An autocatalytic set is a collection of entities, each of which is able to catalyze the creation of others within the set, such that as a whole, the set was able to catalyze its own replication. In this way the set as a whole is said to be autocatalytic. Autocatalytic sets were originally and most concretely defined in terms of entities which are replicating molecules, but have more recently been metaphorically extended to the study of systems in sociology and economics.
Several models of the origin of life are based on the notion that life may have arose through the development of an molecular autocatalytic set. Most of these models which have emerged from the studies of complex systems predict that life arose not from a molecule with any particular trait (such as self-replicating RNA) but from an an autocatalytic set.
Modern life has the traits of an autocatalytic set, since no particular molecule, nor any class of molecules, is able to replicate itself.
Several models that are based on autocatalytic set include Stuart Kauffman and others.
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