English: The operator hierarchy: the evolution of particles and organisms. A general timeline for evolution. The dark line shows the historical pathway by which first-next possible closures created the operators. The gray columns indicate systems resulting from first-next possible closure that are not operators. Explanation of abbreviations: SAE ('Structural Auto Evolution’) = the property of an operator to autonomously evolve the structure that carries its information. SCI (‘Structural Copying of Information’) = the property of an operator to autonomously copy its information (genes, learned knowledge) by simply copying part of its structure. HMI (Hypercycle Mediating interface) = a closure creates an interface that mediates the functioning of the hypercycle. Multi-state = operator showing first-next possible closure between multiple units of exactly one lower closure level. Hypercycle = first-next possible closure based on emergent, second-order recurrent interactions. Interface = first-next possible closure creating an emergent limit to an operator. CALM (Categorizing And Learning Module) = a minimum neural memory (Gerard Jagers op Akkerhuis).