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Tungamirai
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Is it possible to create life by subjecting pure elements to the right conditions , basically can u create life out of nothing but atoms/molecules
Tungamirai said:Is it possible to create life by subjecting pure elements to the right conditions , basically can u create life out of nothing but atoms/molecules
No doubt it is possible, and no doubt it is possible to do it faster than it happened on the first occasion on this planet. How many times faster? ten times faster? However, how fast was that? A million years? A hundred million? Suppose we manage to do it in ten thousand years; is that failure or success? If success, whose success? All the generations of workers who never saw the fruits of their labours?Tungamirai said:Is it possible to create life by subjecting pure elements to the right conditions , basically can u create life out of nothing but atoms/molecules
To say that chirality is something which can only be designed into a system is false, as anyone who has taken an organic chemistry would know.
I think to really think about your question, we need to first consider what we know of nature's preference toward chiral molecules if any.
An interesting thing happened when scientist started to explore the components of meteorites and asteroids. They found amino acids, yes the very building blocks of proteins (and part of life), floating about in space. It turns out that much of the chemistry we once believed to be unique to life on Earth (amino acids, sugars, hydrocarbons etc) are found haphazardly throughout space.
Back in 2000 NASA telescopes trained themselves on odd looking clouds, sometimes light-years across, found throughout the milky way. Much to scientists surprise the clouds consisted of glycolaldehyde, a simple (really the simple) sugar, which serves as the first building block of more complex sugars-Including D-ribose, the staple component of nucleotides.
When scientists discovered other sugars in meteorites, they assumed that natural process would produce a racemic mixture (50/50 mixture of 'right-handed',D, and 'left-handed',L) of enantiomers (stereoisomers which are non-superimposable mirror images, think your right and left hands). They were, as scientists sometimes are, incorrect.
When we look at the complex chemistry of space we see that the 'left-hand' or L-amino acids are more abundant by a ratio of a little more than 3:1. While the 'right-hand' or D-sugars are more abundant by a ratio of little more than 2:1. Which suggests that whatever chemical synthesis gives rise to the more complex sugars and even polypeptides (chains of amino acids) involves a catalyst that favors said form.
Another interesting point concerns seeding. A process we use in chemistry often. To briefly explain, suppose I was running a reaction which ended in crystalline formation. To speed along this crystalline formation, I might add a few crystals of the pure substance to product chamber. Which would cause the products of the reaction to favor the crystalline formation upon production.
It turns out the same process can be accomplished with chirality. If some of one form is present on the products end of a reaction, then it can 'influence' the expected ratios of said reaction. Why this works is very complex and frankly requires a degree of chemistry I'm not comfortable delving into on a message board, but know that it is experimentally verifiable--Something done by thousands of organic chemistry students across the country. What this means then, is even if chirality catalysts are even very rare, that they are there at all will influence the outcome of reactions. By favoring one enantiomer even a tiny bit, every time that enantiomer is spread out into the cosmos its greater presence will inevitably influence the outcome of uncatalyzed reactions.
On the early earth, the complex carbon based molecules would have been provided by what was available in the early solar system (which turns out to be what is still available in space today). The early Earth then would have had contained more L-amino acids and more D-sugars than their counterparts (D-amino acids and L-sugars) and is it then little surprise that life adopted the most available resources?
I don't think it is, maybe you do however, in which case let's continue the discussion.
There has been lots of work, both in the past and much more recently, to discover how early nucleotides and nucleosides were formed. There formation after all, would have been one of the most important steps in life's history. The main trouble with forming nucleosides and nucleotides isn't that it's hard to do. In fact, the reactions will spontaneously happen, but the speed at which they occur is so slow that a spontaneous reaction couldn't have provided the necessary conditions for early life (maybe proto-life is a better word here) to form.
Modern life, has the benefit of billions of years of evolution behind it and the resources that come with that evolution. Namely, enzymes, which it uses to speed up reaction times to many millions and even billions of times the spontaneous rate of reaction.
