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Anycomplex chem reactions view itself as life


mjs

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Suppose we have a flask with simple chemical compounds and we constantly provide external energy so that random chemical reactions occur. If we continue to provide external energy then not only chemical equilibrium will not occur, but instead more and more reactions will occur and the system will thrive and become more and more complex. Through the eons, in a chaos of chemical reactions, only those with some kind of repeatability and periodicity will not lead to a dead end and will be able to continue happening in the long term. Additionally, many random chemical reactions will eventually lead to some molecules with the ability to adhere with other molecules and also with surfaces. These reactions will eventually prevail and become the basis for further complexity, because the chemical compounds will not diffuse around and lead to dead ends. Also, the reactions with the ability to promote their own existence would prevail and continue to exist, in a process which is a kind of natural selection and survival of the fittest reactions. Random chemical reactions does not promote a certain plan or any kind of order, but what we see, is the result of the sum of the reactions that happened through history. However, their end results are reactions that are characterized by survival capacities over others. And suppose that these end results are the observers of the whole system. Virtually they are composed from some chemical compounds, which are constantly changing However, everything that happens leads to them. If they analyze their own reactions they will have a very good view to their homeostasis. In other words these systems of random reactions when used as a reference frame/ observers of their own systems, they would have exactly the same perspective as we ourselves have while thinking about what is life, evolution, reproduction (repeatability of reactions). But aren’t we a system of chemical reactions observing the system that creates us? To me, it might be the 2 different sides of the same coin. After all, what is the meaning of human biology (I am only referring to the mechanistic properties of our bodies) for a non living thing? Maybe meaningless chemicals? But can a things without brains used as observers? In science everything can be used as a reference frame. Human point of view is not so objective for things like speed of objects, spacetime metrics, motion etc. We once believed earth was standing still and everything was rotating around it. Finally we realized that we are not living in the center of the Universe. However, we still think that human biology stands in the center of Existence….

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Question 1:

How can life be just a collection of just random chemical reactions? Biochemistry is nothing but random. One cannot easily explain how tightly knit the reactions that make up a cell really are.

Answer: If chemical reactions in living organisms are so unbelievably knit together (even beyond imagination) did you ever wonder what is the purpose of all this organization? Why do they knit together for? Answer: To keep the organism alive, to sustain itself and to give offsprings. But why is this important if it wasn’t for us? Why is this important through the perspective of a non living being, (e.g. a pencil) or generally for nature? For a pencil there are only random reactions because they lead nowhere. To give you a simple example imagine a system of reactions which repeats itself: A+B->C+D->…X+Z->A+B->C+D…and so on. Actually its just some random reactions, but if the reference frame was any sum of reactions inside this system, for example A,B,C and D, then….wow! what magic! How incredibly they are knit together!

Question 2:

Through our perspective the repeatability of the reactions that we mentioned, is viewed as reproduction. However, what we see is that reproduction is carried out by tiny things such as sperms, oocytes, zygotes, spores, etc. The question is: How can random reactions, no matter how good they were selected through the centuries, can lead from a tiny spore to the creation of extremely complex organisms (plants, animals, human) in relatively predictive ways?

Answer: Don’t get confused by the complexity of the grown up organisms. Don’t forget what happens with fractals. Seemingly complex structures emerge as the result of very simple initial conditions (equations). Similarly, complex animals can arise predictively from the flourishing of much simpler entities over time, such as zygotes, spores etc. This is simply perceived by us as embryology.

And to continue with my thoughts regarding how life as chaotic random chemical reactions can be linked to chaos theory, I think that countless chemical reactions that continue happening can at some point reach some properties of a dissipative system, thus avoiding major structural changes, chemical equilibrium, and thus eventually leading to forms and structures we see now, with the help of chemical reaction natural selection….

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  • 2 weeks later...

