Will the origin of life ever be uncovered? | Kate Adamala, Addy Pross and Chrisantha Fernando

Addy Pross, Kate Adamala and Chrisantha Fernando battle it out over the origins of life.
This is an excerpt from the debate ‘The origin of life,' filmed in September 2023 at the HowTheLightGetsIn festival in London.
Watch the full debate at iai.tv/video/the-origin-of-li...
Humans have always marvelled at the wonders of life. But for nearly a century science has had an explanation for the immense variety of life forms on earth. Out of a primordial soup a random combination of chemicals generated the building blocks of life. Evolution did the rest. But might this account be mistaken? Despite decades of effort, biologists and biochemists have been unable to evolve living things from inorganic material. The emergence of the first cell and the development of complex life remain a mystery.
Is there something about the origin of life that means it will never be uncovered? Is the failure to account for life a threat to the whole evolutionary story? Or might we be able at some point to demonstrate the evolution of cells from inorganic material and the subsequent development of complex life forms? And if so where might this solution be found?
#TheOriginOfLife #CreationMyth #Evolution
Addy Pross is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. His research interests lie in the physics-chemistry-biology relationship and the origin of life. His pioneering book ‘What Is Life? How Chemistry Becomes Biology’ has been published nearly a dozen languages.
Katarzyna (Kate) Adamala is a pioneering synthetic biologist and genetics professor at the University of Minnesota. Her groundbreaking work spans the realms of astrobiology, synthetic cell engineering, and biocomputing.
Chrisantha Fernando is a multifaceted scientist who began his journey in medicine at Oxford and transitioned into AI research. He earned an MSc in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems at Sussex, followed by a PhD in simulating the origin of life with Eors Szathmary. Currently at DeepMind, he specializes in the intersection of evolution and learning in AI, with a particular interest in open-ended evolution.
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[@lokayatavishwam9594]

"Purpose doesn't mean there's a decision maker".. This statement neatly demonstrates the core confusion in this discussion. Agency is conflated with Telos, to undermine an argument that foregrounds the directionality of evolution and not the primacy of individual agents or selves and their roles in guiding the direction of evolution. The accusation of anthropomorphization would've made sense if we had some sort of consensus on the definition and veridicality of concepts like Self and Freewill.

[@Protoncloud]

Please add speed control for your media on site.🙏

[@Ihsan_khan00]

Without ever dwelling into understanding itself, we try to to understand everything.

[@impossiblevisits]

You mean delving?

[@paulonius42]

Your comment is nonsense. Try it again, but this time say something intelligent. Don't try to sound clever.

[@Ihsan_khan00]

@@paulonius42 exactly much of higher knowledge is non sense to common folks. Thanks for proving my point.

[@pikiwiki]

yes. @@impossiblevisits

[@paulonius42]

​@@Ihsan_khan00don't try to condescend. You wrote gibberish. Perhaps English is not your native language, but what you wrote is nonsense. You meant the word delve, not dwell, and your statement is false. We actively study understanding. There are multiple branches of philosophy and science that study the nature of knowledge, thought, consciousness, and understanding. Don't reply again if you're going to try to sound smarter than you are. Either just make your point like a decent person, or be quiet.

[@FogUs-sz9pb]

Went to the IAI streaming site and.... it doesn't work at all as well as KZbin.

[@audiodead7302]

As always, you have to define your terms carefully in these debates. I wouldn't use the word 'purpose' because it has teleological connotations. 'Function' is a more relevant word. Nature is full of things that perform a 'function'. Our lungs, arms/legs, hearts, brains,....etc all perform a function. They take inputs and produce outputs/actions which are useful to the 'function' of a higher order system (i.e. living things). Our minds are hardwired to see the world in terms of functions. That's what triggers existential angst and leads us to ask "what is our purpose? what is the purpose of life?". Truthfully, I don't think there is one. Causality got us up to this point and will determine what happens next.

[@thstroyur]

1) So there is no explanation for the origin of life, on your own terms 2) You can think all day long that there is no purpose to Life, the Universe and Everything - not that neither of these care about what you think. Since this is supposedly a scientific position, come back when you have that all-important scientific evidence to back it up

[@Thomas-gk42]

I saw the debate live in London. Kate Adamala is a great biologist

[@michaeljacobs5342]

Purpose as an intended Act of Creation, as opposed to a mere Accident. Therefore, to suggest that purpose does not emerge from a biological solution, but life seeks to realise purpose as an instinctive/inherent feature of the universal unifying force of higher intelligence, inherent in nature.

