Up to this point, we have followed the story of inorganic matter reshuffling itself, refining its tactics for dissipating energy and embedding new layers of information. But then, around four billion years ago, something deeply peculiar happened. Matter—so far content with tumbling around in cosmic billiard games and forming the odd mineral—stumbled upon a radical new way to move energy. It found a loophole in the laws of thermodynamics: it learned how to _act_. Certain molecules stopped being mere chemical tourists and started behaving like locals—self-organising into patterns of **temporary but dynamic order**. These early molecular formations weren’t just fleeting anomalies. They reassembled themselves continuously, sustaining conditions far from equilibrium, guiding energy flows, and engaging in complex, self-reinforcing behaviours. They were still transient on their own, but collectively, they found a way to cheat time—by reproducing their patterns into the future. We lack direct fossil evidence of these early chemical escapades (molecules don’t leave tidy bones behind), but the principles of autocatalysis suggest a likely origin story: self-sustaining reaction loops that, once set in motion, kept going for as long as fresh ingredients were available. Matter, once passive, had become _restless_. This was still far from life as we know it, but these _dynamically stable_ systems provided a tantalising preview of things to come. Consider the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, a mesmerising chemical dance where oscillating waves of colour ripple across a solution as long as reactants remain. Or active colloidal suspensions, in which microscopic particles, propelled by chemical gradients, scoot around as if they have somewhere important to be. These seemingly inanimate systems hint at a deeper truth: **matter, under the right conditions, can escape the lull of equilibrium and sustain motion, structure, and even memory.** Given enough time and the right molecular toolkit, this tendency evolved into something more profound: the ability to store information, to make copies of itself, and—eventually—to strategise for its own survival. Somewhere in this chemically dynamic chaos, an extraordinary breakthrough likely occurred: the emergence of **RNA**, a molecule that could do two things no mere rock had ever dreamed of—self-replicate and store information. RNA carried the blueprints for its own propagation, using a simple four-letter alphabet of nucleobases to encode its fate. Soon after (cosmically speaking), **DNA** followed—a stabler, more refined version of this information-storage trick, capable of encoding the molecular machines (_proteins_) that would eventually drive all of life’s essential functions. The final missing piece was **encapsulation**: the emergence of lipid membranes, which corralled these molecular happenings into tiny, self-contained units. Now, these pioneers of persistence weren’t just replicating—**they were metabolising**, actively converting their environment into fuel for their continued existence. Of course, the story I’ve just told is a vastly simplified version of what remains one of the grandest scientific mysteries. We do not yet fully understand how life flickered into existence, and many of the intermediate steps remain a matter of intense research, speculation, and the occasional heated argument at conferences. But here’s what we _do_ know: within a billion years of Earth’s formation—a mere cosmic blink—**a fundamentally new state of matter had appeared.** This matter did not merely exist; it self-replicated, it mutated, it competed. It learned how to persist and thrive. The earliest molecular self-replicators that most efficiently harnessed energy and resources left more descendants, ratcheting up complexity step by step. And then, from this primordial shuffle of molecules, something truly unprecedented emerged: **the Self**—an entity that actively distinguished itself from its surroundings, no longer content to merely drift in the great ocean of chemistry but driven by the imperative to persist. Here is how Jeffrey Wicken puts it: > The fundamental dichotomy of ‘self’ and ‘environment’ originates here, a dichotomy that the progressive, anagenic movement of evolution has served to define over the millennia in ever-sharper terms. This dichotomy emerged in response to specific thermodynamic conditions prevailing in the pre-biosphere by providing additional routes for dissipation not utilized in prebiotic evolution. [^1] With the emergence of self-organising matter, the universe found itself in possession of a startlingly ambitious trick: the ability to _use_ energy rather than merely succumb to it. Before this, although matter was always vibrant and agentic, the cosmos was a theatre of passive processes—atoms bumping into one another, stars burning themselves out, and rocks sitting around waiting for something interesting to happen. But life changed the script. Matter began to harness energy flows with purpose, carving out local pockets of order in defiance of entropy’s relentless sprawl. This wasn’t just an aesthetic flourish; it was a profound escalation in **causal power**. The moment matter began structuring itself into dissipative systems, it became an **agent of transformation** rather than a mere subject of it. Instead of energy flowing blindly into the void, it started funding intricate metabolic projects, fuelling organisms that could swim, crawl, think, and scheme. Every cell, every organism, every network of interacting beings became a node in a grand thermodynamic relay race, transferring energy not just as an incidental effect of physical laws but as a _strategy_ for persistence. Life wasn’t merely riding the energy gradients of the universe; it was surfing them with increasing finesse. And as these self-organising entities multiplied, something curious happened: they started forming **hierarchies of power**, systems within systems, each level feeding into the next. The simplest bacteria huddled together, forming cooperative biofilms that behaved as single units. Multicellular organisms evolved, consolidating control over energy flows at larger scales. Then came ecosystems, civilisations, supply chains, and, eventually, the bewildering sight of creatures building nuclear reactors and theorising about the laws that made all this possible in the first place. Matter had not only acquired selfhood—it had become _ambitious_. What began as mere chemical restlessness had turned into a relentless drive toward greater complexity, a perpetual ratcheting-up of power. The biosphere, once a quiet geological afterthought, became an engine of competition and cooperation, accelerating the pace of change. Like an arms race of energy dissipation, life kept reorganising itself into increasingly efficient structures, each generation refining the art of survival. From molecules to megacities, the story of life is the story of matter waking up, rolling up its sleeves, and deciding that merely existing wasn’t enough—it had to _do_ something. In his thesis on the thermodynamic origins of morality, Paul Curtis explains it thus: > The first manifestation of the **will to power** in this scheme, I suggest, is in the **‘drive’ to dissipate energy** by increasing power in the system, usually by forming an ‘organisation’ or sense of ‘order’. The second manifestation of the will to power is in the creation of ABiCADs[^2] competing for energy resources with a natural ‘ratcheting’ upwards to greater power. Replication is not only a new way of self-sustaining into the future, but also represents an increase in power; it is nature’s way of increasing dissipative structures and the power in the system. This creates competition and co-operation in the ‘struggle’ for self-sustenance. Therefore, as long as free energy is available, a giant ‘pyramid’ of various levels of ABiCADs could be formed to dissipate as much energy as possible, each level with competition at that level constrained by the environment including other ABiCADs. Each level provides energy for the next level of power in the pyramid. This is akin to the driving force for evolution by natural selection. It follows that the ‘will’ in life is the same as the ‘will’ in nature. It does seem to be that ‘**the world is the will to power – and nothing besides’**, as Nietzsche stated (WP, 1067). [^3] (*emphasis mine*) [[Life as Biological Information Processing|Next page]] ___ [^1]: Wicken, J.S. (1981), CHANCE, NECESSITY, AND PURPOSE: TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION. Zygon®, 16: 303-322. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9744.1981.tb00421.x, pp 16-17 [^2]: Autonomous Bio-Chemical Autocatalytic Dissipater [^3]: Nietzsche's Will To Power: A Naturalistic Account of Metaethics Based on Evolutionary Principles and Thermodynamic Laws. https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/files/40538813/2022Curtisphd.pdf