Re: Paradoxes

On 12-Jan-25 10:27, RonO wrote:

On 1/11/2025 9:47 PM, MarkE wrote:

On 12/01/2025 1:48 am, RonO wrote:

On 1/11/2025 2:04 AM, MarkE wrote:

Potential paradoxes are of particular interest because if unresolved, they may indicate not just difficultly but impossibility.
>
Benner's framing remark is noteworthy: "Discussed here is an alternative approach to guide research into the origins of life, one that focuses on 'paradoxes', pairs of statements, both grounded in theory and observation, that (taken together) suggest that the 'origins problem' cannot be solved."
>
The examples below no doubt have debated degrees of resolution. Provided FYI.
>
_____________________
>
*Paradoxes in the Origin of Life*
Steven A. Benner, 2015
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11084-014-9379-0
>
...
>
We now can play the game. Here, the task is to write out pairs of propositions reasonably grounded in existing theories, where these pairs (if compared) create a paradox (Benner 2009). This focus on paradoxes directs us towards questions that must be resolved before any solution to the origins problem can emerge. Is also directs us away from spending time researching simple “puzzles”.Footnote3 Its greatest value, however, is to force us to address the content of the theory itself, even those parts of the content that are normally assumed without articulation.
>
We illustrate this game by mentioning five examples of paradoxes within the origins problem. We stipulate that “replication involving replicable imperfections” (RIRI) evolution requires a linear biopolymer, perhaps RNA, or organized collections of molecules. All of the paradoxes below must be resolved before the origins question easily lends itself to hypothesis-directed “normal” research:
>
(a)The Asphalt Paradox (Neveu et al. 2013)
An enormous amount of empirical data have established, as a rule, that organic systems, given energy and left to themselves, devolve to give uselessly complex mixtures, “asphalts”. Theory that enumerates small molecule space, as well as Structure Theory in chemistry, can be construed to regard this devolution a necessary consequence of theory. Conversely, the literature reports (to our knowledge) exactly zero confirmed observations where RIRI evolution emerged spontaneously from a devolving chemical system. Further, chemical theories, including the second law of thermodynamics, bonding theory that describes the “space” accessible to sets of atoms, and structure theory requiring that replication systems occupy only tiny fractions of that space, suggest that it is impossible for any non-living chemical system to escape devolution to enter into the Darwinian world of the “living”.
>
Such statements of impossibility apply even to macromolecules not assumed to be necessary for RIRI evolution. Again richly supported by empirical observation, material escapes from known metabolic cycles that might be viewed as models for a “metabolism first” origin of life, making such cycles short-lived. Lipids that provide tidy compartments under the close supervision of a graduate student (supporting a protocell-first model for origins) are quite non- robust with respect to small environmental perturbations, such as a change in the salt concentration, the introduction of organic solvents, or a change in temperature.
>
(b) The Water Paradox
Water is commonly viewed as essential for life, and theories of water are well known to support this as a requirement. So are biopolymers, like RNA, DNA, and proteins. However, these biopolymers are corroded by water. For example, the hydrolytic deamination of DNA and RNA nucleobases is rapid and irreversible, as is the base- catalyzed cleavage of RNA in water. This allows us to construct a paradox: RNA requires water to function, but RNA cannot emerge in water, and does not persist in water without repair. Any solution to the “origins problem” must manage the paradox forced by pairing this theory and this observation; life seems to need a substance (water) that is inherently toxic to polymers (e.g. RNA) necessary for life.
>
(c) The Information-Need Paradox
Theory can estimate the amount of information required for a chemical system to gain access to replication with imperfections that are themselves replicable. These estimates vary widely. However, by any current theory, biopolymers that might plausibly support RIRI evolution are too long to have arisen spontaneously from the amounts of building blocks that might plausibly (again by theory) have escaped asphaltic devolution in water. If a biopolymer is assumed to be necessary for RIRI evolution, we must resolve the paradox arising because implausibly high concentrations of building blocks generate biopolymers having inadequate amounts of information. These propositions from theory and observation also force the conclusion that the emergence of (in this case, biopolymer-based) life is impossible.
>
(d) The Single Biopolymer Paradox
Even if we can make biopolymers prebiotically, it is hard to imagine making two or three (DNA, RNA, proteins) at the same time. For several decades, this simple observation has driven the search for a single biopolymer that “does” both genetics and catalysis. RNA might be such a biopolymer. However, genetics versus catalysis place very different demands on the behavior of a biopolymer. According to theory, catalytic biopolymers should fold; genetic biopolymers should not fold. Catalytic biopolymers should contain many building blocks; genetic biopolymers should contain few (Szathmary 1992). Perhaps most importantly, catalytic biopolymers must be able to catalyze reactions, while genetic biopolymers should not be able to catalyze reactions and, in particular, reactions that destroy the genetic biopolymer. Any “biopolymer first” model for origins must resolve these paradoxes, giving us a polymer that both folds and does not fold, has many building blocks at the same time as having few, and has the potential to catalyze hard-but-desired reactions without the potential to catalyze easy-but-undesired reactions.
>
(e) The Probability Paradox
