'the control of chemical actions' is essentially the definition of life, the main criterion. ancient cells were simply chambers walled off from the outside world where chemical reactions could take place in a meticulous fashion, later 'controlled' by the organism.
the origin of life must explain this sequence describing the evolution of organic chemistry and biology:
- Small organic and inorganic molecules (eg, methane, CO2, water, ammonia) -->
- Middle organic molecules (eg, nucleotides, amino acids, glucose) -->
- Large organic molecules (eg, proteins, DNA, RNA, phospholipid bilayers) -->
- Protocells and single celled organisms -->
- Multicelled life, etc
what impetus propelled these molecules forward into ever more complex configurations? this 'driving force of life' is enigmatic. thermodynamics gives a very interesting hypothesis: that these organic chemical reactions all occurred because becoming more complex was energetically favorable, allowing the release of heat as a byproduct, and therefore following the natural path set by thermodynamics.
Laws: increasing temperature is increasing entropy. the entropy of a system must increase over time. higher temperature means more motion, so more overall 'states', and more entropy. low entropy means stuff is cold and ordered. it has heat waiting inside it ready to bound out like a coiled spring.
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