I take everything personally. I am a person, that's reality, the way it is. If I were a rock, I wouldn't be able to take what you say at all.

I do believe that life formed spontaneously on the early Earth. I am very attracted to panspermia, the notion that the Cosmos teams with proto-biotic material which tends to start developing wherever the conditions are adequate. I can easily envisage an early Earth, just rock, crushed rock, volcanic flows, water and steam. I can very easily imagine the formation of the simple cellular organisms over vast periods of time, maybe having arrived with interstellar debris.




But none of that shows that this means that living organisms are simply chemicals, or that the laws of their development are only physical laws. After all organisms embody a level of self-organisation from the very beginning which is absent in crystals or stones. They seek homeostasis, they reproduce, grow, and act in order to survive. None of those attributes can be described in purely chemical or molecular terms, in my view - something else is manifesting, which directs the formation of matter towards its ends. That is why 'semiotics' invokes signs and linguistics - because it needs a higher level of description than that provided by the fundamental sciences, to even begin to be realistic.

The perspective I would like to bring to bear is this. When the Origin of Species was published, there was huge cultural pressure to divest culture of religious accounts of creationism and to put the field on a scientific footing. There were many prominent intellectuals and movements who were invested in that. Naturally it was assumed that the scientific account would be factual, where the religious account was superstitious myth. Naturally also many of the advocates of the religious account played right into that dynamic. This has continued right into today's culture wars over evolution.

My view has always been to accept the scientific account of evolution on face value, but also to question its real meaning. I think there is a great deal read into evolution on the basis of motives which themselves are not always conscious or transparent. And that manifests, among other ways, in the easy acceptance of abiogenesis as providing an in-principle foundation for the idea that living beings are purely material in nature. It is always flourished as the kind of ultimate trump card in debates over evolution and spirituality - well, we now know that life started on a purely material, chemical or physical basis.

However I think that is far from clear, and may never be known. After all nobody was around to see it, and recreating the 'basic state of matter' via the LHC has thrown up massive conundrums, so recreating the circumstances which gave rise to DNA 3 billion years in the past, seems like an enormous stretch to me. For now, the acceptance of abiogenesis seems very much an article of materialist faith. Whereas I am inclined to believe that life comes from life, that there simply is no way to cross the barrier from the merely molecular to the truly biological, not at least on the basis of what we know understand.

I know there's a lot of technical literature that I don't know, and will also acknowledge that my position is tendentious, i.e. I don't want to believe that life has a purely material basis. But at this time, I don't feel too threatened by the state of the art. For every Francis Crick who wants to use biology to show that man is purely material, there will be an equally biologically adept Francis Collins who begs to differ. And I'm OK with that.

Nice. So the Theory of Spontaneous Everything is a matter of faith and science just wants everyone to buy into it hoping that big words will cover up the religious overtones. Sorry, not to my taste. I'll pass. But if you ever have a photo of spontaneous eruption of life please do share. We'll just put it on Pinterest right along side other miracles of faith.

So the Theory of Spontaneous Everything is a matter of faith and science just wants everyone to buy into it hoping that big words will cover up the religious overtones. — Rich

No. If science were arguing for "spontaneous everything", it would be offering a concrete model. You would have something you could actually critique (although you would also have to read up on it).

But I realise you just love making a noise about holographic this and quantum that. It sounds kind of science-y and deep, doesn't it? :-}

Fine. Science offers no concrete model and materialists are acting upon faith. I'm good with that.

But the materialists are acting on concrete models here. The field of abiogenesis has moved on from your "chemical soup" parody by 65 years.

So you may claim to be "good with" your holographic-this and your quantum-that - your usual new age babble - however that counts for nothing. It is not an argument, merely a profession of faith.

Yes, materialists are acting on faith in the Miracle of the Spontaneous Everything. It's a beautiful model. When compared to Greek Mythology and Biblical Genesis, no more complicated though far more fantastical.

I don't argue with faith. When faith pretends to be science, then there is a problem.

The Spontaneous Genesis of Everything is pretty much the core of the whole scientific Genesis story and runs through all disciplines other than physics, and at the end there is nothing but faith. Just like the Black Holes achieve loves to talk about, science sucks in everything (especially money) and nothing comes out. Just lots of hope.

When faith pretends to be science, then there is a problem. — Rich

Again, you are showing your basic confusion about the epistemology of science. Like any exercise in rationality, it starts by treating any grounding supposition as ... a supposition.

I realise this may be an unfamiliar concept to you.

Try your story on elementary grade students who have no choice but to swallow it.

There is not one shred of evidence supporting the It Just Happened Theory of Everything. But like every religion, it's hard to shake the faith of the adherents. Religion, is religion, is religion.

