Life from non-life?

invert_nexus
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my understanding is that all forms of life are conscious - ie they all exhibit some sort of will.
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Nope. You'd be wrong in that one. The most basic forms of life simply react to their environment in a limited number of ways which are prescribed by their physical makeup.
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nope you're wrong in that one
taking the physical make up of life and the physical make up of an environmental factor amounts to zilch unless the physical thing is actually alive
It all boils down to interaction at the molecular level.
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since life itself cannot be determined on a molecular level, you are speaking something other than strict science

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There is a big difference between life and the chemicals that life utilizes
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How fine can you split a hair? How many pieces can you cut a cell into before you can say that this bit is no longer alive?
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big difference between something that is living and something that is dead - even on a molecular level
Are viruses alive?
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sure - just contrast them to when they are dead
Crystals?
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ever seen a dead crystal?



Anyway.
The topic of this thread is abiogenesis, not consciousness. I'd suggest sticking to topic, but I'm no longer moderator of this thread as I have moved it as per request of the thread starter. I will issue a formal request to cease and desist all religious ramblings and stick to a biological perspective to the opening post.
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consciousness is a symptom of life and an eluding factor of abiogenesis


On the topic, I would like to say this. The bit that intrigues me most about the creation of life is the evolution of the genetic code. It is this little trick that makes a bunch of molecules that follow simple chemical rules into something greater than the sum of its parts. Everybody goes on and on about the wonders of DNA and, it's true, DNA is a wonderful storage medium (relatively speaking. From a design perspective, better choices could have been made, but I digress). It's not the DNA that is the magical part of the process. It's the tRNA. That's where the code lies. That's where the instructions for reading the code lies. That's where the assembly of proteins from the DNA becomes reality.

There's also all the epigenetic goings on which we learn more about every day, but the magic of magics is tRNA.
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regressing dna doesn't make the suggestion of abiogenesis any more tenable.
In fact the difficulties that surround the formation of the delicate sugars of tRNA seem to make the notion of life being cooked in some sort of biological oven even more absurd.
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taking the physical make up of life and the physical make up of an environmental factor amounts to zilch unless the physical thing is actually alive
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The problem comes when you try to decide exactly when you can say something is alive or not. You get down to a certain level and the boundary is quite blurry. The definition of life that you are using is vague and nonuseful for scientific inquiry.

since life itself cannot be determined on a molecular level, you are speaking something other than strict science
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The processes of life take place at the molecular level. Just because your emerged consciousness exists many levels higher doesn't take away from the fact that you are a mere side effect of a great and secret show where the parts are played by molecules.

big difference between something that is living and something that is dead - even on a molecular level
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Then tell me what the difference between a dead virus and a living virus is.

sure - just contrast them to when they are dead
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What's a dead virus?

consciousness is a symptom of life and an eluding factor of abiogenesis
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Consciousness is one of many emergent qualities that are possible to be derived from the processes of life. It has nothing to do with abiogenesis which would have taken place many levels down.

In fact the difficulties that surround the formation of the delicate sugars of tRNA seem to make the notion of life being cooked in some sort of biological oven even more absurd.
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The magic of tRNA isn't in a delicacy of construction. It's actually quite simple. The magic is in the code. In the evolution of a consistent code which can transfer the information stored in DNA to the creation of a chain of amino acids. That's the magic.

Now, the ribosome on the other hand... that's complexity. It's likely that the first living thing was a ribozyme. A self-translating piece of RNA.
 
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