Re: Study: life is a cascade of machines producing machines

On 2/12/2025 10:33 PM, Pro Plyd wrote:

 hmmm.
 https://scitechdaily.com/what-is-life-scientists-propose-new-machine- based-theory-of-life/
 A recent study presents a new way to understand
life by describing it as a cascade of machines
producing machines, spanning from molecular to
biosphere levels.
 What is life? This question remains the
quintessential puzzle of biological sciences,
encapsulating the intricate complexity and
stunning diversity of life forms. This study
proposes that one viable approach to addressing
this immense complexity is to conceptualize
living matter as a cascade of machines producing
machines.
 This cascade illustrates how cells consist of
smaller submachines, extending down to the
atomic level, where molecular machines such as
ion pumps and enzymes operate. In the opposite
direction, it explains how cells self-organize
into larger systems—tissues, organs, and
populations—ultimately culminating in the
biosphere.
...
The study was inspired by the seventeenth-century
polymath Gottfried Leibniz, who noted that “the
machines of nature, that is living bodies, are
still machines in their smallest parts, to
infinity.”
 Tlusty and Libchaber constructed a simplified
language that characterizes living matter as an
(almost) infinite, double cascade, spanning
eighteen orders of magnitude in space and thirty
in time.
 The large-scale and small-scale branches of this
cascade converge at a critical point of 1,000
seconds and 1 micron, corresponding to the
typical temporal and spatial scales of microbial
life. This paper explains the origins of the
critical point based on fundamental physical and
logical principles, identifying it as the minimum
conditions necessary for a self-reproducing
machine to interface with salty water.
...
 

All this reduces to is the old notion that life is just a normal aspect of the existence of matter in our universe.  Matter just naturally forms what these physicists are calling machines.  Elements like gold can only form in exploding supernova or stellar collisions, but for some reason the scattered debris can form nuggets of pure gold and other elements as well as crystals of other materials forming out of the mess.  Molecules of mutliple elements can form spontaneously.  These aggregates of matter can have catalytic activity and can make more molecules.
Simplistic "machines" are constantly being produced when the elements are in high enough concentration to allow their production.  What we consider to be life (simple bacteria) are a complex combination of many simple machines that are kept aggregated in order to produce more of the same simple machines.  Eukaryotes are combinations of lifeforms (chloroplasts, mitochodria and the nucleus).  Metazoans are conglomerations of cells.  They are continuing the meme by claiming that lifeforms can form aggregates with matter to form a giant biosphere machine.
Ron Okimoto