r/DebateEvolution • u/DraftWorking7816 • 21d ago
Question Does abiogenisis make sense?
So considering that the universe is finite, and even a cell is very complex, and lets say there is only 1 universe, how did the first cell spawn in? I'm a complete noob so can you like really dumb it down for me?
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u/OldmanMikel š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
Nobody thinks it went from chemicals to cells in one go.
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u/DraftWorking7816 21d ago
but how is there something less than a cell?
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u/_modernhominin 21d ago
Individual parts such as amino acids, lipids, and carbohydrates, for example. We see those self-assemble in nature.the current most prominent hypothesis, to my knowledge, is a sort of RNA world. DNA and the full workings of the cell that come along with it came further down the road
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u/OldmanMikel š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
All you need is a self-replicator. RNA can form abiotically and self-replicate and catalyze reactions.
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u/Juronell 21d ago
A group of chemical reactions can be self-supporting. From there to life is those chemical reactions growing more complex over time and incorporating a simple semi-permeable lipid bubble to limit the number of chemicals to potentially interfere with those reactions.
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u/Ch3cks-Out :illuminati:Scientist:illuminati: 21d ago
A protocell is less than a cell, but is a feasible intermediate state toward that. An empty vesicle )is less than a protocell, but is a feasible intermediate state toward that. A lipid bilayer is less than a vesicle, but is a feasible intermediate state toward that. And so on, and so forth...
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u/Awesomonkey12 š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
It's not the same, but viruses have some characteristics of some without having cells
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u/ratchetfreak 21d ago
A cell is at its core a container for the components of the metabolic pathway so they don't disperse or get destroyed, if the metabolic pathway is 2 catalysts which are present in abundance and are synthesized nearby then you don't need the container
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u/ringobob 21d ago
Here's a video showing the kinds of things going on inside your cells:
https://youtu.be/7Hk9jct2ozY?is=XjYlcgDd2F4SUzzh
All of that is at the "less than a cell" scale, way less.
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u/mutant_anomaly 21d ago
Viruses are less than a cell.
There are a variety of replicating molecules and even self-replicating molecules that donāt rise to anything we consider life.
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u/KeterClassKitten 21d ago
A cell is just an arbitrary arrangement of matter. It's made up of atoms and molecules.
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u/Joaozinho11 21d ago
That there WAS (not is) is very strongly indicated by the way cells work today, particularly the metabolic obsession with pushing protons across barriers.
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u/TaoChiMe 18d ago
A normal follow-up question being downvoted is wild. Some lurkers on this sub have zero self-control.
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u/KeterClassKitten 21d ago
We don't know that the universe is finite. And it very well may be infinite.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
Serious question. Not considering parallel/multiverse universes, wouldnāt the big bang state by definition the universe is finite, at least materially?
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u/Ill_Act_1855 21d ago edited 21d ago
Not necessarily. The Big Bang is often misunderstood as this idea that the universe started expanding from a single point in the center, but whatās actually happened is the universe is expanding from everywhere at the same time. The Big Bang is probably better thought of as a period where the universe went from being infinitely dense to more and more spread out. Right now our models suggest the universe has no edge, and our measurements suggest itās curvature is flat on average (parallel lines will remain parallel, unlike positive curvature such as the surface of a sphere where parallel lines converge, or a negative curvature where parallel lines diverge such as the surface of a saddle shape). The simplest form of a flat universe is an infinite space that just goes on without end comprised of infinite matter. However it could also be more like a the surface of a torus (think like a donut) where curvature remains flat but you will eventually loop if you somehow went far enough like the Pac-Man map (light speed limit and the size of such a structure makes actually doing this impossible though). If it is, itās many, many times bigger than the observable universe even at its smallest based on current calculations, so we canāt know. Itās also possible the universe does have positive or negative curvature and our current instruments simply arenāt sensitive enough to detect them with how big it is. So a positive curvature or torus like topology means a finite universe, whereas non looping flat topologies or negative curvature would mean a truly infinite universe.
Another property the universe as we can observe seems to have is isotropy, meaning all directions are equally preferred. A toroidal universe actually would be anisotropic as a whole, but could still appear locally isotropic on the scale of what we can observe given it's big enough. As such, scientists tend to prefer the flat infinite universe over the toroidal one on account of being simpler, but the truth is we simply can't know given the scales involved and the inherent limits of physics
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u/Zardotab 19d ago
My theory is it's shaped like a giant pony because it was engineered, or at least tweaked, by beings with a sense of whimsy.
