The Facts of Life

[Eric Hawthorne]

CMR wrote:

Indeed. The constraints to, and requirements for, terrestrial life have had
to be revised and extended of late, given thermophiles and the like. Though
they obviously share our dimensional requisites, they do serve to highlight
the risk of prematurely pronouncing the "facts of life".
 

Just to be mischievous, I'll here pronounce "the facts of life" or more 
precisely
"a sketch of a theory of the emergence of life" which will serve the 
purpose of partially constraining/
defining what is meant by life. This is a hobby project.

The Emergence of Life Via Weak (Stochastic) Physical Pattern Replication
==================================================
Definitions:

"pattern" a form of order or regularity, which can be described by a 
finite and usually simple set of constraints.

"living organism" is a subtype of "spatially organized pattern of matter 
and energy with some
distribution for a time period in some spatial region" in otherwords, of 
"physical pattern in space-time".

"ecosystem" or "supporting environment of an organism" is also a subtype 
of "physical pattern in space-time".

"species" is also a subtype of "physical pattern in space-time", ranging 
over a larger span of time than an
organism pattern, and which includes instances over time of the 
subpatterns of the "species" pattern
that constitute the individual organisms of the species.

Abstract:
---------
The natural selection process that results in the evolution of lifeforms 
as we know them can be extended
backwards in time further than is traditionally assumed, to fully 
explain the emergence of life from
chance-occurring patterns of matter and energy. A model of the form of 
this earliest natural selection
process is presented, in terms of three specific weakenings of the 
self-replication and metabolism processes
that lifeforms exhibit.

Characteristics of a living organism:
-----------------------------------
1. It self-replicates (aka reproduces).
   Part of what this means is that the organism assimilates surrounding 
matter and energy so that
   they become part of its species pattern, if not necessarily of its 
own "individual organism" pattern.

2. It metabolizes. It ingests matter and energy and converts them to a 
form more directly usable for the maintenance
of the form and function of the organism pattern and for its reproduction.

3. It is an autonomous agent (within some environmental constraints.)
The matter and energy that is "inside" the organism pattern can 
replicate the pattern, and metabolize
pattern-external matter and energy, in a relatively diverse set of 
surroundings, compared to its own form and function
constraints anyway, and it can do these things substantially "by itself" 
so long as an appropriate supporting environment 
(which may not itself qualify as an organism but has some form and 
function constraints itself)
is maintained near it. In a sense, this "autonomous replicating and 
metabolizing" criterion just helps us
define a boundary around what matter and energy is "the organism" to  
and what is "its environment".

Thesis
-------
1. Before there was "strong" "individual-organism" self-replication, 
there was "weak" (stochastic) replication
of "weakly constrained" (and possibly physically dispersed) 
"pre-organism" patterns of matter and energy.
The only property (constraint on form and function) that these patterns 
had to exhibit was just enough
probability and frequency of just as roughly accurate pattern 
reproduction so as to maintain the
order (i.e. the pattern constraints) of the "pre-species" pattern 
against the various forms of pattern-dissolution
attacks that occurred in its environment. These attacks don't need to be 
explained much. They are comprised
just of
a.. the natural tendency of any physical system to increasing entropy 
(disorder) and
b.  active processes of dissolution of the pattern or its resources in 
its supporting environment where those active 
processes are the result of the actions of competing weakly-replicating, 
weakly-metabolising physical patterns in the
vicinity.

2. Before there was "strong" "organism-internalized"  metabolism 
process, there was "weak" (stochastic)
pseudo-metabolism. That is there were processes of energy conversion 
(and temperature regimes and
matter mobility regimes (e.g. liquid phases) ) IN THE VICINITY OF A 
WEAKLY REPLICATING PATTERN
which were such as to support the (at least probabilistic) carrying on 
of the weak replication process
of the pattern. That is, early metabolism could be defined as happening 
both within and in the environment
of the pattern. Since the weakly replicating pattern initially may have 
been somewhat spatially distributed, and
only stochastically present at various time intervals, it's just as well 
that we don't require that the pattern-supporting
energy conversion processes (heat-engine processes) be carrried out 
initially entirely WITHIN the pattern (pre-organism)
itself.

Weak Replication and Weak Metabolism Concepts
----------------------------------------------------
Definition-weakening 1 : SPARSE-PATTERN MATTER/ENERGY ACCRETION AS A 
PRECURSOR
TO SELF-SUFFICIENT-UNIT SELF-REPLICATION
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The minimal criterion for a self-sustaining physical-pattern-accretion 
process (or pattern self-replication process) is that
over time, and stochastically, more matter/energy be assimilated into 
(become governed by) the constraints
of the pattern (i.e. the form and function of the pattern) than the 
amount of pattern-dissolution (pattern information-loss)
that happens via the several processes of
a.  inevitable physical system entropy increase,
b. surrounding environment physical accident (part of a. really),
c. competition (for matter/energy organization) from other patterns
  (e.g. being eaten by a predator or starved out by a competitive feeder).