Proto-life would not have had this luxury. Which means scientists have had to look elsewhere to find the answers. Some interesting recent work has shown that UV light turns out to be a great catalyst to forming all types of ribonucleosides (more support for the RNA world). This process would have been further accelerated on an early earth. Our first atmosphere here on Earth was largely hydrogen and helium. Two very small elements which provided little to no protection from UV radiation bombarding us from the sun. This first atmosphere was eventually scoured from our surface by solar winds and replacing it was a much heavier atmosphere. It was perhaps, under this early first atmosphere that the backbones to life formed (indeed, we know more complex and 'modern'-looking life existed during the second atmosphere).
It turns out, when you run these reactions (glycosylamines + ribose + UV light) you get the correct handedness for nucleosides used by all life today.
Also even more interesting is, it turns out DNA and RNA are extremely efficient at UV light absorption and conversion to heat, especially in the presence of liquid water.
Which means for us (and life on earth) that the production of RNA on the early Earth would have been highly, highly favored as it increased the entropy of the earth-sun system (heat turns water to steam, increasing evaporation and disorganized gaseous molecules).
The consequence of this then, would be that the necessary components for an RNA based proto-life would have been available due to the chemical kinetics of early earth.
As has been pointed on this site before, early life likely would have been RNA based and had no protein component. Only after a replication system had arisen and natural selection begun did life turn down the more complex route of protein involvement. At this junction then, those early 'molecular'-organisms or even proto-cells would have been bound by the laws of supply and demand. The most available amino acids (as we know from looking else where in the cosmos) were the L-amino acids.
Naturally then when molecular system did evolve to manufacture amino acids, those which produced amino acids which fit the preexisting structure (L-amino acids) would have been the ones favored by selection.
Rather mundane if you ask me, but creationists must grasp at straws because science is so counter to their point of views.
The alternative requires magic.Tungamirai said:... can u create life out of nothing but atoms/molecules
nesp said:So the thinking seems to be that life can be created by assembling all the right chemicals, it's just too difficult a process today. But, other than the bioengineering aspects, nothing else is needed.
What about the following thought experiment, or perhaps it's already been tried. Take a simple living organism, say an amoeba, and "kill" it by removing one of it's essential parts, say the nucleus. Since this is a thought experiment, let's say we do this so precisely that we don't disturb any other aspect of the amoeba -- all we do is physically separate out this one critical part from the rest of the amoeba, so the amoeba can't function as a living organism, and consists only of all the chemicals needed to build an amoeba, but in two separate batches.
Now, put the critical part back in. Will we once again have a living amoeba, or is there something still missing to make the amoeba go on to eat, split, or do whatever living amoebas do?
Q_Goest said:The alternative requires magic.
Tungamirai said:Reading the last two comments made me question can life form without using any of the components life on Earth has or can it form using other building blocks that don not derive from the elements that made life possible on Earth today. basically can life form from a different combination of elements that life does not relay on as we know it
Jon Richfield said:It is a reasonable question, but how about just freezing the organism so cleverly that it comes to no harm, but cannot do anything "alive"? Then thawing it equally carefully? Would that not meet your needs?
If you did it by removing and replacing critical parts, then various other parts, such as many enzymes, would go on working and probably would wreck the mechanism. It might even lead to apoptosis.
Jon
nesp said:With the parts physically separate, I don't know what objection could be raised, unless one proposed some weird biological force at a distance. Granted, the fact that the organism was previously alive doesn't make for a perfectly controlled experiment, but maybe that's the best that can be done given current technology.
nesp said:First, thanks for the Hofstadter book suggestion, he is one of my favorite authors but I've not read that particular one.
With some background in biochem and general biology (not claiming authority, just explaining my mental slant!) I am perhaps biased in favour of a mechanistic view of the nature of life. Everywhere I look I find mysterious processes that are limited (or empowered) by info theory, chemistry, physics, you name it. Even QED if you like! (Shades of Schroedinger!) On the farm, in the lab and the hospital we see that grafting, messing with the mechanism, changing the controls, all works in ultimately explicable ways.With the parts physically separate, I don't know what objection could be raised, unless one proposed some weird biological force at a distance. Granted, the fact that the organism was previously alive doesn't make for a perfectly controlled experiment, but maybe that's the best that can be done given current technology.
