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What is life? I have had this discussion many times and they bring up love and all the other personal soft stuff. What I mean is what is the chemical mix that results in a thing that moves,requires daily maintenance, has feelings ETC> I just discussed this with a chemist who stated you come up with a need and then you start to mix chemicals until you obtain the desired product. Sometimes it takes 1000's of trys to make the correct product. On our planet nature has mixed X amount of atoms,molecules etc to make repetitive life many times over. Can one just wonder at the number of times this had to occur to get multiple forms of life and it must be occurring all over the universe. I sure hope if their is intelligent life as we define it that they are better at managing their planet than we are.

Marine 8 Nov 29
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Stolen from several places... In Abiogenesis, the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds, the current theory is organic compounds (carbon containing molecules), developed into RNA World Protocells. The RNA world is a hypothetical stage in the evolutionary history of life on Earth, in which self-replicating RNA molecules proliferated before the evolution of DNA and proteins. Like DNA, RNA can store and replicate genetic information; like enzymes, it can catalyze (start or accelerate) chemical reactions that are critical for life (then called Ribozyme). One of the most critical components of the cell, ribosome, is composed primarily of RNA. If the RNA world existed, it was probably followed by an age characterized by the evolution of ribonucleoproteins (RNP world), which in turn ushered in the era of DNA and longer proteins. The reason why DNA became the predominant storage molecule may be because it is more stable and durable than RNA. Protein enzymes may have come to replace RNA-based ribozymes as biocatalysts because their greater abundance and diversity of monomers makes them more versatile. As some co-factors contain both nucleotide and amino acid characteristic, it may be that amino acids, peptides and finally proteins initially were co-factors for ribozymes. And then Ur-organism, the first life species, defined as incorporating the Central Dogma Of Molecular Biology of DNA-RNA-Protein. The coded genetic information hard-wired into DNA is transcribed into individual transportable cassettes, composed of messenger RNA (mRNA); each mRNA cassette contains the program for synthesis of a particular protein (or small number of proteins).

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If you find the meaning and purpose of life you will be able to answer your question. I don't recommend looking for it though, it is a very dangerous journey of self discovery which usually leads to death.

I know you probably went through hell during basic training and war. But the meaning and purpose of life is something far beyond normal comprehension. It's depressing and cold, it messes with your head. I've mostly tried to forget about it, I haven't touched it for years. But I'm addicted to discovering the rest of it, I'm driven by curiosity to see if I can change the meaning and purpose of life, if only I could understand it fully.

Life is no accident and it was not made by some omnipotent being, however if in one of my theories there is an omnipotent being, they created the conditions for life to exist but they didn't create life itself.

Anyway, have a nice day.
I know this answer doesn't help very much but it's all i got.

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To me, the universe's highest level of creativity is DNA. It evolves to be more complex as it adapts because of environmental pressures, even as fast as in one generation (look up Darwin's finches). So it's not just trial and error and what they call hopeful monsters (i.e. adaptive changes that just "happen" to help the organism thrive).

Life started with single cells like fungi and bacteria, and became more complex through the millennia. It didn't have to be recreated thousands of times to get the biological diversity we have... we're all descendants of the original life forms. This is the accepted position of biologists.

I wrote a lengthy response but have zapped it! The one point I disagree with is that DNA does NOT get more complex. It is as "complex" as it was before; it's just that the genes that it contains have changed. Also, it is generally agreed that the fundamental unit of life is a gene, not DNA.

@zanyfish DNA makes up a gene. To correct myself, what I actually meant was that organisms grow more complex thanks to DNA. The main point being that at the root is DNA, so don’t be so pedantic.

Understood. And I wasn't intending to be pedantic - just accurate. One of my key defences when it comes to religious zealots is having the right ammunition to counter their arguments, and an understanding of the mechanics of evolution is one of them.

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