Title:
Autocatalysis, Information and Coding
Author(s):
Peter Willis
Paper #:
00-01-003
Date:
Jan. 1, 2000
Abstract:
Autocatalytic self-construction in macromolecular systems requires the existence of a reflexive relationship between structural components and the functional operations they perform to synthesize themselves. The possibility of reflexivity depends on formal features of the catalytic structure-function relationship, that is, the embedding of catalytic functions in the space of polymeric structures. Reflexivity is a formal property of some genetic sequences. These may serve as the basis for the evolution of coding as a result of autocatalytic self-organization in a population of assignment catalysts. Autocatalytic selection is a mechanism whereby matter becomes differentiated in primitive biochemical systems. In the case of coding self-organization it corresponds to the creation of symbolic information.
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