Mass and energy could care less whether anything functions.1-4 Metaphorically speaking, mass and energy make no effort to steer physical interactions and chemical reactions toward useful products.5-8 Mass and energy are blind to function.3,9-14
Apart from already-existing life, nothing in nature is steered or controlled toward usefulness.15-20
Not even the simplest cell could come to life without exquisite controls. So, how did the needed steering controls arise in non-living (inanimate) nature to steer physical interactions and chemical reactions toward metabolic success?21,22
Not even a protocell could spontaneously self-organize.1,23 Too many reaction chains had to be orchestrated into cooperative biochemical pathways and cycles.23-26
1. Abel DL. Complexity, self-organization, and emergence at the edge of chaos in life-origin models. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences. 2007;93(4):1-20 http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel [Last accessed: March, 2015].
2. Abel DL. The capabilities of chaos and complexity. Society for Chaos Theory: Society for Complexity in Psychology and the Life Sciences; Aug 8-10, 2008; International Conference at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.
3. Abel DL. The ‘Cybernetic Cut’: Progressing from Description to Prescription in Systems Theory. The Open Cybernetics and Systemics Journal. 2008;2:252-262 Open Access at http://benthamopen.com/ABSTRACT/TOCSJ-252-252 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel [Last accessed July, 2016]
4. Abel DL. The capabilities of chaos and complexity. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2009;10(Special Issue on Life Origin):247-291 Open access at http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/1410/1421/1247 [last accessed: March, 2015] Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
5. Abel DL. The biosemiosis of prescriptive information. Semiotica. 2009;2009(174):1-19 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
6. Abel DL. Prescriptive Information (PI) [Scirus SciTopic Page]. 2009; http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel [Last accessed: March, 2015].
7. Abel DL. Constraints vs. Controls: Progressing from description to prescription in systems theory. Open Cybernetics and Systemics Journal. 2010;4:14-27 Open Access at http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOCSJ/TOCSJ-14-14.pdf [Last accessed: April, 2016] Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
8. Abel DL. The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness [Scirus SciTopics Page]. 2010; http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel [Last accessed: March, 2015].
9. Abel DL. The Cybernetic Cut [Scirus SciTopic Page]. 2008; http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel [Last accessed: July, 2016].
10. Abel DL. The Formalism > Physicality (F > P) Principle. In: Abel DL, ed. In the First Gene: The birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, New York: Ed. LongView Press-Academic, 2011: Biological Research Division; 2011:447-492 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
11. Abel DL. What is ProtoBioCybernetics? In: Abel DL, ed. The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: LongView Press-Academic: Biolog. Res. Div.; 2011:1-18 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
12. Abel DL. The three fundamental categories of reality. In: Abel DL, ed. The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: LongView Press-Academic: Biolog. Res. Div.; 2011:19-54 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
13. Abel DL. The Cybernetic Cut and Configurable Switch (CS) Bridge. In: Abel DL, ed. The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: LongView Press--Academic, Biol. Res. Div.; 2011:55-74 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
14. Abel DL. What utility does order, pattern or complexity prescribe? In: Abel DL, ed. The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: LongView Press--Academic, Biol. Res. Div.; 2011:75-116 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
15. Abel DL. Linear Digital Material Symbol Systems (MSS). In: Abel DL, ed. The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: LongView Press--Academic, Biol. Res. Div.; 2011:135-160 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
16. Abel DL. The Genetic Selection (GS) Principle. In: Abel DL, ed. The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: LongView Press--Academic; 2011:161-188 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
17. Abel DL. The Birth of Protocells. In: Abel DL, ed. The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: LongView Press--Academic, Biol. Res. Div.; 2011:189-230 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
18. Abel DL. The Universal Plausibility Metric and Principle. In: Abel DL, ed. The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: LongView Press--Academic; 2011:305-324 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
19. Abel DL. Moving 'far from equilibrium' in a prebitoic environment: The role of Maxwell’s Demon in life origin. In: Seckbach J, Gordon R, eds. Genesis - In the Beginning: Precursors of Life, Chemical Models and Early Biological Evolution. Dordrecht: Springer; 2012:219-236 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
20. Abel DL. Is life unique? Life. 2012;2(1):106-134 Open access at http://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/2072/2071/2106 [Last accessed July, 2016] Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
21. Abel DL, ed The First Gene: The Birth of Programming, Messaging and Formal Control. New York, N.Y.: Longview Press Academic; 2011.
22. Abel DL. Primordial Prescription: The Most Plaguing Problem of Life Origin Science New York, N. Y.: LongView Press Academic; 2015.
23. Abel DL, Trevors JT. Self-Organization vs. Self-Ordering events in life-origin models. Physics of Life Reviews. 2006;3:211-228 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
24. Abel DL, Trevors JT. Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information. Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling. 2005;2:29-45.
25. Abel DL, Trevors JT. More than metaphor: Genomes are objective sign systems. Journal of BioSemiotics. 2006;1(2):253-267 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.
26. Abel DL, Trevors JT. More than Metaphor: Genomes are Objective Sign Systems. In: Barbieri M, ed. BioSemiotic Research Trends. New York: Nova Science Publishers; 2007:1-15 Also available from http://lifeorigin.academia.edu/DrDavidLAbel.