The chemistry of this crucial process is surprisingly simple and common. It is based on the electric polarity of water. Because of this polarity, certain molecules are hydrophilic (attracted by water), while others are hydrophobic (repelled by water). A third kind of molecules are those of fatty and oily substances, known as lipids. They are elongated carbon structures with one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic end. (See Picture)

When these lipids come in contact with water, they spontaneously form various structures. For example, they may form a mono-molecular film spreading over the water surface or alternatively they may form an even more complex double layer of molecules with water on both sides, as shown in the Picture. These single or double layers can form droplets, which are the membrane-bounded vesicles. These double-layered greasy membranes show a surprising number of properties similar to contemporary cellular membranes. They restrict the number of molecules that can enter the vesicle, transform solar energy into electrical energy and even collect phosphate compounds inside their structure.

Lipid vesicles, then, are the ideal candidates for the protocells out of which the living cells evolved.

This was the first semi-permeable boundary between the “outside” and the “inside”; the first distinction between self and non-self.[10]

4. Dissipative Structures and Autopoietic Organization The complexity of the bio-chemical process took another 200 million years or so to progress from the protocell to the prokaryote, a single living cell.

The protocells were the hotbed of a lot of molecular activity. Complex chains of linear polymers of carbon compounds gave rise to life-building amino acids, nucleotide and simple sugars. As the molecules became bigger their chemical reactions became ‘auto catalytic’ and cyclic i.e. the derivatives promoted further generation of themselves and related products. These hyper-cycles were possible due to accumulation of energy within the first cells and more complex protein, DNA and RNA structures arose. This is the very point at which non-sentient matter gives ‘life’ to sentient cell structures. The energy accumulation inside spherical protocells pushed the chemical reactions to ‘far from equilibrium’ levels of energy, thereby creating more complex structures called “dissipative structures” which have self-organizational capability. If we look at this in terms of systems development then, this higher level of self-generating capability is called ‘an autopoietic organization’:-

• The first cell-like systems were what the Belgian Nobel Prize – winning physicist Ilya Prigogine has termed “dissipative structures” – objects or processes that organize themselves and spontaneously change their form. With an influx of energy, dissipative structures may become more instead of less ordered….In dissipative structures, information begins to organize itself; pockets of elaboration arise.

From dissipative structures and hypercycles emerged the chain of nucleotides, ribose, and phosphate that can both replicate itself and catalyze chemical reactions.[11]

• How do I know when a being is living? Throughout the history of biology many criteria have been proposed. They all have drawbacks. ….When we speak of living beings, we presuppose something in common between them; ….Our proposition is that living beings are characterized in that, literally they are continually self-producing. We indicate this process when we call the organization that defines them an autopoietic organization.

First, the molecular components of a cellular autopoietic unity must be dynamically related in a network of ongoing interactions. Today we know many of the specific chemical transformations in this network, and the biochemist collectively terms them “cell metabolism”.  Interestingly, this cell metabolism produces components which make up the network of transformations that produced them. Some of these components form a boundary, a limit to this network of transformations. In morphologic terms, the structure that makes this cleavage in space possible is called a membrane. (Underlining by me) ….. What we have, then, is a unique situation as regards relations of chemical transformations: on the one hand, we see a network of dynamic transformations that produces its own components and that is essential for a boundary; on the other hand, we see a boundary that is essential for the operation of the network of transformations which produced it as a unity:…… The most striking feature of an autopoietic system is that it pulls itself by its own bootstraps and becomes distinct from its environment through its own dynamics, in such a way that both things are inseparable. Living beings are characterized by their autopoietic organization. They differ from each other in their structure, but they are alike in their organization. [12]

5. Hypercycles – trap large energy and release in small steps There are thousands of these autocatalytic hypercycles of chemical reactions within the cell and their bio-chemistry is far from being completely understood[13]. A salient feature of these metabolic processes is that they capture high-energy electrons and release the energy in small steps that are conducive for daily biological needs. Photosynthesis is one of these processes in which high energy photons of light are trapped – an emergent phenomena in the evolution of life:-

• The machinery of cells, which is assembled in a variety of short and long-chain carbon compounds, composed of elements compounded from inorganic matter, is centrally important here as it consists of self-organizing emergent phenomena. By this time at least, the controlled cascade of electron energy, the earliest beginnings of metabolic machinery has emerged. Photosynthesis, the process of capturing high-energy electrons to make sugars and amino acids out of carbon dioxide and water and nitrogen, is a self-renewing source of high-to-low energy electrons. Ways were “found”, or selected, to take electron energies – in ordered sequences and branching pathways – from high to low energy levels in small steps. The essential process was the controlled reduction of electron energy in a staircase of small steps, as in a flowing cascade of water, rather than in an abrupt fall as in a waterfall. The controlled energy decrements are utilized to assemble molecules, to transport substances within cells, to transport products across cell membranes, as in secretion and neurotransmission, to provide motile power to cells, to contract muscles, to control the dance of chromosomes and other aspects of cell division, to control the fusion of cells, as in fertilization, and to operate all the innumerable physiological systems in multicellular organisms.

This controlled electron energy decrement is something not seen in the organic world. Something radically new has been added to the universe in this process. The kinds of abrupt shifts in the inorganic world like ionizing radiation, radioactivity etc. is actually destructive to living systems.[14]

• With porphyrin ring production in their repertoire, many types of bacteria evolved the ability to use the most reliable and abundant source of energy around: sunlight. When any molecule absorbs light, its electrons are boosted to a higher energy state. Usually the energy is simply dissipated as light or heat until the molecule returns to its normal state. But when the molecules are bound to porphyrins attached to proteins embedded in membranes as electron-transport chains, light energy can be put to use……This process of getting food from light and air – photosynthesis- freed some kinds of bacteria from their dependence on pre-formed organic compounds.