[@marcobiagini1878]

I am a physicist and I will explain why our scientific knowledge refutes the idea that consciousness is generated by the brain and that the origin of our mental experiences is physical/biological (which oviously implies that consciousness cannot be a product of evolution). My argument proves that the fragmentary structure of brain processes implies that brain processes are not a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness, which existence implies the existence in us of an indivisible unphysical element, which is usually called soul or spirit (in my youtube channel you can find a video with more detailed explanations). I also argue that all emergent properties are subjective cognitive contructs used to approximately describe underlying physical processes, and that these descriptions refer only to mind-dependent entities. Consciousness, being implied by these cognitive contructs, cannot itself be an emergent property. Preliminary considerations: the concept of set refers to something that has an intrinsically conceptual and subjective nature and implies the arbitrary choice of determining which elements are to be included in the set; what exists objectively are only the single elements. In fact, when we define a set, it is like drawing an imaginary line that separates some elements from all the other elements; obviously this imaginary line does not exist physically, independently of our mind, and therefore any set is just an abstract idea, a cognitive construct and not a physical entity and so are all its properties. Similar considerations can be made for a sequence of elementary processes; sequence is a subjective and abstract concept. Mental experience is a precondition for the existence of subjectivity/arbitrariness and cognitive constructs, therefore mental experience cannot itself be a cognitive construct; obviously we can conceive the concept of consciousness, but the concept of consciousness is not actual consciousness. (With the word consciousness I do not refer to self-awareness, but to the property of being conscious= having a mental experiences such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories and even dreams). From the above considerations it follows that only indivisible elements may exist objectively and independently of consciousness, and consequently the only logically coherent and significant statement is that consciousness exists as a property of an indivisible element. Furthermore, this indivisible entity must interact globally with brain processes because we know that there is a correlation between brain processes and consciousness. This indivisible entity is not physical, since according to the laws of physics, there is no physical entity with such properties; therefore this indivisible entity can be identified with what is traditionally called soul or spirit. The soul is the missing element that interprets globally the distinct elementary physical processes occurring at separate points in the brain as a unified mental experience. Some clarifications. The laws of physics describe in principle all the physical processes of which brain processes consist, without defining the system "brain". The brain does not physically exist as a single entity but is only a subjective cognitive construct that refers to a set of arbitrarily chosen quantum particles; actually there is a continuous exchange of molecules with the blood and when and how such molecules start and stop being part of the brain is decided arbitrarily. Brain processes consist of many parallel sequences of ordinary elementary physical processes occurring at separate points. There is no direct connection between the separate points in the brain and such connections are just a subjective abstractions used to approximately describe sequences of many distinct physical processes. Indeed, considering consciousness as a property of an entire sequence of elementary processes implies the arbitrary definition of the entire sequence; the entire sequence as a whole (and therefore every function/property/capacity attributed to the brain) is a subjective abstraction that does not refer to any mind-independendent reality. Physicalism/naturalism is based on the belief that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. However, an emergent property is defined as a property that is possessed by a set of elements that its individual components do not possess; my arguments prove that this definition implies that emergent properties are only subjective cognitive constructs and therefore, consciousness cannot be an emergent property. Actually, all the alleged emergent properties are just simplified and approximate descriptions or subjective/arbitrary classifications of underlying physical processes or properties, which are described directly by the fundamental laws of physics alone, without involving any emergent properties (arbitrariness/subjectivity is involved when more than one option is possible; in this case, more than one possible description). An approximate description is only an abstract idea, and no actual entity exists per se corresponding to that approximate description, simply because an actual entity is exactly what it is and not an approximation of itself. What physically exists are the underlying physical processes. Emergence is nothing more than a cognitive construct that is applied to physical phenomena, and cognition itself can only come from a mind; thus emergence can never explain mental experience as, by itself, it implies mental experience. Marco Biagini

[@dougsmith6793]

Show me even ONE example of consciousness existing outside of a specific type of material / physical infrastructure, and I'll agree with you.

[@marcobiagini1878]

@@dougsmith6793 My arguments are not meant to prove that brain processes are not necessary for the existence of our consciousness. My arguments prove that brain processes are not a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness and that the existence of an indivisible non-physical element, which is usually called spirit or soul, is also necessary for the existence of our consciousness.