There is not one shred of evidence supporting the It Just Happened Theory of Everything. — Rich

But it didn't just happen. And there are now many "shreds of evidence" that constrain speculation about how it did happen.

As you say, religion is religion. And new age babble is new age babble even when it is furiously incanting "holographic quantum interference projected mind field hologram".

But it didn't just happen — apokrisis

Truly laughable. Don't tell me you are going to call upon God? Or maybe the Mythical Laws of Nature that guide everything. No, let me see. There was a biologist in a lab smack dab in the middle of the Big Bang that started it all. Genies are a possibility. Everything except the mind. Never a mind.

Nah, nothing that silly. Why don't you share with the world your story of How It All Happened. The story of how the Big Bang created everything and then everything just came together and created everything. Not even a child would find this story the least but interesting or believable. But then again, it is just a story.

Just like you say, it's all a great big quantum hologram. Far out, man.

Now to remind you again, the OP is about the specific question of the transition from chemistry to biology. Biology says the answer is just add semiotics to dissipative structure. And over the past decade - with rapid advances in our ability to do experiments at the nanoscale of molecular biology - what this means has become pretty precise as a hypothesis.

Now what were you saying about projected mind fields again? It's oh so fascinating. Everyone will try not to laugh.

More double talk. Just tell the world how, without any Mind, it all started? We've got the Big Bang which just happened. Now what?

You know it could be argued that 'life' as a disparate entity from chemistry doesn't really exist at all and everything is in an unbroken continuum from atoms to us. Life is simply an explicate order of the complicated processes arising out of organic chemistry.

Life and consciousness itself might be an illusion created by a superfluous energy state in the senses (a boundary breach).

Hi Apokrisis, could you outline the abiogenesis arguments that have influenced you the most in your thinking please.

I might put the boundary breach idea of consciousness in a new thread. Or does everyone want to discuss it here? It's getting a bit off topic. -- Actually no, I have a feeling it might be a fairly established idea.

...could you outline the abiogenesis arguments — MikeL

Check out Nick Lane's The Vital Question. He makes a good case for alkaline hydrothermal vents.

You start with a chemical situation that has all the right ingredients. A porous vent with a flow of warm akaline water, high in CO2, low in oxygen, running into a mildly acidic ocean. Then ferrous oxide in the spongey rock acts as the catalyst. Dissociated hydrogen reacts with CO2 to produce methane via the redox steps of formate and formaldehyde, presuming the ocean on the other side of the thin vent pores is acidic enough to be the proton donor.

These very special chemical conditions - which would also have been common in the early Hadean era sea - thus creates an organic starter fuel in concentrations millions of times greater than normal. You have a factory of organic chemistry, a natural dissipative or energy releasing gradient with complex molecules as the waste products.

So you are halfway to the basic metabolic set-up of life. And now proper organic machinery that can "eat" methane - turn it into the kind of crud that makes cells - is energetically favoured as it removes methane and lets the vent produce more.

Actual cells only have to internalise this existing chemistry by forming a vesicle - and lipid waste does this spontaneously in water. Then adding a membrane protein that can act as a sodium pump, exporting sodium ions to create a source of protons (hydrogen ions) flooding in the other way.

So the argument is that a naturally occurring feature - an alkaline vent - is already doing basic organic metabolism. Only a few minimal additions are needed to encapsulate it and take it to another level.

Life begins when there is the first semiotic step - a membrane pump protein dedicated to maintaining a metabolism sustaining flow by kicking out enough sodium ions, using the energy being released by the consequent redox reaction.

Life begins when there is the first semiotic step - a membrane pump protein dedicated to maintaining a metabolism sustaining flow by kicking out enough sodium ions, using the energy being released by the consequent redox reaction — apokrisis

Unless the factual content of biology is distinguished from it's unnecessary interpretation as involving objective intra-physical representations, i predict this thread will go nowhere.

What is first needed is a discussion as to why semiotics doesn't collapse into subjective idealism or solipsistic verificationism, a discussion which could potentially benefit from a close comparison of pierce's semiotic pan-psychism to both standard materialism and Berkley's idealism.

What's idealism got to do with biosemiotic mechanism exactly?

Thanks Apokrisis,
I can see why you're drawn to this idea, particularly that the removal of the product that allows the reactants to continue to flow, sustaining the energy gradient. Of course though the reactants would have continued to flow, it just establishes the gradient.

I have some points for you to consider though that I will formulate as questions in the hope you can provide more insight. Perhaps a clearer understanding of the Hadean era sea on my part would help resolve these issues.

So you are halfway to the basic metabolic set-up life. And now proper organic machinery that can "eat" methane is energetically favoured — apokrisis

1. The methane eaters are enzymatic in function. Are they proteinaceous enzymes or simple organic compounds that convert to another compound after eating the methane?

