Related papers: Chemical Heredity as Group Selection at the Molecu…
Multilevel selection is an important organizing principle that crucially underlies evolutionary processes from the emergence of cells to eusociality and the economics of nations. Previous studies on multilevel selection assumed that the…
Biological and social systems are structured at multiple scales, and the incentives of individuals who interact in a group may diverge from the collective incentive of the group as a whole. Mechanisms to resolve this tension are responsible…
In many biological systems, natural selection acts simultaneously on multiple levels of organization. This scenario typically presents an evolutionary conflict between the incentive of individuals to cheat and the collective incentive to…
It is becoming widely accepted that very early in the origin of life, even before the emergence of genetic encoding, reaction networks of diverse small chemicals might have manifested key properties of life, namely self-propagation and…
The origin of heredity is studied as a recursive state in a replicating proto-cell consisting of many molecule species in mutually catalyzing reaction networks. Protocells divide when the number of molecules, increasing due to replication,…
A great variety of molecular components is encapsulated in cells. Each of these components is replicated for cell reproduction. To address an essential role of the huge diversity of cellular components, we study a model of protocells that…
Selection is central to biological evolution, yet there has been no general experimental framework for quantifying selection in chemical systems before life. Here we demonstrate that selection in a prebiological chemical system can be…
In the study of the evolution of cooperation, many mechanisms have been proposed to help overcome the self-interested cheating that is individually optimal in the Prisoners' Dilemma game. These mechanisms include assortative or networked…
Evolution is often understood through genetic mutations driving changes in an organism's fitness, but there is potential to extend this understanding beyond the genetic code. We propose that natural products - complex molecules central to…
We propose an alternative to the prevailing two origin of life narratives, one based on a replicator first hypothesis, and one based on a metabolism first hypothesis. Both hypotheses have known difficulties: All known evolvable molecular…
The path toward the emergence of life in our biosphere involved several key events allowing for the persistence, reproduction and evolution of molecular systems. All these processes took place in a given environmental context and required…
To unveil the logic of cell from a level of chemical reaction dynamics, we need to clarify how ensemble of chemicals can autonomously produce the set of chemical, without assuming a specific external control echanism. A cell consists of a…
It has been suggested that major transitions in evolution require the emergence of novelties, often associated to the cooperative behaviour of previously existing objects or agents. A key innovation involves the first cooperative…
Modern biological tools have made it possible to unequivocally demonstrate the deep relationship among species in terms of genes and basic molecular mechanisms. In addition, results from genetic, physical and physiological approaches…
While modern physics and biology satisfactorily explain the passage from the Big Bang to the formation of Earth and the first cells to present-day life, respectively, the origins of biochemical life still remain an open question. Since…
We apply the theory of learning to physically renormalizable systems in an attempt to develop a theory of biological evolution, including the origin of life, as multilevel learning. We formulate seven fundamental principles of evolution…
Evolution produces complex and structured networks of interacting components in chemical, biological, and social systems. We describe a simple mathematical model for the evolution of an idealized chemical system to study how a network of…
We present a benchmark study of autonomous, chemical agents exhibiting associative learning of an environmental feature. Associative learning has been widely studied in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, but are most commonly…
Biological living systems in general exhibit complex and diverse dynamics. The latter, in particular, is essential, since diversification increases the odds of survival of an organism while reducing the risk of extinction of the population.…
This thesis broadly concerns the origins of life problem, pursuing a joint approach that combines general philosophical/conceptual reflection on the problem along with more detailed and formal scientific modelling work oriented in the…