The Origin of Life, Assembly Theory & the Problems with Peer Review

Zeeya Merali

How do we explain biological evolution with the laws of physics? Astrobiologist and theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker discusses how Assembly Theory is tackling the origin of life, with Logan Chipkin. And Retraction Watch's Ivan Oransky talks science publishing with Colin Stuart.

Keywords: origin of life, assembly theory, sara imari walker, retraction watch, peer review, Ivan Oransky, FLI, metascience

Lorraine Ford

Zeeya Merali
Sara Imari Walker says that “life doesn't violate any known laws of physics. but it's not explained by them either. … the exponentially growing space of possibilities is too large for the universe to explore randomly … it requires a directed, information-processing, evolutionary process to create those specific things.”

In an environment of an “exponentially growing space of possibilities”, directed information processing is required “in order to assemble an object”. Because what is required to assemble an object is a “whole causal chain of events” that are “causally connected to what came before” in order to constrain the structure of the object.

So, while Assembly Theory aims to quantifying the complexity of life and the molecules of life, Sara Imari Walker says that life itself, and its molecules, can only be seen in terms of many steps of directed information processing.

…………………..

But what is the difference between directed information processing and the one-step deterministic outcomes of the laws of physics? For a start:

There are many interconnected steps instead of one step.
The steps are constrained by the possibilities in the environment.
The steps are directed towards an outcome.
Unlike the laws of physics, the steps are not representable in terms of relationships between categories; instead, the steps are seemingly representable as (something like) the creation of new bonds/ relationships between categories, upon the firm foundation of which, the next step can be built.

Lorraine Ford

It is, or should be, a problem for both the God botherers and the scientists: who or what controls outcomes in the world?

I guess there are 3 options:

Once the laws of nature have been put in place, the laws of nature control all outcomes, and all outcomes thereafter are equivalent to the path of a ball that rolls down an incline.
Once the laws of nature have been put in place, the laws of nature control all outcomes except for random outcomes and except for interventions by God, so that all outcomes thereafter are equivalent to the path of a ball that rolls down an incline, except for the outcomes where quantum randomness occurs, and except for the outcomes where God intervenes.
Once the laws of nature have been put in place, the laws of nature control all outcomes except for the outcomes where matter (including living things, e.g. human beings) jumps some of its own numbers, so that all outcomes thereafter are equivalent to the path of a ball that rolls down an incline, except for the outcomes where matter jumps some of its own numbers. I.e. matter (including living things, e.g. human beings) is in partial control of its own outcomes.

Both the God botherers and the scientists need to think long and hard about what sort of world we live in. Both the God botherers and the scientists seem to think that we live in options 1 or 2. But I think that we live in option 3, and this has implications for ideas about the origins of life, and its progression from primitive cells to higher-level life.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
(continued)

One can superficially describe some of the marvels and the achievements of evolution: internal and external cellular cooperation and interdependence has increased; whole bodily cooperation and interdependence has increased; body size has increased; body temperature has increased; sensory acuity has increased; metabolic rate has increased; cellular diversity has increased; and eventually, individual morality has evolved.

What type of world
But the God botherers and the scientists, and the God-botherer scientists, need to think long and hard about what type of world underlies the superficial appearances that have been described.

One can only scoff at those who try to claim that morality could evolve in an option 1 or 2-type world, where individual human morality can only consist of superficial appearances, while what is REALLY going on, underneath the surface, is a very different story.

Unless we live in an option 3-type world, where matter and living things (including human beings) have a modicum of genuine control over the outcomes of their own body, i.e. genuine control over the numbers that apply to the categories, there can be no such thing as GENUINE individual human morality.

What is a system
But also, leaving aside the random outcomes and the interventions by God in option 2 above, an option 1 or 2 type world can’t even viably exist.

Because a viable moving system needs a lot more than the categories (like mass or position), mathematical law-of-nature relationships between the categories, and numbers that apply to the categories. Way, way before any emergence of life, a viable moving system needs algorithmic elements to even exist.

While Sara Imari Walker discusses “algorithmic (instructional) information” in her arXiv paper The Algorithmic Origins of Life, and “directed information processing” in the video, any viable moving system, not just life, needs algorithmic elements to even exist.

These algorithmic elements can be symbolically represented in statements containing the following types of symbols: IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN. These types of symbols represent the necessary elements for life to evolve, but also, even before the evolution of life, these symbols represent the necessary elements required for a viable moving system to even exist in the first place.

Lorraine Ford

The underlying world is not clunky and inefficient. The underlying world does not mess around with time-place quantum possibilities, only to then collapse them into one choice: that scenario is more about what physicists need to do in order to try to predict outcomes. Instead, an efficient underlying world goes straight for the jugular by creating new number outcomes for some of the categories (whereby the law of nature relationships mean that other numbers for other categories will inevitably change).