The evolution of photosynthesis is undoubtedly the most important single metabolic innovation in the history of life on the planet. It occurred not in plants, but in bacteria.[15]

6. Microtubules – motility, mitosis    The simple prokaryotic cell over the next few hundred million years diversified into various forms of bacteria that entered symbiotic mergers to give birth to the nucleated eukaryotic cell. This was the precursor to the modern day animal cells with a nucleus housing the chromosomes, the mitochondria for energy related processes, the ribosomes for protein formation, plastids and many other organelles. Housing a more evolved biochemistry the eukaryotic cells were better equipped to adapt to the climatic changes and competition for food. They thus developed, many survival structures and one of the major breakthroughs was motility – the ability to move. This ability in the simple prokaryotic appeared as a flagellum, a tail-like ‘whip’, and certain spiral-looking bacterium called ‘spirochetes’ developed this capability and attached themselves to other host bacteria helping to move them around. This ‘conscious mobility’ was a remarkable ‘push’ to the evolutionary process not only in the external sense but, as we will see below, also in terms of the seed for both reproduction and nervous development of subsequent life.
   • In the single cell paramecium for example these whip-like cilia provide not only movement but are literally the cytoskeleton that supports the outer extreme structure. It is constituted of microtubules that are tiny bundles of protein fibers arranged in a (9 pairs + 2) structure that looks like a ‘telephone dial’. Besides holding the cell in shape these microtubules – “play a role for the single cell rather like a combination of skeleton, muscle system, legs, blood circulatory system and nervous system all rolled into one!” [16]
   • A microtubular structure, that is random, is also found in the original spirochete bacterium and it is believed that these sphirochetes would attach themselves to other prokaryotes. This attachment to the host cells lead to the development of the whip-like tails, also called undulipodia, that assist in regular cell movement. But this is not all. The same tubules are found inside the eukaryotic cells and are responsible for their mitotic cell-division capability. They play an important role in the process of mitosis in which the chromosomes in the cell-nucleus duplicate themselves and subsequently the cell divides into two identical replicas. In words of Lynn Margulis – “But the intricacy of the mitotic dance becomes still more understandable if you allow for a spirochetal choreographer. And the clues are there. The spindle is made of microtubules, the same microtubules found in all cell undilopodia.”[17] The arrangement of the microtubules here is (9 triplets + 0).
   • From here these microtubules have evolved to our brain cells and they frame the very structure of each neuron. But before we go further there is another very interesting phenomena relating to these microtubules. Either the microtubules are present in the whip or they are drawn inside by the cell for reproducing through the process of mitosis. In the words of Lynn Margulis – “In plants and animals, undilopodia and mitosis are mutually exclusive – they are never seen in the same cell at the same time. Fungal cells seem to have permanently traded cell whips for mitosis. But for some protists to divide, they must first pull their undilopodia inside their cells. No mammal cell – not to mention many other kinds of cells – can retain undilopodia while it divides by mitosis. It is as if the cell must use its ancient spirochetal symbionts for one thing or the other, but not both.”[18]

7. Microtubules and the Mind The same microtubules in varying clusters are present in the axons and dendrites of the neurons in our brains (See Picture)[19]. Roger Penrose has carried this discussion to the level of quantum coherence in the microtubules that provide the cytoskeleton to the axon and dendrites in the neuron.
   • What is the significance of microtubules for neurons? Each individual neuron has its own cytoskeleton. In particular, microtubules in neurons can be very long indeed….Moreover, they can grow or shrink, according to circumstances, and transport neurotransmitter molecules. There are microtubules running along the lengths of the axons and dendrites. Although single microtubules do not seem to extend individually to the entire length of an axon, they certainly form communicating networks that do so, each microtubule communicating with the next ones by means of microtubule associated proteins (MAPs). Microtubules seem to be responsible for maintaining the strengths of the synapses (nerve endings). Moreover, they seem to organize the growth of new nerve endings, guiding them towards their connections with other nerve cells.[20]
   • The rod and cone nerve cells in the eye reveal the (9 pairs + 2) pattern of microtubules. The axons and dendrites of the brain are a differently organized mass of microtubules, containing all the microtubular proteins but without the (9 + 2) formation…. “Did the spirochete motility system of the microcosm evolve within the ordered environment of larger organisms to become the basis of their nervous systems?”…. After maturity brain cells never divide, nor do they move about. Yet we know mammal brain cells – the richest source of tubulin protein anywhere – do not waste their rich microtubular heritage. Rather, the sole function of mature brain cells, once reproduced or deployed, is to send signals and receive them, as if the microtubules once used for cell-whip and chromosomal movement had been usurped for the function of thought.[21]

It is very clear from the above excerpts that inorganic matter over the 3 billion years or so of evolution has carried the complexity of bio-chemistry through varying layers of complexity. From the merging of electron probabilities in the benzene ‘p – bonds’, to the coming together of bio-chemical ‘hypercycles, to the structure of the first simple cell – the prokaryote, to the emergence of the first single-cell eukaryote with the ‘whip’, to the multicellular mammals there are different dimensions of emergent phenomena. H.J. Morowitz[22] uses his expertise in Biology and Complexity to actually explain 28 steps of emergence for human evolution.