VRKEY DSSSTR

//////////////NATR ABHORS A GRADIENT


//////////////THE RIVER MUST FLOW-OPEN SYSTEMS



////////////THE 2ND LAW TAKETH AND THE 2ND LAW TAKETH AWAY



/////////////Wicken's thesis is straightforward: thermodynamics infuses biology at all levels. Its second law, combined with imposed gradients, provides the "go" of life, giving life its direction and reason for being. From life's origin to ecosystem processes to the biosphere with its adjunct of human technoscience, life is a second law–driven process. Understanding the philosophical nuances of teleology and its historical abandonment with the rise of the modern scientific method, as well as the mathematical differences between information theory and thermodynamic interpretations of entropy, Wicken challenges us to break the taboo against asking the question, from a scientific perspective, "Why does life exist?"




/////////////////Some dissipative systems lead to the breaking of time symmetry and develop oscillatory and wavelike behavior, best seen in certain chemical systems. The best known of these reactions are the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactions. A BZ reaction is basically the catalytic oxidation of an aqueous organic compound like malonic acid (CH2[COOH]2). The continuously fed and stirred solution changes from yellow to clear in a periodic behavior. Chemical spiral waves emerge when the BZ reactants stand in a shallow Petri dish. Wave fronts emerge along oxidation reaction boundaries. Prigogine modeled the behavior of these complex chemical systems using a three-step autocatalytic reaction scheme. Mathematical models of these systems show wild oscillations of chemical compounds over space and time and closely represent phenomena seen in the actual chemical reactions. Here again, billions of chemical molecules organize in macroscopic complex structures and behaviors generated by a straightforward chemical gradient.



//////////////Thermodynamic selfhood comes from dissipative systems that establish boundaries. Far from sealing themselves off from the outside world, their boundaries allow them to continue their operations. Biological selfhood on Earth depends on the semipermeable layer, the ubiquitous lipid cell membrane, which provides a place, at first microscopic, for expansion of nonequilibrium processes. Less complex swirling systems grow and even seem to reproduce without biochemistry, or even chemistry.



THERMODYNAMIC SELFHOOD BY MEANS OF BIOLOGICAL SEMI-PERMEABLE



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