I said:
That is to say, life in itself biologically living things. (I strongly recommend Rosens book Life Itself to see how first and final cause are entailed in biological life.)
The link between water which is non-life and living things which are characterized by their autonomously communicating a message, DNA (Shannon, information) is the hydrogen bond.
The hydrogen bond is what gives the DNA its geometry, the double helix, and binds the message the living thing communicates within itself, ergo be alive in itself ("hath life.") (For more, I strongly recommend reading Myers thoughts on the geometry of biological information content.)
Every thing which is biologically (physically) alive is autonomously communicating a message that constitutes what it is a particular daffodil, a particular dog, a particular human.
There is no biological life without the communication of that message. That is why the Urey/Miller experiments could get no further than amino acids, their experiments were blind to information theory (communication, Shannon.) And that is why Wimmer succeeded in creating the polio virus in the laboratory. Wimmer started with the message itself, e.g. polio RNA off the internet which he structured geometrically by synthesizing it and then upon introducing the message to cell-free juice, the virus replicated itself, i.e. transmitted the message.
Complexity issues particularly Williams inversely causal meta-information are extremely persuasive in the crevo debates.
But the poison pill to abiogenesis in my view is the communication itself, Shannons mathematical theory of communication.
In other words, there is no naturalistic explanation for how or why communications would arise spontaneously in a physico-chemical environment.
Our new Spiritual life is also a communication directly from God. We are biologically and spiritually a message being communicated.
In biological life, that communication is autonomous. In Spiritual life, that communication is not autonomous.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27
Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. John 8:43
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. - John 15:4-5
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. - Romans 8:9
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. - Colossians 3:3
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. - Galatians 2:20
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? - I Corinthians 6:19
Indeed there's no explanation of how "dumb" matter gets "smart." Especially in light of the observation that the algorithmic complexity of the physico-chemical laws is low, estimated by the mathematician Gregory Chaitin at 103 bits. Compare that with the algorithmic complexity of DNA, estimated at 109 bits. How does one "naturalistically" get from the former to the latter? What would be the cause for matter to suddenly start communicating, and what would it be communicating?
Darwin should have made it clear he wasn't interested in "going there," and simply taken life as axiomatic in his theory.... That way he could have had an origin of species argument without having to get into the origin of life issue. Which he himself never formally did; but his lack of clarity on the question has led to much what seems to me pointless speculation on the part of his disciples over time....
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your marvelous insights re: the hydrogen bond and the geometry of DNA, and its significance:
The link between water which is non-life and living things which are characterized by their autonomously communicating a message, DNA (Shannon, information) is the hydrogen bond.Fascinating!!!