A New Theory of Time, Life and Memory — Part 2

Image: wikipedia. A single celled living organism like bacteria is still nearly incomprehensibly complex. This complexity and the impossibility of random interactions to explain its emergence is a key concept of Assembly Theory as proposed by Walker and Cronin.

Astrobiologist and physicist Sara Walker and chemist Lee Cronin are proposing radically new ideas about nature to explain the mystery of abiogenesis — how life emerged from non-life. Their Assembly Theory requires that time, memory, causation and selection be understood as intrinsic, physical and measurable elements of nature.

Did life emerge from random interactions of crucial chemicals which randomly were available at the right time and in the right conditions? It seems that is what most think, because it seems that is the approach most studying this issue are taking. Not Sara Walker and Lee Cronin. They are certain that random processes cannot result in life. The number of combinations of highly complex objects is far too vast. Indeed, the objects themselves face daunting odds of being generated randomly. The obvious alternative when random chance fails, is intention. But, since scientists studying creation of life scientifically cannot allow the Divine Foot in the door, what explanation might there be to overcome the impossible odds of random accidents?

Assembly Theory is the explanation of Walker in Cronin in this article in Aeon. They start by showing that our current ideas of time simply don’t work. They not only don’t work in our understanding of life, they don’t even work in our most basic understandings of physics. In physics…