The central thesis of the modern scientific revolution is that nature is objective. Yet, somehow, out of that objective reality, projective systems emerged-cognitive and purposeful. More remarkably, through nature's objective laws, chemical systems emerged and evolved to take advantage of those laws. Even more inexplicably, nature uncovered those laws twice-once unconsciously, once consciously. Accordingly, one could rephrase the origin of life question as follows: how was nature able to become self-aware and discover its own laws? What is the law of nature that enabled nature to discover its own laws? Addressing these challenging questions in physical-chemical terms may be possible through the newly emergent field of systems chemistry.
Keywords: chemical evolution; cognition; dynamic kinetic stability; origin of life; systems chemistry.