Another example of quantity leading to quality changes

“Kauffman began playing with simple mathematical games designed to mimic the interaction of molecules of different kinds on the early Earth, and he made an intriguing discovery. Some molecules act as catalysts—that is, they act to speed up the chemical interactions between others. Molecules of type A, for example, might greatly enhance the rate at which types B and C can come together to create type D. Kauffman studied random networks of interacting molecules. If the number of kinds of such molecules was small, he found nothing exceptional in the chemistry of the soup. But as he increased that number, he found that there would inevitably arise in the network what he called an “autocatalytic set.” This is a subset of molecules that can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Molecule A might help to catalyze the production of D; D might help to produce E or F, which would in turn catalyze C and G, and so on. Ultimately, far down the line, Y and Z might catalyze A and B and complete the linking up, so that every molecule would be catalyzed by some other one. If such a positive feedback loop should ever arise in a collection of molecules, the concentrations of all members of the autocatalytic set would take off. Kauffman’s astonishing discovery was that the existence of such loops was absolutely certain if the number of kinds of molecules in the soup was large enough. And this number did not have to be very large. A molecular mixture shows a natural transition from boring to fascinating behavior as the number of kinds of molecules grows. This transition forms the basis of a completely new theory in which the origin of life is not improbable, but inevitable.” (de “Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen (English Edition)” por “Mark Buchanan”). https://amz.onl/63TqOeY.