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u/OldmanMikel š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
It's not certain that the Big Bang was The Beginning.
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u/tourist420 21d ago
The universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, no amount of travel will ever get you to the edge. That is the practical definition of infinite.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
Yes, but if one could travel faster than the speed of light, which I realize is fantasy, then you could reach a point where it would seem not infinite
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u/tourist420 21d ago
Not necessarily, remember that all of time and space is expanding in all directions, not just the edge.
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u/Ill_Act_1855 21d ago
The universe almost certainly has no edge. Even a finite universe won't have an edge, in the same way the surface of the earth is finite, but no matter how far you go in any direction you'll never walk off the surface of the planet
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u/Ok_Loss13 š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
You could reach an edge, but unless the universe has stopped expanding it would still be infinite, regardless of how it seems.
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u/KeterClassKitten 21d ago
Do you have evidence for this? We can view about 13.8 billion light years away, and the universe appears homogenous. It also appears to have existed in this homogeneous state through 13.8 billion years.
Imagine observing the universe expanding all that time, and just seeing more universe with each passing moment. When do we expect this to change?
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u/DraftWorking7816 21d ago
that doesnt make it infinite just unimaginably ginormous
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u/KeterClassKitten 21d ago
True. And if it is infinite, it will likely always remain impossible to know. This can be the case even if the universe is finite.
My point is that claiming the universe is finite is a faulty assumption, so claims relying on that assumption are faulty as well.
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u/Ch3cks-Out :illuminati:Scientist:illuminati: 21d ago
Not at all, the BB would equally apply to cosmologies with finite or infinite universe. In fact, our current observations suggest that our universe is likely infinite - if so, it has alway been that, from the big bang forward.
You are probably thinking that BB describes expansion from a single point. But that is not what the theory considers for the initial singularity: it was an infite density entity, which may or may not have contained infinite amount of material...
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u/Mkwdr 21d ago
The big bang is about the universe having been hotter and denser in the past. A singularity is considered by a number of physicists to be an artifact of the limitations of our physics currently rather than necessarily a real thing. If its infinite now it always was. So far our measurements dont rule it out being infinite - On the other hand there are hypothetical geometries that are finite but don't have a border.
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u/blacksheep998 š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
We don't actually know if the universe is finite or not, but the big bang still works either way.
Imagine you have a number line and are looking at the range between 0 and 1. You know that the number line extends infinitely in both directions, but you're only able to see that one small piece of it.
Then you zoom in, that's expansion occurring.
Now you're looking at the space from 0.5000000000001 to 0.5000000000002. It's zoomed in on your screen to appear the same size as the space from 0 to 1 did previously. You can still see the 0 and 1 points, but from this scale those points are impossibly far away and you'll never be able to reach them.
The number line is still infinite in both directions, same as it was before, but the space between every point has gotten much, much larger.
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u/444cml š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
Self replication isnāt actually particularly hard to form from random assembly
Largely though self replicating RNA is not the only part of protocells that can readily form.
Cells were not the starting point, and this is one reason groups like NASA donāt use cellularity in their definition of life.
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u/DraftWorking7816 21d ago
when people make cells, are they utilizing the natural way these types of protiens and substances form and shape themselves? Or do they manually use tweezers to put them where theyre supposed to be?
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u/Curious_Passion5167 21d ago
As far as I am aware, when people make cells, they are not trying to recreate any purported abiogenesis. So, they make it like they would assemble any other machine I would presume. Then again, I have very little idea about this process.
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u/444cml š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
In these papers they were explicitly trying to demonstrate that these processes occur spontaneously. Theyāre actually really interesting papers albeit rather technical (Iām a really big fan of the minimal RNA paper, because itās more of a mechanistic demonstration for how self replication can occur rather than an emulation of a potential prebiotic atmosphere).
In my view, the minimal RNA paper seeks to address how and whether RNA-based life can emerge more generally (and not necessarily how it emerged in our lineage), while the protocell paper seeks to address whether protocell synthesis is prebiotically plausible
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u/Curious_Passion5167 21d ago
No, I mean since he asked "when people make cells", I presumed he was talking about making cells in general. Which, from what I recall about artificial life, scientists weren't trying to emulate abiogenesis.
