A Workable Model of the Genesis of Life on the Earth

The thesis to be developed here is that life on earth will result from three factors:

1. Awareness must exist in the lowest of life forms and can reasonably be hypothesized to be an attribute of molecular complexity as is liquidity an attribute of water at an appropriate temperature. Specifically it is being suggested that a relatively small carbon molecule that can be imagined to come into existence by random events in a suitable environment will acquire as an attribute, awareness. A suitable environment would appear to be an ocean of water in which an abundance of carbon atoms are floating along with trace quantities of other atoms and a source of energy. This environment would be expected to obtain when waves of water pound onto a rocky shore, releasing the carbon contained in the rocks.

2. An attribute of awareness must be the conservative impulse to continue to exist. This would appear to be in accord with experience.

3. A second attribute of awareness must be the ability to choose. No suggestion is being made that sense organs exist. Only that awareness is short for self awareness and is in essence a receiver of information. That other entities will radiate and the self aware molecule is capable of sensing that radiation through its effects on itself. For instance that heat would have the effect of expanding the several atoms making up its body and it is sensible of that fact.

With these three factors which we will define as indivisible attributes of being, then what we see of life on this planet must inescapably follow.

The living molecule, quickly realizing that action is necessary to evade the effects of entropy, and having only one capability in the beginning, that of choice, will choose to combine with some other entity to repair damage from radiation on itself. Everything depends on making a good choice. Just any atom or molecule won't do, one has to be chosen that provides what is needed for continued survival of the chooser. In the beginning we can imagine that more than the minimum number of carbon atoms have randomly combined to produce awareness and that losses begin to occur and also gains that lead to awareness that departure from awareness is a possibility and that continued combining with other carbon molecules is the answer to that problem.

So, first awareness arrives along with its attributes, and then awareness of continued life and the possibility of death. Survival immediately becomes the inescapable problem on which awareness is fixed.

Soon after this the living molecule becomes aware that, since choice is the only ability inherent in its being, the existence of choices is crucial to continued survival and that that is one factor controlling choice. It will be imperative that one chooses in order to generate more choices.

Through choice it soon becomes clear that choosing molecules with attached protein is one way to minimize radiation damage. Soon thereafter choosing molecules more easily able to self repair becomes important which leads eventually to replicons and then viruses.

From this point forward the story is told by Lynn Margulis in her book, Origins of Sex.

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Tracing out from the beginning to the virus would follow these steps.

Awareness arrives. The ocean is beating on the shore, freeing up carbon and the sun is shining. As the carbon atoms become more dense in the sunlight they randomly bounce into one another and some of them stick. Thus molecules of various designs begin to appear and some of them become aware. Thus, many variations will exist expressing a variety of properties.

Awareness of death and survival arrives. The conservative wish to continue is inherent in awareness, this produces awareness of its opposite. It may be that the intensity of awareness when a carbon atom is lost is perceptible and the gain when a molecule is acquired also.

Awareness that choice is the only capability available arrives. In the beginning, the only way to affect one's fate is through choice. Since the molecule is aware, if a choice exists, then the possibility of engineering also exists.

Awareness arrives that the only currently available way to manifest choice, is negative. One can't yet take, only give. The only way to express choice, in the beginning, is in discarding what is not wanted and hoping that what is next acquired because of the freed up connections will be more useful. But, this is powerful. It is very like the computer games based on a search in a dark cavern for objects that can be of use in winning the game.

Random events produce a variety of carbon molecules. Aware ones discard appendages that aren't useful and await the arrival of the next. If it is useful it is retained, if not it is discarded. The only physical capability involved is the arrangement of energy within the molecule to allow the breaking of one atomic connection.

This is no different than the female turkey evaluating the males dancing around her in hopes of identifying one that will bring new capability and survival potential to her.

Over time, in a carbon rich environment filled with carbon molecule fragments, this strategy will provide the aware molecule with anything it could wish. No prediction of what might arrive exists, only the awareness to notice when improvements occur. This is happening in millions of cases at the same time. It is a kind of lottery. Some will acquire a little protein and they will survive longer because of the radiation shield the protein provides.

Then the aware molecule becomes aware that radiation damage can be repaired by replacement of the missing atoms. Soon, some molecules are arranged in a way that facilitates repair. Eventually, redundancy is discovered, so that a pattern exists on which to base repairs. Then chemicals that facilitate atomic bonding and breaking of bonds is discovered. The next step is the recognition that splitting the redundant molecule in half produces two and they can then rebuild their redundancy and that two have more chance of survival than one.

Next, the awareness arrives that to retain the chemicals that make construction practical a boundary would be useful. A wall, separating the aware molecule and its tools from the general environment. Then other molecules discover that by invading the newly constructed cell they can acquire the tools they need for reproduction. This leads to a wish to travel in some efficient way to another cell, when the one currently occupied is fully exploited.

So, choosing carefully among the molecular fragments floating within the cell, a vehicle is devised capable of containing the aware molecule and transporting it from one cell to another likely looking candidate.

Thus we arrive at cells and viruses. The virus is exercising its choosing capability in deciding on a cell to invade.