Of course, when we are talking about chains of chemical reactions, we do not mean it in the simplistic way, i.e. that they are in a chain, and everything is happening in an order, in which the newly formed substrate goes to the next position to react with the next substrate etc. Things in nature are much more arbitrary, and it is difficult sometimes for us to detect which is the next step. One of the more difficult things to include are some passive phenomena that happen, such as plasma flow, passive diffusion through membranes because of differences in concentration, or electrical gradients, excretion throught ducts, etc. The latter are phenomena that happen passively, due to the laws of nature but they are not defining life, the way the chemical reactions do. To be more symbolical, they play the role that scientists play in a chemical lab: they transfer the substances from one tube to another, arrange the conditions, etc. But the chemical reactions are what counts.

Of course, if these movements that we are talking about were not there, we ourselves would not be the way we are. We are the results of all these (arbitrary) reactions, and so it is normal to think that if something was not the way it is, WE would not be here, the way we are! We are a changing complex, and everything that happens lead to us. We see things from the opposite side. It is like we are in a moving ship, and so we realize things differently than from someone who is standing in the port. We are not perfectly aware of our own movement. Even if we were tables for example, we would think that the most perfect creatures are tables and the creation of tables is not without meaning. If tables are created spontaneously, then through the table’s own eyes, instead of the anthropic principle, they would think that there is a tableistic principle. All depends on who is the observer.

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I am arguing that life is an open system that is getting energy from the sun. But i am also arguing that if you consider life as a WHOLE (without dividing it into species ,organisms, etc),what you get a sum of just arbitrary chemical reactions.

The natural history of these reactions led to the forms we see today. Through our perspective, while we are studying this history, we see it as evolution. Its sme sort of evolution of the fittest chemical reactions. We see everywhere anthropocentrism, but its only because we are the results of all these.

Question:How can random reactions lead to the repeatability we see in life forms(organisms replicate themselves) ,that is so crucial in what we define as life?

answer:

I think its obvious that in a chaos of chemical reactions, only those with some kind of repeatability and periodicity will not lead to a dead end and will be able to continue in the long term. So, generally peaking, these are the ones that survived, and that’s what through our perspective receive as reproduction.

Question:If the sparkle of life is a simple chemical transformation (e.g.prions, viruses), then what about a simple chemical reactions happening in a lab? Is it life? Is fire life?

Answer:

The reactions of life don’t differ in quality than those of simple reactions that have nothing to do with life, for example fire, or the creation of water, but they are far too simple to be perceived as life, or else, they don’t look enough like us.

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NASA scientists have found ten-fold spikes in methane in the atmosphere of Mars. If life forms are eventually found somewhere locally, this means that my arguments are proven wrong, because if life is actually arbitrary reactions as we explained, this cannot be sustained only locally. Due to a problem of space, arbitrary reactions will drop away and equilibrium would occur. Additionally, chemicals would diffuse around not allowing complex reactions to be sustained. Complex arbitrary reactions can be sustained only in an isolated place (remember the paradigm with the flask), but not for long because of the lack of chemical resources. So my described model can only develop everywhere on earth simultaneously (slowly reaching higher levels of complexity) or not at all.

So this discovery possibly rules out my argument which is bad. However, this is a proof that at least my arguments are falsifiable, which is good.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/12/15/science.1261713.full.pdf?ijkey=wh80Qt3dcQZKw&keytype=ref&siteid=sci

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Are not all self-sustainable chemical reactions local?

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I like the way you think mjs. There is definately something very compelling about the concept at very least! Hope to hear more as you progress....

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I like the way you think mjs. There is definately something very compelling about the concept at very least! Hope to hear more as you progress....

Thank you!!

Are not all self-sustainable chemical reactions local?

Yes. But something can generally be sustained if its repeatable. For instance, earths orbit around the sun...

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I think a very crucial question is this: If every life form suddenly disappeared from half the earth, what would happen? Would life eventually overcome this problem and re-expand to cover everything and how quickly or will it rather disappear? The chemical reactions scenario i think says that even if life overcomes, it would be slowly and only at a cost of a great decay of the existing life in the other half.