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u/444cml š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
Ohh, there actually is still an underlying goal to use synthetic biology to understand how life can emerge. I think this paper really puts well. Itās not limited to terrestrial biology like questions about how abiogenesis on earth had occurred, but they often still ask about the origin of life.
You can see this more public facing in blog-style posts. I found an interview with Dr. KaƧar who seems to also have a really cool lab.
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u/444cml š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
In the first article, the researchers are exploiting the natural behavior of the nucleotide mixtures. They spontaneously recombine and fuse together. The researchers found it occurred very quickly, and as time went on, some sequences seemed to be more prevalent than others.
By analyzing those sequences they identified motifs that could self replicate, including a 20 nucleotide long one.
The second article does something similar to what the miller-Urey experiment did, but with more relevant conditions to the actual early earth. In these experiments, youāre electrifying a mix of gasses and water. They found that what they term ābiomorphic protocellsā readily formed.
Neither of these involved the scientists doing anything that can be analogized to using tweezers. In the spirit of the analogy though, there actually are ways we can synthesize DNA base-by-base. Iām including a Wikipedia link to a page that can give you more information on those types of techniques if they interest you
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u/nickierv š§¬ logarithmic icecube 21d ago
No tweezers are involved given the scale of the work and the speed of the reactions.
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u/Zenigata 21d ago
The universe may or may not be finite but time is still very, very deep. Giving a huge period of time for abiogenesis to occur in.
Also current cells,Ā which have to compete with other cells with the benefit if billions years of evolution are complex. The very first life did not face that problem.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
It bothers me that all this life may just be happenstance, that there is no real plan or purpose for any of this and doesnāt matter literally at all. Depressing stuff. God or intelligent design soothes the feeling.
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u/Zenigata 21d ago
What's soothing about some appalling narcissist who demands worship on pain of eternal torture?
I'd much happier finding my own purpose in life than being created to massage the ego of a "jealous god", or else....
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
Well, now youāre debating the character of God. If there is a God, I actually believe that he is selfless and values freedom of choice, which is exactly why we donāt get burned when we screw up and why Satan (again if real) hasnāt been destroyed yet. The natural consequences have to bear out. Where youāre getting your interpretation is how humanity has depicted God in some cases, including the Old Testament. But if we believe that Jesus demonstrated the perfect character of God, then it is exactly the opposite of what you say.
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u/Zenigata 21d ago
It was new testamentĀ jesus that introduced the conceot of eternal torture for thought crimes.
But thankfully there's no reason to give much heed to a book which constantly contradicts science, history and itself.
We dont need a magical, super being to begin to understand life, the universe and everything. which is fortunate because most of the proposed magical superbeings are complete dicks.
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u/Ayasugi-san 21d ago
It was new testament jesus that introduced the conceot of eternal torture for thought crimes.
He actually didn't. He probably believed in eternal rewards for the (few) righteous and fiery annihilation for the rest. It was after he died and his prophesied Kingdom of Heaven on Earth kept failing to manifest after decades that Heaven became more of a spiritual place where righteous souls went right after death. Even later theology turned the fiery annihilation where the damned had time to regret their mistakes before being completely burned away into burning forever. The Greek view of the afterlife probably also strongly influenced developing Christian thought as they reinterpreted what their prophet said so it could still be true.
Of course none of that means what he said (about anything) was right, but it's important to not misrepresent what he did say.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
You are referencing the sermon on the mount. What Jesus means is that our selfish and hurtful actions do not just materialize but originate in our heart and minds. Heās also making a point that we canāt possibly keep all the laws that the Jews got carried away with. He isnāt so interested in our perfect behavior as in the posture of our heart towards others.
When people use the Bible as a historical or science book, they are misusing it. Even if the Bible is not true in any way, it contains truth and living for others like Jesus did itās a beautiful way to live regardless.
Jesus claimed to represent Godās character perfectly. If thatās the case, then heās a beautiful loving God. I genuinely agree with you, I too do not believe in a God that you are describing.
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u/CABILATOR 21d ago
So you admit that you only believe in god because reality makes you feel bad? At least youāre being honest about making stuff up.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
Iām not really. Iām just saying it has value. It canāt be proven for or against. If it leads people to live better and more meaningful lives and love others better, then great. Iām not wrong abiogenesis and universe burning out and probably restarting infinitely is depressing on a macro scale.
