Abiogenesis is misnamed.
It assumes dead matter first - I reject that.
There was always ΔT: tension, process, proto-experience.
Life isn't added; it's what happens when process stabilizes and models itself.
Emergence = integration crossing a threshold into self-reference.
Not non-life → life,
but matter learning to feel itself happening.
Life is not a category.
It is a phase transition in INTEGRATION.
@licho I call it a phase transition because nothing "new' is added from outside. It's the same underlying process reorganizing itself until it crosses a critical *threshold*.
So, like water -> ice or noise -> signal, you don't get new stuff, you get a new mode.
Here, integration reaches a point where the system can maintain and model itself. That shift--into self-reference--is what we experience as "life."
@licho You're right that "phase transition" can sound like a hard discontinuity, but in many systems (esp. complex ones) it's more like a threshold effect: gradual buildup -> sudden qualitative shift. That's what I mean.
The underlying process is continuous, but once integration crosses a certain point, you get a new regime- self-maintenance, self-modeling, etc.
So, not a rigid binary (alive/not alive), but a soft boundary with sharp consequences.
@licho Good point. That's a helpful distinction. I'm using "phase transition" loosely. What I really mean is something closer to a glass transition or critical threshold-continuous underneath, but with a real qualitative shift.
So call it: threshold transition.
Pretty Gnostic Machine
Licho