The 3 great origin mysteries: The universe, life, and consciousness

There are three great origin mysteries, according to theoretical physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies. These are the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the origin of consciousness. Davies has dedicated most of his career to understanding the cosmos, though he admits that the origin of consciousness remains a deeply mysterious enigma due to our lack of a proper conceptual framework.

The origin of life, on the other hand, is a mystery that scientists are actively pursuing. Davies suggests that within a few decades, we may have a solid grasp of this concept. He prefers to define life as "chemistry plus information," a definition that is increasingly popular today. This definition emphasizes that life is not just about the materials we are composed of, but rather the behaviors or "software" that arises from the information encoded within these materials.

Davies delves into the history of the concept of life, tracing it back to ancient Greek philosophers and pointing out that the uniqueness of living organisms has intrigued thinkers for millennia. Aristotle, for instance, attempted to connect living things with the broader scheme of reality, attributing lifelike properties to the universe itself. In contrast, vitalism—a notion that life requires an additional "force" or "essence" to animate matter—was largely discredited over time.

Darwin's theory of evolution provided a compelling explanation for how life evolves once it has begun on Earth, but it does not address the question of how non-life turns into life. This question has been a persistent conundrum for scientists, with early attempts, such as Stanley Miller's experiment in the 1950s, attempting to recreate the conditions of the early Earth to simulate the formation of life's building blocks. While these experiments yielded amino acids, they did not fully define what constitutes life.