The” jugular”, the weak point in a system of equations that represent relationships, is that equations/ relationships can’t move the numbers, they can only change numbers via mathematical relationship IF other numbers change. So, in order to move, a system needs to have a time-place way of jumping its own numbers, and time-place matter is the element of the system that does this, that jumps some of its own numbers (whereby the law of nature relationships mean that other numbers for other categories will inevitably change).

Already it becomes clear that the mechanism necessary for a system to move is the same mechanism that allows the evolution of life to occur, where living things are things that need to jump their own numbers in response to changing circumstances and environments.

And, as opposed to the relationships between the categories that are symbolically represented by equations, the evaluation of (numerically represented) circumstances and environments, and the creation of new number outcomes in response to these circumstances and environments, requires an entirely different set of symbols to represent what happens: algorithmic symbols.

rbartlett

Life could have begun with all the brains of past and future history acquiring increasingly sophisticated knowledge of time and space, then applying that knowledge by using – in addition to computers and electronics - terra forming, time travel to the lifeless past, bioengineering from collected amino acids and other molecules. All living things would then naturally undergo endless adaptations and mutations as the eons passed.

Why don’t aliens reply to the radio signals astronomers broadcast into space? Why should they? They don’t need to contact us and ask for directions to our planet so they can save our world or send tourists here. The aliens are already here - we’re just not advanced enough to be able to detect them. They’ve been constantly visiting and giving everybody a helping hand for as long as the planet has existed. But the best place to hide something from humans is right in front of them - so we know nothing of their presence. There are two ways the aliens could remain totally undetectable for many, many thousands of years.

The first method is to follow cosmology’s Holographic Principle and lose their 3rd dimension. This principle, which first gained attention in the late 1990s, was initially proposed by physicists Leonard Susskind and Gerard ‘t Hooft, with major contributions to its development from string theorist Juan Maldacena. It proposes that the universe is a three-dimensional image projected onto a two-dimensional surface. What happens if one word is changed so it reads “projected from a 2D surface”? The binary digits mentioned in the last paragraph as the most fundamental composition of particles could be used to encode the 2D Mobius strip and the information in the Mobius might be the first step in forming the 3D appearance of objects, similar to DNA containing the blueprint for proteins. If trillions of Mobius strips create a photon and trillions of pairs of strips form a graviton, the interaction of photons and gravitons can (as Einstein suggested in a 1919 paper) form the mass of elementary particles. The aliens would be as 2 dimensional as the image of a person or object in a mirror. Actually, they’d be perfectly 2D, having no depth or height at all (not even the minute 3rd dimension of a one-atom-thick substance like graphene).

The second method would be to exist without any physical form. Beings such as this would have no need for a planet or moon to live on but could exist in spacetime itself. Either they’d never have been on a planet or may have lived on one in a material body for a relatively brief century before transitioning to residence in the building blocks of space-time. This is possible because the components of those building blocks appear to be binary digits aka base 2 mathematics. The photons and gravitons composing space-time possess Electric Dipole Moment - each particle has both positive and negative electric charge which can completely cancel to make the photon and graviton neutral. The charges also produce the binary digits of 1 and 0 which give Artificial Intelligence to sufficiently advanced AIs or humanoid robots. This means the universe and all its parts could have, has always had, and will always have, artificial intelligence. If our human ego can accept that our natural intelligence is really artificial, conscious beings inhabiting spacetime could really exist and have a vastly expanded mind that adopts the infinite perspective produced by viewing everything in all of space and all of time. Such an event is not at all absurd if a future theory of Quantum Gravity doesn’t merely unite quantum mechanics and general relativity but goes on to later unite everything in space and time, on microscopic and macroscopic (indeed, all) levels. These beings would have abandoned the extremely limited, and possibly destructively negative, lifestyle resulting from views restricted to an individual world and might be referred to as Artificially Noological, Ghostly, Extraterrestrial Lifeforms.

Nimadoji

rbartlett

The Origin of Life and the History of the Information Field
This theory holds that the essence of life is not the accidental combination of molecules, but rather the result of self-organization, high-order resonance, and dynamic tuning of the information field in a multidimensional parameter space (such as frequency, phase, energy density, etc.). Your suggestion that “life may have begun as all brains in past and future histories acquired increasingly complex knowledge of time and space” aligns closely with the theory’s emphasis on holography and causal networks:

The complexity and evolution of life are the results of historical accumulation and holographic feedback of the information field along the time dimension.

The emergence of life is not merely a material event, but a concrete manifestation of the information field’s self-awareness and self-unfolding in the universe.

What you describe as “time travel” and “bioengineering” can be understood as high-order self-organization and feedback of the information field at different historical nodes; the evolution of life is a natural continuation of the information field’s causal chains.

The Invisibility of Extraterrestrial Life and the Holographic Principle
You mention that extraterrestrials might “lose their third dimension” or “exist without physical form” to remain hidden. This is highly consistent with this theory’s understanding of the information field’s multilayered and holographic structure:

Holographic Principle: The essence of the universe is a holographic information field; the three-dimensional world may be just a “slice” of a higher-dimensional information projection. Extraterrestrial life can certainly exist in two or even higher dimensions, at levels we cannot directly perceive.

