China Jon's Syncretic Journal

If you talk about life on Earth, it leads to a discussion of religion, creation and life-creating chemical stews. All of that is ... boring. The truth on Earth is what it is and taking sides will not answer the deeper questions. We don't know what life is in the first place.

One of the steps in science is to simplify the problem so that you can manipulate one variable. In this way you get an understanding of complex problems. Life is surely a complex problem. But taking it down to the simplest form of life is not the same as breaking a Physics problem into workable parts. For example, to point out the the earliest fossils occur in sedimentary rock is only partially valid as an argument regard life's origination - on Earth - as being in water. This is because there are not any other fossil records to examine. This does not mean that life did not exist elsewhere, only that that environment was not one which produced fossils. The absence of a proof does not constitute 'negative proof' or disproof. So we can only agree that there are ancient fossils on Earth that are sedimentary in nature.

In fact we find life in places that are most inhospitable. For example, tube worms that never experience light, deep under the sea around hot water vents. Or, algae that live in sulfurous thermal springs which are hot enough to cook eggs in. Or, the bacteria that inhabit about every place on Earth that is imaginable. Are these life forms related? Are algae, tube worms, and bacteria somehow related?
This little guy lives at a depth of over 2000 meters in hot water vents at a temperature of 80 degrees Celsius. (176 F!)


















This bacteria is found in harsh environments:
The World's Toughest Bacterium
Date of Publication: July 5, 2000
By Sarah E. DeWeerdt

Deinococcus radiodurans is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as "the world's toughest bacterium." And for good reason: The microbe can survive drought conditions, lack of nutrients, and, most important, a thousand times more radiation than a person can. The bacterium, whose name means 'strange berry that withstands radiation,' is the most radiation-resistant organism known.
The red, spherical bacterium was discovered nearly fifty years ago in a can of ground meat that spoiled despite having been sterilized by radiation.



The clue I see is that a life form is a processor and converter of energy. And, a life form needs a suitable supply of the energy, and a safe place to process the energy as it sees fit.

Chart of Life

The diversity of life forms we have found on Earth probably did not all begin in the same place at the same time. And, perhaps we are looking at it the wrong way around. Perhaps it is the energy that is using the life form to process the environment as it sees fit.


Compare these three simple life forms. Do you think they all were 'children' of the same parent?
That is, there was only one 'first' life form?
Bacteria
Archaea
Eukarya

Maybe life is a form of energy, and not a bundle of chemicals that came together in a stew. Maybe life began in a place and time beyond our means of perception. Perhaps it is life itself that finds what ever it needs where ever it is, and goes where ever it wants.

;-D Enjoy your life, what ever it is!