>>12062266>>12062293i agree with most of what is said here. what i am argiung is
a) carbon is only optimal under earth conditions. here are my assumptions, where i may have made a mistake: life needs complexity, and carbon is the atom most capeable of that based on the fact that it has 4 binding electrons and its size is perfect, its electronegativity is not too large, bonds can brake but not too low, so many bonds can form.
in different conditions, like higher atmosferic perassure, stornger local gravity, different average temperature, that optimum would be elsware. and if there is variation there is no reason to believe that earth condition carbon is optimal.
b) even in carbon based life we are familiar with phospfolipid membarne as basic cellular unit and atp, gtp ... as energy carrier and sugars as energy storage etc. it is not certaine this is the optimal configuration
but that is beacause (asuming abio genesis which i will cause duh) under early earth conditions ceartine early proteins and phospholipids were made, and that part was chance, all that needed to happen for life to occure is for the molecules necesseary for it to come into being, not for the best possible molecules for it to come into being.
c) evolution is not a perfect optimisation process. im only 200 pages into my fucking 800 page evolutionary biology textbook so i may very well be wrong, im basing this argument more on the fact that in ai research optimisation algortihms often top out at a LOCAL maximum and never reach golobal maximum
