Month: September 2022

SLIEGT OF HAND. “Often the issue of defining life is sidestepped by assuming that if one can build a simple chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution, then the rest will follow suit and the problem of life's origin will de facto be solved.” https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn

THE TRANSITION POINT. “Although few are willing to accept a simple self-replicating molecule as living, the assumption is that after a sufficiently long period of Darwinian evolution this humble replicator will eventually be transformed into an entity complex enough that it is indisputably living.” (Think prions for this gnarly one!) https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn

REPLICATIVE INFORMATION. “The origin of life can be understood mathematically to be the origin of information that can replicate.” This may be the best definition yet. https://lnkd.in/eQatsFK View in LinkedIn

BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION. “Although it is notoriously hard to identify precisely what makes life so distinctive and remarkable, there is general agreement that its informational aspect is one key property, and perhaps the key property.” https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn

UNIQUE STATUS. “The manner in which information flows through and between cells and sub-cellular structures is quite unlike anything else observed in nature.” https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn

UNIQUE STATUS. “The manner in which information flows through and between cells and sub-cellular structures is quite unlike anything else observed in nature.” https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn

GREATER THAN THE SUM. “If life is more than just complex chemistry, its unique informational management properties may be the crucial indicator of this distinction.” https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn

SLIPPERY DEVIL. “Unfortunately, the way that information operates in biology is not easily characterized.” https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn

“BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION has an additional quality which may roughly be called ‘functionality’—or ‘contextuality’—that sets it apart from a collection of mere bits.” https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn

CONTEXTUALITY NOT BLUEPRINT. “The genome is only a small part of the story. DNA is not a blueprint for an organism: no information is actively processed by DNA alone.” https://lnkd.in/ewsT9EQ View in LinkedIn