The Universe appears to be inherently unpredictable, not just for fundamental reasons from the limits of mathematical proof, or the consequences of quantum mechanics, but also due to how complex systems express or develop new rules at higher levels which emerge independently of their lower levels. However, most of these complex systems are still simple, and have few constraints which places limits on the nature of the unpredictability of the dynamics shown by these systems. Living systems are not only able to exhibit more unpredictable behaviors, but these are intrinsically more novel than the unpredictable behaviors associated with the abiotic universe. In this essay I discuss how a new theory I have been developing, assembly theory, can be used to identify if a given object has been constructed or not by exploring the constraints required for the object to form from undirected or random processes. I try to explain that the more assembled a given a system is, the more of the possible state space is accessible, and hence how both unpredictable and capable of generating novelty the system is. Finally, I argue that living systems are also intrinsically unpredictable in terms of their ability to express novelty and outline a scale of assembly which might provide a way to distinguish living systems from non-living systems.
Leroy Cronin