Abstract
BackgroundRecent developments in cosmology radically change the conception of the universe as well as the very notions of "probable" and "possible". The model of eternal inflation implies that all macroscopic histories permitted by laws of physics are repeated an infinite number of times in the infinite multiverse. In contrast to the traditional cosmological models of a single, finite universe, this worldview provides for the origin of an infinite number of complex systems by chance, even as the probability of complexity emerging in any given region of the multiverse is extremely low. This change in perspective has profound implications for the history of any phenomenon, and life on earth cannot be an exception.HypothesisOrigin of life is a chicken and egg problem: for biological evolution that is governed, primarily, by natural selection, to take off, efficient systems for replication and translation are required, but even barebones cores of these systems appear to be products of extensive selection. The currently favored (partial) solution is an RNA world without proteins in which replication is catalyzed by ribozymes and which serves as the cradle for the translation system. However, the RNA world faces its own hard problems as ribozyme-catalyzed RNA replication remains a hypothesis and the selective pressures behind the origin of translation remain mysterious. Eternal inflation offers a viable alternative that is untenable in a finite universe, i.e., that a coupled system of translation and replication emerged by chance, and became the breakthrough stage from which biological evolution, centered around Darwinian selection, took off. A corollary of this hypothesis is that an RNA world, as a diverse population of replicating RNA molecules, might have never existed. In this model, the stage for Darwinian selection is set by anthropic selection of complex systems that rarely but inevitably emerge by chance in the infinite universe (multiverse).ConclusionThe plausibility of different models for the origin of life on earth directly depends on the adopted cosmological scenario. In an infinite universe (multiverse), emergence of highly complex systems by chance is inevitable. Therefore, under this cosmology, an entity as complex as a coupled translation-replication system should be considered a viable breakthrough stage for the onset of biological evolution.ReviewersThis article was reviewed by Eric Bapteste, David Krakauer, Sergei Maslov, and Itai Yanai.
Highlights
Recent developments in cosmology radically change the conception of the universe as well as the very notions of "probable" and "possible"
Evolution of the cosmos: eternal inflation, "many worlds in one", and anthropic selection The "many worlds in one" model makes the startling prediction that all macroscopic, "coarse-grain" histories of events that are not forbidden by conservation laws of physics have realized somewhere in the infinite universe, and not just once but an infinite number of times [1,2]
Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution
Summary
Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution. Koonin proposes that a coupled complex system of translation and replication emerged instead by chance and by anthropic selection After what he assumes that Darwinian selection took off and that the traditional evolutionary thinking can be applied safely to analyse the rest of the biological evolution. Teleology means that processes are directed by their goal-to-be-achieved, that their real causation is the later consequence the structures developed in the evolutionary process will lead to It certainly makes sense in a context of replication (like descent with modification and natural selection) that a selected effect (i.e. the possession of a phenotype) can act as a cause on the evolution of Second concern: assuming Koonin's model, are there strong evidence of the transition from anthropic selection to Darwinian selection? EVK conceived of the model, performed the calculations involved, and wrote the manuscript
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