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That's a huge question. It would take a long time to form a response of any real value, but I'll offer a few ideas however detached from reality, if I'm judged on effort I'll be ok! ;-)

I think it would be catastrophic for life on the living side. The global ocean currents would carry life into the sterile side, but without anything organic to feed on, these organisms would likely die along with any other life forms which unwittingly cross the life/no life boundary and do not (or can not) return quickly enough. I think a big issue would be the time it would take for life to re-establish on an entire half of the globe taking into consideration the vastly differing rates and methods of propagation amongst various life-forms (especially sub-surface species) Earth being a global dynamic system, the whole is influenced by the sum of its parts, so the total environmental conditions 'half-the-life' on earth could support would likely be unsuitable for the majority of lifeforms currently on this planet within a relatively short period of time. Any life/species that survive would have to either be living in relative isolation from the changes or suitably designed and non-dependent on other vulnerable species and their by-products to thrive in whatever conditions are presented leading up to and including a return to some form of global equilibrium of the various systems. The best Humans in that situation could probably do from day one, is try to re-seed the lifeless half with hardy organisms and whatever else might otherwise fail to propagate before it is no longer viable to do so in those regions. I think it would be an altruistic act, but any intelligent effort might find meaning in at least having the potential to influence the outcome (however distant) on the future viability of life on Earth.

One final thing I have been considering is the possible influence of Earth's reaction to such an event, it might provide its own form of damage control, like rapid climate change. Like hybernation a flash ice age might greatly reduce the rate of change to the atmosphere etc and buy some time for other systems like those which utilise thermal energy to do something positive. If it went the other way and the planet heated up? I can't see any positive outcomes... The oceans warm up several degrees and it could trigger the release of massive stores of frozen methane hydrates which could heat the planet to who knows how hot, Venus comes to mind!

I reserve the right to completely change my mind on all of the above, but your ideas have at least got me thinking mjs!

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I totally agree. That was a great effort and i think that it is not far from the truth. The scenario might be even worse than i previously thought.

This highly underscores that dependence between life-clamate, water, air etc. To me life on earth seems to be an all-or-nothing feature.

PS (I am not supporting creationism with these arguments).

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The ultimate question:

Life is the result of chance events that are dictated by the laws described by physics. But why everything seems to have been set up in a way that the right rules are here to promote us and our survival? This is a big question that is difficult to answer. But perhaps the answer is that the problem is that we don't make the right question.

Survival is a quality that doesn't exist anywhere in nature apart from life. Additionally, survival can be a very subjective thing. It can be observer dependent, especially if the observer is the survivor.

For instance, what is more likely to be the case?

1)That 1000....000 millions of reactions got spontaneously knit together forming an extremely sophisticated system in order to promote the survival of the organism (why?), or

2)the case is that these 100...00000 reactions are simply the result or the natural history of the chemical reactions that happened? We (aka the resulting chemical reactions) are studying this system and from our pointview these chemical reactions are sophisticated because:

a) They formed us,

b)they promoted our survival,

c)they have survival capacities (hellooo! these reactions that will prevail in the long term will do so for a reason, and they have survival advantages toward other possibilities because exactly thats what they did. They survived over others for some reasons.

d) these reasons are seen through our perspective as the qualities of life. For instance, repeatability in reactions that will help them survive in the long term because they wont lead to dead end reactions will be perceived by us (the resulting reactions) as reproduction. The same thing happens for the other qualities of life as well.

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But why everything seems to have been set up in a way that the right rules are here to promote us and our survival?

I'd like to see you survive in outer space. 99.9% of the universe is hostile to life as we know it. The earth looks like it was tailor made for life, because if it wasn't, we wouldn't be here to ask the question. That's quite a basic argument.

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I'd like to see you survive in outer space. 99.9% of the universe is hostile to life as we know it. The earth looks like it was tailor made for life, because if it wasn't, we wouldn't be here to ask the question. That's quite a basic argument.

But...but...if the Earth was tailor made for life....why is it constantly trying to kill us? And...(as if that question weren't enough)...okay...it was enuf, nevermind...

