Quantum as a heat engine—the physics of intensities unique to the origins of life

Experimental endeavor for addressing the origins of life when viewed from the physical perspective presents a new opportunity of developing physics further for its own sake. A case in point is the issue of intensities. The physics of the origins of life may more readily be approachable by way of the dynamics of intensities or intensive quantities such as temperature and force strengths, compared to the standard dynamics of extensive quantities such as molecule numbers, densities, masses and charges. What is unique to the dynamics of intensities is that it is already contextual in addressing the context under which the intensities in focus are generated and maintained. In particular, because of the contextual nature of temperature grounded upon the material context in which the contextual elements move almost randomly with each other, the occurrence of temperature gradients provides an impetus for transforming the material context. The physical origins of life are just associated with the emergence of the robust material context that can serve as a heat engine. One likely candidate for the material context serving as a heat engine that could emerge in the presence of temperature gradients near hot vents in the primitive ocean on the Earth might have been a citric acid cycle running with no help of enzymes of biological origin. Underlying the emergence of a robust heat engine is the pruning principle of the faster temperature drop going with the greater stored latent heat applied to any reacting molecules crossing the temperature gradients.