  A mystery about the origins of life is which molecular structures $-$ and
what spontaneous processes $-$ drove the autocatalytic transition from simple
chemistry to biology? Using the HP lattice model of polymer sequence spaces
leads to the prediction that random sequences of hydrophobic ($H$) and polar
($P$) monomers can collapse into relatively compact structures, exposing
hydrophobic surfaces, acting as primitive versions of today's protein
catalysts, elongating other such HP polymers, as ribosomes would now do. Such
foldamer-catalysts form an autocatalytic set, growing short chains into longer
chains that have particular sequences. The system has capacity for the
multimodality: ability to settle at multiple distinct quasi-stable states
characterized by different groups of dominating polymers. This is a testable
mechanism that we believe is relevant to the early origins of life.
