A partial index of discussion notes is in http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/AREADME.html
See for example: http://tinyurl.com/CogMisc/evolution-info-transitions.html
I make no claims about the details of the earliest forms of life, or prebiotic molecules,
though various facts about physics and chemistry make specific types of hypothesis worth
exploring.
E.g. on his http://www.biocab.org/ web site, Nasif Nahle presents an argument that the earliest
life forms could not have developed in a watery environment (because of problems of
controlling osmotic pressure) though they could have started in shelters against solar and
cosmic radiation provided by dust grains covered in ice.
He writes:
"The dust grains (fractals) acted like the biomolecules protective ``eggshells''
against the ionizing solar radiation. Thus, the chemical changes allowed the
synthesis of more complex carbohydrate, proteins and lipids molecules, which
reached to the structure of quasi-stable and highly-lasting membranes in the
shape of microspheres. Nevertheless, those membranes persisted on being ephemeral
by the intensity of the cosmic radiation that could destroy them. Many microspheres
that were enclosed by membranes subsisted in that hostile atmosphere thanks to
that they were into solid dust grains covered by water ice."
http://www.biocab.org/Abiogenesis_Synopsis.html
The longer, more detailed, paper, http://www.biocab.org/Abiogenesis.html
has a final section
``Summary of the origin of living beings in the universe'', which proposes that at a later
stage water vapor condenses ``forming heavy drops that precipitate on the planetary soils
dragging the grains of dust with and without microspheres with them'', allowing a subset
to persist, then later amalgamate through electrochemical affinity, fusing and forming
vesicles with continuous membranes, that rest on the humid soils or in the bottom of
shallow or subterranean ponds, where holes of soils, full of chemical substances, are
covered by the microenvironments chemically similar to the fluids within modern cells.
I am not sufficiently knowledgable to evaluate this theory, but for now it suffices to
illustrate some possible stages in the transition from clouds of dust to early life on
this planet.
His theory, if correct, will have implications for the earliest requirements for
information processing, which he does not mention.
Maintained by
Aaron Sloman
School of Computer Science
The University of Birmingham