On the Origins of Life

This sounds like a Star Trek episode. Was it Voyager that ran into a living nebula?

 

This seems a more grand example of organization that was described in one of my books "The Web of Life" ~ Fritjof Capra (1996) and later in "The Hidden Connections" ~ Fritjof Capra (2002). It spoke of work in the 1980s and into the 90's where modeling of specific molecules would form a membrane and then start to organize themselves into specific patterns which mimicked organic cells. Given a sufficient flow of energy to keep the cell out of equilibrium and enough time, the cell would have probablility of increasing complexity and even "reproduce" itself.

This would put these systems very close to what many define as life.

Some of the most prominent scientists working on "re-creating protocells" are Pier Luigi Luisi at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the two Nobel laureates, Manfred Eigen and Ilya Prigogine. The later two scientists pioneered the study of self-organizing chemical systems.

If you are interested in this kind of stuff I'd recommend the two afore mentioned books by Capra, also "Beginnings of life" ~ Harold Morowitz, and anything you can find on the Santiago Theory of Cognition since cognition can be considered a fundamental of life.

From Humberto Maturana and Francisico Varela:

"Then central insight of the Santiago Theory is the indentification of cognition, the process of knowing, with the process of life. Cognition, according to Maturana and Varela, is the activity involved in the self-generation and self-perpetuation of living networks. In other words, cognition is the very process of life. The organizing activity of living systems, at all levels of life, is mental activity. The interactions of a living organism-plant,animal, or human-with its environment are cognitive interactions. Thus life and cognition are inseperably connected. Mind-or more accurately, mental activity-is immanent in matter at all levels of life." ~ The Hidden Connections, Fritjof Capra

Yet another reason for us to worship the power of mathematics. Without the understandings of complexity theory and the removal of cartesien thinking we might still be stuck in a rut of clockwork worldviews.

 

I think the really amazing thing here is that WIRED magazine is still in business.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Aug 20 2007, 12:32 AM) [snapback]499025[/snapback]</div>

Or, as the moral of the novel "Jurassic Park" tells us, "Life Happens".

 

"Or, as the moral of the novel "Jurassic Park" tells us, "Life Happens"."

I thought it was "life finds a way"?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Darwood @ Aug 21 2007, 07:27 AM) [snapback]499721[/snapback]</div>

You could be right ... its been several years since I read the book. The sentiment is the same.