Protobiology: A Theoretical Synthesis

Abstract

What is significant to protobiology (Fox, 1983; Dose, 1983)-- the construction of the first biosystems from atoms and abiotic molecules is -- the way the constituent elements are regulated and organized internally. The most fundamental physical attributes describing the construction process are both the number of constituent elements and the different types of these elements. The internal regulation that brings about material self-organization places a certain restriction upon the kinetic freedom the constituent elements can maintain. This implies that none of the constituent elements can move independently of each other. The number of degrees of internal freedom inherent to the aggregate of constituent elements is smaller than that conceived when all of these elements move independently. The number of degrees of internal freedom, that is, the number of independent variables, decreases as the internally regulated molecular construction proceeds. This aspect makes protobiology unique compared with most other physical phenomena, in the latter of which the number of degrees of internal freedom or, simply, the number of independent variables, is no more than a form of specification originating in the boundary condition applied externally through an external constraint. The decrease in the number of degrees of internal freedom induces a change in a physical boundary condition.

Most of the work was done while the author was on leave at NFCR Laboratory at Institute for Molecular and Cellular Evolution, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida 33134.