Information and Thermodynamics in Living Systems

Abstract

Are there laws of information exchange? And how do the principles of thermodynamics connect with the communication of information?We consider first the concept of information and examine the various alternatives for its definition. The reductionist approach has been to regard information as arising out of matter and energy. In such an approach, coded information systems such as DNA are regarded as accidental in terms of the origin of life, and it is argued that these then led to the evolution of all life forms as a process of increasing complexity by natural selection operating on mutations on these first forms of life. However scientists in the discipline of thermodynamics have long been aware that organisational systems are inherently systems with low local entropy, and have argued that the only way to have consistency with an evolutionary model of the universe and common descent of all life forms is to posit a flow of low entropy into the earth's environment and in this second approach they suggest that islands of low entropy form organisational structures found in living systems.A third alternative proposes that information is in fact non-material and that the coded information systems (such as, but not restricted to the coding of DNA in all living systems) is not defined at all by the biochemistry or physics of the molecules used to store the data. Rather than matter and energy defining the information sitting on the polymers of life, this approach posits that the reverse is in fact the case. Information has its definition outside the matter and energy on which it sits, and furthermore constrains it to operate in a highly non-equilibrium thermodynamic environment. This proposal resolves the thermodynamic issues and invokes the correct paradigm for understanding the vital area of thermodynamic/organisational interactions, which despite the efforts from alternative paradigms has not given a satisfactory explanation of the way information in systems operates.Starting from the paradigm of information being defined by non-material arrangement and coding, one can then postulate the idea of laws of information exchange which have some parallels with the laws of thermodynamics which undergird such an approach. These issues are explored tentatively in this paper, and lay the groundwork for further investigative study.

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