December 16, 2008
let that blow your mind
Suppositions on the origins of life.
“The most important idea in our study is that there is no distinction between animate and inanimate,” Arto Annila told PhysOrg.com. “Processes of life are, in their principles, no different from any other natural processes.”
The meat.
In this sense, life is a very natural thing, which emerged simply to satisfy basic physical laws. Our “purpose,” so to speak, is to redistribute energy on the Earth, which is in between a huge potential energy difference caused by the hot Sun and cold space. Organisms evolve via natural selection, but at the most basic level, natural selection is driven by the same thermodynamic principle: increasing entropy and decreasing energy differences. The natural processes from which life emerged, then, are the same processes that keep life going – and they operate on all timescales.
(via andrew sullivan)
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That is heavy, baby.
like, yeah.
Booyah. This matches what I have intuitively imagined to be the case. Which pretty much makes me a materialist, I guess–though if it’s all One then even that distinction breaks down. I love this quote that appears at the end of the article:
“To ask how life started would be the same as to ask when and where did the first wind blow that quivered the surface of a warm pond.”
what ever this is that is it.
but more of it until it spills over.
“Let there be increasing entropy and decreasing energy differences.”
?