Dan,
Oof! It did not even
occur to me that the title could be taken as bad spam. No, I feel myself
to be the fresh meat. Most of you on the list strike me as capable and
ambitious thinkers. In all honesty there is an intimidation factor that
accompanies that. I thought that I would make an attempt at an
equally provocative or at least a flamboyant entrance. I wish to
squeeze every drop of understanding from you, but I intend no
offense!
Yes, the overflowing cup I'm referring to is
intended to be a physical pre-biotic soup. I feel also though that there
may be analogies between the emergence of life and the establishment of
societies of many types. My focus is the emergence of life, for many
reasons. The non-living to living transition. Not only Earth's
original but also experimentally induced, which probably need not be
constrained to a single chemical context.
Here are some of the why questions that
occur to me.
Why did life emerge in the cup?
Why could life be established here?
Why was life not there before the influence
or apparatus was observed to act on it?
Why did it we observe it's establishment after
the influence or apparatus had been removed?
Why would someone wish to establish life in
an overflowing cup?
Why is life observed emerging as
community/ecology?
Why did we agree that what we had observed were
organisms?
...
Of this I am certain, that a scenario akin to
what I've roughly outlined is possible. Certain as if I had witnessed it,
though I have not.
In all honesty Dan, I am perhaps a little too
accustomed to contemplating these particular kinds of things
alone. Ocassionally with the company of others or while
considering the published work of others, but mostly by myself. Please
grant me some time to adjust.
David