Actual cells only have to internalise this existing chemistry by forming a vesicle - and lipid waste does this spontaneously in water. — apokrisis

2. Where did the phospholipid bilayer (lipid waste) come from and how did it entrap the methane eaters (is it just a hydrocarbon without phosphate)? Were there not methane eaters outside of the vesicle as well?

Would not the vesicle already by formed because of its hydrophobic nature prior to encountering the methane?


3. The pump is a Na+/H+ exchanger? Is it Active or Passive transport? If it's passive, then the driver for the exchanger would be the proton gradient I'm assuming if the vesicle drifted into the vent region? Again proteinaceous in structure? If it's active transport, then what is powering it? ATP?

4. Just to elaborate on the last point the direction of movement of the ions was Hydrogen in, Sodium out?

5. How did the 'pump' get in the vesicle bilayer? Where was it being synthesised in large enough quantity for it to not be a randomly occurring polypeptide? If there was a base RNA, where did the nucleic acid concentration come from? Were there ribosomes involved?

This leads me to my next question:

And now proper organic machinery that can "eat" methane - turn it into the kind of crud that makes cells — apokrisis

-What type of crud? Hydrocarbon chain

Thanks for sharing these ideas with us all Apokrisis, if you're unable to answer the technical questions its no reflection on the theory, only that I personally would like more information.

[re

What's idealism got to do with biosemiotic mechanism exactly? — apokrisis

nothing whatsoever if this was a science thread purely concerned with the language-game of biology. But i thought this was a philosophy discussion concerning consciousness and hence representationalism.

You know it could be argued that 'life' as a disparate entity from chemistry doesn't really exist at all and everything is in an unbroken continuum from atoms to us. Life is simply an explicate order of the complicated processes arising out of organic chemistry.

Life and consciousness itself might be an illusion created by a superfluous energy state in the senses (a boundary breach). — MikeL

Of course. People have been making up stories from the dawn of time. Most stories have Maker, since intelligence, involved in the creation of everything. But science is alone on creating a story, without any evidence whatsoever, that It All Just Happened, because the primary goal of science is to eliminate the Mind from everything. The shear chutzpah of such a story is breathtaking. That people actually have such faith in it and repeat it is mind-blowing.

Why not just read the book?

Haha, fair enough. I'll put it on my list of books to read. It's a long list though, that's why I thought you might be able to help me out.

Life begins when there is the first semiotic step - a membrane pump protein dedicated to maintaining a metabolism sustaining flow by kicking out enough sodium ions, using the energy being released by the consequent redox reaction. — apokrisis

So you just have this mix of chemicals that all of a sudden is "dedicated to maintaining a metabolism". What's more it is "kicking out stuff"" and "using stuff" and all kinds of things. Science had miraculously, with a single sentence created an intelligent mind.

Who needs evidence when it is so much easier to use words. Science cute when it comes to its sleight of hand. Tell me, it's this the famous "selfish gene" or i did you just make it up yourself? This "dedication" you speak of, It just Happened" right or was it just made up because you need to insert the miracle of self-organization some where?

It might have begun being about substance ontology vs process ontology, but now it seems to be about abiogenesis. I have no idea what you mean to criticise.

I keep telling you. Holographic quantum interference mind projection. Nuff said.

It All Just Happened — Rich

I can see how it all just happened Rich, I can't explain the why with such massive entropic gradients against it, life not only held its own, but flourished, with each new boundary being breached until the creation of the organism.

But even if I could explain how the entropic gradients were overcome, how life managed to breach boundary after boundary, I still can't understand what intrinsic properties must be present in the very essence of matter and energy that allows the whole game to be played this way anyway- to allow new properties to reveal themselves layer after layer after layer.

As to the mind, I don't spend a lot of time on it, but can see how it could be a perplexing and fascinating problem.

Why not just read the book? — apokrisis

Until I read the book though, I have a lot of problems with the theory.

Yes. Every double talker always tries to misdirect.

Let me give you a different story. You see you have a group of chemicals and they all got together, he is hands, and began to sing, You Gotta Have Heart. That's the gist if the scientific story. What a bunch of hogwash. Lacks any intellectual honesty and is totally goal seeking: No Mind! Just proteins that are "dedicated to using and kicking out stuff". This is the kind of stories that Sheldrake and many other philosophers object to and why Shekdrake calls it the Science Delusion.

But even if I could explain how the entropic gradients were overcome, how life managed to breach boundary after boundary, — MikeL

It's simple. The chemicals get together and become "dedicated". After that It All Just Happens Naturally.

The question is exactly how fantastic a story is one willing to accept to eliminate the Mind. One way or another, no matter how many big words science makes up (and this is totally limited by their imagination and the funding they receive), ultimately their explanation is and has to be, It Just Miraculously Happened".