Experimental Measurement of Assembly Indices are Required to Determine The Threshold for Life

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the necessity of experimental measurements of assembly indices to accurately determine the threshold distinguishing living from non-living systems, clarifying misconceptions in recent theoretical critiques.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of experimental validation of assembly indices and clarifies that the threshold for life is an observed phenomenon, not just a theoretical requirement.

Findings

Experimental measurements show a threshold at assembly index 15 for organic molecules.

Misinterpretations in recent work confuse theoretical concepts with computational algorithms.

Experimental validation is essential for applying Assembly Theory to inorganic molecules.

Abstract

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 objectively determined using assembly indices. The assembly index of a given object relates to the number of recursive joining operations required to build that object and can be not only rigorously defined mathematically but can be experimentally measured. In pervious work we outlined the theoretical basis, but also extensive experimental measurements that demonstrated the predictive power of AT. These measurements showed that is a threshold in assembly indices for organic molecules whereby abiotic chemical systems could not randomly produce molecules with an assembly index greater or equal than 15. In a recent paper by Hazen et al [1] the authors not only confused the concept of AT with the algorithms used to calculate assembly indices, but also attempted to falsify AT by calculating theoretical assembly indices for objects made from inorganic building blocks. A fundamental misunderstanding made by the authors is that the threshold is a requirement of the theory, rather than experimental observation. This means that exploration of inorganic assembly indices similarly requires an experimental observation, correlated with the theoretical calculations. Then and only then can the exploration of complex inorganic molecules be done using AT and the threshold for living systems, as expressed with such building blocks, be determined. Since Hazen et al.[1] present no experimental measurements of assembly theory, their analysis is not falsifiable.