
A simple mechanism could have been decisive for the development of life - dnetesn
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-simple-mechanism-decisive-life.html
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DrImplausible
So how would this process work in the context of a self-organizing criticality
(SOC) [0]? I've long taken that to be one of the more plausible mechanisms for
getting to simple automata.

I guess this could work in conjunction with SOC, providing discrete stages for
development. Interesting stuff.

[0]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
organized_criticality](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
organized_criticality)

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alexholehouse
This is one in a number of papers exploring how biological phase
separation/condensation may have provided favourable microenvironments for
early life development.

For a nice primer on what biological phase separation is, see this (non-
paywalled) general audience article from earlier this year in Nature
([https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03070-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03070-2)).

Some other work on phase separation as a means for primordial evolution and
biochemistry includes a paper from Christine Keating in 2012 (WAY WAY ahead of
the curve) [1], elegant work by Frank Jülicher [2], and more recently a nice
paper from Keating and Phil Bevilacqua [3].

These papers (IMO) tie rather nicely into some theoretical predictions on
self-organization from Jeremy England [4].

[1] Keating, C.D. (2012). Aqueous phase separation as a possible route to
compartmentalization of biological molecules. Acc. Chem. Res. 45, 2114–2124.

[2] Zwicker, D., Seyboldt, R., Weber, C.A., Hyman, A.A., and Jülicher, F.
(2016). Growth and division of active droplets provides a model for
protocells. Nat. Phys. 13, 408.

[3] Poudyal, R.R., Pir Cakmak, F., Keating, C.D., and Bevilacqua, P.C. (2018).
Physical Principles and Extant Biology Reveal Roles for RNA-Containing
Membraneless Compartments in Origins of Life Chemistry. Biochemistry 57,
2509–2519.

[4] England, J.L. (2013). Statistical physics of self-replication. J. Chem.
Phys. 139, 121923.

~~~
mxwsn
Phase separation really seems to be a hot topic in biology beyond early life
development too, extending at least to the field of gene regulation.

A Phase Separation Model for Transcriptional Control.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28340338](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28340338)

which already has 70 citations despite being published just 14 months ago.

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nayuki
> Boekhoven explains the principle of phase separation with an analogy:
> "Imagine an old and rusty car. Leave it outside in the rain, and it
> continues to rust and decomposes because rusting is accelerated by water.
> Put it in the garage, and it stops rusting, because you separate it from the
> rain."

Is the writer sure about this claim? I've seen cars and bicycles in the garage
rust due to humidity and condensation, especially from the day-night
temperature cycles.

~~~
losteric
It's the right analogy in the context of this research - the anhydrides
survived longer when they formed a bubble, but still decayed.

A car in the rain rusts faster than a car in a garage. The sheltered vehicle
still rusts... but the lower rate makes it feasible to maintain.

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rdlecler1
So basically by removing exogenous factors from the environment you get a
chance to develop a more robust system. Sounds like an accelerator.

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TekMol
I find it fascinating that we have not witnessed self reproduction and
evolution in a simulated world as of now. Unless we manually put it in of
course.

Any guesses when this will happen? Life springing up in a 2D-Automata or
something like that? What size will it be? How many cells does the smallest
self reproducing 2D-Automata need?

~~~
kanzure
> I find it fascinating that we have not witnessed self reproduction and
> evolution in a simulated world as of now

"The evolution of self-replicating computer organisms" (1996)
[http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/ai/The%20evolution%20of%20se...](http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/ai/The%20evolution%20of%20self-
replicating%20computer%20organisms%20-%20A.%20N.%20Pargellis.pdf)

4096x4096 grid. 16 opcodes. Randomly seed the field. Observe string
replicators at surprisingly high frequency. Much simpler than y'all think.

~~~
TekMol
Hmm... They created random computer programs and say that one in 10000 turned
out to be self replicating.

But that is just because they gave them all the necessaray tools to do so. So
the program only has to 1) Set pointer A to its beginning 2) Set pointer B to
somewhere 3) Copy from pointer A to pointer B 4) Increase pointer A 5)
Increase pointer B. 6) GOTO 1

If you look at the actual instruction set they use, it's even worse. They
served the opcodes needed for replication on a silver plate.

That does not count. You could just as well give the programs an opcode that
says "copyMyself" and say that creating life is easy because many programs
used that opcode.

~~~
rwallace
This is true, but not unusual. Any time you ask for the
simplest/earliest/minimal X, you quickly get bogged down in the gray area of
what exactly counts as an X.

So the above doesn't count, okay, make it a bit stricter and it takes a few
orders of magnitude more computation to generate self replication. A bit
stricter again, another few orders of magnitude. Then we run out of computing
power, but can conjecture that by the time you get to the physics of our
universe, self replication will presumably still appear at least once in, say,
every 1e1000 Hubble volumes. Which is still silver plate territory compared to
e.g. Conway's game of life, which has no uphill paths. So you get to pick what
level you're satisfied with.

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actionowl
> This one neat trick can develop life, the void HATES it!

~~~
Toine
Oh how I wish we all weren't trying to abuse human psychological weaknesses to
get cheap clicks and views. At this point I'm tempted to dump the entire
Internet just like I dumped TV... Then I remember you can't live without it
nowadays. Then it swallows me back.

~~~
diggy008
You know what, I'm gonna back you up, you got a point. But it's certain human
psychological weaknesses that lead us to abuse human psychological weaknesses
to get cheap clicks and views. Just take it as something fun to observe and
think about.

No, I don't go to parties either.

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EddieSpeaks
I investigated this in a simulation 8 years ago, link here and a paper in the
description [https://youtu.be/UVyTu3o2A9U](https://youtu.be/UVyTu3o2A9U)

~~~
diegoperini
I have no idea what I watched. Can you ELI5?

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rashthedude
Is it so hard to believe that there's a creator maybe?

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alpaca128
Who/what created the creator then?

And please don't say "the creator has always been there", because the same
could be said about a universe to make a creator redundant...

~~~
andrewflnr
Since that argument cuts exactly as well both ways, why bring it up at all?
We're talking about information content here more than metaphysics.

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danielmain
We are disusing something so ridiculously as we were trying to explain how a
baby alone could possibly win the FIFA World Cup 2018

