A New Theory of Life...

[Rockhopper]

I have suggested in the past that life must exist if the conditions are right and the building blocks are there.

Why does life exist?

Popular hypotheses credit a primordial soup, a bolt of lightning and a colossal stroke of luck. But if a provocative new theory is correct, luck may have little to do with it. Instead, according to the physicist proposing the idea, the origin and subsequent evolution of life follow from the fundamental laws of nature and “should be as unsurprising as rocks rolling downhill.”

From the standpoint of physics, there is one essential difference between living things and inanimate clumps of carbon atoms: The former tend to be much better at capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat. Jeremy England, a 31-year-old assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has derived a mathematical formula that he believes explains this capacity. The formula, based on established physics, indicates that when a group of atoms is driven by an external source of energy (like the sun or chemical fuel) and surrounded by a heat bath (like the ocean or atmosphere), it will often gradually restructure itself in order to dissipate increasingly more energy. This could mean that under certain conditions, matter inexorably acquires the key physical attribute associated with life.

Source.

Tim.

[Agartha]

So..... non-living organisms can become living organisms in the right conditions?

[Rockhopper]

Apparently so Ags!

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

His idea covers the laws of thermo-dynamics, but is merely a mechanical discussion of life. Leaves out other factors that border Meta-physical ideas, and shows that in some fields, more than one discipline is needed to try and explain such things.

[Agartha]

I just can't get in my head how a non-living organism can suddenly become a living one.... I know we are talking about atoms but in my head I see a stone that suddenly becomes alive and starts running away!
LOL

[Rockhopper]

It wouldn't be an organism if it was non-living Ags.

The general consensus of opinion is that the components of life got all cosy in close proximity of a catalyst and that catalyst encouraged them to replicate. Hence life.

Tim.

[Agartha]

Definition of non-living organisms (from BBC School Science):

"Non-living organisms are inanimate and do not or have stopped displaying capabilities for growth, reproduction, respiration, metabolism and movement. These organisms also lack the ability to respond to stimuli and adapt to their environment. Non-living organisms do not require energy to continue in existence."


A rock of salt or a sugar crystal are non-living organisms.... I just cannot comprehend how the perfect condition can make them living.... living is breathing, absorbing and using energy, reproducing..... I still see the rock suddenly opening its tiny eyes and running away! lol

[Rockhopper]

If I saw a rock running away I would check my medicine cabinet Ags! 

Bear with me a bit here Biological Chemistry is not my strong point but it still follows the known Laws of Chemistry.

Out in space and here too, amino acids are plentiful. Now amino acids are a particular compound of N, H, C, O, and (X) X is any other element. Most do nothing but in the presence of the right catalyst, heat and certain other elements (notably Phosphorus and Sulphur), the amine then behaves differently, it then needs to replicate itself and form a stable state (polymer -- the building block of protein). From that point on it starts to generate it's own heat by using the chemicals in it's surroundings.

In the days of our early Earth billions of these chemical reactions were taking place but most did not go anywhere and simply became more chemicals that make up this planet but one or two did produce life.

After a while these polymers developed their own catalysts (essentially what genes are) that produce a set of instructions that build more proteins and life follows.

The best way to get explanation all of this is to go a see the Head of a University Biology Dept. They can explain it much better than I! It's their field of endeavour!

Tim.

[Lenzabi]

Yes, the biochemistry works for the mechanical side of life, add a jolt of lightning, plant a soul in, and well, I am not speaking of purely scientific here.

[Stargate]

AGS, I think it depends on how you want to look at life. If you choose to look at life from a energy perspective everything needs energy as everything is moving one way or the other. What we call innamate is only pertaining to our perception of speed. A rock is not dead or let me say from an energy perspective, much the same as our bodies are still active even when we say we are dead. Energy can only be transformed but can never be anihalated. Almost everything breaks down into oil and begins a new cycle, that is why there is so much energy in oil, it is the life blood of the planet, everything on planet earth has some oil in it no matter how small the portion.

[Stirky]

Yes rocks, minerals and crystals all have energy in them contained in their atoms. So as Star says, in depends how you look at life. Crystals and minerals grow and change, and the energy contained in crystals is amazing and is used in so many ways.

[Rockhopper]

Yep. There is energy in many so-called in-animate things including crystals. But that energy comes for an outside source, our sun and stored in them. The sun inputs 1.65Kw of energy (radiation and heat) per square metre per hour, That's a lot of grunt! 

Oil is the remains of old organic plants and animals which got their energy from sun also. It is only a tiny amount of the energy.

All chemical elements look for a stable state, e.g. Silicon (Si) on it's own is unstable so it looks around for two Oxygen (O2)atoms to cosy up to, when it finds them they join up and we get Quartz (SiO2), extremely stable. That is why we never find pure Silicon! We don't find pure Iron either as it is unstable too, it's always found in combination with one or more more other elements to form a stable compound. Gold (Au) is stable on it's own (which is part of it's value) - it doesn't combine easily with other chemicals.

