---
title: "Dyson's Model of Life"
source: https://www.jemoka.com/posts/kbhdyson_s_model_of_life/
---

Dyson&rsquo;s Model of Life is a theory of origin of life:
cells form as machines that perform tasks genes show up later as parasites, eventually forming symbiosis with cells Read: and so, we can essentially ditch trying to find things characteristics of &ldquo;cells&rdquo; per-se like RNA, instead we can go about finding generic boxes of containers called &ldquo;cells&rdquo; and see how they evolve.
See also: high chemical activity, metabolism, Stepwise Evolution, and Two Main Functions of Life
constituents \(x\): percentage of active binding sites \(w\): percentage of inactive binding sites \(z\): percentage of &ldquo;empty binding sites&rdquo; \(p(k)\): probability distribution for a site to be in any given state at time \(k\) \(\Psi(x)\): rate of activation &ldquo;efficiency in active monomers in acceleration monomer absorption&rdquo; requirements evidently, because percentages: \(x+w+z = 1\) Active monomer absorption: \(\Psi(x) \cdot p\) Inactive monomer absorption: \(p\) additional information general intuition some kind of isolated droplet contains a population of molecules chemical reactions occur to the whole droplet such that its state changes Recall the Two Main Functions of Life: metabolism and replication. So, if we want our Dyson&rsquo;s Model to capture life, we should try to encode them into our model. Turns out, we can use the language of Stepwise Evolution to describe our model.
Therefore, let&rsquo;s declare that there is only two states to our system, in which our particle is quasi-stationary (it wiggles but doesn&rsquo;t go anywhere):
&ldquo;high chemical activity&rdquo;, a.k.a. &ldquo;metabolism&rdquo; &mdash; &ldquo;ordered&rdquo; state &ldquo;low chemical activity&rdquo; &mdash; disordered state Our transition \(M\), then, only has to encode transitions between these two states. Dyson claims that, in his model, this transition happens spontaneously when the circumstances is correct.
