NDLI: Information-Theoretic Considerations Concerning the Origin of Life

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Adami, Christoph
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	Research investigating the origins of life usually either focuses on exploring possible life-bearing chemistries in the pre-biotic Earth, or else on synthetic approaches. Comparatively little work has explored fundamental issues concerning the spontaneous emergence of life using only concepts (such as information and evolution) that are divorced from any particular chemistry. Here, I advocate studying the probability of spontaneous molecular self-replication as a function of the information contained in the replicator, and the environmental conditions that might enable this emergence. I show (under certain simplifying assumptions) that the probability to discover a self-replicator by chance depends exponentially on the relative rate of formation of the monomers. If the rate at which monomers are formed is somewhat similar to the rate at which they would occur in a self-replicating polymer, the likelihood to discover such a replicator by chance is increased by many orders of magnitude. I document such an increase in searches for a self-replicator within the digital life system avida.
Starting Page	309
Ending Page	317
Page Count	9
File Format	PDF
ISSN	01696149
Journal	Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres
Volume Number	45
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	15730875
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2015-06-11
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Subject Keyword	Life Sciences Astrophysics and Astroparticles Earth Sciences Astronomy, Observations and Techniques Biochemistry
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Medicine Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Space and Planetary Science

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