2.2. Simplest forms of life

The first condition distinguishing live form from lifeless is its potentiality to reproduce other forms similar to its own form in terms of inner structure and types of interaction with environment. For the purpose of realizing this potentiality, an alive form gets matter and energy from environment and converts them inside itself producing replicas of its components and organizing them into a structure wherein they will interact among themselves the way they interacted while in initial form. These actions mean continuous change in internal condition of a live form while properties of its interaction with environment are preserved. By the way, continuous internal changes is the main cause of that an alive form existing at every next moment differs from itself existed at a previous moment and finally its properties change to such an extent that it proper stops being existent and disintegrates. Alive forms are not as long-lived as lifeless in which internal changes are directly conditioned by symmetrical interactions with environment.

Let us consider a simplest form of life, i.e. a virus, as an object. Its interaction with habitat is reduced to nutrition (consumption of matter), consumption of energy, secretion of waste (in the form of matter and energy), reproduction (construction of its replica) and dying (disintegration to individual chemical molecules).

A virus consists of a nucleic acid molecule and albumen capsule preventing each other from disintegration. This is a basic purpose of their internal interaction. Nucleic acid plays a principle role in reproduction of another similar virus provided consistent environment conditions are available.

We are aware of viruses able to reproduce in medium of live cells alone. But it does not mean they cannot exist in other media. More than that a virus being a form simpler than a live cell had come into existence as a species yet before unicellular live forms did.

The virus reproduction mechanism is reduced to that on getting to a certain medium it changes a complex of chemical interactions occurring among its objects in such a way that they result in synthesis of mature virus particles, i.e. virions wherefrom other similar viruses are formed under certain conditions. This type of the virus-to-environment interaction is similar to catalytic interaction but at a much higher level of complexity. Reagents of this interaction are no more simple chemical molecules but more complex high-molecular compounds. The codes transferring information are no more simple physical objects and elementary acts of energy influence but their complexes much more complicated in composition and structure. The code interpretation apparatus functioning is based here on complexes of chemical law actions so complicated that very often it does not already seem possible to derive a strict dependence from one another. In this interaction, biological laws already start revealing as being higher than chemical from the standpoint of complexity level.

The information expediency principle exists as before in the sense that all the totality of reactions resulting in appearance of a new virus may as well occur without participation of such a virus. However, a coincidence of complex circumstances required for this event is much less probable than for reagents of catalytic interaction, i.e. it may occur very seldom. Still, this seems likely to happen. From time to time, a high-molecular compound medium produces its new viruses by itself.

The virus-to-environment information interaction has one more principal qualitative distinction in terms of catalytic interaction. In the latter case, the reaction result has nothing to do with a catalyst. As to the result of a virus information influence on medium it is significant to the virus because it ensures keeping its existence as a species. Here, the fourth factor of information exchange already manifests itself although in a most primitive manner. It may be called Information Transmission Orientation or, in a broader sense, Purposefulness.

Purposefulness of information interaction is a factor of its significance for existence of a concrete object transmitting information or for existence of its species.