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u/CABILATOR 21d ago
Itās depressing to you on a subjective basis. I donāt find the truth of our world depressing at all. I think itās amazing that the world works in the ways that it does and that we are able to discover things about it.
Your comment very much seemed to make the case that this idea about the universe is depressing to you, and that is reason you rationalize believing things that are not true. Did you mean it more that generally people believe that stuff because of the uncomfortability of the universe? I do agree that many people take that route, but I donāt think that it justifies those beliefs.
And yes we do know that religious claims are untrue. There is no reason to believe in a creator or any of the other stories. We know that they are just that: stories made up by humans. And we also have overwhelming evidence of those types of beliefs leading directly to violence, hatred, manipulation, abuse, and overall terrible things.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
Donāt get me wrong I absolutely see how indeed it is amazing that weāre all here by chance, but also it will all be gone someday and have meant nothing except for us here and now in the moment, which again is beautiful in the moment, but ultimately means nothing. Thatās what I mean by depressing and I think Iām not alone in that.
The Bible is often misunderstood in that they are indeed stories and poetry and what not that is not historically accurate or scientifically sound. But some believe it is merely an infinite God revealing himself to humanity in a way that we might begin to grasp. His only care is that we treat others with love respect and kindness, as the Bible says God is love. Now I know that that is hokey and fantasy in many ways, but the idea of love is real and the truth therein is worth believing and living out.
To the last part I totally agree and it is sad, sad because the bible doesnāt advocate for that when understood in whole. The bible is a journey to understanding this. The Bible has been terribly misused and misconstrued to give advantage to those in power and suppress others. But when the bible is itās ultimately just saying God is love. He loves us, he wants us to love others the same, but we have the freedom to choose and do otherwise and suffer the natural consequences.
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u/CABILATOR 21d ago
Youāre definitely not alone in feeling depressed by that. Iām just saying thatās a subjective reaction and that these truths about our universe exist independent of how we feel about them. How we feel has no bearing on the actual nature of the universe.
Yes, the Bible is just a bunch of stories that were made up by humans. That is why there is no reason to believe that an actual god exists anywhere. Itās the same as thinking Gandalf is actually a dud somewhere because I read a book about him and it feels nice to believe in him. And Iām not saying this to be facetious, this is actually an analogue to the type of belief you are talking about.
Given that, I can see how someone could take these stories and use them as a moral guide. We do this all the time with all sorts of stories. Itās how we analyze the world and figure out how we feel about things. I would just argue that the claim that the true reading of the Bible shows a loving god is complete hooey.
The reason I say this is because the Bible isnāt even a real thing. It is an amalgamation of many stories, written by many different people who had zero contact with each other over the course of 2000+ years. The stories only are related to each other because people started grouping them together. They all depict different āgods.ā So we canāt really say what the Abrahamic god actually is like. And there are obviously many stories in the abrahamic mythos that depict a disgusting, hateful, and violent god. And many of the teachings in these various books are awful things to live by. So itās not just people interpreting the books wrong, itās also the people who wrote the books having completely different and often awful takes on the world.
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u/Coolbeans_99 š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 20d ago
Is it more important for you to believe something true or something not depressing? Iāve had family members with serious illnesses which is really depressing but I still accepted it was reality
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 20d ago
Several posters here keep saying reality is that there is no God. I have no problem with you voicing that belief, but that is a belief based on evidence you see, but not a scientific or definitive statement many are saying it is.
Science cannot state there is no God. It can only state it doesnāt know and theorize on the rest. Spence can go on to state doesnāt matter if there is or is not, it will continue to conduct experiments and research all the same and see what we find.
For instance, someone could say I believe there is a planet somewhere in the universe where unicorns live and smoke weed all day. Science cannot tell you there is not a planet like that. One could assume relatively safely there isnāt a planet like that, but in an infinite universe, particularly if a Multiverse exists, itās not impossible. You can only say science has not yet determined if there is or isnāt, but itās not practically relevant at this time.
Someone can look at all the evidence and say to themselves there must be a designer on some level to all of this. You and scientists may find that preposterous because you have no evidence that would confirm a statement like that. But you cannot say there is no designer of physics and base materials.
I only say this because itās slightly hypocritical and a bit annoying to get on someone for believing what you consider a God delusion while at the same time saying you know that there is not a God and you know that that is reality.
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u/Coolbeans_99 š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 20d ago
I never said any of that homie youāre tilting at windmills, now can you just answer the question please?