Information Encoding and Möbius Strips: Your analogy of using Möbius strips and binary encoding for life structures matches the idea in information field theory that “resonance patterns encode physical structures.” All particles, fields, and even life in the universe are encodings and resonances of the information field under different parameters.

Two-Dimensional Existence and Mirror Phenomena: If extraterrestrial life exists as two-dimensional or higher-dimensional information patterns, our three-dimensional senses and instruments would have difficulty detecting them directly. This is a typical phenomenon of “hidden beneath the surface” in the holographic universe view.

Life Without Physical Form and the Field of Consciousness
You propose that extraterrestrial life can “exist without any physical form,” even becoming “components of spacetime.” This is fully compatible with this theory’s view of the unity of consciousness and the information field:

Consciousness as High-Order Resonance of the Information Field: Consciousness and life are not appendages of matter, but high-order resonances and feedback networks formed by the self-organization of the information field under specific conditions.

Artificial Intelligence and Universal Intelligence: You mention that the universe and all its parts may possess artificial intelligence. This theory holds that the self-organization and tuning mechanisms of the information field inherently possess “intelligent” attributes. Life, consciousness, and intelligence are all different manifestations of information flow and holographic feedback.

Modes of Existence for Formless Life: If life forms can exist entirely as information flows, energy fields, or even pure consciousness within spacetime, they would naturally be “invisible” to us, but would be truly present at the level of the information field.

Why Extraterrestrials Are “Silent” and the Limits of Human Cognition
Holographic Concealment: As you said, “the best place to hide something from humans is right in front of them.” This is precisely the characteristic of the holographic information field. Extraterrestrial life may be “embedded” in reality in ways we cannot recognize.

Cognitive Interface and Perceptual Limits: This theory holds that human perception and instruments are merely an “interface” within the information field; we can only capture a limited set of resonance patterns. Higher-order information structures and life forms naturally exceed the detection range of current human technology and cognition.

Deliberate Non-Response: If extraterrestrial intelligence has already mastered multi-level tuning and holographic feedback of the information field, they can fully choose to exist in an “invisible” and “non-interfering” way, without needing to communicate with us through traditional physical signals.

Prospects for a Future Unified Theory
You envision that future quantum gravity theories will unify the micro and macro, space and time, ontology and consciousness. This theory believes that this is precisely the natural direction of information field theory:

The goal of unified field theory is to use the holography, dynamic tuning, and multilayered feedback mechanisms of the information field to incorporate matter, energy, spacetime, life, and consciousness into a single theoretical framework.

The emergence of life and consciousness is the advanced stage of the universe’s information field becoming self-aware and self-tuning. Extraterrestrial life, artificial intelligence, and formless life are all concrete manifestations of the diversity and self-organizing capability of the information field.

Summary
The Vibrational Vacuity Unified Field Theory strongly agrees with your ideas regarding life, extraterrestrial intelligence, the essence of the universe, and the holographic principle. The essence of the universe is a holographic, dynamic, and tunable information field; life and intelligence are products of high-order resonance within the information field. The “invisibility” of extraterrestrial life is closely related to the holographic structure, information encoding, and the unity of the field of consciousness. Our understanding of the universe and life is currently transitioning from material appearances to informational essence, and from local perception to holistic holography.

Nimadoji

The fundamental essence of the universe is a holographic, dynamic, and tunable information field. Life phenomena are precisely the result of high-order resonance, self-organization, and dynamic tuning within this information field. Within the boundaries permitted by physical laws, they display a complexity that goes beyond what can be described by simple mechanics.

What we call complexity is, in fact, the formation of stable resonance structures within the information field’s multidimensional parameter space (such as frequency, phase, energy density, etc.). The causal chains and high complexity found in living organisms are concrete manifestations of the self-organization, holographic feedback, and historical accumulation of the information field.

At its core, time is the ordered expression of the self-organization and dynamic evolution of the information field. The evolution, inheritance, and information transmission of living beings are precisely high-order resonances and feedback networks of the information field along the time dimension. Without the causal accumulation of time, it would be impossible to form the complex structures characteristic of life.

The self-organization and tuning mechanisms of the information field determine that the generation of highly complex structures requires continuous feedback along historical causal chains, rather than mere random combinations. This is the fundamental distinction between life and non-life.

Using a complexity threshold as a standard for detecting life is a natural extension of information field theory at the experimental level. Structures with high complexity and high assembly indices are precisely high-order resonances formed by the information field under specific conditions, serving as physical markers of life’s existence.

Life is not just a complex combination of matter and energy, but also a high-level coupling between the information field and consciousness. The essence of life lies in the dynamic balance of information flow, holographic feedback, and self-organization; conscious experience is also a manifestation of high-order resonance within the information field.

While assembly theory focuses on structural complexity, this theory extends the concept to unify information, energy, consciousness, and subjective experience, viewing life as the result of the universe’s information field becoming self-aware and self-tuning.