Re: No Grace Period for Metabolism Either

From: tinyurl.com/uh3t (rem642b_at_Yahoo.Com)
Date: 11/03/04 

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 21:34:25 +0000 (UTC)

> From: tomhendricks474@cs.com (TomHendricks474)
> Where is the energy to allow this replicator to do anything?

I already answered that. UV photons directly break chemical bonds.
geothermal/asteroidcometcrashes are very very hot locally which grossly
disrupts molecules. In both cases, free radicals and other unstable
chemical species are created. These have a lot of extra energy which is
released when they re-combine or react with other neighboring
molecules.

> Why would it use resources.

Replication consists of converting other chemicals into more of the
replicator itself (plus some waste products that are simply discarded).
The word "resources" refers to those chemicals that are input to that
process, and the extra-energy content of those chemicals.

> When did that start?

If abiogenesis occurred on Earth or Mars, then it occurred sometime
after the formation of the Solar System but before 3500 million years
ago when we have good evidence that life had already been thriving.

If abiogenesis occurred elsewhere in our galaxy, then seeded Earth
and/or Mars via panspermia, then it might have occurred long before the
Solar System formed.

> And how did it get the energy to start doing that?

As I said above, the energy was sitting there in the form of pieces of
disrupted molecules that have extra energy available. The replicator
got that energy simply by randomly bumping into such molecular pieces
or lower energy molecules that are created by initial reactions between
the disrupted pieces and other molecules. My idea is that near the
geothermal vents, near the surface of the ocean(s), and near
asteroid/comet crashes, the densigy of such high-energy molecular
pieces and molecules was sufficiently high that a molecule of a
catalyst would likely encounter such molecules several times, and thus
have several chances to catalyze one instance of a reaction, before the
catalyst itself randomly broke apart.

> Where do the resources come from and what energy produced them?

The resources are of two types, broken pieces and their byproducts
which I described above, and ordinary stable molecules such as water,
carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, cyanide, formaldehyde, etc. and
ordinary stable ions such as metals sulfate carbonate chloride etc. The
stable molecules/ions came from the molecular cloud that turned into
the formation of the Solar System. I already said where the broken
pieces of molecules came from and what energy produced them
(UV/geothermal/astcometcrashs). I didn't go into detail about the
secondary products, the result of a free radical or other broken piece
striking a normal stable molecule and reacting with it to form a
semi-unstable molecule which is not quite as active as the original
free radical etc. but is more active than a fully stable molecule/ion
and still has some excess energy compared to a fully stable
molecule/ion.

> If any of this is not stable already in the environment, it will be
> destroyed by the sun,

What is the mechanism you propose by which the Sun will reach down into
the oceans and destroy chemicals that reside near a geothermal vent?

> The odds of any replicator or replicants lasting when none of them
> are stable in this environment is unlikely.

You write as if "stable" were an absolute yes/no feature, as if
chemicals are either absolutely stable to the end of time or absolutely
unstable even for a moment. In fact virtually all chemicals are
semi-stable, they last a while but not forever.

As was pointed out earlier, all that's necessary is that something
replicate faster than it decays, so that its quantity increases
exponentially until it dominates available resources.

The rest of what you wrote was dependent on that false idea, and isn't
worth discussing further.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: No Grace Period for Metabolism Either
    ... Where is the energy to allow this replicator to do anything? ... disrupts molecules. ... Replication consists of converting other chemicals into more of the ... replicator itself. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: OOL X - The origin of the RNA world.
    ... lightening strikes) breaks up stable molecules to yield ... (with additional chemicals as input and output of each single reaction) ... i.e. the A's form a catalyst. ... forming the first successful replicator. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: OOL X - The origin of the RNA world.
    ... > (with additional chemicals as input and output of each single reaction) ... > i.e. the A's form a catalyst. ... Are all of these An molecules free radicals? ... forming the first successful replicator. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Lets be more exact.
    ... does the energy come from. ... > Why would an RNA replicator or any replicator need protein? ... molecules that "need" it by the self-organizing properties of membranes ... situation as with reproducing organisms. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: No Grace Period for Metabolism Either
    ... able to decay to a lower energy level except it must cross a barrier. ... Two molecules with different charge or redox potential can react to ... lots of meta-stable chemicals and combinations of chemicals. ... Care catalysts, and Eare end products of the catalyzed ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
Quantcast