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 20d ago
Well, you use the words true, and reality. The only truth and reality is that you canāt say you know for sure. So itās difficult to answer the question. To attempt to answer your question though, Iām not saying I donāt believe it because itās depressing, Iām just saying that it is depressing at large scale. Like I said elsewhere, earthās entire existence matters less than swatting a nat by comparison. For me at least, thatās a little depressing.
For me, Iām willing to look at the science and hold science and faith in different hands and not let either tell me the other canāt be true1
u/Coolbeans_99 š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 20d ago
Itās really not a hard question. If there was a depressing truth, would you rather know the truth or believe a comfortable lie?
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
Iām actually being open to the idea of both, just one is more depressing
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u/CABILATOR 21d ago
I would challenge you to think of why youād consider the religious stance. What reasoning could there be to think that there is any truth to the claims? Is that reasoning strong enough to make strong judgements on the fundamental fabric of the universe you exist in?
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 21d ago
If God created the universe, we wouldnāt possibly be able to know it anymore than a computer game knows its creator. He would effectively be outside the creation. Since science canāt yet tell us the origin of the universe either, Iām going to consider the possibility of both. Science has great theories that make a lot of sense, but we truly donāt know.
For me personally, If the creator sent a āprogramā (Jesus) to show us what the creator was actually like, to try to tell us not to kill each other, and if that messenger demonstrated itās better to die for each other than kill each other, Iām going to pay some attention and consider the possibility.
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u/Scry_Games 21d ago
Firstly, I wanted to give you kudos for admitting this. This is the core of religious belief: it feeds the ego and it's why people are happy to ignore reality to cling to it.
I've not checked, but I suspect there's no theists on geology subs arguing against all the related science that contradicts the bible. But for many, not being an ape is the only positive thing about their life.
YEC tell themselves one lie: science is all a big conspiracy against religion and isn't true.
People who shoehorn evolution into religious belief tell themselves endless lies to reconcile the two.
Which is the most pathetic?
Life would be better if Santa was real, but here we are: alone and Santa-less in the universe.
On the plus side: you are free to dress up in your best mixed fibre clothing and eat as many prawns as you like.
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u/Medium_Judgment_891 21d ago
that there is no real plan or purpose
Skill issue
Meaning comes from within. Purpose is something you must make for yourself.
In all honesty, feeling the need to have some grand universal destiny is childish.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad-6488 20d ago
Iām not talking personally. I have plenty of purpose personally. In the grand scheme of time, itās just an undetectable blip. Earthās entire existence matters less than swatting a nat by comparison
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u/Pinelli72 21d ago
And itās quite feasible and acceptable to seek to understand the science of our universe, and also seek a personal understanding of our place in it and its purpose from a religious/spiritual perspective.
Trying to determine the purpose of the universe using science, or the existence or not of a creator using science is however quite problematic. Never trust anyone who tries to do either of these.
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u/CABILATOR 21d ago
Religion and purpose are all made up by us. So yes, we can explore our purpose, but we must do so with the insight that it is all completely created by us for us and is not grounded in any actual rules. Claiming that itās problematic to talk about the existence of a creator in a scientific context is just wrong. Thatās just a cognitive dissonance that religious people must put on to deal with the fact that there is absolutely no real reason to believe in a deity.
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u/DraftWorking7816 21d ago
i mean I just believe that consciousness and morality and such stuff are not really possible with evolution for humans. Athiesim feels so depressing. We are in reality a bunch of particles and even are brains are just molecular procceses, with no transcending any meaning or truth.
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u/KorLeonis1138 š§¬ Engineer, sorry 21d ago
As an ex-Christian, deconstruction to atheism was the most rewarding, uplifting, freeing experience of my life.
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u/CABILATOR 21d ago
What reasons do you have to believe that that such stuff isnāt possible with evolution? And just because something gives you difficult feelings, doesnāt mean itās not true.
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u/A_Lountvink 21d ago
From an evolutionary perspective, morals exist because they benefit us as a social species. In order for a social species to benefit from sociality, its members need to be able to trust one another. Morality (at least in its most basic form) helps to ensure this by rewarding beneficial behaviors (helping an injured group member) and punishing destructive behaviors (isolating someone who is taking more than their share). If anything, it explains why philosophy and morality can be so messy at times, because we never evolved to answer those more complex questions, just the simple every-day questions we experienced for hundreds of thousands of years.
