I need Theories?

Question

My theory on the origin of life is pretty basic, a chance bonding of the elements forming DNA, but I don't understand what changed about the chemicals to form sentient life. What is the missing factor? (No religious crap)

I want to know what it is about the reactions that spawns the ability to reason and adapt intelligently to the enviornment, and what motivates this programming.

I KNOW HOW EVERYTHING WORKS, I WANT TO KNOW WHY!

Life seems to be fundamentally flawed to me in a lot of ways. The first atoms that formed DNA had no sentienty, but suddenly, out of nowhere, programming! There must be some factor to which the human race today remains oblivious.

Answer 1

If the primordial evolutionary event of abiogenesis was indeed true, it had continue if it was to be successful.
Here is a first-time scenario for your studied consideration :
When the conditions were just right- enough for a beginning of organic life, some carbon, some nitrogen, some oxygen and some hydrogen elements individually decided to either divorce themselves from their existing inorganic chemically bonded relationships which they felt to be too confining or else to relinquish their unattached free ionic states because they were unfulfilling. This was intended both independently and coincidently in order to mutually form themselves into an as yet unheard-of collective, autonomous entity. So they convoked and did succeed in creating a confederation both philosophically and physiologically to become the very first living cell of protoplasm. Then by mutual consensus, following the ever- popular one- gene-one- vote principle, this unique primordial cell decided to address itself as "John". However, the conditions were just not right enough for it to continue because there was no other protoplasm around for it to ingest nor with which to propogate because there was no "Marsha" for it to to, er, ah - , well, you know, spawn. Alas, poor John soon died hungry and horny.

The anthropomorphic style of the above is intended to mimic and to mock those same writing styles found in "bad science" texts , especially those which attempt to explain the topic of random organic auto-synthesis or whatever that evolutionary process is supposed to be. Look around, you will find some of them in this Yahoo Q&A.

Answer 2

The first life was probably some sort of replicating chemical that had nothing to do with DNA. After millions of years of evolution it used RNA like protein is used today. It could have been much more complex than modern RNA. Eventually the RNA added amino acids to the ends and cleaved them. Those were the first sorts of proteins that we would recognize today. The RNA was eventually evolved to form complex proteins and the proteins took over the task of enzymes and structures for many of the systems of the cell. The increased evolutionary ability of the RNA to record changes allowed evolution to accelerate drastically and that form of life proliferated. Eventually DNA was used to code the RNA because it is more stable.

Sorry not to go into greater detail. I wanted to keep it short and just give you an idea of a potential solution to the question.

Evolution continued to accelerate and allowed for much more complex organisms with the appearance of the eukaryotes. They had far more advanced systems of managing the DNA and extremely complex multicellular life became possible.

Answer 3

Many contemporary scientists think Emergence(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence) is the good candidate for bridging that gap. In essence, it is a theory that complex system gives rise to something of higher order. Check it out if you are interested.

Answer 4

There is no missing factor; it's all about chemistry. Sentience is really nothing more than electrical impulses shooting around inside the neurons in your brain.

Answer 5

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life

growing sentience is a part of evolution. Most life is to a degree sentient. You are thinking of intelligence, I believe.

Answer 6

evolution.... dna is a changing chain of chemicals. over time as species combined the configuration of the dna changes and cause us to be

Answer 7

chemical reactions became more and more complex, eventually something worked to the point where it could reproduce itself and from then on it's called life