In seeking out the principles of self-replication, we can compare and contrast macro-scale manufacturing performed by humans against the growth processes and metabolism of plant life. Under all conditions, plants appear motionless to the human eye, but over long periods of time they easily exhibit macroscropic growth. The central mechanism behind this "invisible" phenomenon is molecular self-assembly. (A much more personal example would be the growth of your own fingernails. Your fingernails are motionless for all practical purposes.) Multi-cellular organisms (especially plants) proceed by a reliable process of cell division in tissues. Cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) and Transcription Factors act as communication among the existing cells, which orchestrate their various functions in forming a macroscopic tissue.
Plant life can be viewed as factories running molecular self-assembly, whose drive out of equilibrium with the environment is performed by photosynthesis. This process which proceeds quite well on planet earth was the entire basis of the economy of what is called human Agriculture. The invention of agriculture was unimaginably disruptive to human life, but allowed for the eventual rise of everything that is considered civilization today.
The industrial revolution gave rise to the "assembly line" of manufacturing. This exercise requires enormous expenditures on electricity and heat and nearly all the processes produce visible motion of materials. The result is the creation of artifacts at incredible speeds. Living plants grow slowly, and often in synchrony with the seasons on earth since their assembling process is purely molecular. However, manufacturing proceeds at a rate that is orders of magnitude faster. The roadmap for the technology is to pair the production rates of macroscopic manufacturing with the autonomy of self-assembly (which is so far only observed at molecular levels).
In seeking principles of self-assembly a number of research questions spring up. Chemists, physicists, engineers, and mathematicians should coordinate their efforts in answering those questions, preferably through research.
- What is the difference between "Universal" Self-replication and coincidental Self-replication? What are the ramifications of this distinction to macroscopic manufacturing?
- Is peptide chain synthesis a necessary condition for protein synthesis? or merely a sufficient, provincial one?
- Can self-replication proceed without a "string", "thread", "chain" of information contained in some sort of array?
- Would macroscale self-assembly proceed better under water , rather than in air, thus allowing for a more random mixing of raw materials?
- Is a complex brain controlling arms through hand-eye coordination a NECESSARY condition for macroscopic self-assembly?
- Is macroscopic self-assembly physically impossible due to the fact that molecules are using a quantum-mechanical backdoor?
- What quantum properties of molecules would be desirable in macroscopic materials, which would ease self-replication for them?