What Is Life?

How Chemistry Becomes Biology

By: Addy Pross

Narrated by: Derek Perkins

Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Seventy years ago, Erwin Schrdinger posed a simple, yet profound, question: What is life?. How could the very existence of such extraordinary chemical systems be understood? This problem has puzzled biologists and physical scientists both before, and ever since. Living things are hugely complex and have unique properties, such as self-maintenance and apparently purposeful behaviour which we do not see in inert matter. So how does chemistry give rise to biology? Did life begin with replicating molecules, and, if so, what could have led the first replicating molecules up such a path? Now, developments in the emerging field of 'systems chemistry' are unlocking the problem. Addy Pross shows how the different kind of stability that operates among replicating entities results in a tendency for certain chemical systems to become more complex and acquire the properties of life. Strikingly, he demonstrates that Darwinian evolution is the biological expression of a deeper and more fundamental chemical principle: the whole story from replicating molecules to complex life is one continuous coherent chemical process governed by a simple definable principle.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2012, Addy Pross (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Very capable theory of life developed here.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely, if you're very interested in life origin that is. It was a slow boil with the last two chapters carrying the best content.

Which scene was your favorite?

I was constantly impressed to learn how much has been discovered about the replicating behavior of DNA.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The winding explanation of the difficult (to me) concept of dynamic stability which is responsible for the increasing complexity in living systems was gratifying and very substantive.

Any additional comments?

This book feels current and far ahead of any thing I had previously learned about the subject.

Smart idea, poorly expressed

Important and thought-provoking thesis, but the prose is turgid and self-indulgent. Needs editor or probably a co-author.

excellent book, make's me want to read it again.

there's so much information on everything single topic of life imaginable, in love with this book.

An accessible layman’s into to molecular biology

This is an accessible layman’s into to molecular biology with excellent examples opening up life’s mysterious roots in the emergence of order from the “molecular storm.“

Profound & Life Changing...

Where does What Is Life? rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is one of the best audiobooks I've invested in on audible. As a college graduate with a BS in Biology concentrated in neuropharmacology and a minor in chemistry who's favorite course were molecular evolution and organic chemistry this was like going home.

I'd say this as a warning, if you're not familiar with terms like chirality or the process in which genes are expressed this might be a stretch from a comprehension standpoint, but if you are up for the challenge this book is absolutely worth it.

It's worth it anyway. It absolutely makes good on the title in far more comprehensive way than I expected.

For me, if I leave with with far more clarity than I started with on a subject I love, new questions about it that further my personal exploration of the subject, AND profound insights on things in realms far removed from the topic itself, that's what learning is about and that's exactly what this is.

What is life? Well, you'll find the most clear, lucid, quantifiable, and deductively valid answer to that question and a LOT more right here.

The value of the experience and permanent change to my world view FAR outweighs the cost.

Excellent book

If you could sum up What Is Life? in three words, what would they be?

Great review on fundamental issues we all think about.

What did you like best about this story?

The journey...from key historical events to where we are today with this key question.

Almost explains ...

Would you listen to What Is Life? again? Why?

I have listened to it a couple of times. If you've spent 20 years or so being perplexed about reductionism's usefulness in science but determined rejection of systems thinking and wholism, and its insistence on everything being continuous with physics, and take a sane approach to evolution, you may be drawn to biocentrism. But biology has been inadequate for at least a century, and the paradox of life as radically discontinuous with dead matter is (ahem) vitally interesting. It certainly isn't answered by mechanistic genetics.

This book is a lucid explanation of the issues, and as such is well worth listening to. The author places the big ideas in context very helpfully. He then plumps for reductionism and says wholism is a species of reductionism, and apart from giving some very interesting updates of long-chain amino acids, really does not offer a convincing new theory.

But his scientific recapping of the issues, addressed rationally, are a refreshing change from a dogmatic science-versus-religion bunfight with an arrogantly dismissive Dawkins in one corner and some deranged God-botherer in the other.

I came away feeling I had a much better grasp on the bigger picture in philosophy of science. But there is still a fault-line between organic chemistry and bio-chemistry which chemistry can't / won't address. A virus may be a bridge between living and non-living, as we were taught at school back in the Dark Ages, but a virus still doesn't explain the leap.

If you're not a ponderer and puzzler you might not like it. But if you do lie in bed at night thinking about things like reductionism and mereology, this is not 'academic' in a tedious way, and you might like it. I did.

Loved it

Very insightful and wonderful explanations. I was reintroduced to ideas and shown them in a different way as to expand my understand of life and it's origins. There was a clear and expansive discussion on the differences in the scientific and philosophical ideas of life.

interesting

some outdated info but overall a good read. I was expecting a more in depth story but I would recommend to friends not in the biology field.

What are the chances?

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes.

Have you listened to any of Derek Perkins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I don't believe I have but would again. I was pleased with his work.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I didn't really have any 'extreme' reactions to the book.

Any additional comments?

I'm one of those persons that always believed that extraterrestrial life in all forms is far more likely than not likely. After listening to the facts that this book puts fourth I understand more now how so many circumstances must come together for this to work. But since it did happen in the past (i'm here) it still can happen. I hope so. I don't want us to be alone in the universe.