Origin of life models based on “energized assemblages of building blocks” are untenable in principle. This is fundamentally a consequence of the fact that any living system is in a physical state that is extremely far from equilibrium, a condition it must itself build and sustain. This in turn requires that it carries out all of its molecular transformations–obligatorily those that convert, and thereby create, disequilibria–using case‐specific mechanochemical macromolecular machines. Mass‐action solution chemistry is quite unable to do this. We argue (...) in Part 2 of this series that this inherent dependence of life on disequilibria‐converting macromolecular machines is also an obligatory requirement for life at its emergence. Therefore, life must have been launched by the operation of abiotic macromolecular machines driven by abiotic, but specifically “life‐like”, disequilibria, coopted from mineral precipitates that are chemically and physically active. Models grounded in “chemistry‐in‐a‐bag” ideas, however energized, should not be considered. (shrink)

We argued in Part 1 of this series that because all living systems are extremely far‐from‐equilibrium dynamic confections of matter, they must necessarily be driven to that state by the conversion of chemically specific external disequilibria into specific internal disequilibria. Such conversions require task‐specific macromolecular engines. We here argue that the same is not only true of life at its emergence; it is the enabling cause of that emergence; although here the external driving disequilibria, and the conversion engines needed must (...) have been abiotic. We argue further that the initial step in life's emergence can only create an extremely simple non‐equilibrium “seed” from which all the complexity of life must then develop. We assert that this complexity develops incrementally and progressively, each step tested for value added “in flight.” And we make the case that only the submarine alkaline hydrothermal vent (AHV) model has the potential to satisfy these requirements. (shrink)

The controversy over spontaneous generation and the theory of evolution was part of the broader issue of the nature of life. It was the vitalists, who had originally accepted the doctrine of heterogenesis, who now were forced to reject abiogenesis. Their commitment to the view that life was unique and autonomous was so strong that, once the link between evolution and the abiogenetic origin of life had been made, they were almost constrained to reject evolution. It is not surprising (...) that one finds this extreme position among German scientists, for it was only in Germany that the strong connection had been made. In Britain, with its strong empirical tradition, the theory of evolution was never completely tied to the doctrine of abiogenesis.Many nonvitalistic biologists were equally committed to the view that there was a gradation between the living and the nonliving, and saw in the doctrine of evolution a vindication of these views. To many of this school, abiogenesis was an a priori necessity requiring no empirical proof. If they sought for any empirical justification for their views on abiogenesis, one feels that such proof was never of great importance to them. Many—particularly the Germans—regarded those who denied abiogenesis because of the lack of proof to be guilty of following an outdated methodology: “that modern scientists still put so uncommon value on the inductive proof of spontaneous generation, is the clearest indication that few place confidence in the first principle of the theory of knowledge.” To them an acceptance of abiogenesis was necessary “in order to understand nature according to the laws of causality.” 105. (shrink)

The question of the origin of life interested people for centuries. All existing views on this subject can be classified into different areas of our knowledge of the world: natural sciences, philosophy, and theology. Some theories contain more or less explicit elements from all of these areas. Thus, it is helpful to take a closer look at them and to classify all the typical groups of theories about the origins of life. We can in this way stress their mutual connections (...) and clarify their own nature. Nowadays, driving forces of pre-biological chemical evolution and the explanation of the transition from “non-life into life” present a great variety of solutions. The differences between the theories, however, as well as the current controversies in the scientific community, will be shown to be of secondary importance in comparison with several much more profound philosophical assumptions underlying the origin-of-life-studies. The attempt to organize and classify different types of theories on the genesis of life allows to take into account different kinds of perspectives, and to compare them to each other. The most general division between theories is based on a distinction between metaphysical conceptions and scientific ones. Some theories answer the question of the emergence of life in general, whereas others tackle the question of the origin of life on Earth only. Interestingly, two traditional ideas concerning the problem of the origin of life are still at play in contemporary scientific research, albeit in a modified form. In the perspective of contemporary scientific research on the origin of life it seems interesting that two main ideas concerning the problem of the origin of life, spontaneous generation and panspermia, are still present as presuppositions of certain theories but have been modified. Moreover, it is evident that the theistic view of the origin of life does not have to fall into conflict with contemporary scientific theories. Rather, they are complementary. This article is an extension, explanation and refinement of the proposed scheme of the main types of theories on the origin of life. An attempt to classify various biogenesis theories is also proposed. One of the most important questions that will be addressed concerns the philosophical presumptions of biogenetics still informing current research as well as scientific explanations of the origin of life. (shrink)

