Wednesday, February 07, 2024

Did plasmoid life serve as a midwife for biological life?

Somehow the plasmoid life should have evolved to biological life. The natural guess is that biomolecules evolved in the dust particles interacting with the plasmoids. For instance, they are known to become electrically charged. Carbonaceous chondrites (see this) are especially interesting dust particles since they contain water, silicates, and basic organic molecules such as amino acids serving as natural candidates for the storage of metabolic energy. Chondrites also contain glass balls, which must have emerged from liquid silicon, which suggests the occurrence of dielectric breakdowns. The TGD based model of ball lightning this) involves the transformation of silicate to silicon in liquid phase. The presence of the molecules pairing with their dark analogs (in information theoretic sense) could have led to the evolution of the chemical metabolic energy storage.

Could carbonaceous chondrites associated with double plasma membranes with layers having opposite charges have evolved in the thermospheres of the planets and stars from systems involving mostly silicates and water to systems containing basic information molecules like DNA, RNA, amino acids and tRNA? Could plasmoids have served as midwives in the process?

Here the theory of Oparin (see this) and the support for it provided by Miller-Urey experiment (see this) provide guidelines. Oparin suggested that life evolved in a strongly reducing (able to donate electrons and thus becoming easily oxidized) atmosphere lacking oxygen and containing methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor.

In the Miller-Urey experiment a system assumed to simulate an ancient ocean containing very simple organic molecules was studied. Also heat gradient was involved. Lightnings were simulated as dielectric breakdowns in a strong voltage. Almost all amino-acids necessary for life emerged in the process. I have commented on the more recent findings related to this experiment from the TGD point of view in this and this). This leads to a long series of questions.

  1. In the thermosphere the scale is that of a protocell. Could the protocell be realized as a double plasma membrane containing carbonaceous chondrites?
  2. Could carbonaceous chondrite act like a strongly reducing atmosphere? Could the chondritic water take the role of the ocean in the Urey-Miller experiment and could the thermal gradient of the thermosphere replace the thermal gradient? Could dielectric breakdowns in the voltage of the double plasmoid membrane replace the lightnings?

    Pollack effect requires energy feed. Could generalized Pollack effect induce the formation of the basic biomolecules such as amino-acids as bound states this). Could the binding of oxygen to silicon to form silicates by the generalized Pollack effect make the chondrites strongly reducing by removing the free oxygen?

  3. Did proto cellular life evolve in this way and migrate to the surface of Earth? At the surface of Earth the possibly existing oceans had a very low oxygen content and the energy flux from the Sun was too low (faint Sun paradox). It seems that the oxygen based photosynthesizing multicellular life could not evolve at the surface of the Earth. This conforms with the presence of multicellular fossils before the Cambrian explosion that occurred about 500 million years ago.
  4. TGD suggests that the photosynthesizing, oxygen based multicellular life actually developed in the underground oceans below the surface of Earth, in the womb of Mother Gaia, where the conditions for the development of photosynthesis and multicellulars were more favorable (see this and this). It bursted to the surface of Earth in the Cambrian Explosion in which photosynthesizing multi-cellulars suddenly appeared. In the TGD Universe, the dark photons from the core of Earth might have provided the metabolic energy: the thermal radiation from the core is in the same energy range as solar radiation.
See the article About long range electromagnetic quantum coherence in TGD Universe or the chapter with the same title.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

For the lists of articles (most of them published in journals founded by Huping Hu) and books about TGD see this.

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