Physical Darwinism: Mechanical Resonant Selection of Primordial Membranes

A fundamental question in abiogenesis is how deterministic selection could occur prior to the emergence of replicative genetic templates or enzymatic regulation. The coupled mechanism of Critical Slowing Down (CSD) and Szostak’s cannibalism under environmental constraints offers a purely physical solution, which we define here as Physical Darwinism. In the prebiotic world, environmental force fields—specifically the frequency and amplitude of hydrodynamic shear waves, tidal impacts, or geothermal pulses—were static boundary conditions dictated strictly by non-living geophysical processes. The protocellular aggregates had no active mechanism to adapt their behavior to the environment. Instead, adaptation was strictly subtractive: the fixed frequency of the environment acted as a physical sieve, permanently destroying systems out of resonance while amplifying those that matched its cadence.