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I'd like to see you survive in outer space. 99.9% of the universe is hostile to life as we know it. The earth looks like it was tailor made for life, because if it wasn't, we wouldn't be here to ask the question. That's quite a basic argument.

a) 99,9% of the universe is unhostile to life, or else life is not a universal feature.

b)if earth wasn't a tailor for life we wouldnt be here to observe it (egg made the chicken or chicken made the earth?

c)we are the observers

d)if we were a glass of water we would think that the universe has a torus shape.

e)Any random chemical reactions systems perceive themself as having life-like properties (as previously explained)

The most simple conclusion is that life is the illusion that is caused by our position inside a chemical reaction system in which we are included. It is quite possible that there is nothing actually special about life. Just some random arbitrary reactions,

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However, we still think that human biology stands in the center of Existence….

"Human biology" as you put it is no different to the biology of any other living organism on this planet. 'Carbon-based biology' is the only system which has been observed to lead naturally to self-aware complex structures, so we have a valid basis for assuming this sort of biology is the only way for such structures (organisms) to develop.

One of the primary reasons for this is the environment in which carbon-based life can develop is particularly suitable to find just the right level of mutagen-inducing factors (low-level radiation, etc) and relative safety from them. This balance is necessary for life to be able to find a way to develop, while remaining stable enough to be able to found a 'dynasty' of life necessary for evolution to occur.

While life based on other elements is possible it is doubtful the environment that would be suitable for it's development would provide such a balance of conditions to lead to an 'evolutionary dynasty' such as happened here.

Edited by Leonardo
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"Human biology" as you put it is no different to the biology of any other living organism on this planet. 'Carbon-based biology' is the only system which has been observed to lead naturally to self-aware complex structures, so we have a valid basis for assuming this sort of biology is the only way for such structures (organisms) to develop.

One of the primary reasons for this is the environment in which carbon-based life can develop is particularly suitable to find just the right level of mutagen-inducing factors (low-level radiation, etc) and relative safety from them. This balance is necessary for life to be able to find a way to develop, while remaining stable enough to be able to found a 'dynasty' of life necessary for evolution to occur.

While life based on other elements is possible it is doubtful the environment that would be suitable for it's development would provide such a balance of conditions to lead to an 'evolutionary dynasty' such as happened here.

Aint this too anthropocentric? I think it is based on the fact that we are the observers of the whole process. But if the observer is a non participant of the system, lets say a rock in a planet billions of light years from here. Will he still find life anything special or even interesting? Or will he find a reason to exists?

Maybe he will think that there is just a tremendous amount of mindless chemical reactions near the surface of earth. These reactions had a natural history, so the end products we see now have survived in the long term and they pose survival capacities, they have repeatability in a cyclical manner (reproduction) and in general they pose all the properties of life that we perceive from our viewpoint as internal observers, but from a different and more objective viewpoint.

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  • 2 weeks later...

In a system of complex chemical reactions there will always be a tendency of the system to reach chemical equilibrium. However, if the number of different chemical reactions in a flask is large enough, then new reactions will occur massively, because of the large number of end substrates that can potentially interact with other substrates. If you add some external energy, then a point probably exists, in which the newly formed reactions can overcome, in terms of numbers, the ones that are reaching equilibrium. Thus, the system as a whole will be composed of a constantly growing number of chemical reactions. Moreover, reactions with periodicity occur,( that regenerate and repeat themselves in a cyclical manner), one can understand that under some circumstances, equilibrium will be avoided and thus, an extremely complex system of chemical reactions can spontaneously occur in nature.

a) Because there will always be the tendency for equilibrium that is constantly growing as the number of reactions increase, the reactions with periodicity and the ones that are succesfull in surviving equilibrium, will prevail in the long term. So after a certain time point and after, only those will be found in the mixture. That is exactly what happens in life where all end creatures with their reactions that we see now pose reproducibility (e.g. species regenerate in a cyclical manner) and surviving capacities.

B) Any complex chemical reaction system will eventually become organic at the end. If equilibrium is avoided, inorganics will be slowly substituted in the flask by organics. That is because of the certain properties of organic reactions that will make them prevail in the long term.

