<< Thanks for your comments, tinyurl and Tom H.
Tom H., I'd be interested to read a description of how
you think life started;  if you've already posted this,
perhaps you could direct me to the post.

Tom
Check any recent posts of mine.
We are so educated in darwinian selection that many design origin theories to
get to the first replicator.
I think that is wish fulfillment not science.
It competely ignores the energy needed to force chemical reactions.
My idea is this - life is not a system that emerged independent of the
environment -  it is a reaction to that environment. There was 'sun selection'
- what survived the sun cycle, 
then 'chemical selection', t
then darwinian selection.

Life is that which best survives the heat cycle - then utilizes that energy for
novel ways.

__
Having thought things over in response to these comments,
I've come up with what I think is a somewhat more rigorous
statement:

1. Right from the beginning, except perhaps for a few generations
supported by luck,

Tom
Please don't suggest what I call
the  5-passes-of-a-magic-chemical-wand scenarios.
'Partial list of necessary magic, flukes, luck, and grace periods when the
environment in no way interferes with what's going on:

cell, replicator, atp, rna, amino acids, everything being in same place, at
same time, rna and world of amino acids works together, protein needs rna ,
etc. etc. etc. etc.
Who can defend all this. and having one replicator won't solve it.
Because the sun and environment will have billions of years to destroy it
before it




 Life had to be substantially better at
replicating than was anything in the vicinity that was
using the same resources

Why would anything be using resources? If it is an advantage - then why doesn't
water, sugar, salt, rocks using resources.
You are taking a lot for granted here IMO.


 and being spontaneously generated
at a substantial rate.

No the odds are that anything not stable in this environment would be
immediately burned up. Replicator and replicants will probably be burned up -
either that or they will be so hidden from the sun - that they have no energy
source to power replication.


(snipped)
Tom Hendricks,  Musea zine ed.
http://musea.digitalchainsaw.com"
http://www.hunkasaurus.com ( "30" - CD now available)
Hunkasaurus & His Pet Dog Guitar
Musea Review Service (see Musea)
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