English mathematician-physicist Karl Pearson's 1892 interjection on the jump from living (matter) to lifeless (matter), or dead matter to living matter, in regards to something "not yet life", which is a half-alive type of theory speculation. [6] |
“Those who believe that the organic [see: living matter] has been developed from inorganic, that living has proceeded from dead ‘matter’ [see: dead matter], may then assert that there must be in matter ‘something-which-is-not-yet-life-but-which-may-develop-into-life’, and may fitly term this side of matter supermateriality.”
“When ultra-violet light acts on a mixture of water, carbon dioxide, and ammonia, a vast variety of organic substances are made, including sugars and apparently [Edward Baly, 1920s] some of the materials from which proteins are built up. The first living or half-living things were probably large molecules synthesized under the influence of the sun’s radiation, and only capable of reproduction in the particularly favorable medium in which they originated.”
“Let us provisionally arrange ‘natural entities’ in ascending order in an emergent hierarchy. Such a suit may be: atom, molecule, colloidal unit, ‘biocule’, cell, multicellular organism, community of such organisms. Here ‘biocule’ stands for a hypothetical link in the chain.”
“On the assumption that all are in accordance with nature, and that they stand in order of evolutionary genesis, it follows that, at some stage of evolution a, there were atoms only; at stage b, molecules (and atoms) only. Not until stage c was reached were there living units (may one say ‘biocules’?) in biochemical relationship. Here we come into touch with the hypothesis, the fullest knowledge of the nature and properties of the atomic world at stage a would not enable the most for-sighted atomic logician, so to speak, to deduce and foretell the nature and properties of the molecules at stage b; nor would the fullest knowledge of molecules at this stage of evolution enable the molecular logician to predict the distinctive character of ‘biocules’ at stage c, that is before any ‘biocule’ had come into existence.”
atoms (dead) + molecules (dead) → biocules (alive)
“The business of biology is to study all aspects of life, from semiliving molecules to automation. At last week's Manhattan meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which goes heavy on biology, platoons of speakers went to work on life. Some highlights: Original Soup. Best theory of how life began assumes that the earth once had a "reducing" atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water, as the outer planets have now. Solar radiation and lightning, according to the theory, turned this mixture into organic molecules which gradually grew complex enough to...”
American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims' 2007 ridicule diagram of the absurdity of the "more alive" (coenzyme A, a 6-element molecule), "alive" (RNA, a 5-element molecule), not alive or "less alive" (aspartic acid a 4-element molecule), or definitely not alive hydrogen molecule (a 1-element molecule) or hydrogen atom position. [3] |
See main: More alive / less alive theoryIn 1993, Canadian political scientist Paris Arnopoulos, in his "Life" chapter, to his Sociophysics, gave the following summary: [9]
“Primitive and pagan people attribute some kind of life to all creation. The pre-Socratics concurred with this belief, as Thales’ hylozoism and Pythagoras’ pananimism attest. From this traditional viewpoint, all beings are alive in different ways and various degrees, the more formidable the complexity of its components, the more alive is the system.”