[@dougsmith6793]

@@marcobiagini1878 [marco]: "My arguments are not meant to prove that brain processes are not necessary for the existence of our consciousness. My arguments prove that brain processes are not a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness and that the existence of an indivisible non-physical element, which is usually called spirit or soul, is also necessary for the existence of our consciousness." This really depends on what consciousness actually is. Consciousness is such a cool thing that "demoting" it to a simple explanation is blasphemy / sacrilege. If consciousness is really a tap into a reality beyond materiality, then any material explanation will ultimately prove insufficient. But if it's actually a pretty simple thing, and emergent under an evolutionary process, then physical / material based explanations may well be entirely sufficient. I would put my own experience of consciousness up against anybody's. And if that's the case, then even I have to concede, as much as I might object to it, that physical / material explanations may be entirely sufficient.

[@dougsmith6793]

@@marcobiagini1878 Well, no one wants to find resonance with what you propose more than I do. But if we don't know exactly what consciousness is, then the idea of "sufficient" explanation for it becomes impossible to define. If consciousness is really a tap into some cosmic mind, then material / physical explanations will be insufficient. If consciousness is really much simpler than that, then physical / material explanations are probably sufficient. Hard to blame folks for thinking that consciousness is of cosmic significance. I'm not convinced that that isn't an illusion, though, albeit an understandable one. Ultimately, I'm more interested in the actual truth of the matter than what the truth actually is. I prefer the "woo" myself -- but the truth has no obligation to abide by my personal preferences.

[@marcobiagini1878]

@@dougsmith6793 You wrote:"But if we don't know exactly what consciousness is, then the idea of "sufficient" explanation for it becomes impossible to define." Actually, we know exactly what consciousness is because consciousness is the only reality that we directly know. In fact consciousness is the property of being conscious = having a mental experience such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, memories or even dreams. My arguments prove that brain processes are not a sufficient condition for the existence of consciousness; you have simply ignored my arguments, therefore I see no reason to continue this conversation. Best regards.

[@claragabbert-fh1uu]

The purpose of evolution IS sustained feedback! A reaction system is rewarded by it's product. Purpose is sustained expression, improved by cyclic allocation of resources to condition. Generations may have adopted life cycle change from viruses.

[@deeprecce9852]

Perhaps someday we may finally discover the unifying theory of everything( QM+GR)...but unifying religion, philosophy and science in my opinion will never happen!

[@sentientflower7891]

Abiogenesis is Impossible specifically because chemistry doesn't have purpose or direction or goal.

[@dougsmith6793]

But put chemistry inside a feedback loop with a filter, and now chemistry will do whatever the filter tells it to do -- chemistry will gain a new "purpose", which is to be the product of the feedback loop itself.

[@sentientflower7891]

@@dougsmith6793 there are no filters on a sterile planet.

[@nathanrobbins7668]

@@dougsmith6793 that’s not sufficient to produce cellular life. Not even close

[@houstandy1009]

Where are you getting a feed back loop from?

[@dougsmith6793]

@@sentientflower7891 [sf]: "there are no filters on a sterile planet." Lol. EVERY environment is a filter. Space itself is an environment -- and it will definitely filter out anything that cannot survive in it. This is a huge mischaracterization / misunderstanding on your part, and sufficiently explains why you don't understand evolution.

[@parse.thoughtspace]

I've read a couple of books about the origin of life, so I have somewhat of a grasp on the unsolved problems. That being said, I believe we have it understood for the most part. Life most likely began as a small bubble enclosing an autocatalytic set of molecules. I think this is more likely than the alternative hypotheses. People have a tendency to inject mystery into things to leave room for mysticism. This is one area that people do this in. There are some mysteries involving things like the origin of the eukaryotic cell for example, but the picture is filled for the most part.

[@cgivensldr]

The odds of one 155-chain protein being formed is 10 to the 95th power. That would take longer than the estimated age of the Universe. It would also have to be polymarized. Inside of a cell with cell walls that have an outer an inner-outer wall, and an inner wall with inner- outer walls. That can control the in flow and outflow of materials from outside of the cell. The cell is full of complex machines. So how did the first living cell begin? The pool we supposedly crawled out of, in the right environment would need nitrogen, which would kill all the needed amino acids required for life.

