Because of the difficulty of estimating the complexity of biological reproduction of even the simplest cell, the minimal complexities of several simpler self-replicating systems are computed. These include viruses (both biological and computer, which require additional complex resources to replicate). Also considered are a proposed self-reproducing factory and two conceptual self-replicators. Because even some of those are difficult to evaluate, very, very low bounds are computed. Still, in all cases, the minimal complexities are enormous-more than all the quantum state changes in the entire history of the whole known universe in all time. Therefore, because biological reproduction is more complex, all origin-of-life proposals, including RNA hypotheses toward the first self-reproducing cell, must demonstrate how at least such minimal complexity could have accumulated beyond using simply trial-and-error.
| Published in | Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (Volume 13, Issue 2) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14 |
| Page(s) | 72-83 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Reproduction, Self-replication, Specified Complexity
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APA Style
Schulz, W. (2025). Ways to Estimate the Minimal Specified Complexity of Reproduction. Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, 13(2), 72-83. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14
ACS Style
Schulz, W. Ways to Estimate the Minimal Specified Complexity of Reproduction. Comput. Biol. Bioinform. 2025, 13(2), 72-83. doi: 10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14
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Download@article{10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14,
author = {Waldean Schulz},
title = {Ways to Estimate the Minimal Specified Complexity of Reproduction},
journal = {Computational Biology and Bioinformatics},
volume = {13},
number = {2},
pages = {72-83},
doi = {10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.cbb.20251302.14},
abstract = {Because of the difficulty of estimating the complexity of biological reproduction of even the simplest cell, the minimal complexities of several simpler self-replicating systems are computed. These include viruses (both biological and computer, which require additional complex resources to replicate). Also considered are a proposed self-reproducing factory and two conceptual self-replicators. Because even some of those are difficult to evaluate, very, very low bounds are computed. Still, in all cases, the minimal complexities are enormous-more than all the quantum state changes in the entire history of the whole known universe in all time. Therefore, because biological reproduction is more complex, all origin-of-life proposals, including RNA hypotheses toward the first self-reproducing cell, must demonstrate how at least such minimal complexity could have accumulated beyond using simply trial-and-error.},
year = {2025}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Ways to Estimate the Minimal Specified Complexity of Reproduction AU - Waldean Schulz Y1 - 2025/12/11 PY - 2025 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14 DO - 10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14 T2 - Computational Biology and Bioinformatics JF - Computational Biology and Bioinformatics JO - Computational Biology and Bioinformatics SP - 72 EP - 83 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2330-8281 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.cbb.20251302.14 AB - Because of the difficulty of estimating the complexity of biological reproduction of even the simplest cell, the minimal complexities of several simpler self-replicating systems are computed. These include viruses (both biological and computer, which require additional complex resources to replicate). Also considered are a proposed self-reproducing factory and two conceptual self-replicators. Because even some of those are difficult to evaluate, very, very low bounds are computed. Still, in all cases, the minimal complexities are enormous-more than all the quantum state changes in the entire history of the whole known universe in all time. Therefore, because biological reproduction is more complex, all origin-of-life proposals, including RNA hypotheses toward the first self-reproducing cell, must demonstrate how at least such minimal complexity could have accumulated beyond using simply trial-and-error. VL - 13 IS - 2 ER -
Independent Researcher, Spokane, United States
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