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I think a very crucial question is this: If every life form suddenly disappeared from half the earth, what would happen?

See: Extinction of the dinosaurs, for details.

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Aint this too anthropocentric?

No, I based my reply on what I know of carbon-based life, not "human life". You could claim my post was "Earth-centric" but, speculation aside, we have no basis by which to determine how else complex life might arise in a different environment.

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In a recent study entitled “The butterfly effect in cancer: A single base mutation can remodel the cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2015)” scientists have found that the impact of a single reaction to the whole system can be much more complicated and stronger than previously thought. These chaotic system phenomena to my opinion support a model in which organism are composed of systems of chaotic arbitrary complex chemical reactions.

In time, more and more studies provide us with more information about the similarities of the pathways that viruses use with the cellular pathways of the host. This raises our confidence that viruses really are formal living beings. However viruses become alive when they interact with hosts, ie while they are undergoing chemical changes. For viruses, chemical reactions=living state and not chemical reactions=non living state.

Even complex misfolded proteins can pose similarities with life, because they generate diversity and can be evolved chemically. Rna and DNA might be a result of life.

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Recent scientific findings are steadily approaching to the only chemical reaction model, that starts from food and gut microbiota and end in excretions of the body.

For instance, more and more evidence links cancer with inflammation, with aging and gut microbiota interactions, that can at some point be controlled with diet. Seems more like a complex interconnection between a huge amount of just chemical reactions.

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1)A new study published Feb 25 in the journal Nature, reports that emulsifiers that are added in most processed food can alter gut microbiota. This alteration can cause inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome, which in turn can be responsible for heart problems, liver problems, etc.

In general, this underscores the importance of the composition of gut microbiota, and the food processing by the bowel, in the overall function of the organism. Every system of the body does not seem to be that much self regulated and independent after all, but seems to be influenced by other systems in a chain reaction way, starting from food intake.

And to me, the fact that initial substrates that come into the organism with the digestion of food (influenced by gut microbiota), is an indication that the chemical reaction system that we described previously, theoretically predicts some things that recent research shows that apply pretty well with what happens in reality.

2)Epidemilogical observations have led to the conclusion that early life conditions can influence propensity to disease in adulthood. The developmental origin of well being and health is another indicator that initial conditions affect in a chain reaction way later life events. In other words, your basis are the your initial chemical reactions. The more healthy basis you start with, the more chances you have to convert into a healthy adult, and the lesser propensity you have to develop bad health later in life.

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This approach we used (to see life as a system of complex random chemical reactions that we perceive as life due to our specific viewpoint as inside the system observers, underscores the fact that apart from our position and motion, not even our viewpoint is completely objective. On the contrary, it can be very subjective. This means that there are 2 possibilities: That either there are no objective observers in the universe, or there are (but not we). Both possibilities pose interesting implications because even theories in physics and cosmology can be benefited, as theories can encounter the fact that our viewpoint is subjective. For instance, if we find for instance (this is only an example) that light is an objective observer, new theories can be built in which light is the observer….etc etc

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-Scientists from the Scripps Research Institute published a paper showing that only a single base substitution causes major unexpected changes on phenotype, as it causes multiple changes, other than that are connected with the activity of the gene. This chaotic behavior underscores the unimaginable complexity and the inter-reactions between molecular pathways. The more we uncover the hidden complexities, the more complexities we found, which to my opinion will eventually lead us to a model in which we will only have chains and systems of chemical reactions that inter-react.

-In a new study published in PNAS, scientists from UMMS found that long-lived mutated roundworm, despite the fact that they lived longer, they spent most of their life in a frail condition. This means that longevity is not synonymous with well being.

This supports the chemical reaction model that we described, because if you intervene with chemical reactions just to make them last longer, inevitably you pay the price for it (e.g slower reactions, creation of other pathways and thus frailty, etc). Its not just that you intervene with stem cells that rejuvenate the body and everything starts from the beginning as time has not passed at all.

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