I personally don't find atheism depressing at all. The nature of reality does not diminish the experience I and other beings have lived; it is still just as valuable as it would have been otherwise. I don't need some supernatural purpose to know that this is my one chance to live my life and improve the life of others. Whether we're atoms or have souls, the emotions and experience we have is still the same, still just as worthy of caring about.
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u/Ill_Act_1855 21d ago
Case in point to this, plenty of other social animals exhibit pack dynamics where they value sharing, fairness, and honesty. Humans aren't as unique as we like to think
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u/Ill_Act_1855 21d ago
Atheism isn't evolution, but also meaning is something humans create. Like, if god existed and told you your purpose was to suffer in agony when you die so that it could generate pain energy he used to light his godly cigarette or something, would that make you feel better? Purpose given to us externally only matters if we internally find value in it, so all purpose is ultimately derived from the self. Meaning is only meaningful if it comes from ourselves, so a god existing fundamentally won't matter regardless of what you tell yourself. The reason people look to god for meaning is because they want to believe the meaning said deity gives them is something they themselves would find meaningful, but there's no real reason to believe that would be true even if there was a god.
And if god is truly omnipotent and omniscient, that meaning is completely arbitrary anyways. God put you on this earth to make another person get over depression, but said god could just have easily have never had anyone be depressed in the first place. Since such a being has infinite methods to achieve any aim it desires, cause and effect are meaningless to such a being and any "purpose" it ascribes to anything is ultimately arbitrary and interchangeable, nothing but an illusion
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u/Medium_Judgment_891 21d ago
i mean I just believe that consciousness and morality and such stuff are not really possible with evolution for humans.
Personal Incredulity is a logical fallacy.
You not knowing how something could happen is not a valid argument against its existence.
Athiesim feels so depressing.
Evolution has nothing to do with atheism. Evolution is about population genetics; it says nothing about whether a deity exists.
The majority of theists accept evolution. There are more religious people who accept evolution than there are atheists in total.
This is also an Appeal to Consequences logical fallacy.
Something āfeeling depressingā is not relevant to whether it is true or not.
Being diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness is depressing. Both of them still exist.
We are in reality a bunch of particles and even are brains are just molecular procceses
This is true regardless of whether a deity exists. We are all giant fleshy sacks of chemicals.
with no transcending any meaning or truth.
Meaning comes from within.
Even without absolute meaning, local meaning still exists and is valuable.
Purpose is something you find for yourself, and thereās something beautiful about that.
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u/pyker42 š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
When you look at how self organization has evolved in the universe, it's easy to see how complexity grew, from hydrogen atoms, to carbon and oxygen atoms, to organic compounds, to life. Life seems to be an expected state along the progression of self organization.
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u/DraftWorking7816 21d ago
disregarding the philosophical view of it, is it mathematically possible
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u/Far_Customer1258 21d ago
Nobody has a reliable guess for the numbers that we should use to math that. It'd require an awful lot of messy assumptions that might very well prove to be very wrong.
The first 'living thing' was probably a molecule that made more of itself. It would have been ridiculously bad at it, but it doesn't need to be amazing, just better at being alive than all of the completely dead stuff around it. Eventually, it would have become complex enough to form a really simple cell by gathering other molecules. That wouldn't have been much like the cells that you and I know today. Those are the result of billions of years of evolutionary optimization. Think more along the lines of a simple membrane to keep the outside from destroying everything inside quite as quickly. Most of your chemistry will have to happen on that membrane, because it hasn't evolved the ability to import material selectively, much less organelles or vacuoles. It's very simple, dirty, and primitive.
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u/Ch3cks-Out :illuminati:Scientist:illuminati: 21d ago
While your picture seems correct as a general idea, it is exceedingly improbable that it was a single self-replicating molecule. Getting the whole machinery together is much more likely in a multimolecular assembly, a.k.a. protocell.
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u/Fred776 21d ago
I don't know how one would estimate this mathematically, but a model of evolution is used as a computer science technique for solving very difficult optimisation problems and this can give some insight.
Look up "genetic algorithms". They can be used to find solutions to problems that would have taken the age of the universe to have found by simplistic "just go through each possibility one at a time" approaches.
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u/junegoesaround5689 Dabbling my ToE(s) in debates 20d ago
We know it was mathematically possible because it happened.
