Molecular Beginnings Poem by Denis Mair

Molecular Beginnings

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In the days when life was brewing in the tidepools, lightning darting through the ammonia atmosphere catalyzed amino acids that concentrated in the pools. The amino acids joined into chains, and there were many self-replicators operating in the soup. There were cycles of replication catalyzed by other intersecting cycles. The problem was that although the teeming ferment diversified itself into countless iterations of molecular tinkertoys, these progressions of automata were not really going anywhere except to make a mat of scum on the surface of a tidepool, or a special variety of clay in which a slime of pre-life helped silicates self-adhere. It wasn't until the sealing off of cycles within this mat that DNA became the one and only privileged replicator: then the sequences of amino acid chains were tied back to DNA, so the soup had a direction for embodiment. It couldn't happen until one set of replicators became the node for interactions of all other cycles. Some RNA segments that work in our cells today were once independent replicators, but they got integrated into DNA's web. Some other very far-flung replicator regimes were squeezed out of existence along the way before DNA could become the one and only universal molecular ancestor (which itself was squeezed through a fairly narrow bottleneck, as evidenced by the many homologous segments between humans and even our most distant vegetative relatives.) It was really the closing off of the DNA regime that opened the permutational space to allow variations and try out all possibilities, thus bringing about the panoply of life on earth.

Sunday, September 24, 2017
Topic(s) of this poem: beginning,evolution
POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
I am trying to imagine how earthly life got its start before cellular organisms existed. I think this scenario does not rule out the role of creative intelligence in the origination of earthly life. Carbon-based chemistry has an inherent telos which seems to point toward life. Since the properties of common elements are conducive to life, that is one place we can look for the stamp or seal of a creative intelligence at work in our life-favoring cosmos. Of course, we can also look into our hearts.// I mention organic molecules that adhered to silicates. According to Cairns-Smith, who wrote a book theorizing about the origins of life, silicates acted as proto-enzymatic templates to catalyze the formation of amino acid chains and other large molecules. A rich stew of amino acid chains in turn helped the silicates clump together in clay deposits that could persist as water currents moved over them. So there was a synergy between organic molecules and clay, a kind of SYMBIOSIS even before there was life! According to Cairns-Smith, the origin of life may have happened in the rich collocations of organic molecules which were facilitated by intricate irregularities on the surface on silicates.// I admit that this reads like a term paper in a science course, but I will follow the Muse into any and every byway. Knowledge wants to be part of the dance too, and I will behave like a hippo dressed in a tutu, if that's what it takes to let knowledge dance.
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Feipeng Shang 30 December 2017

Well sounds just like a (yet another?) hypothesis...I rather believe God the Creator... :)

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Denis Mair 30 December 2017

When I try to wrap my mind around the idea of a creator, I feel the infinite regress still boggles my mind. The creator must have such an incredibly complex mind. The laws operating in a mind like that must be unfathomable. Nevertheless, if I want to consider the Creator as an explanation, I will have to start groping toward an understanding of those laws.

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Denis Mair 30 December 2017

I think the infinite regress of analysis stops when we are awestruck by mystery. I simply push the reckoning back a few steps. Carbon chemistry and water's properties have wonderful life-enabling tricks, so I think matter has a telos: it is a sacred vessel for life. I think matter deserves some respect. It is not brute stuff under a mechanist's heel.

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