As a poor analogy, consider the hypothesis that a computer is only the sum component of its parts, and can be created from scratch with the right parts. We know this is true from experience, but suppose we knew nothing about computers, they just showed up. If we could not create a computer from scratch, we could take a running computer, remove the CPU, then put it back into see if it would restart. Putting it into a sleep mode would not be the best test, because perhaps electrical continuity is important to its functioning, even if it's in a sleep mode.
However, if you push me as to what would be missing so that life would not appear, I have no answer, so maybe Occam's razor applies and life is just a bunch of chemicals. But I sure wish a good experiment could be designed...
Jon Richfield said:With some background in biochem and general biology (not claiming authority, just explaining my mental slant!) I am perhaps biased in favour of a mechanistic view of the nature of life. Everywhere I look I find mysterious processes that are limited (or empowered) by info theory, chemistry, physics, you name it. Even QED if you like! (Shades of Schroedinger!) On the farm, in the lab and the hospital we see that grafting, messing with the mechanism, changing the controls, all works in ultimately explicable ways.
I unreservedly believe (not in the sense of doctrine, but in the sense of opinion) that if you took the right "dead" molecules and assembled them properly, you would get living creatures and I do not believe that they would lack any mysterious principle that "naturally" assembled organisms would appear to have.
I do not see what is so poor about the analogy. As I see it, the differences are in the nature of the parts and the ability of the assembly to survive certain classes of procedure. I think it was Pythag. who pointed out the analogy of working on a running engine.
Be that as it may, I see an entity as any set or structure of one (zero? minus 1?) or more component entities that can be seen as having some sort of interdependent informational relationship. The entity is then the set of the components, plus the set of the interrelationships, plus the set of relationships with the rest of the universe. Those plusses are not non-essential, optional extras. Think of a Meccano set. The pile of parts is not the building you may have erected, and not the ship or windmill you might have made with the same parts.
Yes, I follow your reasoning, even if I don't draw all the same conclusions.You can see why my views are so mechanistic, I hope!
Why should I believe that if you assembled a fully functional Frankenstein's monster to match my own construction, out of nutrient elements, it would be any less conscious? (Return to "The Mind's I". Do not pass Go. Do not collect...)
nesp said:Well, let's continue with that analogy then. A running computer has the cpu taken out, and it stops running. The cpu is then put back in, but nothing happens, because the computer has shut down and must be restarted. If we didn't know anything about computers, we might never know how to restart it, and would conclude (rightly or wrongly) that the computer is more than the sum of its parts. This is a similar situation to the dead amoeba whose processes we would not be able to start, and once again illustrates that my originial experiment would not be very good.
Yes, I understand. However, I would add the role of the observer. That Meccano set, even if organized according to the relationships of a building, or a ship or windmill, only model those entities because an external observer recognizes the potential functionality of such a relationship. So there remains a missing ingredient, as may be the case with creation of life.
Jon Richfield said:Anyway, ignoring such eager-beaver computers, the hypothetical amoeba would certainly continue under the postulated conditions. You see, its components are largely enzymes and similar chemicals that will interact immediately if left in juxtaposition.
nesp said:PS I found the Mind's I in a local bookshop, so will be getting it.
Life is created from atoms and molecules through a process called abiogenesis, also known as spontaneous generation. This process involves the combination of non-living materials, such as inorganic molecules, to form living organisms.
While all living organisms are made up of atoms and molecules, not all atoms and molecules are capable of creating life. The most essential elements for life are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, which can form complex molecules necessary for biological processes.
At this time, scientists have not been able to create life from scratch using only atoms and molecules. However, they have been able to create simple living organisms, such as bacteria, by modifying existing organisms.
The ethical implications of creating life from atoms and molecules are complex and have been a topic of debate for many years. Some argue that it is playing God and goes against natural processes, while others believe it could lead to advancements in medicine and technology.
While creating life from atoms and molecules may lead to advancements in medical technology, it is not a guaranteed solution to prolonging human life. There are many factors that contribute to longevity, and creating life from atoms and molecules is just one aspect of the complex equation.