over Australia in 1969. Later, he found that lipids can help form RNA polymers and then enclose them in a protective coating, creating a primitive cell."

How did life begin?

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/nNK3u8uVG7o

[Zinjanthropos]

Was fascinated by this video when I first viewed it but it’s now 11-12 yrs old and I wonder what ever became of Dr Martin Hanczyc and his work on protocells.

https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_hanczyc...anguage=en

[Kornee]

Forgetting about the bold, yawning gaps filled claims re naturalistic abiogenesis, and the 'Newton's 2nd Law of thermodynamics' blooper, the YT narrator linked to in #3 further stumbled at ~ 13:40 -13:50.
Entanglement does not allow FTL communication, so there could not have been a resulting 'universe-wide communication network'.
Further, the extremes of temperature meant instant and continual environmental breakage and random reforming of entanglements.

But, the bunch of just-so stories was partially backed and fully psychologically reinforced with top notch CGI graphics. That has to be humbly conceded.

---

I cannot believe how quickly Martin Hanczyc contradicts himself in that TED talk linked to in #4.
Starts with example of a 'complex and beautiful' crystal (looks drab and uninteresting to me - but tastes do vary..). Moves on to talk of the first 'blurrer' between non-life and life - virus as 'a very simple system'.
I've got news for you Martin - the 'simplest' virus is far more complex than any crystal. Anyway, True Believers in the unfolding story there will not be bothered about such foo-pahs. No way. 'Nature can pull it off' - somehow.
Has to. Because there cannot be a God. Like - who created God? Gotcha! Or so the argument goes. Well it's actually no easier for materialists when it comes to explaining origins of the universe. And anyone who thinks 'eternal inflation' solves that has not thought about it deeply enough. Theorists who know better tend to keep the dilemma low key.

[Kornee]

Her presentation style is not the most polished ever, but content is what matters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PD0iXgu_S8
Suggest starting at ~ 13 minute mark to avoid amusing fill banter. It's the quotes from experts in their various fields that most impresses.
Bottom-up OOL is dead-end crazy thinking. IMO.