Possible Explanation

Self-Organization and Emergent Systems

The Origin of Life • Self Organization

The Explanation

Another possibility emphasizes the ability of matter and energy to produce organized structures without external direction.

Chemical systems can display self-assembly, autocatalysis, reaction networks, concentration effects, and other forms of spontaneous organization. Lipid molecules can form compartments. Some molecules catalyze reactions involving other molecules. Networks of reactions can influence the production and persistence of their own components.

Origin-of-life researchers investigate whether increasingly complex forms of chemical organization could eventually cross the threshold into heredity and Darwinian evolution.

The important question is not whether self-organization occurs. It clearly does. The question is how far such processes can proceed and whether they can account for the functional integration, heritable information, and continuing evolution characteristic of living systems.

Research into emergent chemical systems attempts to discover whether those properties can arise progressively from the behavior of interacting molecules.

Research Sources

Hordijk and Steel — Autocatalytic Networks at the Basis of Life

Wim Hordijk; Mike Steel • 2018

Reviews autocatalytic reaction networks as models for the chemical organization required by living systems.

Primary source for this explanation. Hordijk and Steel examine how mutually supporting catalytic networks can arise and function, while arguing that autocatalytic organization is necessary but not by itself sufficient for life-like behavior.

Scientific Foundation

Adamski et al. — From Self-Replication to Replicator Systems

Paul Adamski; Marcel Eleveld; Ankush Sood; Ádám Kun; András Szilágyi; Tamás Czárán; Eörs Szathmáry; Sijbren Otto • 2020

Examines self-replicating molecular systems and the emergence of additional life-like characteristics through interacting chemical processes.

Provides broader systems-chemistry context for investigating how organized behavior can emerge from interacting molecular populations without assuming that any single self-organizing process constitutes life.

Systems Context

Hanczyc et al. — Primitive Cellular Compartments

Martin M. Hanczyc; Shelly M. Fujikawa; Jack W. Szostak • 2003

Provides experimental examples of simple amphiphilic molecules forming membrane compartments relevant to primitive-cell models.

Illustrates a concrete form of molecular self-organization. Membrane self-assembly demonstrates that organized structures can arise from molecular properties while leaving the larger problem of integrating such structures with heredity and metabolism unresolved.

Experimental Example