The origin of life from the point of view of physics

The origin of life from the point of view of physics
All people, regardless of age, gender or level of education, unreservedly agree that life is the most important and valuable thing that has arisen on our planet – and perhaps as a unique phenomenon in the universe. The paradox is that we profess such a belief, even though no one can yet say what life is. We are well aware of what we would lose if we lost it, but we are far from being able to say unequivocally at what level we can still talk about the loss of life. Quite specifically, we can ask whether, for example, a virus is a living creature. If so, then the so-called a viroid (produces essentially the same effects as a virus and is in fact only a “bare” chemical, namely RNA acid, which can also be produced in the laboratory) should actually also be considered a living system.39) These are issues that mainly concern biologists and they are also expected to resolve these ambiguities. We will now be concerned in particular with the problem of how a wonder like life could have appeared on Earth.

There were times when our universe was ruled only by physics, because there was nothing but physical objects in it, so if we are inclined to accept the theory that life on our planet evolved, then it must have happened in the lap of physics. The controversy over this issue will be the main focus of our following reflections. Before embarking on them, we need to clarify certain philosophical starting points.

 Philosophical background
On the question of the view of life and its origin, essentially two oppositional views crystallized: materialistic (evolutionary) and idealistic (creative). It is therefore a question of a clash of evolutionism and creationism, and that these two ideologies are still waging fierce struggles, we have already written elsewhere. The materialistic view of life and its origin is often understood as the view of science, while creationism belongs organically to the sphere of faith, so this conflict actually concerns the relationship between science and faith. It should be added, however, that the current progressive faith does not fundamentally reject evolution, and therefore it is no longer true that the religious worldview is a priori unscientific.

In this context, it is necessary to mention the concept of the so-called scientific creationism, which we have already dealt with in more detail. Proponents of this concept almost completely deny the existence of evolution by questioning the results of the exact natural sciences and their methods of studying the past. In this way, they “scientifically” prove the existence of a one-time act of the creation of the world and everything in it, in the span of about 10,000 years. Given the numerous paleontological findings and the objectivity and reliability of determining the age of various objects, scientific creationism must be considered too naive at present.

The materialistic view is based on the thesis that there is nothing in the world except matter, so life had to appear as a result of its development. Natural science has reliably proved the existence of development and still proves, the only question is whether it can explain all the mysteries of this process. By quoting oil into the fire of optimism that science will eventually elucidate the whole process of the origin and development of life by spontaneous evolution, a quote by the well-known scientist I. Prigogin was: ” from the first principles. ”40)

If this were indeed the case, evolutionism would clearly be preferred to creationism. However, we know that life is an extremely complicated phenomenon and that the details of the origin of life will never be known to man, so there will always be ground for creationism, ie for divine intervention. It cannot be overlooked that such an argument smells of understanding God as “God of gaps”. According to him, the postulation of God is necessary where we cannot explain anything yet.