Is the Emergence of Life an Expected Phase Transition in the Evolving Universe?

Table of Links

Abstract and Introduction

Part I. A Definition of Life

Part II. The first Miracle: The emergence of life is an expected phase transition – TAP and RAF.

Part III. The Second Miracle: The evolution of the biosphere is a propagating, non-deducible construction, not an entailed deduction. There is no Law. Evolution is ever-creative

Part IV. New Observations and Experiments: Is There Life in the Cosmos?

Conclusion and Acknowledgments

Figures and References

Abstract

We propose a novel definition of life in terms of which its emergence in the universe is expected, and its ever-creative open-ended evolution is entailed by no law. Living organisms are Kantian Wholes that achieve Catalytic Closure, Constraint Closure, and Spatial Closure. We here unite for the first time two established mathematical theories, namely Collectively Autocatalytic Sets and the Theory of the Adjacent Possible. The former establishes that a first-order phase transition to molecular reproduction is expected in the chemical evolution of the universe where the diversity and complexity of molecules increases; the latter posits that, under loose hypotheses, if the system starts with a small number of beginning molecules, each of which can combine with copies of itself or other molecules to make new molecules, over time the number of kinds of molecules increases slowly but then explodes upward hyperbolically. Together these theories imply that life is expected as a phase transition in the evolving universe. The familiar distinction between software and hardware loses its meaning in living cells. We propose new ways to study the phylogeny of metabolisms, new astronomical ways to search for life on exoplanets, new experiments to seek the emergence of the most rudimentary life, and the hint of a coherent testable pathway to prokaryotes with template replication and coding.

Key Words: Catalytic Closure; Collectively Autocatalytic Sets; Constraint Closure; Exoplanets; Functions; Graph Theory; Kantian Whole; Life; Newtonian Paradigm; Phase Transition; Set Theory; Universal Constructor.

Introduction

Erwin Schrödinger, in his famous 1944 book, What is Life?, brilliantly proposed the aperiodic crystal as the source of order in organisms,(1). But he left the question open. Eighty years later, building upon previous work, we believe a coherent picture can be drawn. The universe may hold a million trillion habitable planets. The emergence of life in the universe is a miracle, but, in our perspective, an expected one. Once life emerged, its evolution is radically creative and cannot be based on physics alone. Strong reductionism here shows its limits. Life is a double miracle.