[@dougsmith6793]

@@cgivensldr [cgi]: "The odds of one 155-chain protein being formed is 10 to the 95th power." Lol. This argument assumes that this occurred all at once, rather than being a product of a series of smaller, much more reasonable, plausible steps. [cgi]: "That would take longer than the estimated age of the Universe." Aside from the fact that the argument itself is based on a misunderstanding, this argument also assumes that this only happened in one place in the entire universe. But if there are (latest estimate) between 2 and 6 trillion galaxies out there, each with hundreds of billions of stars, most of which have multiple planets, and billions or even trillions of places on each of those planets where chemical reactions can occur, those kinds of numbers swamp the implication of impossibility. The likelihood of any one person winning a lottery is pretty much zero. But if you have millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions of players, someone will win every drawing. So, cgi, you're working off not just one, but two very basic misunderstandings about how the process actually works. [cgi]: "It would also have to be polymarized [sic]. Inside of a cell with cell walls that have an outer an inner-outer wall, and an inner wall with inner- outer walls. That can control the in flow and outflow of materials from outside of the cell." All of this would have developed incrementally as well. This may well be the most common misunderstanding by creationists. Learning about evolution from creationists makes as much sense as learning auto mechanics from a proctologist. That fully accounts for your misunderstandings -- you simply don't know enough to tell the difference between information and misinformation. [cgi]: "The cell is full of complex machines. So how did the first living cell begin? The pool we supposedly crawled out of, in the right environment would need nitrogen, which would kill all the needed amino acids required for life." There are at least a few pretty well-done videos on YT that break this down. But if you were really interested in the first place, you'd already know this.

[@sentientflower7891]

​@@dougsmith6793you do not have access to the entire set of amino acids prior to the existence of life, at best only 11 amino acids are available via abiotic chemistry and of those 11 perhaps only three exist in anything other than trace amounts. In fact on a sterile planet it is unlikely that you would ever find 100 amino acids so concentrated that they would exist together within the volume of a bacteria cell.

[@thstroyur]

So much so there isn't a single piece of _hard_ evidence to back any of it up. Admit it: abiogenesis is accepted not on the basis of merit, but merely because of the psychological need to repress the alternative. That is not science, it's more akin to politics

[@cgivensldr]

I don't disagree with you. So how did life begin? And don't forget all the moons around all the countless planets in trillions of galaxies that could have life. Life may propagate in many ways that we can't define. You are brilliant. @dougsmith6793

[@SpokoSpoko]

Some scientists are religious people and they have difficulties in separation of their believes from the scientific method. They are biased, they see what they want to see and are happy about that. Therefore the book mention at the beginning and suggestions about purpose of the evolution are results of that situation.

[@relaxisasinaturequran]

Im really love mashatoshi nei said Natural selection is like dogma. 😂for me .. its metaphysics of naturalism. you cannot incorporate philosophy into the scientific method😊

[@JungleJargon]

Aim at nothing and you will hit it every time.

[@homewall744]

When does "intent" come to genes/mutations? What mind intends it?!

[@houstandy1009]

When you get a virus your immune system searchers your DNA for a template of an antibody to combat it. If it doesn’t find one it turns off the error correction enzymes so the error rate increases from 10>9 to 10>4. This is quite remarkable even more so when you consider the error correction is not turned off for the full antibody but only the part that grabs the virus. If these errors produce an antibody that can be used the error correction enzymes are turned back on and the new antibody is mass produced the useless mutations receive an order to die. This to me indicates the organism has some sort of agency over its genome, to choose to initiate chance and make use of that chance.

[@theamazingquran6812]

Quran 2:164 In the water which Allah sent down from the Heavens and brought with it life to Earth after being dead and gave life in it to every kind of land animal; And in directing the winds; And in the clouds that are enslaved between the Heavens and the Earth; [All these] are Signs for a people who comprehend. Quran 40:68 He it is who ( Allah) gives life and causes death; and when He decrees a matter, He but says to it, "Be," and it is.

[@henryfield15]

Goodbye so soon never to return. Thank you.

[@Aasifraza07]

Can you explain how a non-living substance can transform into a living organism?

[@Thomas-gk42]

You first have to define what's living

[@hartyewh1]

Living or life is as mechanistic as any chemical process in nature. The level of complexity makes it seem as something different, but that's for our need to categorize things. Certainly it opens up new levels of abstraction like dna code, behaviour, motivations and so on, but concetrating on a single celled organism we see quite well how the machine functions. There is no transformation, but an unclear line drawn between things for a sense of clarity.

[@CamiloGaetePuga]

Exactly, and upon defining what living means there will be other philosophical and epistemological problems and divergence of postures between minds. The same process repeated when we try to define the concepts that define ''living''. And so on and so forth till we arrive to the realization that we cannot define anything and that there is no common ground for a debate unless we understand exactly the same for every concept and word used in a debate, which is of course impossible.

[@Thomas-gk42]

@@hartyewh1entirely correct

[@dougsmith6793]

Yikes. I can't believe Pross misses what may be the most basic point about evolution: it's a feedback loop whose filter is the environment -- and that filter separates what survives long enough to reproduce from that which doesn't. The end result might look as if it "intended" to do this, but it's a completely reactive process, not a proactive one. But he seems to stick by his "purpose" argument, when there's no purpose at all, only stuff that lives and stuff that doesn't ... and now he has created his own problem, trying to explain the origin of "purpose", when it's a mischaracterization to begin with.

