Dynamic Self-organization in an Open Reaction Network as a Fundamental Mechanism for the Emergence of Life

The emergence of life on the earth has attracted intense attention but the mechanism of it still remains an unsolved question. A key problem is that it has been left unclear why a living organism, which is regarded as an open reaction system, can demonstrate dynamic self-organization leading to highly-ordered structures and adaptive and evolutionary behavior. This paper shows by computer simulation that (1) an open reaction network is a network of irreversible processes and for this reason spontaneously reaches a stationary state and (2) a stationary state thus formed is stable against a fluctuation, namely it has self-organizing ability. Strikingly, self-organizing ability can emerge in a prebiotic chemical system with no special mechanism for overcoming disturbances by the second law of thermodynamics. The above self-organizing ability leads to adaptive and evolutionary behavior and has large potential for producing highly organized chemical structures, and is expected to have played a fundamental role in the emergence of life on the primitive earth.