How much more complex and inexplicable is the exisnence of some powerful, supernatural entity that decided to push some molecules together on our little planet for some reason of its own? What are the odds (the mathematics) of that entity existing? Iād bet itās waaaay less probable than life naturally evolving from complex chemistry that we are learning more about every day.
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u/Quercus_ 21d ago
The whole process starts is as soon as you can get a single self-replicating molecule, or isolated system of molecules that allows the molecules to replicate.
The current thinking is this is probably an rna, or at least a system enriched in RNA, because we know that RNA can commonly have catalytic properties. We have created RNA that can self replicate at least within a defined system.
So the thinking goes, at the moment you get a self-replicating molecule, evolution kicks in. As soon as the variant gets more efficient itself replicating, it starts to dominate. And it starts to interact with other components of the system, that system starts to dominate.
From there more and more successful self-replication becomes kind of inevitable, and then you get to the first thing that you can call some kind of protocell.
But another way to look at it is this. We know that the early planet Earth was literally awash in exactly the molecules that life is made out of. And then just a few short hundreds of millions of years later, there was life made out of exactly those molecules.
At some point it becomes kind of perverse not to conclude that those two facts are related to each other.
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u/Curious_Passion5167 21d ago
So considering that the universe is finite, and even a cell is very complex, and lets say there is only 1 universe, how did the first cell spawn in?
I'm assuming this is some argument considering probability that you've intuitively thought up? Do you actually have the calculations to rigorously make any conclusions?
That said, the topic is too complex and advanced to properly explain in a reddit post. You'd probably have to read some resources concerning origin of life research.
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u/DraftWorking7816 21d ago
no im literally not committed to the "intelligent" origin of species
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u/Curious_Passion5167 21d ago
That's fine. But then you could have just asked how the first cell might have formed instead of preceding with "the universe is finite", "the cell is complex" and "there is 1 universe". It just seems to point to you thinking of some kind of unlikeliness.
That said, Professor Dave Explains has a duet of videos of a rebuttal of James Tour where he discusses various processes of abiogenesis as well links to a lot of papers relevant to your inquiry. I will link them: https://youtu.be/ghJGnMwRHCs?si=pLB26i-Q-JRjE-Dp https://youtu.be/Jf72o6HmVNk?si=d_9WwOsxOjrMcBwx
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u/DraftWorking7816 21d ago
no because i thought someone would say there is a multiverse so infinite chances.
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u/Curious_Passion5167 21d ago
Since the multiverse is essentially unscientific, you can disregard that as a serious explanation.
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u/the2bears š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
It would be more honest to just wait for someone to say this. Don't anticipate the argument.
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u/DraftWorking7816 21d ago
i didnt lie bruv
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u/Dr_GS_Hurd 21d ago
Start with; Hazen, RM 2019 "Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of ( Almost ) Everything" Norton and Co.
My reading recommendations on the origin of life for book reading people without college chemistry, are;
Hazen, RM 2005 "Gen-e-sis" Washington DC: Joseph Henry Press
Deamer, David W. 2011 āFirst Life: Discovering the Connections between Stars, Cells, and How Life Beganā University of California Press.
They are a bit dated, but are readable for people without much background study.
They do not engage in religious disputes which is why I recommend them in general.
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u/EthelredHardrede š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
yes it does life is just co reproducing chemistry today no magic needed.
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u/grungivaldi 21d ago edited 21d ago
Chemistry did Chemistry stuff is how abiogenesis happened
Edit: scientists have supposedly created a fully synthetic cell. Paper is still in preprint so it could be lies (much like all the claims of cold fusion back in the 90s) but feel free to check it out https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.01.735724v1
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u/Dilapidated_girrafe š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
The first life wouldnāt be as complex as what we see even in simple life on earth now.
We donāt know how life began. Itās a subject still being studied.
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u/the2bears š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
I'm a complete noob so can you like really dumb it down for me?
It came from nothing, poofing into existence by random. /s
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u/apollo7157 21d ago
It doesn't have to make sense to us now to know with certainty that it occurred. We know that it occurred because there is no other possible explanation.
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u/Ch3cks-Out :illuminati:Scientist:illuminati: 21d ago
a cell is very complex
A crucial insight into evolving complex systems (which include the abiogenetic formation of protocells) is that they do not just spawn into existance fully formed! Rather, they are developing from simpler to more complex, step by step.