Silicon could form a basis for life but it would be inanimate as Silicon can't produce long chain flexible polymers that are a requirement for motion. That is why all life as we know it to be, is all based of Carbon because it can and does form flexible polymers.

We are able to produce unstable compounds but they don't remain that way, they always reduce to stability again, some slowly some quickly. Ammonium Nitrate (NH4NO3) is one, on it's own it breaks back down into Ammonia (NH4 (OH)2) and water. In the ground as a fertiliser it is broken down by bacteria into lighter nitrates and nitrites but left in the air it becomes ammonia again. Add some fuel (source of extra heat) and a spark and it will break down suddenly and violently, ask the survivors at Oklahoma!

Life is based on Carbon because of it's peculiar atomic construction. It has 4 electron gaps in it's outer shell (Gold has none) and Oxygen has two, that's why it's most stable compound is CO2 (1 atom of Carbon - 2 of Oxygen=CO2) so needs filling to make it into a more stable compound. It also gives up electrons as necessary or changes itself around to accommodate other chemical elements, that's why it's the basis of life as we know it to be.

Her endeth the lesson.

Tim.

[Stargate]

Yes Tim, What you say is true, however that is looking at it from a scientific point of view. The way I learnt it is that everything is stable and unstable because everything depends on something else. There are no compound that does not bond with something else. Carbon is the great comprimiser, however there are parts of carbon that we know nothing about. I take stable to mean the result of a particle bonding. Does that make sense Tim?

[Rinoa]

There was something recently that I watched on the television that upset me greatly, so I'm going to bore you with it lol, trees do bleed if cut......okay so they call it resin, but it's the life force of the tree, just because an object is inanimate doesn't mean it isn't living, breathing, feeling.....I now apologize for my ramblings.

[Stargate]

There was something recently that I watched on the television that upset me greatly, so I'm going to bore you with it lol, trees do bleed if cut......okay so they call it resin, but it's the life force of the tree, just because an object is inanimate doesn't mean it isn't living, breathing, feeling.....I now apologize for my ramblings.

No Rin, rambling is when you don't make sense, you can say I am crazy but I talk to my trees and I get answers. If you ask me how, all I can tell you is that I feel the answers. Some one told me to put a nail in one of my trees to stop a certain type of fungus growing on it, I did but I noticed after a while a substance running out of the wound the nail made. I noticed the leaves were a bit drupy so I said to the tree, what's the matter? I got a feeling that the nail was hurting it and it was crying, I removed the nail and to my surprise the liquid stoped running from the tree and the wound healed and the leaves began to look healthy again. Some people would say I am crazy, well yes, I am that too, but I learnt something very valuable.

[Rinoa]

It's good to know I'm not rambling yet lol, give it time though

If all life is based on Carbon, I have a crystal called Shungite which is pure Carbon, surely it therefore is a living thing?

[Stargate]

It's good to know I'm not rambling yet lol, give it time though

If  all life is based on Carbon,  I have a crystal called Shungite which is pure Carbon, surely it therefore is a living thing?

I know its a living thing Rin, I am not sure about carbon being pure, there is so much about carbon unknown to science, I am always a little apprehensive to say things I am not so sure of.

[Rinoa]

Okay so it's not entirely made out of Carbon, I must admit, it's just crystals are my passion lol.

Shungite is a natural mineral with the crystal lattice or grid organized in a certain way, the basis of which is carbon. As we know, carbon is the basis of life on the Earth. Modern scholars view the emergence of life on our planet as a complex process of evolution of carbon compounds. They believe that these compounds can serve as a carrier of life in any part of the universe.

Shungite receives its healing power from one of its elements, fullerenes – a globular hollow molecule consisting of several dozens of carbon atoms. When fullerenes, a special molecular formation, were discovered in shungite a few decades ago, it became a sensation. Fullerenes, getting in our body, behave as the most powerful and most long-acting antioxidant as a means to fight free radicals. Today, doctors have great hopes for fullerenes.

fullerene

The importance of this discovery is that until that time, scientists were aware only of three modifications of carbon - diamond, graphite and carbyne. The new molecule cuts diamond as oil, slows down the growth of cancer cells, and substances from fullerenes can slow down the activity of the AIDS virus. The discovery of the fullerene was a real breakthrough in nanotechnology and was declared a sensation of the 20th century. The scientists who have made it received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996.

Shungite contains almost the entire periodic table. However, as everyone knows, not all chemical elements have a positive effect on a human being. But this is just an amazing quality of this stone: only those elements which are necessary and useful for a living organism come into water.

[Kaere]

I like Shungite but dang I find it to be quite strong. And messy lol

[Stargate]

Yes Rin, carbon in my own interpretation, carbon is the black hole in human biology. I consider it to be like a black sun, so versatile and secretive. It is much the same as water, hard and soft at the same time. If we understood carbon a little better, I believe we would understand human behavior much better.

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