Researchers have refuted the claims of the ‘assembly theory of everything’, a hypothesis that aimed to revolutionize our understanding of life, evolution, and the universe. This blog post delves into the findings that challenge the validity of this controversial theory.
Unraveling the Flaws
The assembly theory of everything (2017), a book announcing to formulate the all-embracing explanation for understanding molecules, life, natural selection, evolution and even time matter universe itself.
But a group of researchers, led by Dr Hector Zenil from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences (BMEIS), with colleagues at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) as well as the Karolinska Institute at Sweden have instead shown that there are limits to this theory.
The team has published their findings in three separate papers revealing that a key component of assembly theory called the ‘Assembly Index’ (how ‘alive’ an object is according to how many exact copies it contains) is not actually new or a valid method. Using classic statistical and compression algorithms on those mols, or chemical data the results were statistically the same as under assembly theory. Assembly theory therefore seems to be fundamentally indistinguishable from established measures of complexity, and does not provide us with more novel conceptual tools or frameworks.
Why Multidimensional Dynamics Matter
The researchers also point to assembly theory’s inability to capture the living expression fruit that goes off as a result of what they term ‘aliveness’ — the essence of live-ness and nature-of-the-aliveiesz. However, as Prof. Jesper Tegner says, ‘it is hard to argue that onions or ferns are more complex or alive than humans like assembly theory would predict just by this unidimensional index.
According to Dr. Narsis A. Kiani, the fundamental necessity in explaining life complexity is the importance of dynamic interactions (Kiani 2019, p67), who further claims that we ‘not developing fundementally new tools as a way forward,… [our] real breakthrough lies on building on established knowledge by integrating what seems to be irrelevent theories from diverse fields…to untangle complex multiligual dynamics concocting life’ (Ibid).
Rather, the researchers suggest, life is about how genetic material interacts in a complex biochemical environment and how those interactions produce agency, an emergent property of living systems characterized by their dynamic nature, their ability to respond to external stimuli in varied ways simultaneously maintaining themselves as both coherent unity and ongoing process of change. A major restriction of assembly theory in this is the neglect of these key pieces.
Conclusion
These three papers, which contain research results, have denied the essence of a theory called ‘assembly theory of everything’. The researchers have shown that the central ideas and inference of this theory are faulty since anyone can replicate these results with a set of basic statistical algorithms as well as compression. The authors suggest that knowledge already established should be expanded and diverse theories should be combined to capture the complex multimodal architecture determining LHS, in an attempt not to reduce life into simplistic numerical indices. The study is a reminder of the critical role that rigorous scientific inquiry plays in advancing our knowledge of life and the universe.