[@thstroyur]

Yikes. You seem to miss the point that a feedback loop can't kickstart itself - which is why evobiologists seem to be stuck with just believing in abiogenesis, on blind faith alone.

[@dougsmith6793]

@@thstroyur [t]: "Yikes. You seem to miss the point that a feedback loop can't kickstart itself - which is why evobiologists seem to be stuck with just believing in abiogenesis, on blind faith alone." Yikes. Biology produces offspring. The offspring are filtered by the environment, which then produce new offspring. Lather, rinse, repeat. This iterative cycle, in which the output of a system becomes its own input, is the very definition of what a feedback loop is. Yes, feedback loops absolutely kick-start themselves -- it's how tornados and hurricanes form. It's what the hydrologic cycle is. They're kick-started by circumstance itself.

[@thstroyur]

@@dougsmith6793 Yikes. Yeah, natural selection is a thing. But natural selection cannot create that which it needs to select in the first place - just like the Baron of Munchausen can't really pull himself up from that bog by tugging hard at his pigtail. "Yes, feedback loops absolutely kick-start themselves" Oh, so you mean the air molecules that compose tornados and hurricanes were created by the tornados and hurricanes out of nothing? Or maybe we don't need to go that far back - maybe we can just say the tornados and hurricanes created Earth's atmosphere alongside the initial values required to get themeselves going - perhaps they created the hot disc of material that supposedly gave birth to the Solar System? While we're on the subject, yes natural selection works wonders as a brute sorting mechanism - but whence from this sorting do we get the creative powers required of genetic mutations in order to account for the _whole_ Tree of Life, beyond believing blindly it has such a power ITFP?

[@dougsmith6793]

@@thstroyur [t]: "Yikes. Yeah, natural selection is a thing. But natural selection cannot create that which it needs to select in the first place - just like the Baron of Munchausen can't really pull himself up from that bog by tugging hard at his pigtail." Well, uh, yes ... n.s. "creates" everything, from stars to galaxies to planetary systems, to hurricanes, tornados, and volcanoes. Then it operates on everything that it "created". So this is just a plain wrong view on your part. [t]: "Oh, so you mean the air molecules that compose tornados and hurricanes were created by the tornados and hurricanes out of nothing? Or maybe we don't need to go that far back - maybe we can just say the tornados and hurricanes created Earth's atmosphere alongside the initial values required to get themeselves going - perhaps they created the hot disc of material that supposedly gave birth to the Solar System?" This objection makes zero sense. Feedback loops pop-up wherever circumstances permit. There are tornados (vortices) on the Earth, the sun, Mars, and Jupiter. [t]: "While we're on the subject, yes natural selection works wonders as a brute sorting mechanism - but whence from this sorting do we get the creative powers required of genetic mutations in order to account for the whole Tree of Life, beyond believing blindly it has such a power ITFP?" If you understand evolution, you know that biology itself, mostly through "imperfect" reproduction, produces the variations. Natural selection determines which of those variations will survive long enough to reproduce. It's a feedback loop, a system where the output is continually "fed back" into the input -- and any fb loop like that will "select" those variations that keep the process going. The "output", of course, will always be organisms that survive the filter, by definition. Is there any reason that natural selection wouldn't also work at the tiniest scales like it does at the largest scales?

[@dougsmith6793]

@@thstroyur [t]: "You seem to miss the point that a feedback loop can't kickstart itself..." You present this as a statement of fact. Yet vortices -- seen on Earth as tornados, also seen on Jupiter, Mars, and the sun -- are examples of feedback loops that have most certainly kick-started themselves. And I missed the point, when it's abundantly clear that you don't even know what you're talking about? And then, in another post, you proudly boast of your "high standards", and your "scientific" mind -- when you're presenting clear and provable falsehoods as facts? Then, you want to engage on "miracles" -- and use a 2000-year-old book, not even written by eyewitnesses, but folks who claim there were eyewitnesses (who, conveniently, cannot be cross-examined) -- as your example? Do you see why I quit taking you seriously some time ago? I'm not insulting your intelligence. You repeatedly insult your own intelligence.

[@ericberg2131]

Most of this panel still don't know what a woman is, and they're trying to figure out the origins of life. 🤡🤡🤡🤡

[@Spiegelradtransformation]

This old guy - is Advertising. Darwin: No Direction + Wallace Too. iai??? I ?