The four steps

For life to form and to become more organized and complex. We need four things.
1) An open system (The Earth)
2) A source of energy (The Sun)
3) A mechanism to capture the energy
4) A mechanism to take the captured energy and turn it into useful energy.

Everyone agrees on the example one and two. Many textbooks will not mention example three and four. If you have a science class, you will never hear about a mechanism to capture the energy.

If we have an open system and a source of energy, nothing will get more complex. There must be a mechanism to capture the energy so that it can be used. If this is not available, then the addition of energy causes more disorder.

If we examine my computer. And a person erase the memory and the hard drive then that person type on the keyboard. The person can't access anything. This is because there is no mechanism available to capture the keyboard input. The same is true with the origin of life. Without a mechanism to capture energy, no amount of energy input will cause anything to become more complex.

When the energy is captured. there must be a mechanism to turn it into useful energy for doing work. The following analogy will illustrate the necessity for such a mechanism.

If we were to format our computer's system and erase the hardware. Then begin typing on the keyboard.
The truth is this, nothing will happen. This is because there is nothing in the computer to interpret the signals coming from the keyboard and process them into meaningful information. The same is true with the origin of life. Without mechanisms to utilize the capture energy into useful energy. Nothing can become more complex.