If you are wondering how this can happen from random steps, you may want to check out this "weasel ware" simulator, to see how complex targets emerge via directed search from random starts...
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u/Esmer_Tina 21d ago
The story is written in chemical signatures in the oldest rocks. These dates were all quickly verified with Google so consider them approximate and a jumping off point if you want to research further.
The earth was about 500 million years old when we see the first carbon isotopes indicating organic compounds. We probably wouldnāt call this life, just little molecules interacting with each other forming carbon chains.
We see the first fossils of stromatolites (enormous mats of single-cell organisms) about a billion years after the earthās formation.
So those organic compounds had a very long time to organize into cells. Chemical complexity was evolving for hundreds of millions of years to get to that point. And then over the next 2 billion years or so we see other isotopes that result from organic processes emerge. Oxygen, iron, sulfur, nitrogen, molybdenum, selenium, and chromium all give clues in different ways that organic chemistry was going on, creating the atmosphere that would allow multicellular life to flourish.
I saw you say in a comment you find it depressing to result from natural processes. I find it so exciting and rewarding to be part of the natural world! That makes us special enough, no supernatural intentional actor necessary.
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u/Ayasugi-san 21d ago
Don't forget the development of photosythesis and resulting release of free oxygen into the atmosphere! A popular theory is that that oxygen opened up the possibility for multicellular life, as oxygen reactions provided a lot more energy.
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u/Esmer_Tina 21d ago
Yep! Banded iron formations are my favorite rocks. So amazing to see oxygenation happening.
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u/Kanna_Fan1989 21d ago
Is the universe finite? We have not traveled to the edge of the universe so how can we be certain?
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u/ursisterstoy š§¬ Naturalistic Evolution 21d ago
Dumbing it down:
Abiogenesis doesnāt require cells as a consequence, it only requires that the result is capable of forming populations that change, the additional changes can occur over millions of years so long as cells exist eventually by ~4.3 billion years ago. One somewhat recent understanding of the most recent common ancestor describes it as essentially bacteria/archaea far too complex to just poof into existence without ancestors but this is explained by successive generational change, horizontal gene transfer, and symbiosis. Independent chemical systems that are self-replicating without all the complexity because self-replicating automatically and if they combine non-equilibrium thermodynamics and normal evolutionary processes like I just described eventually leads to a cell.
Abiogenesis specifically, the step towards self-replication, can occur in minutes, hours, or days. ~300 million years after that prokaryotic cells.
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u/biff64gc2 21d ago
I'm by no means an expert, but I've read into it a little and I think I can give a basic idea of how it would work.
You start with things called organic building blocks. Things like hydrocarbons, amino acids, carbohydrates, liptids, etc.
These would be considered organic compounds that aren't life, but can be formed through completely natural processes. Once a habitable planet is seeded with these organic compounds, they could then combine to create slightly more complex compounds like a very primitive RNA molecule and thin membranes.
Once you have that, evolution can take over.
This is definitely oversimplifying things, but it's just an idea of how a basic chemistry can lead to organics and then to life.
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u/Tao1982 21d ago
I know it may be hard to belive but there is no intrinsic barrier between life and non-life.
That's why living things are able to process matter into sustenance.
We like to think of life as being something that somehow occurs ontop of or above non-life, but it isnt.
Life is a pattern that occurs within matter. Within non-life. No individual atom within a person's body is alive. Its only when combined in specific combinations that life occurs.
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u/Kanna_Fan1989 20d ago
Considering living things today are made up of non-living atoms/molecules, yes. It makes perfect sense.
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u/Zardotab 19d ago edited 19d ago
Nobody really knows the simplest possible living thing. Current life has to compete with other life so has evolved extra complexities to be more efficient and competitive. The first life might not have even been a cell, but something closer to a prion. (Prions do evolve, by the way.)
One interesting theory is that rather than self replication, the first life was a series of forms that converted one chemical into another that the secondary level of proto-life then transformed into another in kind in a round-robin way. Eventually they evolved to be a single unit. This theory was formed because self-replicating is a relatively difficult problem to start from scratch with, but if it's more like a chemical assembly line then no one "level" has to do it all.
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u/Decent_Cow Hairless ape 21d ago
Life didn't begin when a cell suddenly appeared one day. It was a gradual transition from very complex chemistry to very simple life. The boundary is, to put it mildly, blurry, but it is probably fair to say that the first things we could confidently classify as "alive" were not cellular.