Present-day species patterns accrete surrounding matter and energy in a 
very specific way. The
species patterns have separate, discrete "individual organism" units 
(and individual cell units). These sub-patterns of the whole)
independently replicate (and metabolize). This architecture provides
robustness of the overall pattern-accretion-process against pattern 
dissolution. If a disastrous environmental
change happens, there's a good chance only some and not all of the 
replication-and-metabolism
units of the pattern will be destroyed. So the information in the species
pattern (that comprises the pattern, you could say) has little chance of 
being lost by accident.

An obvious weakening of this "individuation and 
self-sufficient-unit-replication process
is a single holistic, and yet possibly spatially dispersed and sparse 
physical pattern with the property
that it accretes or assimilates surrounding matter and energy into 
itself. However, in this weak pattern
replication process (or more generally, pattern-accretion process), the 
spatial and temporal distribution of the matter-energy
accretion need not be organized into discrete, complete replication 
events for
individual-organism or individual-cell units. More generalized, 
spread-out in space-and-time,
and stochastic matter/energy accretion will do.

When the probability and rate (in some spatial region (some 
environment), for some time period, of pattern-accretion
on balance exceeds the rate of pattern-information-loss, and is great 
enough that the amount of pattern-information
in the region never becomes zero again, the pattern has achieved 
survival-threshold replication ability.

While an individual-unit complete-replication process has obvious 
net-accretion-success-probability benefits, and would
thus likely be selected for in an ongoing natural selection process of 
pattern versus pattern
competition and pattern vs. environmental-accident competition, the 
accretion process need not start at this
level of sophistication. Simple sufficient-rate matter/energy accretion 
to pattern-governance is sufficient for there
to be some chance of pattern survival long enough for the pattern to be 
improved (and "robustified")
by natural selection in its environment.

Once a physical pattern reaches survival-threshold accretion/replication 
probability, natural selection would also
select for spatial contiguity of form in a weakly replicating/accreting 
matter/energy
pattern. The argument is simple. Spatially distributed, sparse patterns 
are more disruptable, dissolvable into
entropy, by environmental disruption/change occurring partially within 
or throughout the
pattern (or location where it "weakly" or "sparsely" exists). More 
spatially contiguous pattern or order is less
vulnerable to this sort of disruption, provided the pattern's own 
structure (matter/energy arrangement) is
inherently resistant to destructive re-arrangement. If the pattern 
"glues itself together" (as earth lifeforms and
their organic molecules do electromagnetically) then it will be more 
robust if it is spatially contiguous with less
random intervening environment. Spatial cohesiveness and contiguity 
then, is a physical pattern trait
that can increase the form-and-function survival probability of the 
pattern over any given time-slice.
In a competitive accretion/replication situation, spatially contiguous 
pattern forms with increased probability
of longer survival in diverse environmental conditions will eventually 
out-accrete/replicate other pattern forms.

Definition-weakening 2: LOW-FIDELITY REPLICATION
------------------------------------------------------------
DNA and RNA in the cells of present-day organisms replicate with an 
error rate of 1 / 10,000,000.

However, the weakest possible criterion for 
physical-pattern-self-replication-process fidelity is that the
replication produces another pattern instance of  some pattern which 
shares a survival-threshold
weak-replication ability with the parent pattern. The successor pattern 
DOES NOT HAVE TO BE
IN ANY OTHER RESPECT SIMILAR TO THE PARENT PATTERN.

So the subject of the weak-replication process is an EQUIVALENCE-CLASS 
OF PHYSICAL
PATTERNS, equivalent ONLY under the constraint all pattern-variants in 
the class are able to carry
on some form of pattern-class-survival-threshold replication and (in 
concert with their environment,)
pattern-survival-threshold metabolism.

It is easy to see how natural selection would select for physical 
patterns capable of higher fidelity replication (matter-energy
accretion into the pattern form and function) processes. Higher-fidelity 
replication narrows the 
accreted/replicated pattern's equivalence class of successor patterns. 
This allows other advantageous traits
about a pattern's form and behaviour to be more rapidly and reliably 
accreted (replicated) once they arise
by chance and competition.

