| תקציר: | Are there simple physical systems that undergo biological-like evolution? I’ll propose a model that recapitulates several features of biological evolution, while being based only on thermally-driven attachment and detachment of elementary building blocks. Through its dynamics, this model samples a large and diverse array of states, both within and between independent trajectories. These dynamics exhibit: directionality with a quantity that increases in time; selection; preferential spatial expansion of particular states; inheritance in the form of correlated compositions in space and time; and environment-dependent adaptation. The model challenges common conceptions regarding the requirements for life-like properties: it does not involve separate mechanisms for metabolism, replication and compartmentalization, stores and transmits digital information without template replication or assembly of large molecules, exhibits selection both without and with reproduction, and undergoes growth without autocatalysis. The model is amenable to various experimental implementations. |