Thermodynamics and Life: An Evolutionary Point of View (original) (raw)
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Thermodynamics & the Evolution of Life
This paper explores the connection between the second law of thermodynamics and the emergence and evolution of life on Earth. 60 years ago Schrodinger understood that the thermodynamically-open nature of living systems exempted them from the constraints imposed by the second law, but it was not clear why such systems should exist at all. Now we’re coming to realize that, not only are open systems ubiquitous, but they are likely, and perhaps even necessary. Some open systems are characterized as dissipative, and they emerge as the system they are embedded in attempts to return closer to thermodynamic equilibrium. The emergence of life itself is a response of the surrounding system to the thermodynamic imperative of the second law. The stability and efficiency of metabolic processes over evolutionary time, as well as properties of entire ecosystems emerged to counter the effects of energy gradients applied to them.
EVOLUTION IN THERMODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE: A HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANGLE
Zygon, 1995
Abstract. The recently suggested reformulation of Darwinian evolutionary theory, based on the thermodynamics of self-organizing processes, has strong philosophical implications. My claim is that the main philosophical merit of the thermodynamic approach, made especially clear in J.S. Wicken's work, is its insistence on the law-governed, continuous nature of evolution. I attempt to substantiate this claim following a historical analysis of beginning-of-the-century ideas on evolution and matter-life relationship, in particular, the fitness-of-the-environment-for-life theory of the Harvard physiologist L.J. Henderson. In addition, I point to an epistemological common ground underlying the studies of the “thermodynamics school” and other currently active research groups focusing on the emergence and evolution of biological organization.
On Topics of Thermodynamics, Complexity, Evolution, and Abiogenesis
2018
Evolution and abiogenesis are usually considered two different topics in biology. However, recent work on the relationship between thermodynamics and life, as well as complexity and evolution, suggest that these topics may all be intimately related. Using new research conducted by Jeremy England, Taeer Bar-Yam, and others, I attempt to show that thermodynamics seems to exert a universal selective pressure, called entropic pressure. This pressure seems to exist on the atomic and molecular level, biological level, and even societal level, and results in a number of interesting consequences, for biology here on Earth, as well as potentially on other worlds.
Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2000
The science of thermodynamics is concerned with understanding the properties of inanimate matter in so far as they are determined by changes in temperature. The Second Law asserts that in irreversible processes there is a uni-directional increase in thermodynamic entropy, a measure of the degree of uncertainty in the thermal energy state of a randomly chosen particle in the aggregate. The science of evolution is concerned with understanding the properties of populations of living matter in so far as they are regulated by changes in generation time. Directionality theory, a mathematical model of the evolutionary process, establishes that in populations subject to bounded growth constraints, there is a uni-directional increase in evolutionary entropy, a measure of the degree of uncertainty in the age of the immediate ancestor of a randomly chosen newborn. This article reviews the mathematical basis of directionality theory and analyses the relation between directionality theory and statistical thermodynamics. We exploit an analytic relation between temperature, and generation time, to show that the directionality principle for evolutionary entropy is a nonequilibrium extension of the principle of a uni-directional increase of thermodynamic entropy. The analytic relation between these directionality principles is consistent with the hypothesis of the equivalence of fundamental laws as one moves up the hierarchy, from a molecular ensemble where the thermodynamic laws apply, to a population of replicating entities (molecules, cells, higher organisms), where evolutionary principles prevail.
The Thermodynamics of Evolutionary (open) Systems
To Die For (2nd edition) - The story of everything: Physics, spirituality, consciousness and afterlife, 2018
Preliminary revision for Chapter 6, 2nd ed., "To Die For -The story of everything: Physics, spirituality, consciousness and afterlife", which be published in its entirety in the next few months. Abstract: As strange as it may seem historically, thermodynamics and biological evolutionary emerged in science at the same time out of the same Newtonian context, seem for all intents and purposes to be intimately related to open another, yet they are complete physical opposites of one another. Thermodynamics is about disorder, entropy and inanimate matter in general, while biological evolution is all about order and the complexity of very special material systems that are, in general, inanimate. It should be evident across the whole spectrum of science that these two disciplines are related, but it seems that science goes to great lengths to demonstrate how they are essentially unrelated. That is because science has over limited and restricted both disciplines by definitions and ideas that are incomplete. Science regards only the chemical/mechanical/electrical processes of life as 'life' itself, while many people believe that 'life' itself is something that goes beyond the processes that maintain and sustain life. On the other hand, some scientists believe that 'life' is negentropic and defies the rules and principles of thermodynamics, but those who do not believe this go to great lengths to 'stretch' the limits of what constitutes a 'closed' system to accommodate, but not really explain, living organisms in any scientific manner. So, evolution and thermodynamics restrict themselves to the very thinly disguised Cartesian limits and boundaries between MIND and MATTER, which are not quite so evident elsewhere in science. Science mistakenly believes that it has passed far beyond those centuries' old Cartesian limits and influences, but it has not. Given this information and understanding how nature really works, it is easy to expand the laws of thermodynamics and apply them to evolution theory in such a way that a new 'evolution of physical systems' emerges of which biological evolution (whether Darwinian or modern genetic) is just one small but significant part.
An evolutionary new Thermodynamics
One of the greatest unsolved mysteries in physics is the formation and evolution of material systems. Nearly everyone in the physics community would say that this is a long-solved problem, but they do not even notice that the formation and evolution of material systems, both animate and inanimate, are in direct violation of the laws of thermodynamics, which is also completely accepted 'as is' by the physics and scientific communities. Under these circumstances, two new theories of galactic and universal evolution have recently been proposed. But a better place for such a physics theory of physical evolution would be in a new and more comprehensive balanced thermodynamics so it could counter the physical principle of entropy in those physical instances that it does not matter. After all, entropy is, in fact, a form of anti-or deevolution. When a living or animate body dies, it becomes inanimate matter and entropy takes over in the body as the living processes and interactions cease. Unfortunately, the laws or principles of thermodynamics as they now stand are grossly incomplete and needfully wrong, but no one seems to have seen this error. The simplest error in them is that they refer to closed systems, which is commonly accepted, but there is no such thing as a closed system in the universe unless it is the universe itself, as a unitary continuous whole. So additional laws or rules are needed to fill this theoretical gap: Primarily Prigogine's Principle and chaos theory with the emergence of complexities. Nor does thermodynamics take into direct consideration the natural forces that rule physics and all physical interactions. However, thermodynamics can be extended to take these into account and thus develop a complete and comprehensive view of the physical universe. Doing so carries surprises in it with the development of physical evolution, both animate and inanimate, as a common property of the physical universe, and more.
Life as a Manifestation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics
We examine the thermodynamic evolution of various evolving systems, from primitive physical systems to complex living systems, and conclude that they involve similar processes which are phenomenological manifestations of the second law of thermodynamics. We take the reformulated second law of thermodynamics of Hatsopoulos and Keenan and Kestin and extend it to nonequilibrium regions, where nonequilibrium is described in terms of gradients maintaining systems at some distance away from equilibrium.
The articles are published in Physical Review Research as "Hessian geometric structure of chemical thermodynamic systems with stoichiometric constraints" and "Chemical thermodynamics for growing systems." [19] Nonequilibrium statistical physics is so powerful that it has resolved one of the deepest mysteries about the nature of time: how does entropy evolve within an intermediate regime? [18] Physicists have extended one of the most prominent fluctuation theorems of classical stochastic thermodynamics, the Jarzynski equality, to quantum field theory. [17]