Of course the optimum replication fidelity depends on a trade-off 
between the need to be able to change the pattern
(adapt) rapidly in response to changing environments, and the need to 
safeguard optimized patterns (by efficient, hi-fi
replication) once those optimized patterns are arrived at. Our 
present-day rate of high-replication-fidelity combined with
sexual reproduction (adaptive trait mixer/optimizer process) and 
radiation-induced or recombination-accident-induced
genetic mutation is just such a process of optimized-fidelity 
pattern-replication process.

Definition-weakening 3: ENVIRONMENT-DRIVEN METABOLISM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The metabolic process is the process by which a replicating/accreting 
physical pattern obtains energy to perform
its survival-necessary behaviours, (such as metabolism itself, and 
replication/accretion, and more eventually, more
refined processes like mobility, defense, cooperation, and 
environment-modification/optimization behaviours)
and the way in which the physical pattern obtains an external supply of 
matter to build its form and/or replace
entropically dissolved parts of its form (e.g. dead cells for a 
multi-cellular organism pattern, or dead individual
organisms for a species-pattern.)

Present-day organisms guard their metabolic (matter/energy conversion 
i.e. fuel-burning or heat-engine processes)
by conducting them almost entirely spatially internally to the pattern, 
with only a relatively narrow and specialized
fuel-intake interface of the pattern to the environment (e.g. of 
interface - mouths of animals, photosynthetic surfaces of
plants.)

But this is just an optimization of a process that could originally have 
operated in a more spatially distributed form,
and with more contributions of process drivers from the inherent 
energy/entropy disequilibrium properties of the environment
that surrounds the metabolizing pattern

A concrete example of circumstances for possible weak metabolic 
processes (seen as properties of parts of the environment
as a whole) are the undersea volcanic vents on Earth, with supplies of 
elemental ingredients for organic molecules,
supplies of rapidly convertible-to-energy fuel (sulphur), and supplies 
of energy (the volcanic processes), all churning
together in sometimes physically contained (organization-trapping) 
regions (hollows in rocks) in a liquid medium permitting
high numbers of matter interactions and rearrangements and yet not the 
too-high, matter dispersing, equilibrium-forcing energies
and excessive degrees-of-freedom of gas-phase environments.

The minimal criterion for a metabolic process to be occurring for a 
physical matter/energy pattern is that
a.  appropriate levels of work-usable energy (and thermodynamic 
disequilibrium) and  appropriate forms of matter
are available in the environment patterns of a pattern,  and that
b. the combination of the form and function of the pattern and the form 
and function of its environment are such that the
surrounding matter and energy can be applied in sufficient quantity, 
stochastically, over time, to the
form and function of the instances of the 
replicating-pattern-equivalence-class, such that
c. the pattern-equivalence-class can maintain (on balance) its 
survival-threshold accretion process/replication process
and its survival-threshold environmentally-involved metabolism process, 
overcoming the rate of spontaneous disordering
of the patterns that is caused by the tendency of any physical system to 
increasing entropy.

Once an environment-driven or environment-involved metabolic process 
gets going enough to support stochastic
accretion of pattern information, it is easy to see how natural 
selection would select for more internalized metabolism
processes, for these processes are more protected against chance 
disruption of the  pseudo-metabolic operation
of the whole surrounding environment (there is less of the surrounding 
environment right there in the middle of the
metabolic process, in an internalized metabolic process, so the 
internalized process is less at risk from environmental
vagaries.)
Also, by spatially internalizing the metabolic process, more complex, 
specialized, self-sufficient, and more energy-efficient
metabolic processes can be physically structured, contained and 
protected from a more randomly varying external environment.
So it is easy to see how cell walls (and organism physical-form 
boundaries: tissue, skin etc) would be selected for.

With metabolic internalization come other advantages like ability to 
specialize the organism's form for survival in
different environments, while maintaining a consistent metabolic process 
inside the form. So organisms that can
keep-together in, thrive in, and move to favorable parts of a liquid 
environment, for example, can evolve.

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Appendix A
A Generalized Description of a Specific Lifelike Pattern-Replication / 
Pattern Accretion Process

PHYSICAL PATTERN ACCRETION/REPLICATION THROUGH ATTRACTION OF
COMPLEMENTARY FORM
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When or how can weak pattern-accretion/replication processes occur by 
chance in the first place?

Weak pattern-accretion/replication processes can at least
happen in any physical (or informational?) pattern-equivalence-class which:
a. Can (by its physical form and its interaction properties) cause 
either parts of itself, or
the surrounding matter (or symbols) to be formed into a COMPLEMENT of 
the pattern's form. i.e.
The pattern's form, at least at some times and places, can cause the 
formation of a MOLD FOR
ANOTHER OCCURRENCE OF THE PATTERN OR PART OF THE PATTERN.

