Autocatalytic self-construction in macromolecular systems requires the existence of a reflexive relationship between structural components and the functional operations they perform to synthesize themselves. The possibility of reflexivity depends on formal features of the catalytic structure-function relationship, that is, the embedding of catalytic functions in the space of polymeric structures.
Reflexivity is a formal property of some genetic sequences.
These may serve as the basis for the evolution of coding as a result of autocatalytic self-organisation in a population of assignment catalysts. Autocatalytic selection is a mechanism whereby matter becomes differentiated in primitive biochemical systems. In the case of coding self-organisation it corresponds to the creation of symbolic information. Autocatalysis, self-construction, coding, reflexivity, information. To appear in BioSystems.