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Why are you certain that _self_ replication would be a necessary condition for "life-ish" chemistry to start happening, and to start evolving? I expect chemica
by Govindae 9y ago
Why are you certain that _self_ replication would be a necessary condition for "life-ish" chemistry to start happening, and to start evolving?
I expect chemical metabolisms pre-dated organisms, and purely metabolism based replicators pre-dated stored instruction replicators.
- EGreg 9y agoCan you elaborate on this and describe a complete picture of what you think happened?
- Govindae 9y agoCertainly not a complete picture. More of an unfinished amaetur impressionist water color. But something along the lines of the dynamics seen in reaction diffusion systems. Once you have a "metabolism" where interacting chemicals produce one another, you have a system that can sustain itself on it's reactants. In a mess of random reactions, order will emerge through feedback effects, chemicals that are used up are used up, those that are replenished will increase in concentration. Various regions will have different ratios, and different impurities giving a landscape in which versions of the metabolism may specialize or interact. ... Some regions produce molecules that self assemble into things like walls and membranes. ... RNA, likely around as a component the whole time, at some point it is specialized into an information medium role. Stir continuously, simmer for 1-billion years or until it photosynthesizes.