Reply to 'Experimental measurement of assembly indices are required to determine the threshold for life'.

Abstract

We clarify misunderstandings of Walker et al. (Walker <i>et al.</i> 2024 <i>J. R. Soc. Interface</i> 21, 20240367 (doi:10.1098/rsif.2024.0367)) related to studies of the assembly pathways of molecular subunits in minerals. The finding that these subunits have calculated assembly pathways less than approximately 25 informs a central premise of Assembly Theory-that only life can produce numerous copies of molecules with assembly indices above a threshold value. What that threshold value might be, and whether the same value applies to chemical systems as different as organic and inorganic molecules, are questions deserving of additional study.