Related papers: Assembly Theory Explains and Quantifies the Emerge…
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…
Assembly theory (AT) quantifies selection using the assembly equation and identifies complex objects that occur in abundance based on two measurements, assembly index and copy number, where the assembly index is the minimum number of…
Quantifying the evolution and complexity of materials is of importance in many areas of science and engineering, where a central open challenge is developing experimental complexity measurements to distinguish random structures from evolved…
Assembly theory (AT) introduces causation as a material property and establishes a metrology for objects produced by evolution and selection. The physical scale of causation is quantified by the assembly index, defined as the minimum number…
Assembly Theory (AT) was developed to help distinguish living from non-living systems. The theory is simple as it posits that the amount of selection or Assembly is a function of the number of complex objects where their complexity can be…
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…
Assembly Theory (AT) is a theory that explains how to determine if a complex object is the product of evolution. Here we explain why attempts to compare AT to compression algorithms, ref 1, does not help identify if the object is the…
We prove the full equivalence between Assembly Theory (AT) and Shannon Entropy via a method based upon the principles of statistical compression renamed `assembly index' that belongs to the LZ family of popular compression algorithms (ZIP,…
Assembly Theory (AT) and its central measure, the assembly index (Ai), represent an invaluable opportunity to address some of the most persistent and widespread conflations and misconceptions about computability and complexity theory in…
One of the longest standing open problems in science is how life arises from non-living matter. If it is possible to measure this transition in the lab, then it might be possible to understand the physical mechanisms by which the emergence…
Self-organization is the autonomous assembly of a network of interacting components into a stable, organized pattern. This article shows that the process of self-assembly can be encoded in terms of evolutionary entropy, a statistical…
The evolution of complexity has been a central theme for Biology [2] and Artificial Life research [1]. It is generally agreed that complexity has increased in our universe, giving way to life, multi-cellularity, societies, and systems of…
We propose a novel definition of life in terms of which its emergence in the universe is expected, and its ever-creative open-ended evolution is entailed by no law. Living organisms are Kantian Wholes that achieve Catalytic Closure,…
To analyze the evolutionary emergence of structural complexity in physical processes we introduce a general, but tractable, model of objects that interact to produce new objects. Since the objects--\emph{$epsilon$-machines}--have well…
The theory of evolution by natural selection cannot be used to evaluate the truth value of the following proposition: Through evolution, there exists at least one species that can adapt to any one given environment. To address this issue,…
This white paper introduces a framework for applying Assembly Theory (AT) to planetary atmospheres as a biosignature framework suitable for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). AT quantifies the minimum combinatorial complexity required…
The origin of cellular life can be described in terms of the transition from inorganic matter: solids, liquids and gases, to the emergence of cooperative assemblies of organic matter, DNA and proteins,capable of replication and metabolism.…
How do we estimate the probability of an abundant objects' formation, with minimal context or assumption about is origin? To explore this we have previously introduced the concept of pathway assembly (as pathway complexity), in a graph…
An assembly is a large population of neurons whose synchronous firing is hypothesized to represent a memory, concept, word, and other cognitive categories. Assemblies are believed to provide a bridge between high-level cognitive phenomena…
Even when concepts similar to emergence have been used since antiquity, we lack an agreed definition. However, emergence has been identified as one of the main features of complex systems. Most would agree on the statement ``life is…