Some biopolymers, like RNA, strike a reasonable compromise between the needs of genetics and the needs of catalysis. Further, no theory creates a paradox that excludes the possibility that some RNA might catalyze the replication of RNA, with imperfections, where the imperfections are replicable. However, experiments show that RNA molecules that catalyze the destruction of RNA are more likely to arise in a pool of random (with respect to fitness) sequences than RNA molecules that catalyze the replication of RNA, with or without imperfections. Chemical theory expects this to be the case, as the base catalyzed cleavage of RNA is an “easy” reaction (stereoelectronically), while the SN2 reaction that synthesizes a phosphodiester bond is a “difficult” reaction. Thus, even if we solve the asphalt paradox, the water paradox, the information need paradox, and the single biopolymer paradox, we still must mitigate or set aside chemical theory that makes destruction, not biology, the natural outcome of are already magical chemical system.
>
...
>
_____________________
>
*What are existing paradoxes with abiogenesis?*
>
ChatGPT: Abiogenesis, the natural process by which life arises from non- living matter, faces several paradoxes and challenges that have been discussed extensively in the scientific community. Below are some of the key paradoxes:
>
1. Eigen’s Paradox
Description: It highlights the challenge of maintaining genetic fidelity in early replicators. For replication to occur with sufficient accuracy, a complex enzyme (like a polymerase) is needed. However, to code for such an enzyme, a relatively long genetic sequence is required, which in turn cannot be reliably replicated without the enzyme.
Implication: This creates a chicken-and-egg problem between the emergence of information-carrying molecules and the machinery required for their accurate replication.
- Proposed Resolutions:
Hypercycles: Cooperative networks of replicating molecules.
Compartmentalization: Protection of genetic material in vesicles.
Short RNA worlds: Early life may have started with very short RNA molecules.
>
2. Homochirality Problem
Description: Life uses molecules of specific handedness (e.g., left- handed amino acids and right-handed sugars). However, prebiotic chemistry typically produces racemic mixtures (equal amounts of both enantiomers). The origin of homochirality is not fully understood.
- Proposed Resolutions:
Environmental asymmetries (e.g., polarized light, magnetic fields).
Amplification mechanisms, such as autocatalysis or crystallization.
>
3. Information Paradox
Description: Genetic information (e.g., RNA or DNA sequences) must exist before proteins can be synthesized, but proteins are needed to synthesize and replicate genetic information. This creates a mutual dependency problem.
- Proposed Resolutions:
The RNA world hypothesis: RNA acted as both the genetic material and a catalyst.
Co-evolution of genetic and metabolic systems.
>
4. Metabolism-First vs. Genetics-First Debate
Description: Some theories propose that life began with simple metabolic networks (metabolism-first), while others suggest self- replicating genetic molecules arose first (genetics-first). Each model faces unique challenges:
Metabolism-first: How could metabolic pathways sustain themselves without genetic control?
Genetics-first: How could self-replicating molecules form and sustain themselves without energy or raw materials provided by metabolism?
>
5. Water Paradox
Description: Water is essential for life but also promotes the hydrolysis of complex biomolecules like RNA, DNA, and proteins, breaking them apart. This makes it difficult to reconcile the stability of biomolecules in early Earth conditions.
- Proposed Resolutions:
Episodic drying and wetting cycles (e.g., in hydrothermal vents or tidal pools).
Alternative solvents or local protective environments.
>
6. Complexity Threshold
Description: The jump from simple molecules to complex, self- sustaining systems capable of Darwinian evolution seems improbably large. How can such complexity emerge without intermediate stable states?
- Proposed Resolutions:
Gradual evolution of intermediate systems (e.g., vesicles, coacervates).
Selection pressures favoring increasing complexity.
>
7. Thermodynamic Paradox
Description: The emergence of life requires an increase in local order (low entropy) in a system governed by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy tends to increase.
- Proposed Resolutions:
Energy gradients (e.g., from sunlight or hydrothermal vents) drive local decreases in entropy while increasing entropy globally.
Prebiotic catalysis on mineral surfaces (e.g., clays, iron-sulfur compounds).
>
8. Miller-Urey Paradox
Description: The classic Miller-Urey experiment produced amino acids but under conditions that may not reflect the early Earth. The paradox arises in identifying the correct prebiotic conditions and mechanisms for synthesizing the building blocks of life.
- Proposed Resolutions:
Focus on hydrothermal vent conditions or extraterrestrial contributions (e.g., meteoritic delivery of organic compounds).
>
9. Environmental Specificity
Description: Many abiogenesis hypotheses require specific environmental conditions (e.g., pH, temperature, chemical availability). The probability of all these conditions being met simultaneously is low.
- Proposed Resolutions:
Life originated in multiple steps across different environments (e.g., tidal pools, hydrothermal vents, or ice sheets).
Exploration of extremophiles suggests a broader range of possible conditions for life's origin.
>
10. The Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) Conundrum
Description: LUCA was likely already highly complex, with a genetic code, ribosomes, and metabolic pathways. How did such complexity arise from simpler precursors?
- Proposed Resolutions:
LUCA may not represent the earliest form of life but rather the survivor of earlier evolutionary experiments.
The pre-LUCA world may have had a diversity of simpler life forms that later converged.
>
These paradoxes continue to drive research in fields like prebiotic chemistry, molecular biology, and planetary science, as scientists explore potential resolutions through experiments, simulations, and observations.

