A problem in any theory is how do we "experiment"? Can we just "run chemistry" for 100 million years (model time) in a supercomputer and find life developing and conclude "that's how it works". BUT that doesn't touch "subjective experience" of consciousness and self-awareness that allows a feedback look within an individual to direct his own development, like humans can do (however poorly). And probably no computer system can be complex enough to have the emergence of awareness, and our modeled chemistry never leaves organic molecules turning tricks but that don't lead to complexity needed for even the simplest of life.,(reply>), One "impossible experiment" would be to have a time machine, and bring life back in time, say 1 billion years ago, and see if that life can propagate, at least given all the needed substances - sunlight, air, water, temperature. So Sheldrake's experiment might say life we we know it could not thrive on earth 1 billion years ago because some "field" of other life is not around to sustain it. This would also support a "Gaia hypothesis" that sees life only thrives at the level of a planet sized biosphere.<br>We can't go back in time, but we might discover moving in space has the same effect. What if we found life on Mars failed to thrive, even adding all known inputs. We'd have to conclude something unknown is missing on Mars, but not on earth.,(reply>), Biologist Rupert Sheldrake also speculated on what makes life different, and he offered something he called "Morphic resonance" which he claimed had a storage system outside of chemistry, but basically similar to the "100th monkey idea" where ideas can spread in some field of awareness outside individuals. So after a first individual does something novel, and others copy locally a critical mass may be reached where it spreads outside of direct observation. Anyway, it focuses on the idea of "patterns" that is similar, and propagate in some "higher" medium than mere "physical reality" that we can objectively measure.