We often struggle to properly perceive phenomena where results accumulate through interaction.
There's a common math problem: a grandchild asks their grandfather for an allowance, starting with one yen and doubling the amount each day for a month.
If the grandfather carelessly agrees, the allowance would amount to one billion yen after a month.
This error arises from the tendency to assume that if doubling one yen a few times doesn't result in a significant amount, then subsequent doublings will follow a similar pattern.
However, if one carefully traces the results of this accumulation and interaction step-by-step, it becomes clear that the amount will be enormous, even without advanced mathematical knowledge or intuition.
Therefore, this is not a problem of knowledge or ability, but a problem of thinking method.
I would like to call this method of thinking—which involves progressively tracing accumulation and interaction to logically understand the results—"simulation thinking."
The First Step in the Origin of Life
Similarly, we struggle to understand the origin of life.
The origin of life poses the question of how complex cells emerged on ancient Earth, which initially contained only simple chemical substances.
When considering this problem, explanations sometimes rely on a fleeting, accidental miracle.
However, from the perspective of accumulation and interaction, it can be understood as a more realistic phenomenon.
On Earth, water and air circulate repeatedly in various places. Through this circulation, chemical substances are moved locally and then diffuse across the entire planet.
These various repetitions cause chemical substances to react with each other.
As a result, the Earth should transition from an initial state of only simple chemical substances to a state that includes slightly more complex chemical substances. Of course, many simple chemical substances would still be present.
And because slightly more complex chemical substances are combinations of simple ones, while their total number might be smaller, their variety would be greater than that of simple chemical substances.
This state transition doesn't occur only in small, localized areas of the Earth; it happens concurrently across the entire planet.
Furthermore, due to the global circulation of Earth's water and atmosphere, events occurring in confined spaces diffuse outwards, causing chemical substances to intermingle across the entire Earth. This results in an Earth containing a diverse range of slightly more complex chemical substances than in its initial state.
The Significance of the First Step
There is no direct evidence for the transition from the initial state to this current state; it is a hypothesis. However, it would be difficult for anyone to deny it. In fact, to deny it, one would need to explain why this universal mechanism, observable even today, would not have functioned.
This mechanism, concerning slightly more complex chemical substances, already possesses self-maintenance, replication, and metabolism. However, this is not the highly sophisticated self-maintenance, replication, and metabolism found in living organisms.
All slightly more complex chemical substances can be both destroyed and generated. Yet, on a planetary scale, each type of these slightly more complex chemical substances maintains a certain constant quantity.
The very fact that a constant quantity is maintained amidst this repeated generation and destruction demonstrates the nature of self-maintenance through metabolism.
Furthermore, these slightly more complex chemical substances do not exist as just single units; although their proportion might be small, their absolute number is enormous.
Even if this isn't self-replication, it is a productive activity that generates identical chemical substances. While this differs slightly from the term "replication," it yields a similar effect.
In other words, the undeniable phenomenon of the Earth transitioning from containing only simple chemical substances to including slightly more complex ones is both the first step and the essence of the origin of life.
Towards the Next Step
Of course, this state, which includes slightly more complex chemical substances, is not life itself.
Nor is it plausible to view it as the activity of life on a planetary scale. It is merely a state where slightly more complex chemical substances are present due to repeated chemical reactions.
Moreover, this phenomenon could certainly occur on planets other than Earth. The fact that life did not emerge on other planets but did on Earth suggests that something different happened on Earth compared to other planets.
Considering what that "something" might be is the next stage.
However, after understanding this initial step, we should no longer be able to think of the next step in the origin of life in a localized manner. The next step, like the first, must also be considered as a global phenomenon of the Earth.
And the next step is the Earth transitioning to a state containing even slightly more complex chemical substances.
As this step is repeated, chemical substances gradually and cumulatively become more complex.
Concurrently, the mechanisms of self-maintenance, replication, and metabolism also become progressively more intricate.
The Effect of Polymers and Earth's Topography
The presence of polymers plays a significant role here. Proteins and nucleic acids are polymers. Polymers can cumulatively create complex and diverse polymers from just a few types of monomers. The existence of monomers capable of forming polymers strengthens the evolutionary nature of this mechanism.
Numerous lakes and ponds on Earth function as isolated scientific experimental sites. There must have been millions of such locations across the globe. Each provided a different environment while allowing for the exchange of chemical substances through global water and atmospheric circulation.
The Power of Simulation Thinking
Once the origin of life is envisioned in this way, it becomes impossible to do anything more than criticize it by saying "there's no evidence." Instead, one would have to search for a mechanism that refutes this mechanism. However, I cannot conceive of such a mechanism.
In other words, like the grandfather in the allowance example, we simply haven't understood the origin of life. By employing simulation thinking, considering accumulation and interaction from the facts we already know, just as one can understand how the allowance becomes enormous after 30 days, one can also understand how life could have originated on Earth.
