44 LIFE FROM AN RNA WORLD

What is life?

A further note on the nature definition of life put forth in this chapter: this point of view suggests that „following the water” or „following the energy” or other NASA-approved ways of stalking new life may be immediate use, but such an approach could prove blinked in the end. The essence of life descent with modifiation. And furthermore, this quality is self-selecting in that it allows life to survive teh general decline of its vicinity by making more of itself. Thinking in this way, replication is life’s ulitamte chemical and physical survival strategy. There may be life, tehrefore, without water or any other familiar chemical sign. When we follow water, we will automacially be led to watery life, and we will be tempted to read thsi as confirmation that all life is like us. But this can easy be an error. This erro potentially becomes more onerous as we more to simpler living things, who need only met the most basic requirements, and as we move to alien ebvironments, where our chemical instructions will be mistaken.

overall, the universe declines as mandated by the law. but life finds a bright local eexception yo general chemical decline in the replicator and its descendant genetic texts.

• maj 2024
• kwiecień 2024
• marzec 2024
• luty 2024
• styczeń 2024
• lipiec 2023
• kwiecień 2023
• grudzień 2022
• lipiec 2022
• luty 2022
• październik 2021
• lipiec 2021
• czerwiec 2021
• maj 2021
• marzec 2021

Life from an RNA Wold

gallery

p. 32
If you do something
inept or mistaken that changes the starting point, you will find
yourself taking an unanticipated route, arriving at an un-
recognizable mixture in which the desired product is dilute or
unrecognizble.

Chemical reactions can be optimized to minimalize side reac-
tions, as they are, for example, in chemical manufacturing
plants. But as soon as your reactans are particles more com-
plicated than single ions or atoms, there are always side prod-
ucts, and often in very substantial amounts. If the intended
product of a chemical reaction is the „right” outcome, there
are usually „wrong” outcomes as well.

pt or mistaken that changes the starting point, you will find
yourself taking an unanticipated route, arriving at an un-
recognizable mixture in which the desired product is dilute or
unrecognizble.
Chemical reactions can be optimized to minimalize side reac-
tions, as they are, for example, in chemical manufacturing
plants. But as soon as your reactans are particles more com-
plicated than single ions or atoms, there are always side prod-
ucts, and often in very substantial amounts. If the intended
product of a chemical reaction is the „right” outcome, there
are usually „wrong” outcomes as well.

around 4 billion years agoThe hypothesis posists that DNA later became the genetic material as a result of evolution because RNA was a relatively unstable molecule. According to the RNA World Hypothesis, around 4 billion years ago, RNA was the primary living substance, largely due to RNA’s ability to function as both genes and enzymes

The low passes, the easy crossings, correspond
to the probable chemical reactions. Were atoms and molecules to elect these accessible routes, they would likely react, that is,
cross to new chemical arrangements in the next valley.

The higher passes offer less probable passagr (less probable chemic-
al reactions), because reaching them requires activation en-
ergy for climbing, and so they are more rearely traveled.

Peks
are places you seldom go during normal travel, and only with
good and resolute reason. (h2)

Seen with a chemical turn of mind,
different passes and crossings might be attacks by an electron-
hungry regent on different crowds of electrons )negative charges) within a reacting molecule.

1. Everyone who has performed chemical reactions-with a
2. home chemistry set or in teh sanctioning nme of education
3. A Dance od Atoms…
   1. within a university labolatory-instincively understands one
   2. important property of this picture.
4. 
   
   
   

We can frequently use one (e.g.., the old,
less error-ridden one) selectively as a reference and navigate
around a single isolated error. To be complex creatures in-
escapably means that we have found similar exceptionally
good ways of working around the inevitable „chemical” er-
rors. We, in our role as replicators, nearly always take the cor-
rect pass out of the valley, or at least switch over to the desired
trail if we start off in the wrong direction. 
But a primitive creature is very prone to error and cannot
avoid it with sophisticated correcting devices like those we
use. As an evolutionarily relevant illustration of the funda-
mental origins of error, recall the standard DNA nucleotides
A, T, G and C. The GC base pair (guanine-cytosine) is the 

34    LIFE FROM AN RNA WORLD 

Watson-Crick norm in DNA, but the GT base „mispair”
(guanine-thymine) is only slightly less stable and will neces-
sarily occur a significant fraction of the time as a normal DNA
nucleic acid sequence is replicated. 

Thus the nucleobase G
„should” pair with C during replication, but a small fraction
of the time it will pair with the abnormal partner T, a poten-
iatl mistake in any genetic text. Such errors can be corrected,
but a more primitive replicating system may not be able to do
so accurately. 

Fizyczne podstawy świadomości
Problem

Świat jest konstrukcją naszych wrażeń, percepcji 

i wspomnień. Dla wygody przyjmujemy, że istnieje obiektywnie, samoistnie. Z pewnością jednak nie jawi się na mocy samego swego istnie-nia. Jest dla nas owocem także bardzo szczególnych przebie-gów zdarzeń w tej wyróżnionej części świata, jaką jest nasz mózg. To nader osobliwe twierdzenie każe zapytać: jakież to szczególne cechy wyróżniają przebiegające w mózgu procesy, umożliwiające odwzorowywanie się w nim świata? Czy potra-fimy odgadnąć, które z nich są, a które nie są do tego usposo-bione? Lub prościej: jakiego to rodzaju procesy materialne związane są bezpośrednio ze świadomością?
Racjonalista skłonny będzie załatwić się żwawo z tym pro-blemem, powiadając z grubsza co następuje: na podstawie na-szego własnego doświadczenia oraz analogii w świecie zwie-rząt wyższych sądzimy, iż świadomość związana jest z pewnym rodzajem zdarzeń zachodzących w materii żywej, a mianowicie z niektórymi procesami nerwowymi. Kwestia, jak daleko sięgając w głąb królestwa zwierząt, napotykamy jakiś rodzaj świadomości i na czym polegać może świadomość w tych wczesnych stadiach ewolucji, jest problemem nieroz-strzygalnym, przedmiotem daremnych spekulacji. Lepiej go pozostawić nawiedzonym fantastom. Jeszcze bardziej bez-owocne jest wdawanie się w rozważania, czy przypadkiem również i inne procesy, w tym nieorganiczne, nie są jakoś zwią-zane ze świadomością. Wszystko to są fantastyczne pomysły, równie trudne do udowodnienia, jak do obalenia, a więc na-ukowo bezwartościowe.

6BT* Możecie jeść wszelkie zwierzę o rpozdzielonym kopycie, to jest parzysto rozłożonej racicy, 
i które przeżuwa.