Biological Organization and Negative Entropy: Based on Schroedinger's reflections
msra(2008)
摘要
This paper proposes a systemic perspective for some aspects of both
phylogenesis and ontogenesis, in the light of the notion of biological
organization as negative entropy, following some hints by Schroedinger. To this
purpose, we introduce two extra principles to the thermodynamic ones, which are
(mathematically) compatible with the traditional principles, but have no
meaning in inert matter. A traditional balance equation for metabolism will be
then extended to the new notion as specified by these principles. We consider
far from equilibrium systems and we focus in particular on the production of
global entropy associated to the irreversible character of the processes. A
close analysis of this term will be carried on, both in terms of a diffusion
equation of biomass over complexity and, as a complementary approach and as a
tool for specifying a source term, in connection to Schroedinger's method for
his equation in Quantum Mechanics. We borrow from this equation just the
operatorial approach and, this, in a classical frame, as we use real
coefficients instead of complex ones, away thus from the mathematical frame of
quantum theories. The first application of our proposal is a simple
mathematical reconstruction of Gould's complexity curve of biomass over
complexity, as for evolution. We then elaborate, from the existence of
different time scales, a partition of ontogenetic time, in reference to entropy
and negative entropy variation. On the grounds of this approach, we analyze
metabolism and scaling laws. This allows to compare various relevant
coefficients appearing in these scaling laws, which seem to fit empirical data.
Finally, a tentative and quantitative evaluation of complexity is proposed,
also in relation to some empirical data (caenorhabditis elegans).
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关键词
quantum mechanics,quantum theory,thermodynamics,diffusion equation,source term
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