Title: The origin and early evolution of life in chemical complexity space,
Abstract: Life can be viewed as a localized chemical system that sits on, or in the
basin of attraction of, a metastable dynamical attractor state that remains out
of equilibrium with the environment. Such a view of life allows that new living
states can arise through chance changes in local chemical concentration
(=mutations) that move points in space into the basin of attraction of a life
state - the attractor being an autocatalytic sets whose essential (=keystone)
species are produced at a higher rate than they are lost to the environment by
diffusion, such that growth in expected. This conception of life yields several
new insights and conjectures. (1) This framework suggests that the first new
life states to arise are likely at interfaces where the rate of diffusion of
keystone species is tied to a low-diffusion regime, while precursors and waste
products diffuse at a higher rate. (2) There are reasons to expect that once
the first life state arises, most likely on a mineral surface, additional
mutations will generate derived life states with which the original state will
compete. (3) I propose that in the resulting adaptive process there is a
general tendency for higher complexity life states (i.e., ones that are further
from being at equilibrium with the environment) to dominate a given mineral
surface. (4) The framework suggests a simple and predictable path by which
cells evolve and provides pointers on why such cells are likely to acquire
particulate inheritance. Overall, the dynamical systems theoretical framework
developed provides an integrated view of the origin and early evolution of life
and supports novel empirical approaches.