>
None of this should matter to you.  No matter how life arose on this planet it was not Biblical.  That has already been definitely determined, even by yourself.
>
Research into the origin of life on this planet has always been among the weakest of scientific endeavors.  Most scientists do not even bother thinking about it.
>
No matter what the outcome you still lose, and all that anyone expects to come out of the existing effort is to determine the most likely means that life could have arisen on this planet.  As your article points out no one can rule out less likely means that might have occurred.
>
We might be extraordinarily lucky and find life on Mars.  There have already been proposals that life first arose on Mars and came to earth on asteroids blasted into space by collisions with mars.  It can even explain the genetic composition of the last common ancestor between eubacteria and archaea if we find evolutionary linkage.  Such a finding would only move the issue to Mars.
>
Some have already proposed that the first self replicators evolved in space because organic molecules are found out there.
>
No one knows, and most of us don't care because all that is expected to come out of the mess is the most likely means to form life out of inanimate matter.
>
Ron Okimoto
>

>
I can appreciate that constant highlighting of problems with OoL may become tiresome (apologies all). And to be clear, I'm not arguing against abiogenesis just on Earth, but anywhere, irrespective of the number of extrasolar planets and millions of years available.
>
Benner's assessment gives these issues make-of-break importance: "...'paradoxes', pairs of statements, both grounded in theory and observation, that (taken together) suggest that the 'origins problem' cannot be solved."
>
I would rewrite his conclusion as "suggest that the 'origins problem' cannot be solved _naturalistically_".
>
To disprove a theory, you need only demonstrate one exception. Just say one of the paradoxes was shown to be definitively unresolvable naturalistically. Would not that have game-changing implications for science and metaphysics?
>
How would you interpret such a result?

 The denial is senseless.  You should understand that by now.  You should understand that the Origin of life "science" is such a weak scientific effort that your "paradoxes" may not even exist.
 It all really doesn't matter for your religious beliefs because no matter how life arose on this planet is just how it happened, and it is definitely not Biblical.  Creationists like Denton have accepted that fact.  His god could have allowed life to arise naturally on this planet.  In the end that is what you will have to deal with.
 About the only way that it will be determined that some god was involved with the origin of life on earth is for that god to come back and demonstrate how it did it.  If such a god did not claim to be the god of the Bible, you would need to determine if such a god was a false god.
 Even if you could come up with some valid incontrovertible evidence that some god was needed for the origin of life you are still stuck with trying to figure out if that god is the false god or not.  How are you going to do that?  Maybe the Biblical god did fudge a bit about being the creator of everything, or was misinterpreted.  Would that be a good enough reason to stop believing in that god?

MarkE is very much an old-school creationist in this respect: He acts as though disproving the theory of evolution would leave creationism true by default. Unfortunately, "God did it" doesn't explain anything; even if everything since Darwin were categorically refuted, even if hard boundaries between species were discovered, that still would not provide one solitary scrap of evidence for his religion.
I always suspect this sort of thinking is the product of a weak faith, hard and brittle. It needs "proof" of the things it believes, because it's easily cracked... and it will shatter rather than bend even a bit.
--
[The address listed is a spam trap. To reply, take off every zig.]
Kestrel Clayton
"Every normal woman must be tempted, at times, to stoke the fire,
host the black mass, and begin eating hearts." — Rose Bailey