How Chemistry Becomes Life: Searching for the Emergence of Life Within the Boundaries of Possibility

Life metabolizes, grows, responds to environmental stimuli, reproduces and transmits hereditary information. It possesses an intrinsic capacity for self-organization and, to some extent, the ability to replicate with variation, enabling evolution. These seemingly well-defined characteristics are, in fact, conclusions inferred from the particular form of life observed on Earth. The deeper question is not merely what life initially was on Earth, but what life could be within the space of possibilities. In other words, the problem of the origin of life is not simply asking how life began, but rather what forms life could take within the constraints permitted by physics and chemistry. Life on Earth may represent only one realization among many possible outcomes.

The existence of life does not depend on a special destiny of Earth or biomolecules. Instead, it arises from a series of strict physicochemical constraints. To understand whether life could emerge on early Earth, one must first determine which chemical combinations were permitted and which were fundamentally impossible under those conditions. These constraints arise not only from the laws governing matter but also from planetary-scale geological processes. Energy sources, material cycles, chemical stability and the extreme conditions of early Earth, including high temperature, high pressure and intense radiation, must all be considered in shaping possible reaction pathways.

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