相关论文: A dynamical systems perspective on the celestial m…
Life is fundamentally a scientific enigma. The interplay between chaos, entropy dynamics, and Prigogine's dissipative systems offers profound insights into the emergence, stabilization, and eventual collapse of far-from-equilibrium systems.…
The dynamic instability of the living systems and the "superposition" of different forms of randomness are viewed as a component of the contingently increasing organization of life along evolution. We briefly survey how classical and…
A natural phenomenon occurring in a living system is an outcome of the dynamics of the specific biological network underlying the phenomenon. The collective dynamics have both deterministic and stochastic components. The stochastic nature…
A celebrated and controversial hypothesis conjectures that some biological systems --parts, aspects, or groups of them-- may extract important functional benefits from operating at the edge of instability, halfway between order and…
In complex systems, the interplay between nonlinear and stochastic dynamics, e.g., J. Monod's necessity and chance, gives rise to an evolutionary process in Darwinian sense, in terms of discrete jumps among attractors, with punctuated…
Cellular biology exists embedded in a world dominated by random dynamics and chance. Many vital molecules and pieces of cellular machinery diffuse within cells, moving along random trajectories as they collide with the other biomolecular…
Although it has been notoriously difficult to pin down precisely what it is that makes life so distinctive and remarkable, there is general agreement that its informational aspect is one key property, perhaps the key property. The unique…
The well-defined but intricate course of time evolution exhibited by many naturally occurring phenomena suggests some source of dynamic order sustaining it. In spite of its obviousness as a problem, it has remained absent from the…
This paper attempts to make feasible the evolutionary emergence of novelty in a supposedly deterministic world which behavior is associated with those of the mathematical dynamical systems. The work was motivated by the observation of…
Living systems exhibit a range of fundamental characteristics: they are active, self-referential, self-modifying systems. This paper explores how these characteristics create challenges for conventional scientific approaches and why they…
Several aspects of mathematical astrobiology are discussed. It is argued that around the time of the origin of life the handedness of biomolecules must have established itself through an instability. Possible pathways of producing a certain…
It is generally recognized that a distinguishing feature of life is its peculiar capability to avoid equilibration. The origin of this capability and its evolution along the timeline of abiogenesis is not yet understood. We propose to study…
The multifarious internal workings of organisms are difficult to reconcile with a single feature defining a state of being alive. Indeed, definitions of life rely on emergent properties (growth, capacity to evolve, agency) only symptomatic…
Biological systems perform an astonishing array of dynamical processes -- including development and repair, regulation, behavior and motor control, sensing and signaling, and adaptation, among others. Powered by the transduction of stored…
Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our thoughts…
The possibility that evolutionary forces -- together with a few fundamental factors such as thermodynamic constraints, specific computational features enabling information processing, and ecological processes -- might constrain the logic of…
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…
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…
Instances of critical-like characteristics in living systems at each organizational level as well as the spontaneous emergence of computation (Langton), indicate the relevance of self-organized criticality (SOC). But extrapolating complex…
Statistical physics provides a useful perspective for the analysis of many complex systems; it allows us to relate microscopic fluctuations to macroscopic observations. Developmental biology, but also cell biology more generally, are…