Henry Charlton Bastian's support for spontaneous generation is shown to have developed from his commitment to the new evolutionary science of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley and Tyndall. Tracing Bastian's early career development shows that he was one of the most talented rising young stars among the Darwinians in the 1860s. His argument for a logically necessary link between evolution and spontaneous generation was widely believed among those sympathetic to Darwin's ideas. Spontaneous generation implied materialism to many, however, and it had associations (...) in Britain with radical politics and amateur science. Huxley and the X Club were trying to create a public posture of Darwinism that kept it at arm's length from those negative associations. Thus, the conflict that developed when Huxley and the X Club opposed Bastian was at least as much about factional in-fighting among the Darwinians as it was about the experiments under dispute. Huxley's strategy to defeat Bastian and define his position as "non-Darwinian" contributed significantly to the shaping of Huxley's famous address "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis." Rhetorically separating Darwinism from Bastian was thus responsible for Huxley's first clear public statement that a naturalistic origin of life was compatible with Darwin's ideas, but only in the earth's distant past. The final separation of the discourse on the meaning of Brownian movement and "active molecules" from any possible link with spontaneous generation also grew out of Huxley's strategy to defeat Bastian. Clashes between Bastian and the X Club are described at the BAAS, the Royal Society, and in the pages of "Nature" and other journals. (shrink)

The details of abiogenesis, to date, remain a matter of debate and constitute a key mystery in science and philosophy. The prevailing scientific hypothesis implies an evolutionary process of increasing complexity on Earth starting from replicating polymers. Defining the cut-off point where life begins is another moot point beyond the scope of this article. We will instead walk through the known evolutionary steps that led from these first exceptional polymers to the vast network of living biomatter that spans our (...) world today, focusing in particular on perception, from simple biological feedback mechanisms to the complexity that allows for abstract thought. We will then project from the well-known to the unknown to gain a glimpse into what the universe aims to accomplish with living matter, just to find that if the universe had ever planned to be comprehended, evolution still has a long way to go. (shrink)

The new discipline of exobiology formed from the intertwining of origin of life research with the search for life or its building blocks on other planets, from 1957-1973. The field was inherently highly interdisciplinary, yet it coalesced very quickly and was responsible in its first twenty years for numerous important contributions to twentieth century life science and planetary sciences such as climatology, the study of mass extinctions, etc. NASA played a very important role in catalyzing the rapid consolidation of exobiology, (...) both through research grants and through sponsored meetings that overcame disciplinary boundaries, bringing together scientists from diverse backgrounds. The presence of a handful of prominent senior scientists such as Joshua Lederberg, Melvin Calvin and Norman Horowitz helped gain credibility for exobiology, in the face of criticism and competition from existing life sciences disciplines. Tensions within the exobiology research community and between NASA-funded science and the academic research community are explored, as are such milestones of discipline formation as journals and professional societies. (shrink)

I argue for an idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations, which seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. This ontology also attempts to offer more explanatory power than both physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism, in that it does not fall prey to either the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ or the ‘subject combination problem’, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. We, as well as (...) all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding—but dissociated from—our alter. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. As such, the challenge to artificially create individualized consciousness becomes synonymous with the challenge to artificially induce abiogenesis. (shrink)

The rise of the mechanistic worldview in the seventeenth century had a major impact on views of biological generation. Many seventeenth century naturalists rejected the old animist thesis. However, the alternative view of gradual mechanistic formation in embryology didn’t convince either. How to articulate the peculiarity of life? Researchers in the seventeenth century proposed both “animist” and mechanistic theories of life. In the eighteenth century again a controversy in biology arose regarding the explanation of generation. Some adhered to the view (...) that life is a physical property of matter (e.g. Buffon), others saw living entities as the result of the development of pre-existing germs (e.g. Bonnet). Naturalists, lacked a convincing account that could guide their research. In interaction with leading naturalists of his time Immanuel Kant articulated an approach to explaining generation. Kant’s account, delineated in his Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of the power of judgment) (1790), is a combination of Newtonian non-reductionist mechanism in explanation, and a concept of natural end comparable to Stahl’s formal conception of organic bodies. It consists of two claims: a) in biology only mechanical explanation is explanatory, and b) living entities contain some original organisation, which is mechanically unexplainable. In the nineteenth century this approach influenced naturalists as Müller, Virchow, and Von Baer, in their physiological research. Dissatisfied with a sheer mechanistic or, on the other hand, a sheer teleological approach, they appreciated the Kantian account of mechanical explanation of natural ends. In Germany, in the second halve of the nineteenth century, Ernst Haeckel reopened the debate about abiogenesis, which still continuous. (shrink)

