[FRIAM] Origins of life

Santafe desmith at santafe.edu
Fri Oct 24 13:33:12 EDT 2025 

I was being very not-deferential to Szostak, in forwarding this, as was the person who forwarded it to me.

I don’t think he has debunked anything.  And I think that anybody who believes we are “actually getting pretty close to having a coherent picture of how life actually started”, from the specific few experiments they have to hand, is _way_ too self-congratulatory. (I will avoid saying the word “delusional” in print.  That is the response it triggers in me, even though in normal terms, I wouldn’t say he is “delusional” at all; he is just saying things that would only make sense for a delusional person to say.)  We are so far from making any strong claims at a whole-narrative level, either positive or negative, that to not see that is a kind of category error of its own.  The reason that is interesting is that, seeing it, one gets real about how many major transitions there were along the way for which nobody has yet said _anything_ insightful about why they were possible, what constituted them, and how it likely came about, or what qualifies as either a causal or circumstantial explanation for it.  My opinion, of course, and I am (gratefully, mercifully) nobody, so I can just get back to work in the quiet.

In fairness, I also have to acknowledge that both having a Nobel prize, and giving public lectures, are highly adverse circumstances to forthright or balanced communication.  So probably he shouldn’t be blamed.  

I am not bothered by the penultimate paragraph you quote.  To me all these terms are scoped widely, and the application to one or another human instance is just that; an instance.  The terms have long since moved past being mere metaphors to some classical antique usages.  (I know you will never concede this point for any word, but I say it anyway.)  Within their normal use in these kinds of sciences, what he is saying is so anodyne as to almost-inevitably be right under some reading of it.

But I am glad it is fun, and I don’t mind knowing the facts they have found, and the system-pictures they can try to construct.  Any of it could turn out to be useful at some point.

Eric







> On Oct 24, 2025, at 13:03, Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Actually, any continuity theory is ok by me, except perhaps life being imported from elsewhere, which is just punting.  
> 
> This last paragraph did make me nervous.  It seems to me that the one place where anthropomorphic or even biomorphic language should never occur is in discussions of the origins of life.  And yet...
> 
> Showing photos of volcanic vents at Yellowstone National Park, Szostak said “life at the beginning depended totally on its environment. But as cells evolved, they learned more about their environment. That information was encoded into their genome and it allowed them to survive better and eventually colonize the whole surface of the planet.
> 
> “I think we're actually getting pretty close to having a coherent picture of how life actually started.”
> 
> 
> 
> But I grant you that this text is highly secondary.  
> 
> Nick 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 1:26 PM Santafe <desmith at santafe.edu <mailto:desmith at santafe.edu>> wrote:
>> Didn’t you hear that Jack Szostak debunked that?
>> 
>> <2025_1365_ry_0147_n.jpg>
>> Nobel laureate shares research exploring the origins of life | Cornell Chronicle
>> news.cornell.edu
>>  <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fnews.cornell.edu%2fstories%2f2025%2f10%2fnobel-laureate-shares-research-exploring-origins-life&c=E,1,OqtjTyEETIgvsPen-tJ2cHATPfoaPtaoASzY8y5ykJUI6YPJic70O5AVW-nzu4VkzMbY0s1fX5zF3h0DqCi9YYSu73STGFXu41gWW0QN&typo=1>Nobel laureate shares research exploring the origins of life | Cornell Chronicle <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fnews.cornell.edu%2fstories%2f2025%2f10%2fnobel-laureate-shares-research-exploring-origins-life&c=E,1,tr8zdgQFBdXsU2yEIr3MJKnrqvTwWaZUe5VdirRL2xvCJnysns0jXHNJWnygZzMdwyqQs-cSG8JB1eZ1tatexBTRHlBmm0Z1JHETKNvcJkjoPPKQWnWRJqswccvD&typo=1>
>> news.cornell.edu <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fnews.cornell.edu%2fstories%2f2025%2f10%2fnobel-laureate-shares-research-exploring-origins-life&c=E,1,5zYO6rkr1k6RQE4RIwNgqgEnJGympQ529pV-WOEwVf1NPYs_mBqy1aq21txAKZuOALbcFkaTUgMOw36OFGy0MwXupdZKq3qdVGnD4wDEeTU9-RE,&typo=1>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Oct 22, 2025, at 12:31, Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thank you for pointing it out.  We hear a lot of grousing on the list  about PayWalls and 
>>> University privilege.  If access has been keeping us from discussing the Origin of Life, here is our chance.  I am a white smoker man, myself. And here, all these years, you thought I was a white non-smoker.
>>> 
>>> N
>>> 
>>> Nick 
>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> on behalf of Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org <mailto:rec at elf.org>>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2025 12:25 PM
>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Origins of life 
>>> 
>>> Hi Nick --
>>> 
>>> I don't know, but it seems that the Royal Society has a lot of open access.
>>> 
>>> -- rec --
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Oct 21, 2025, 1:19 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>> Wow, Roger.  Thank you.  It seems like ordinary mortals can actuall down load these. do you think there is some sort of time limit, so we should grab them now?  Or will it be available forever.
>>> 
>>> Nick
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Oct 21, 2025 at 1:51 PM Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org <mailto:rec at elf.org>> wrote:
>>> Special issue at https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/2025/380/1936 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2froyalsocietypublishing.org%2ftoc%2frstb%2f2025%2f380%2f1936&c=E,1,97ZvzwehlFulvDf4GVQKa81aPt8NCorpieQY_S1tH_kCXWez_03YR7f-6We0OtC6xF8rdz-3gPUlvIDEwlkZzfpA6Dp9a6ddGZoUQtjxrZeOTfM6pglsjWw,&typo=1> via complexity digest.
>>> 
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>>> 
>>> --
>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>>> Clark University
>>> nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu>
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>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> --
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
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