The replicating molecule that was precursor to first cell must have
felt urge to combine with particles that were similar to itself and that it was
capable of attracting. When it succeeded in combining molecules to
itself, it must had a sense of relief, of tension subsiding.
(Naturally, charged chemical molecules always are tensed and are in
search of a way to ease this tension. The tension eases when they
combine with opposite charged compatible molecule.) Such
feelings/sensations of tension and relief were the subjective side of
those molecules.
When one molecule came and attached to
replicating molecular structure, it was feeling one type of forces
around it. When another molecule came and attached to replicating
structure next to this first molecule, first molecule feels a change of
force around it. Its feeling changes. Now its destiny is linked to the
other molecule. With each coming molecule, the force around first
molecule changes and that's reflected in change of feeling it feels. Its
urge, its attracting power changes. Finally when all molecules are
attached to replicating structure, they are in shape similar to original
replicating structure. When new structure separates from original
structure, the overall feeling it feels is similar to the overall
feeling of original structure. That's because molecular composition and
shape and structure is similar. So the force around it is similar. The
attraction and charge it has is similar. Now the feeling of our first
molecule is morphed in a way that it is part of overall feeling of
structure. That's because the force and charge our first molecule has
around it is morphed due to other molecules around it. That overall new
molecular structure has a resultant force and charge (attraction).
The
world of a charged element or molecule must be quite chaotic. It feels a
constant craving to satisfy the deficiency (in case of negative charge)
or excess (in case of positive charge) it constantly feels. It attracts
the first compatible opposite charged element/molecule that comes near
it through electromagnetic force and combines with it to form a new
molecule. The resultant molecule may be stable or it may also have some
charge. If it has charge, it will again seek to combine with any
compatible opposite charged molecule. All this leads to many different
molecular structures with different properties. One such structure may
have been a bit long and may have a property of replication. It
attracted only molecules similar to its own constituent molecules, but
when they all combined, it felt a repulsive force and released the new
structure away. Once alone, it again attracted, then again released.
Thus the cycle went on and the original structure became a replicating
machine. All the structures it was releasing were similar to itself and
they all became replicating machines too and thus the number of these
replicating molecular structures increased exponentially, provided
constituent molecules were available in abundance.
Replication with
protective layer: Now, naked molecules may have gotten easily destroyed
due to a variety of outside forces but lets say some of them
accidentally got inside oil bubbles or other form of protective
bubble. Those inside the bubbles were safe from variety of destructive
outside forces. So bubble ones survived and naked ones got destroyed.
Now we only have bubble enclosed replicating structures. They again
started replicating if constituent molecules were able to flow inside
those bubbles. When new structure separates from parent structure, it
moves away with speed and as it reaches bubble boundary, it takes half
the bubble with it. (Or it may be that bubble/molecular membrane was
part of original molecular structure in the way it attracts molecules
around it. Maybe, in addition to attracting similar constituent
molecules, it also attracted some type of molecules around it in a
circular fashion, like soap does around dust particles.) So when
replication completes, bubbles/membrane also splits into two, around
each structure. The bubble may be smaller at first but it would retain
original bigger shape because of property/force of molecular structure
and availability of raw material of bubble/membrane nearby.
Evolution:
Lets say original molecular structure didn't have the property to form a
protective membrane around it. The replications aren't perfect and
error leads to some change in molecular structure of some copies (error
may be due to a new molecule coming near and attaching somewhere to
parent structure because it had properties similar to constituent
molecule and thus was mistakenly accepted). Now let's say one such
errored copy had a property of making molecular membrane around it. So
this copy and copies of this copy had membrane around them while all
other structures were naked. A destructive force or wave came from
outside in the pool where all our molecular structures were propagating
and killed all naked structures. But the structures with membrane
survived due to protection from membrane. So from now on only membraned
structures will be available in pool and they will replicate. Membrane
became a fundamental part of our structure. This is evolution. A simple
game of numbers and chance. All sorts of changes occur and propagate for
time being, but only those changes that help in survival and
propagation tend to survive in long term.
We today only see RNA
and DNA, i.e. combination of nucleotides, but not any other simpler
replicating structure. There must have been series of evolution of
replicating structure that lead to RNA but probably previous ones didn't
survive and only RNA ended up surviving or was stable enough to survive
in long term. How did things come to RNA? RNA duplicates itself as well
as releases proteins (made of amino acids - carbon based molecules)
that help RNA in many ways - helping in replication as well as carrying
out functions of RNA. How did it come to be?
We do what we feel to do. To relieve this eternal craving we feel. Fill the gap / fill the hole as they say. Feelings change with events. Replicating molecule initially feels hunger. But when it manages to attract and attach all necessary particles to form a copy, maybe for a moment it is relieved, but then it feels the need to detach the complete copied molecule. Isn't it the same with us? We move from desire to desire. Once we attain a desire, for some small time we feel good but soon move on to next desire. Today's food can't satiate tomorrow's hunger. Why isn't the molecule ever satisfied? Because the day it is, it will be the end of its lineage. In the past, many forms of replicating molecule may have gotten satisfied/stabilized, then they no longer felt need to replicate and that was their lineage's end. Maybe even today they lie somewhere, gratified; more likely - external forces fragmented them away.
But how did events turn into feelings? They were already feelings, only the feelings are now more segregated, specialized, as per the evolution. The hunger of molecule changed its "taste" as its shape changed.
(A side idea that just came to me: Maybe particles don't 'have' feelings, maybe particles 'are' feelings.)
Initially the molecule controlled its structure from its own force. Then it started sending out smaller messengers/carriers/agent molecules to carry out work for it. How? An anomaly in molecule would've made it attract and then repel specific molecules and those molecules had some effects, say, weakening the protective layer during replication. Such change would've made that cell reproduce better/faster increasing its number and consequently chances of survival in a chaotic world, which it clearly did. Now that cell is bigger and has many molecules involved other than original replicating one, the feeling/force of cell as a whole is equal to resultant of feelings/forces of individual molecules. BUT only those cells will survive in which this resultant feeling is still of hunger and desire to replicate. This principal keeps eliminating those changes that lead cell to behave in any other way (i.e. cells with such changes don't replicate/survive). It may look difficult or improbable, but when you consider that those cells had many million years at their disposal, it becomes probable and even natural.