The Cloud of Dust Hypothesis
Strong ultraviolet radiation at the Earth's surface impedes the exchange of chemical substances. However, ancient Earth, with its frequent volcanic activity and meteorite impacts, must have been covered by a cloud of volcanic ash and dust, which would have shielded it from ultraviolet rays.
In addition, the atmosphere contained hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen—atoms that are key raw materials for important monomers for life—and the dust contained other rare atoms. The surface of the dust also served as a catalyst for the chemical synthesis of monomers.
Furthermore, friction from the dust would have generated energy such as heat and lightning, while the sun continuously supplied energy in the form of ultraviolet light and heat.
This cloud of dust was the ultimate monomer factory, operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, utilizing the entire Earth and all the solar energy pouring onto it.
Interaction of Mechanisms
Recall the initial step: the transition to an Earth containing slightly more complex chemical substances.
On a planet where this mechanism is functioning, there is an ultimate monomer factory, the principle of accumulating complexity into polymers is realized, and millions of interconnected scientific laboratories exist.
Even if this doesn't fully explain the origin of life, there's no doubt that it forms a mechanism for generating the complex chemical substances required by living organisms.
And remember the argument that the initial step already contains the essence of life.
An Earth produced as an extension of this step, containing highly complex chemical substances, must therefore embody the essence of life at a more advanced level.
We can see how this leads to an Earth where a diverse range of highly complex chemical substances and sophisticated life-essential phenomena are present.
The Finishing Touches
We can now consider the origin of life based on an Earth that has reached a highly advantageous state, a premise not typically assumed in existing discussions.
What else is needed for the emergence of living organisms?
It is the creation and integration of the functional mechanisms that living organisms require.
This doesn't seem to require any particularly special arrangements and appears explainable as a natural extension of the discussion so far.
The Method of Simulation Thinking
Simulation thinking differs from simulation itself.
For example, trying to simulate the mechanism of the origin of life as described here on a computer would not be easy.
This is because my explanation lacks the rigorous formal expressions necessary for a simulation.
However, this does not mean my thinking is imprecise.
Although the mode of expression is verbal text, it is based on a solid logical structure, known scientific facts, and objective reasoning rooted in our experience.
Therefore, it is entirely possible to grasp overall trends and changes in properties. If there are errors, they are not due to a lack of formalization, but rather to overlooking underlying conditions or the effects of specific interactions.
Thus, simulation thinking is possible using natural language, even without defining formal expressions.
I believe that even without formal expressions, mathematical concepts can be rigorously expressed using natural language.
I call this Natural Mathematics.
With Natural Mathematics, the effort and time required for formalization are eliminated, allowing more people to mathematically grasp and understand a broader range of concepts than with existing mathematics.
And simulation thinking is precisely a method of thought that uses natural language-based simulation.
Software Development
Simulation thinking is an indispensable skill for software developers.
A program is a repetition of calculations using data in memory space and placing the results into the same or different data in memory space.
In other words, a program is cumulative interaction itself.
Furthermore, what one aims to achieve by developing software is usually grasped through documents and interviews with the person commissioning the development.
Since the ultimate goal is to realize it in a program, its content must ultimately be the cumulative interaction of data.
However, the person commissioning software development is not a programming expert. Therefore, they cannot rigorously describe what they want to achieve using formal expressions.
Consequently, what is obtained from documents and interviews are natural language texts, and supplementary diagrams and tables. The process of converting these into rigorous formal expressions is what software development entails.
During the software development process, there are tasks such as requirements analysis and requirement organization, and specification definition, where development content is organized based on customer documents.
Additionally, based on the results of the specification definition, basic design is performed.
The results of these tasks up to this point are primarily expressed using natural language. As the work progresses, the content becomes logically more rigorous, making it easier to create the final program.
And at the stage of basic design, centered on natural language, it must be something that can operate on a computer and achieve what the customer desires.
This is precisely where simulation thinking, utilizing Natural Mathematics, is required. Moreover, dual simulation thinking is necessary here.
One is simulation thinking to confirm whether the expected operation can be achieved as an interaction between computer memory space and the program.
The other is simulation thinking to confirm whether what the customer wants to achieve is actually realized.
The former requires the ability to grasp the internal workings of the computer through simulation thinking. The latter requires the ability to grasp the tasks the customer will perform using the software through simulation thinking.
In this way, software developers possess the dual simulation thinking ability—both principled simulation thinking and semantic simulation thinking—as an empirical skill.
Conclusion
Many scientists and intellectually curious individuals are engaged in studying the origin of life. However, approaching the origin of life in the manner described here is not common.
This suggests that simulation thinking is a mode of thought that many people tend to lack, regardless of their knowledge or abilities.
On the other hand, software developers leverage simulation thinking to translate various concepts into systems.
Of course, simulation thinking is not exclusive to software developers, but software development particularly requires this ability and is ideally suited for honing it.
By using simulation thinking, one can not only construct and understand the overall picture of complex and advanced scientific mysteries like the origin of life but also complex subjects such as organizational and societal structures.
Therefore, I believe that in the society of the future, individuals with simulation thinking skills, much like software developers, will play active roles in various fields.