Abstract
Life is more than the sum of its constituent molecules. Living systems depend on a particular chemical organization, i.e., the ways in which their constituent molecules interact and cooperate with each other through catalyzed chemical reactions. Several abstract models of minimal life, based on this idea of chemical organization and also in the context of the origin of life, were developed independently in the 1960s and 1970s. These models include hypercycles, chemotons, autopoietic systems, (M,R)-systems, and autocatalytic sets. We briefly compare these various models, and then focus more specifically on the concept of autocatalytic sets and their mathematical formalization, RAF theory. We argue that autocatalytic sets are a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for life-like behavior. We then elaborate on the suggestion that simple inorganic molecules like metals and minerals may have been the earliest catalysts in the formation of prebiotic autocatalytic sets, and how RAF theory may also be applied to systems beyond chemistry, such as ecology, economics, and cognition.
Highlights
Life is more than the sum of its constituent molecules
The notion of autocatalytic sets has been studied more extensively as Reflexively Autocatalytic and F-generated (RAF) theory [25], which will be the focus of the remainder of this paper
Given the ubiquity of catalysis in living systems, it seems that life does not so much “invent” new chemistry, but rather uses chemistry that happens anyway, evolving efficient catalysts to speed up those reactions that are in some way useful for its own maintenance and reproduction
Summary
The petri dish will be full of happily eating and reproducing bacteria. Take those same E. coli bacteria and grind them up into their constituent molecules, place those molecules in a petri dish in a sterile environment with the same nutrients, and watch what happens. After having been stored at close to absolute zero temperature for almost a week, Artemia continues its normal life cycle. In both experiments, the first one with E. coli and the second one with Artemia, life was killed off. With Artemia, life’s organization was not destroyed. There is something specific about the way in which these molecules are organized into a particular reaction network that gives living systems their special properties
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