Can it be that in the primeval ocean, thanks to some energy source like sunlight, volcano or lighting, the amino acids randomly unite a long chain (protein?) and some of which were able to increase their length. When a chain was too long it broke, and if the sequences were similar enough to the original, and chain broke in right place, it had the ability to increase its amino acid chain just like the “parent”. Thus those chains which were able to grown the chain with similar sequences than they have and have a weak point in the right places, could “reproduce”. After that they “learn” how to use another chain as resource for themselves then they try to defend it, which later evolves to a singular cell.
I think that's possible. The rules that the life form must obey must be reproducible, and stable enough to reproduce. So we can learn the necessary rules from what we know from existing life forms. So maybe this question is reduced to the key: what exactly form it is, inorganic/organic, amino/nucleic acid? is it a inevitable result or a stochastic process?
Well I don't know the exactly form, but I think it only contains few (I guess 4 or 5) type of amino acid, can’t be too long, it must be a family (with very similar sequence) than a concrete sequence, because it must have been robust against errors. I think this process is more likely convergent, I mean if the conditions are within acceptable limits the probability converges to 1, but it will be never 1, just 0,99999 with enough time (few million/billion years?), which can be considered as inevitable with a little slip.
Check the research of Fox and Dose on proteinoid microspheres- 1977 I believe. Groups of proteins assembled themselves into cell like structures with more than 100 cell-like traits including growth and reproduction which occurred as an accident of growth. Single chains of proteins are less likely to be self organizing (Autopoietic) systems. Fox and Dose were not investigating biogenesis- it just happened accidentally.
- Badges
- Science method