The process of carcinogenesis is what I would consider “an organism developing within an organism” or the individuation of cells from the collective.

That is to say instead of working cooperatively in a socialist way to support the health and growth of the whole organism it somehow switches to a new identity as something self serving - that operates to dominate or overcome its environment for its own survival and needs. It steals more glucose than it needs, it replicates outside the boundaries of what it should be allowed to occupy.

How does this relate to the beginning of life? If we imagine a cell it normally obeys a set of laws and controls; hormones, neural impulses, the immune system, messengers and basic physiology which act as the “laws” or “physical rules” of its environment that keeps it in check.

We don’t know if a cell understands that the rest of its cohort is also living. We know that it behaves in a multi cellular organism to this end but it could simply be “doing its own thing” within the range it is allowed to. Just as humans do what we want within the range of what is possible for humans on earth and human societies laws and regulations.

Perhaps the same mechanism that causes a cancer to divulge from working with its environment is the same one that triggered basic chemicals to individuate from the non living physical world around them and become what we identify as “living”.

A Non living chemical Reaction that finds a way to manipulate other chemical reactions around it to work towards preserving its own chemical reaction chain. Feeding off other substances and converting them into itself or offspring.

I use my terms “it’s own” “finds a way” etc but don’t imply that the cancer has an agency or agenda yet. This could be something that appears (perhaps illusively) at higher orders of living systems.

It’s worthy to note that foetuses as an “Organism” within and organism operate with many similarities to those of cancer. A developing embryo is parasitic in nature , evading the immune system, and will take from the mother what it needs often to the detriment of the mothers health.

Could cancer hold a vital clue into the origin of life?