Origin of Life: A Symmetry-Breaking Physical Phase Transition

The origin of life has previously been subject to numerous studies and hypotheses. Typically, related models focus on the emergence of chemical networks such as the RNA world or the Krebs energy cycle. Here, the onset of life is described as a symmetry-breaking kinetic phase transition. The novel symmetry of life is the arbitrariness of code that is fundamental to symbolic information processing, coining all forms of life from the very beginning. Symbols evolved from non-symbolic, structural information of the inanimate physical world. The responsible transition process was discovered a century ago in behavioural biology, regarded as ‘ritualisation’. The physical properties of this transition include neutral Lyapunov stability and critical fluctuations in the associated Goldstone modes. As a conceptual model, a hypothetical simple molecular ritualisation process is suggested, along with the emergent semiotics of symbolic information processing.