h a l f b a k e r yThis ain't rocket surgery.
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Possibly, we are the adaptation of life's earlier forms, which began not in water, but earlier, in volcanic or lava environments, or at the boundaries of water formation in extra-hot environments, while the world was cooling down, during some period of darkness after a volcanic eruption, or in what was
then the north or south poles.
It is commonly accepted that life most probably started with thermophiles and that chemosynthesis is what started it all.
This not-completely-thought-through hypothesis, which I am proposing, says that in fact, it may have happened earlier than previously thought, getting energy from the existing hydrogen gas, hydrogen sulfide or ferrous ions which were abundant, and interacting with thermodynamically favorable premordial co2 to create organic chains with carbon.
Perhaps ATP/ADP, and amino acids preceded the C chains as organic matter, then when water came around, bingo! We got life as we know it?
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[+] for opening this sort of discussion. |
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I may be telling you things you already know but there has been an hypothesis that life first formed when organic molecules accumulated on the surface of clays. Another hypothesis, less popular, is that in the early Universe there was a phase during which molecules formed into microörganisms when the Universe was much smaller, the ideal temperature for the origin of life and contained more concentrated matter than it now does. According to that hypothesis, all life of the kind familiar here was distributed throughout space and later settled on various hospitable bodies, including Earth. If that's so, the kind of life in question would be similar to life today in that it uses water. The molecular clock hypothesis also seems to show that life using DNA, I think (possibly RNA if the RNA world hypothesis is also accepted), is older than Earth. |
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I tend to believe in panspermia because it gives a larger volume and more arbitrary reactions for abiogenesis than just the Earth's surface or oceans, or smaller regions such as geothermal vents or carbonate-rich lakes. |
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This admits the possibility of lifeforms based on silicon, or copper, or sulphur at some time in a planet's evolution. What if these alternate forms died out when conditions favored exclusively water-based carbon meatbags, from the microscopic up? |
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On the other hand we may be the only sentient result of a chain of very unlikely accidents. Either way we may be screwed. |
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