Related papers: A Thermodynamic Approach towards the Question "Wha…
The origin of cellular life can be described in terms of the transition from inorganic matter: solids, liquids and gases, to the emergence of cooperative assemblies of organic matter, DNA and proteins,capable of replication and metabolism.…
Cellular automata can simulate many complex physical phenomena using the power of simple rules. The presented methodological platform expresses the concept of programmable matter in which Newtons laws of motion are one of examples. Energy…
The most important thermodynamic work performed by life today is the dissipation of the solar photon flux into heat through organic pigments in water. From this thermodynamic perspective, biological evolution is thus just the dispersal of…
The fact that life has evolved in our universe constrains the laws of physics. The anthropic principle proposes that these constraints are sometimes very tight and can be used to explain in a sense the corresponding laws. Recently a…
We study the statistical underpinnings of life. We question some common assumptions about the thermodynamics of life and illustrate how, contrary to widespread belief, even in a closed system entropy growth can accompany an increase in…
We consider a particular instance of the lift of controlled systems recently proposed in the theory of irreversible thermodynamics and show that it leads to a variational principle for an optimal control in the sense of Pontryagin. Then we…
We apply the theory of learning to physically renormalizable systems in an attempt to develop a theory of biological evolution, including the origin of life, as multilevel learning. We formulate seven fundamental principles of evolution…
Large and complex molecules are building blocks for life. We compute probabilities for their formation from an average non-equilibrium model. As the distance from thermodynamic equilibrium is increased in this model, so too are the chances…
Life is commonly described as a self-organized, far-from-equilibrium process that maintains internal order by consuming free energy and exporting entropy. This thermodynamic view underlies diverse theoretical frameworks -- from autopoiesis…
The claim that life is an emergent phenomenon exhibiting novel properties and principles is often criticized for being in conflict with causal closure at the microscopic level. I argue that advances in cosmological theory suggesting an…
Thermodynamic relations are derived from first principles of mechanics for non-equilibrium processes. Since the key role herein is played by the law of increase of entropy, the latter is analyzed at first. It is shown that its derivation…
Thermodynamics is commonly presented as a theory of macroscopic systems in stable equilibrium, built upon assumptions of extensivity and scaling with system size. In this paper, we present a universal formulation of the elementary…
Evolution is the fundamental physical process that gives rise to biological phenomena. Yet it is widely treated as a subset of population genetics, and thus its scope is artificially limited. As a result, the key issues of how rapidly…
Darwin's hypothesis that all extant life forms are descendants of a last common ancestor cell and diversification of life forms results from gradual mutation plus natural selection represents a mainstream view that has influenced biology…
For more than 100 years, humanity (both specialists and enthusiastic laics) has been searching for extraterrestrial life hoping we are not alone. The first step in the quest for extraterrestrial life is to define what and where exactly to…
The population dynamics and stability of ecosystems of interacting species is studied from the perspective of non-equilibrium thermodynamics by assuming that species, through their biotic and abiotic interactions, are units of entropy…
Life occurs in concentrated `Ringer Solutions' derived from seawater that Lesser Blum studied for most of his life. As we worked together, Lesser and I realized that the questions asked of those solutions were quite different in biology…
A theory of aging based on the principles of the kinetics of chemical reactions and the rules of natural selection of organisms is proposed. The theory is based on a hypothesis that the biochemical processes in the organism can be described…
In this paper we review and extend our earlier recent work on thermostated systems. A description of nano-biological systems by Markov chains in coordinate space in the strongly overdamped limit is presented. Characterization of the most…
Cosmologists wish to explain how our Universe, in all its complexity, could ever have come about. For that, we assess the number of states in our Universe now. This plays the role of entropy in thermodynamics of the Universe, and reveals…