ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

48 Origin and Evolution of Life
environment not unlike living material. He observed that defects in crystals could
supply multiple, stable alternative configurations which can store and process
information much like modern computers. Crystal defects which can move are
very similar to primitive cellular automata, dynamic patterns occurring in lattice
neighborhoods capable of computing. Cairns-Smith reasoned that certain clays
proliferated with their replicating defects (representing information) acting as
primordial genetic information and proving useful in alignment of amino acids
and protein synthesis. As more efficient organic synthesis developed, Cairns-
Smith argues that clay machinery became expendable and was jettisoned in favor
of a new biotechnology—DNA and RNA.
Whether or not Cairns-Smith’s clay theory is correct, he demonstrates the
capacity for information storage in crystal defects. Perfectly ordered crystals
which are repetitive and homogeneous have no capacity for information storage
but are also extremely rare or do not exist at all. Real crystals have defect
structures superimposed. Simply to be finite-to have a shape and size-is a defect,
but many other features are almost invariably present. Units are often missing or
are replaced by others, and sections of the crystal structure may be misaligned in
various ways. While such features can be very small in scale, they provide real
crystals with a large potential capacity for information. Certain classes of crystals
might have defect structures that replicate as the crystal grows by having the right
combination of structural characteristics, growth patterns and cleavage properties.
Cairns-Smith (1982) concludes by posing a challenge to discover crystal genes of
various materials. He asks:
... Imagine doing experiments with crystals that could evolve, setting
them problems-applying selection pressures-and seeing how they
cope. This would be an interesting thing to do any way whatever the
crystals are made of. We would soon find out whether mineral
versions of replicating systems are plausible although we might lose
interest in our ultimate ancestors once we had in our hands the first
organisms of another kind: the first organisms of our own contriving.
The implications of Cairns-Smith’s ideas include the possibility of alternative
life forms from propagating crystalline structures and a suggestion that DNA and
RNA are not necessarily the only carriers of genetic information. This is in
concert with a demystification of life in general. At an international meeting on
the origins of life (Eckholm, 1986), Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma of the University of
Maryland suggested “the division between life and nonlife is perhaps an artificial
one.” He views the animate and inanimate as lying on a continuum both over
evolutionary time and among currently existing systems. On such a scale prions,
proteinoids, and some viruses would lie near the middle as might some ancient
unknown protocell that became the ancestor of life on earth. To speak of
advanced chemistry rather than divine creation is certain to disturb religious
fundamentalists. Equating life with oscillations in crystals does have an almost
biblical resonance, and narrows the conceptual gap between life molecules and
technological devices.
Regardless of the precise environment in which life-related molecules
emerged, other major questions include whether the carriers of genetic
information, DNA and RNA, preceded proteins whose amino acid sequences they
determine, or whether proteins, including enzymes and structural elements
seemingly necessary for genetic replication, came first. Thus a chicken (DNA,
RNA) vs egg (protein) conundrum regarding life’s origins has developed. A
primary information flow from nucleic acid to protein (chicken before egg) was a
“central dogma” in molecular biology. Fox and Dose (1972) challenged this