Self-other organization: why early life did not evolve through natural selection

Area of Science:

• Origin of life studies
• Evolutionary biology
• Theoretical biology

Background:

• Life's origin may involve simpler, collectively replicating elements (protocells) rather than spontaneous self-assembly.
• Early protocells inherited acquired characteristics and lacked a clear alive/dead distinction, challenging conventional evolutionary mechanisms.
• Traditional natural selection and self-organization models are insufficient to explain the change-of-state in early life forms due to context dependency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a new framework for understanding the evolution of early life.
• To address the limitations of natural selection and self-organization in describing protocell evolution.
• To introduce context-driven actualization of potential (CAP) as a more suitable model.

Main Methods:

• Theoretical modeling of early life evolution.
• Analysis of protocell characteristics (replication, inheritance, context-dependency).
• Development of a non-Kolmogorovian probability model for change-of-state.

Main Results:

• Natural selection is inapplicable to early life due to its features (e.g., inherited acquired characteristics).
• Self-organization is limited to part interactions and cannot explain context-driven change.
• Context-driven actualization of potential (CAP) offers a mathematical framework for lineage transformation in early life.

Conclusions:

• Lineage transformation through CAP is proposed as the primary driver of early life evolution.
• Self-organized change-of-state is a special case of CAP with no contextual influence.
• Natural selection became significant only after the establishment of genetically mediated replication.