Life on Earth descends from a common ancestor. However, it is likely that there are other instances of life in the universe. If so, each abiogenesis event will have given rise to an independently originated life clade, of which Earth-life is an example. In this paper, I argue that the set of all IOLCs in the universe forms a Darwinian population subject to natural selection, with more widely dispersed IOLCs being less likely to face extinction. As a result, we (...) should expect that, over time, more planets will become inhabited by fewer, more successful IOLCs. (shrink)

The term biology is of Greek origin meaning the study of life. On the other hand, chemistry is the science of matter, which deals with matter and its properties, structure, composition, behavior, reactions, interactions and the changes it undergoes. The theory of abiogenesis maintains that chemistry made a transition to biology in a primordial soup. To keep the naturalistic ‘inanimate molecules to human life’ evolution ideology intact, scientists must assemble billions of links to bridge the gap between the inanimate (...) chemicals that existed in the primordial soup and anatomically modern humans. Even though the proponents of a natural origin of life expressed much optimism for providing their theories, presently there is a detailed compilation of information seriously questioning this doctrine. This reductionistic ideology has always failed to answer two simple questions: (1) What is the minimum number of parts that are essential for a living organism to survive? (2) By what mechanism do these parts get assembled together? Evolutionists say a series of prebiotic processes and developments guide networks of dynamically linked small molecules and amphiphiles to form biological macromolecules, membraneous compartments, and finally primitive cells. However, none of these proposed pathways to life appears to be credible. The continuous advancement in various fields of science are not only providing major challenges to reductionistic ideology but are supplying increasing evidence for a systemic concept of life as an organic whole. Several leading researchers in the field of ‘origin of life’ are continually concluding that there are major scientific problems attached with all existing naturalistic ‘origin of life’ hypothesis. Only by taking into account all biological activities collectively as a system can a satisfactory elucidation of the living state be realized. In this present paper an attempt has been made to present a few significant challenges to the theory of abiogenesis based on the peer reviewed scientific literature. Subsequently, a non-reductionistic concept of life as a system is proposed as an alternative for resolving some of the problems inherent in origin of life research. (shrink)

Volume IV (which comprises two half-volumes) focuses on the life sciences, whose object of research is life itself, that which (necessarily) mediates between the physical and the psyche. Typical philosophical questions in this context include: What is “life” in the sense of the term relevant to the life sciences? How do we know that life has not “always existed” but must have arisen in the course of abiogenesis from inanimate nature? And how is it possible to know something about (...) how evolution has occurred? These are explored in the first half-volume. In its second half-volume, the book first deals with methodological and conceptual questions regarding the concrete natural history of mankind. Examples for pertinent questions in this context are: "What would be adequate criteria for singling out autapomorphic traits defining the genus "homo"?" and "Has the concept of "race" biological meaning and reality?" (Spoiler: The answer to the latter question is "no".) In the context of that question, a considerable part of the second half-volume deals with the history of "scientific" theories of race from the 17th century up until the 1990ies. In particular, Kant's theory of race and his racism (as well as his sexism) are discussed thoroughly. Pertinent questions are: "Did Kant invent the concept of race?", "Was Kant the founder of "scientific racism"?", "Did Kant invent and promote a concept of "racial purity"?" and "Did Kant endorse slave trade?". Furthermore, for anyone whose own philosophical positions rest on Kantian premises, the following questions will be of special importance: "Is Kant's racism implied by his transcendental philosophy?" and "Is Kant's racism implied by his ethics?" Regarding all these questions, the contributions of important authors like Eze, Bernasconi, Kleingeld and Mills are discussed and critically examined. Finally, the second half-volume closes with a thorough exploration of the methodological foundations of neuroscience and its limitations as a contribution to philosophy of mind (which as such will have its say in Volume VI). (shrink)

In the past, philosophers, scientists, and even the general opinion, had no problem in accepting the existence of consciousness in the same way as the existence of the physical world. After the advent of Newtonian mechanics, science embraced a complete materialistic conception about reality. Scientists started proposing hypotheses like abiogenesis (origin of first life from accumulation of atoms and molecules) and the Big Bang theory (the explosion theory for explaining the origin of universe). How the universe came to be (...) what it is now is a key philosophical question. The hypothesis that it came from Nothing (as proposed by Stephen Hawking, among others), proves to be dissembling, since the quantum vacuum can hardly be considered a void. In modern science, it is generally assumed that matter existed before the universe came to be. Modern science hypothesizes that the manifestation of life on Earth is nothing but a mere increment in the complexity of matter — and hence is an outcome of evolution of matter (chemical evolution) following the Big Bang. After the manifestation of life, modern science believed that chemical evolution transformed itself into biological evolution, which then had caused the entire biodiversity on our planet. The ontological view of the organism as a complex machine presumes life as just a chance occurrence, without any inner purpose. This approach in science leaves no room for the subjective aspect of consciousness in its attempt to know the world as the relationships among forces, atoms, and molecules. On the other hand, the Vedāntic view states that the origin of everything material and nonmaterial is sentient and absolute (unconditioned). Thus, sentient life is primitive and reproductive of itself – omne vivum ex vivo – life comes from life. This is the scientifically verified law of experience. Life is essentially cognitive and conscious. And, consciousness, which is fundamental, manifests itself in the gradational forms of all sentient and insentient nature. In contrast to the idea of objective evolution of bodies, as envisioned by Darwin and followers, Vedānta advocates the idea of subjective evolution of consciousness as the developing principle of the world. In this paper, an attempt has been made to highlight a few relevant developments supporting a sentient view of life in scientific research, which has caused a paradigm shift in our understanding of life and its origin. (shrink)