An example of a form and interaction-property combination which leads to 
complement or "mold"
formation, is of course the molecular shape and distribution of 
electric charge along the exterior of
organic molecules like amino acids. These molecular shapes and charge 
distributions cause appropriate
binding (collection and collation by electromagnetic attraction and 
form-fitting in a soup of appropriate
and appropriately mobile atoms and molecular fragments) of complementary 
atoms and
molecules, which in some cases, form a complement that in turn can 
attract more atoms of the right
kinds to form a copy of the original amino acid.

This kind of replication by form-complement forming requires certain 
environmental
regimes of particular combinations of particular types of commonly 
available atoms with particular
electrochemical binding and repulsion properties. It also requires the 
environment to exhibit a certain
range of thermodynamic disequilibrium (balance between disordering 
mobility and energy of atoms
and the need for the atoms and molecules to be  mobile and 
momentum-carrying enough to bind
and stick to each other. The appropriate thermodynamic disequilibrium 
range  (temperature range
and surrounding soup viscosity/pressure) is determined relative to the 
strength of the electromagnetic
force and gravitational force and the way that the atoms of different 
atomic elements exhibit and interact via
these forces.

The work-ready energy balance and binding forces balance must be such 
that complementary
molecules can be attracted, bound and organized, but also occasionally 
freed-up to attract another
copy of the original form. It may be a fine balance, with relatively few 
modes for its existence in our
particular universe with its particular physical laws and available 
proportions of various kinds of
matter and coincident energy/entropy regimes.

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Appendix B

The META-EVOLUTION PRINCIPLE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE
FORM OF LIVING ORGANISMS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The meta-evolution principle (applicable to matter/energy patterns and 
perhaps also or equivalently
to evolvable information patterns) runs as follows:

THE CONTINUOUS AND IMPROVING ABILITY TO BE EVOLVED EFFICIENTLY IS A 
NECESSARILY
EVOLVED TRAIT OF ORGANISMS/SPECIES EVOLVED BY THE NATURAL SELECTION PROCESS

All living organisms/species, whose form and function come to exist 
through the processes
of
a. initially chance alignment/ordering of matter and energy in 
appropriate thermodynamic regimes, and then
b. differential-replication/accretion-probability natural selection

have a form (and behaviour regime) in their whole, and recursively in 
all of their parts, as those parts are evolved
subsystems, which is subject to the following constraints:

1. The form (and its complementary behaviour regimes) must be functional 
(or at least not excessively survival-detrimental)
during the reign of EVERY VARIANT OF ITSELF WHICH OCCURRED DURING THE 
EVOLUTION OF THE
TYPE OF ORGANISM/SPECIES.

AND ALSO

2. The form (and behaviour)
must be READILY EVOLVABLE (FUNCTIONAL OR NOT EXCESSIVELY DETRIMENTAL
WHILE SUBJECT TO AND AMENABLE TO AVAILABLE FORMS OF INCREMENTAL ADAPTATION)
during the reign of EVERY VARIANT OF ITSELF WHICH OCCURRED DURING THE 
EVOLUTION
OF THE TYPE OF ORGANISM/SPECIES.

At first this principle may seem like some kind of tautology. But I 
think it may be profound to some degree
and possibly new.
-------
The only forms that will evolve (while in competition with natural 
accident/entropy and with other resource-competitive forms)
will be those forms which are of such a form that they were 
survival-advantageous (or not excessively the opposite)
during ALL STAGES of their evolution of form. THIS IS AN EXCEEDINGLY 
STRICT DESIGN CONSTRAINT
ON FORMS!!!!

Furthermore, the forms must (throughout their evolution, and if in 
competition, then increasingly as evolved),
be explicitly amenable to (increasing the probability of success of, and 
likely utility of)
some kind of mutation process which is readily available in either the 
environment or the form and function of
the organism/species itself.
-------

This meta-evolution principle could, for example, explain properties 
such as the average level (and the ranges)
of viscosity (mobility versus stability of form and function) inside 
living cells, and inside living bodies as a whole.

It could explain the tendency of living structures to be built from 
increasingly complex (increasingly spatially larger)
layerings or networks of "fractally functional" forms which expand 
themselves at their boundaries but retain
overall form constraints with slight variations allowed (a level of 
physical pliability/adaptability, both for adaptation
to the immediate environmental problems of the individual organism, but 
also to allow a dimension in which a
small, non-destructive form-difference can exhibit and be differentially 
reproduced if generally adaptive.

It could explain why sexual reproduction is successful, for while it 
varies the forms (leading to adaptation/optimization
for different environmental problems), the variation in form is 
constrained to be in forms akin to those (or simple
combinations of those forms) of previously successful examples (two 
successful parent organisms) of the species.

----------
Similarly with the evolved behaviours of the evolved forms.
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Eric