Emergent simulation of cell-like shapes satisfying the conditions of life using lattice-type multiset chemical model

TL;DR

This paper presents a lattice-based chemical model simulating the emergence of cell-like structures satisfying key life conditions, providing insights into how life might have originated through chemical processes.

Contribution

It introduces a multiset chemical lattice model that demonstrates the emergence of life-like cell structures using simple chemical reactions and morphogenesis rules.

Findings

Cell-like forms emerged satisfying key life conditions.

Chemical reactions and diffusion can produce life-like structures.

Model provides a platform to test hypotheses on life's origins.

Abstract

One of the great challenges in science is determining when, where, why, and how life first arose as well as the form taken by this life. In the present study, life was assumed to be (1) bounded, (2) replicating, (3) able to inherit information, and (4) able to metabolize energy. The various existing hypotheses provide little explanation of how these four conditions for life were established. Indeed, 'how' a chemical process that simultaneously satisfies all four conditions emerged after the materials for life were in place is not always clear. In this study, a 'multiset chemical lattice model', which allows virtual molecules of multiple types to be placed in each cell on a two-dimensional space, was considered. Using only the processes of molecular diffusion, reaction, and polymerization and modeling the chemical reactions of 15 types of molecules and 2 types of polymerized molecules and using the morphogenesis rule of the Turing model, the process of emergence of a cell-like form with the four conditions of life was modeled and demonstrated. Thus, in future research, this model will allow us to revisit and refine each of the hypotheses for the emergence of life.