A systemic approach of the origin

of biological organisation

Alvaro Moreno

In this paper I will try to articulate a shift of focus in the field of origins of life. The shift would imply giving up the attention on the specific molecular components of present living beings on Earth, with the aim to think more in terms of the characteristic way in which they integrate an operational unit, a dynamic self-productive organization. Hence the importance of the autopoietic theory, and its fundamental claim that life is a property of a whole system, rather than a property of individual molecules (or populations of these molecules). Nevertheless, this 'system thinking' does not imply forgetting about the material mechanisms that are crucial to trigger off a biological type of phenomenon/behavior, but putting the emphasis on the interactive processes that make it up, i.e., on the dynamic organization in which 'biomolecules' (or, rather, their precursors) get actually integrated. According to this view, research should be directed to implement those -or very similar- interactive processes with molecular components and tools, which are alternative to (and, tentatively, less complex than) the biochemical machinery present in known living beings. And always with the aim to show a natural connection with other complex physico-chemical forms of organization.

There are two crucial concepts to understand how life could appear on the Earth, as well as for the project of developing a general theory of biology: autonomy and information. Whereas autonomy should contribute to bridge the gap between the living and the inert worlds, information is essential to understand the emergence of the capacity for an unlimited increase in the complexity of the primitive autonomous systems. Thus, I will show that not only autonomy is a precondition for information, but also this latter cannot be correctly understood without the former.