As is his wont, national treasure Upright Biped took materialist Bob O’H to school:
Bob @ 63,
we can replicate the process without having to resort to adding anything immaterial”
Is that right Bob?
Okay, let us make you the Director of a research team with unlimited personnel, unlimited time, and unlimited funding. And let us say that with this extraordinary intellectual and research power, it is not long before you can control, manipulate, and bind together whatever molecules you wish, and not only can you do that, but you can also successfully predict the results of that manipulation. So, if you need a replacement for the extant ribosome, you got it. If you need a de novo tRNA, you got it. If you need an aaRS to fulfill the box on a diagram of chemical pathways, you got it. Now comes the time to “replicate the process”, so you set your team out to organize a dissipative system where your de novo DNA/RNA is manipulated by your de novo ribosome and whatever array of other helper molecules you need, to the extent that the sequence of your de novo DNA/RNA is used to successfully establish the functional re-construction of the system.
Let me ask you Bob: Will you have to coordinate the descriptions of each the de novo aaRS, with the descriptions of the other molecules in the system? That is to say – will the individual sequences within the portion of your de novo DNA/RNA that describe your de novo aaRS’s have to be simultaneously coordinated so that the remainder of the descriptions result in a successful replication? And would you also say, and agree, that without that simultaneous coordination, your system will not result in a successful replication?
If this is so, Bob, can you then stand before your intricate diagram of the system’s pathways and properties (with the great formulas of physical law at hand, and with your team’s documented intimate knowledge of every facet and dynamic interaction within the system) and point out where exactly you find the source of that coordination?