Life is a Self-Organizing Machine Driven by the Informational Cycle of Brillouin

Abstract

Acquiring information is indisputably energy-consuming and conversely, the availability of information permits greater efficiency. Strangely, the scientific community long remained reluctant to establish a physical equivalence between the abstract notion of information and sensible thermodynamics. However, certain physicists such as Szilard and Brillouin proposed: (i) to give to information the status of a genuine thermodynamic entity (k B T ln2 joules/bit) and (ii) to link the capacity of storing information inferred from correlated systems, to that of indefinitely increasing organization. This positive feedback coupled to the self-templating molecular potential could provide a universal basis for the spontaneous rise of highly organized structures, typified by the emergence of life from a prebiotic chemical soup. Once established, this mechanism ensures the longevity and robustness of life envisioned as a general system, by allowing it to accumulate and optimize microstate-reducing recipes, thereby giving rise to strong nonlinearity, decisional capacity and multistability. Mechanisms possibly involved in priming this cycle are proposed.

Cell population heterogeneity and evolution towards drug resistance in cancer: Biological and mathematical assessment, theoretical treatment optimisation

“…Poor bioenergetics of cancer cells might be responsible for such defects in information and energy transfer (that are indefectibly linked [188]) between cells in cancer tissues, and it has even been hypothesised that cancer may be considered as a disease of the mitochondrion. The absence of properly working mitochondria has consequences for information and energy transfer between cells since the ability to sustain high-performance intercellular communication that is needed in a well-organised tissue and involves expense of energy is then impaired.…”

The Hormesis of Thinking: A Deeper Quantum Thermodynamic Perspective?

“…The evolution of life therefore represents billions of these cycles, where information has been slowly accrued in reproducible and transmittable storage systems such as DNA, slowly raising its ability to interpret and adapt to the environment and learn as it became more complex. Thermodynamically no laws are broken, as although at a local level life displays negative entropy, the acquisition of information has a larger energy cost [11].…”

“…Thirdly, there is a fundamental relationship between energy and information [10]. The fourth is that information is describable as a thermodynamic entity [11]. The fifth concept refers to the emergence of order in complex systems when subject to perturbation and life as a dissipative system [12,13].…”

Information and entropy theory for the sustainability of coupled human and natural systems

“…Ebeling and Volkenstein (1990) argued that living organisms are information-processing agents, and through evolution and self-organizing processes, energy is used to produce and exchange information Fath 2002, Kumar andRuddell 2010). This information production comes at the expense of increased entropy in the larger system (Michel 2013).…”

“…This complexity represents a growth in information storage (Jørgensen 2006), and feedbacks provide information to the system on its position and trajectory (James 2000, Gleick 2011, Michel 2013. In social systems, connections and feedbacks allow for the flow of information among individuals and groups and for the development and trust that creates and sustains social capital, a critical component of resilience in CHANS (Brondizio et al 2009, Biggs et al 2012.…”