I argue for an idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations, which seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. This ontology also attempts to offer more explanatory power than both physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism, in that it does not fall prey to either the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ or the ‘subject combination problem’, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. We, as well as (...) all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding—but dissociated from—our alter. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. As such, the challenge to artificially create individualized consciousness becomes synonymous with the challenge to artificially induce abiogenesis. (shrink)

The subject of the presentation was to reveal the main components of the views of Rev. Włodzimierz Sedlak (31.10.1911-17.02.1993) concerning the origin of life. The development of these views passed through the following stages: 1) the theory of silicic life forms (1959-1967) which he labeled \"the theory of siliconides\", 2) the bioelectronic model of abiogenesis (1967-1988), and 3) speculations about electromagnetic biogenesis. The basic claims of the theory of silicic life forms are the following: (a) silicon is an essential (...) component of biosystems and fulfils significant roles in phylogenetically older forms of life; (b) the previous essential role of silicon in the organization of life has been reduced in higher organisms to the role of a microelement; (c) the attempts at the reconstruction of the chemical evolution of life should be undertaken, to extend it beyond the organic compounds of carbon, namely to those containing silicon and forming the most primitive forms of life on the Earth; (d) hypothetic silicic organisms made up the most primitive life on the Earth.. The main theses of bioelectronic model of abiogenesis are the following: (a) there exists the coupling between chemical reactions and electronic processes in organisms (he calls it \"the quantum seam of life\"); photons act as a coupling factor between these two classes of processes; (b) the existence the such coupling makes the generation and duration of the plasma state of particles possible in all metabolizing parts of the organism; (c) there exists bioplasma - a new state of matter - that is characteristic for living organisms only; (d) the first act of the creation of the chemical-electronic coupling is to be regarded as equivalent with biogenesis: (e) bioplasma existed well before the macroscopic organic morphological structures were formed and functioned already when the life was based on aluminosilicates. Sedlak\'s speculation on the electromagnetic biogenesis implies that the evolution of biosphere began with the moment of birth of light, i.e. in one of the earliest phases of existence of Universe. God, identified by him with the Light, created life, possessing the luminous nature. Life never altered its electromagnetic foundation: either at any new stage, or at a new level of organization, or when the first human being was created. It seems that Sedlak\'s works can be valuable for the present and future investigations aimed at the reconstruction of biogenesis. Although they are undervalued now, they should be regarded as containing many valuable intuitions. They deserve a thorough analysis and - where it is possible - empirical testing of implications drawn from them. (shrink)

The problem of causality is presented in the context of the research devoted to biogenesis. The significant works concerning the philosophy of biogenesis and scientific theories of abioge­nesis have been reviewed. Special attention is paid to: (i) the role of the non-equilibrium thermo­dynamics and quantum mechanics in the explaining of causal relations involved the origins of life, (ii) the need of constructing of a quantum logic of life. It is suggested that the causal con­nection is established by an information channel (...) between a cause and its result. (shrink)

It is axiomatic that the fuller and more integrated interpretation of scientific discoveries and data lies within the domain of the philosopher. This statement has all the more force when we come to deal with the problem of Life and its origins. In his book, Dr. Fothergill rightly takes for granted that eventually all life goes back to God for its origin, but his primary concern is the origin of life on the earth. Arguing that before we look for the (...) origin of life we must try to find out what life itself is, he examines the various theories of abiogenesis and points out that they all fail to find a real distinction between the living and the non-living. They all assume that fundamentally a living organism is nothing more than a complex physicochemical system in equilibrium. The proponents of these theories while readily admitting the enormous complexity of the organic molecules that take part in biological reactions, yet with incredible naiveté postulate that these have evolved from simpler peptides which in turn have been synthetised from simple inorganic molecules like carbon dioxide and ammonia in the primaeval oceans. While even fairly complex polypeptides have been built up in vitro, their synthesis from a mixture of inorganic chemicals has never been observed. (shrink)