Rethinking Abiogenesis: Part III, Meaning in the Light of Complexity, Information, and Simplification

Abstract

This article concludes a three-part series on abiogenesis that suggests meaningful configurations of organic components can arise spontaneously, leading to organisms that successfully survive and reproduce. While the complexity of the disorganized abiotic world makes it appear to some that such a feat of organization would require the nonnatural intervention of an intelligent mind (including but not limited to supernatural intervention), we suggest that careful considerations of thermodynamics and information lead to the plausibility of a natural occurrence. No specific, complete pathway for abiogenesis has yet been identified, but the fundamental processes that enable such a path can be articulated more clearly now than ever before as a result of new and continuing research in multiple disciplines. This concluding article centers on the way in which complex states of molecular organic information can be generated to produce the most meaningful configurations.