The unreasonable likelihood of being: origin of life, terraforming, and AI

TL;DR

This paper explores the profound informational and entropic challenges in the spontaneous emergence of life, using information theory and computational models to evaluate the likelihood of protocell formation on early Earth.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework combining information theory and algorithmic complexity to assess the probability of life's origin under prebiotic conditions.

Findings

High entropic barriers to protocell formation

Significant informational hurdles in assembling biological complexity

Spontaneous emergence of life is extremely unlikely given current models

Abstract

The origin of life on Earth via the spontaneous emergence of a protocell prior to Darwinian evolution remains a fundamental open question in physics and chemistry. Here, we develop a conceptual framework based on information theory and algorithmic complexity. Using estimates grounded in modern computational models, we evaluate the difficulty of assembling structured biological information under plausible prebiotic conditions. Our results highlight the formidable entropic and informational barriers to forming a viable protocell within the available window of Earth's early history. While the idea of Earth being terraformed by advanced extraterrestrials might violate Occam's razor from within mainstream science, directed panspermia -- originally proposed by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel -- remains a speculative but logically open alternative. Ultimately, uncovering physical principles for life's spontaneous emergence remains a grand challenge for biological physics.