The origin of life and thinking from the modern physics point of view

Attempts at a physical picture of how living beings develop from unliving m atter are beset with difficulties due to the low probability of some of the stages of the process. It is shown that these difficulties arise from the misconstruction of the term 'coding' and that they are overcome by assuming that the polynucleotide catalised rather than 'coded' the formation of pro tein in primary organisms (hypercycles). A realistic scenario including the emergence of a unified code is considered for such a process. A physical m echanism of thinking and the development of a necessary evolutionary mechan ism are discussed, for which purpose the concepts of information, valuable information, and information generation are analyzed. It is shown that thin king reduces largely to image recognition. A possible molecular mechanism o f recognition is considered which is shown to be quite likely to have appea red in the course of evolution.