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

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.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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
(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.

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.