Metabolism, Replication, and the Stability of Life

Erwin Schrödinger said that the important characteristic of life is that it "goes on doing something... for a much longer period than we would expect an inanimate piece of matter to keep going under similar circumstances." Living organisms are in constant motion inside; so where does this stability and persistence come from? Addy Pross points to a novel kind of chemical phenomenon -- "dynamic kinetic stability" (DKS), a feature that enables a chemical "fountain" to persist in the presence of an energy source. This suggests an interesting perspective on the question of life's origin, and perhaps on the origin of consciousness.

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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/10/28/294-addy-pross-on-dynamics-stability-and-life/

Addy Pross received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Sydney. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Ben-Gurion University. He has held visiting positions in the University of Lund, Stanford University, Rutgers University, University of California at Irvine, University of Padova, the Australian National University Canberra, and the University of Sydney. He is the author of What Is Life? How Chemistry Becomes Biology.

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