The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)

Selection in molecular evolution

Evolution requires selection. Molecular/chemical/preDarwinian evolution is no exception. One molecule must be selected over another for molecular evolution to occur and advance. Evolution, however, has no goal. The laws of physics have no utilitarian desire, intent or proficiency. Laws and constraints are blind to "usefulness." How then were potential multi-step processes anticipated, valued and pursued by inanimate nature? Can orchestration of formal systems be physico-chemically spontaneous? The purely physico-dynamic self-ordering of Chaos Theory and irreversible non-equilibrium thermodynamic "engines of disequilibria conversion" achieve neither orchestration nor formal organization. Natural selection is a passive and after-the-fact-of-life selection. Darwinian selection reduces to the differential survival and reproduction of the fittest already-living organisms. In the case of abiogenesis, selection had to be 1) Active, 2) Pre-Function, and 3) Efficacious. Selection had to take place at the molecular level prior to the existence of non-trivial functional processes. It could not have been passive or secondary. What naturalistic mechanisms might have been at play?

Cometary panspermia and origin of life?

A range of astronomical observations are shown to be in accord with the theory of cometary panspermia. This theory posits that comets harbor a viable biological component in the form of bacteria and viruses that led to origin and evolution of life on Earth. The data includes (1) infrared, visual and ultraviolet spectra of interstellar dust, (2) infrared spectra of the dust released from comet Halley in 1986, (3) infrared spectra of comet Hale-Bopp in 1997, (4) near and mid-infrared spectra of comet Tempel I in 2005, (5) the discovery of an amino acid and degradation products attributable to biology in the material recovered from the Stardust Mission in 2009, (6) jets from comet Lovejoy showing both a sugar and Ethyl alcohol and finally, (7) a diverse set of data that has emerged from the Rosetta mission. The conjunction of all the available data points to cometary biology and interstellar panspermia as being inevitable.

Is life unique?

Is life physicochemically unique? No. Is life unique? Yes. Life manifests innumerable formalisms that cannot be generated or explained by physicodynamics alone. Life pursues thousands of biofunctional goals, not the least of which is staying alive. Neither physicodynamics, nor evolution, pursue goals. Life is largely directed by linear digital programming and by the Prescriptive Information (PI) instantiated particularly into physicodynamically indeterminate nucleotide sequencing. Epigenomic controls only compound the sophistication of these formalisms. Life employs representationalism through the use of symbol systems. Life manifests autonomy, homeostasis far from equilibrium in the harshest of environments, positive and negative feedback mechanisms, prevention and correction of its own errors, and organization of its components into Sustained Functional Systems (SFS). Chance and necessity-heat agitation and the cause-and-effect determinism of nature's orderliness-cannot spawn formalisms such as mathematics, language, symbol systems, coding, decoding, logic, organization (not to be confused with mere self-ordering), integration of circuits, computational success, and the pursuit of functionality. All of these characteristics of life are formal, not physical.