RE: How did the chemicals for life come together??..
December 6, 2010 at 7:27 am
(This post was last modified: December 6, 2010 at 7:30 am by Loki_999.)
You know, i was just having a crazy sleep-deprived thought this morning, and it seems to me in my torpid state that life must be starting all the time. That the universe must be full of life wherever it is possible for some form of life to exist.
I would even go as far, in my brain addled way, of suggesting that life is still trying to form here and now, and it is only the fact that we have life here already that will happily munch on any new forms before they can properly become life, that we don't have non-DNA life... (hmmm... think i'm forgetting about Viroids in some way).
Anyway, abiogenesis starts with elements coming together in certain ways to form more complex molecules, which become ammino acids, proteins, some sort of intermediate protein-DNA intermediate or something, then finally to RNA/DNA level of complexity, where life starts. (yeah, technical i know... coffee is lacking).
One thing we may not consider is the speed at which these things happen. Life in micro-world is fast, very fast. And we also sometimes have difficulty comprehending how many atoms are (for example) in a grain of sand (no idea.. but its lots and lots i'm sure).
Now if the potential exists for elements to come together in certain ways to create life (and both believers and non-believers must believe this... otherwise you will have to explode in a puff of illogic, its only the source of that arrangement that is debated - divine or natural) then, given even just a few million years with tolerable conditions (ie: anywhere for example extremophiles can live or better) and with enough elements in place, surely its a practical certainty, just through random chemical interaction, you will get the building blocks of life forming, and eventually, life itself. And that even today, these processes go on, but we just never can observe it, except through blind random chance of taking the right sample at the right time (remember... size is important! We are talking very very small).
So, just because I am brain addled today, I would stick my neck out and say that the chance of life (in some form) existing on any planet within a tolerable distance from its sun, having existed for at least 10s of millions of years, and made up of a pretty fair selection of chemicals, WILL have life.
There, i've said it... now for coffee.
PS: Oh, and if all life was sterilized from this planet 100% in some manner... life would rise again. Without god or gods. Blind assertion i know ;-)
I would even go as far, in my brain addled way, of suggesting that life is still trying to form here and now, and it is only the fact that we have life here already that will happily munch on any new forms before they can properly become life, that we don't have non-DNA life... (hmmm... think i'm forgetting about Viroids in some way).
Anyway, abiogenesis starts with elements coming together in certain ways to form more complex molecules, which become ammino acids, proteins, some sort of intermediate protein-DNA intermediate or something, then finally to RNA/DNA level of complexity, where life starts. (yeah, technical i know... coffee is lacking).
One thing we may not consider is the speed at which these things happen. Life in micro-world is fast, very fast. And we also sometimes have difficulty comprehending how many atoms are (for example) in a grain of sand (no idea.. but its lots and lots i'm sure).
Now if the potential exists for elements to come together in certain ways to create life (and both believers and non-believers must believe this... otherwise you will have to explode in a puff of illogic, its only the source of that arrangement that is debated - divine or natural) then, given even just a few million years with tolerable conditions (ie: anywhere for example extremophiles can live or better) and with enough elements in place, surely its a practical certainty, just through random chemical interaction, you will get the building blocks of life forming, and eventually, life itself. And that even today, these processes go on, but we just never can observe it, except through blind random chance of taking the right sample at the right time (remember... size is important! We are talking very very small).
So, just because I am brain addled today, I would stick my neck out and say that the chance of life (in some form) existing on any planet within a tolerable distance from its sun, having existed for at least 10s of millions of years, and made up of a pretty fair selection of chemicals, WILL have life.
There, i've said it... now for coffee.
PS: Oh, and if all life was sterilized from this planet 100% in some manner... life would rise again. Without god or gods. Blind assertion i know ;-)
A finite number of monkeys with a finite number of typewriters and a finite amount of time could eventually reproduce 4chan.
