Determine whether repeated occurrence of high-assembly-index objects can arise without selection

Determine whether, for complex objects with sufficiently high assembly index di, observing copy number ni > 1 can occur through random processes in the absence of selection.

Background

A central claim of Assembly Theory is that high assembly index objects appearing in multiple identical copies are indicative of selection because random processes face super-exponential combinatorial growth that makes repeated identical construction implausible.

The authors explicitly conjecture that observing more than one copy (ni > 1) of such complex objects cannot occur randomly without selection, highlighting an unresolved question that bears directly on life detection and distinguishing evolved complexity from randomness.

References

That is, observing ni > 1 for a complex object with sufficiently high di is non trivial, and in AT is conjectured to not be possible to happen randomly (in the absence of selection).

— Assembly Theory and its Relationship with Computational Complexity  (2406.12176 - Kempes et al., 2024) in Assembly Theory, discussion of selection threshold in copy number vs. assembly index