
Nielsen Nick
Icarus Interstellar, Portland, Oregon, USA

My interest in origins of life, then, is in the structures revealed by the origins and development of life, distinguishing what is peculiar to life as an emergent complexity, and perhaps also what is peculiar to life on Earth, from structures of emergent complexity that obtain in any context of complexity whatever—again, other forms of complexity that obtain on Earth, as well as complexity elsewhere in the Universe, whether biological or otherwise. If a distinction can be drawn between what is peculiar to life on Earth and what characterizes life, as such, as a form of emergent complexity, wherever it may be found, such a distinction can contribute to the formation of a universal biology.
There is, as yet, no consensus on a framework for emergent complexity, and the study of the origins of life may contribute to a future scientific research program in which such a consensus becomes possible. I approach these problems within a framework that I call emergent complexity pluralism, which recognizes the possibility of peer forms of complexity at each threshold of emergence.