Biology - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 89

(PEDE), since the left-hand sides of the arrows in Processes 4.10 and 4.11 can be
identified as equilibrium structures ( equilibrons ) and dissipative structures
( dissipatons ), respectively (Sect. 3.1 ). The PEDE may be re-stated as follows:
It is possible for some non-equilibrium chemical systems to encode dissipatons into
equilibrons . (4.13)

Viewing species as dissipative structures (Brooks and Wiley 1986, p. 40) and
genomes as equilibrium structures, Statement 4.13 can logically be interpreted as
the thermodynamic principle of biological evolution (TPBE) , i.e., the thermody-
namic principle that allows the biological evolution (Chap. 14 ) to occur spontane-
ously on this planet, in analogy to the Second Law which is the thermodynamic
principle that disallows the existence of the perpetual motion machines of the
second kind (Atkins 2007).
Molecular biology is replete with examples of the processes that support the reverse
of Statement 4.13, namely, the decoding of equilibrons (e.g., DNA sequences) into
dynamic patterns of concentration changes of molecules, i.e., dissipatons (e.g., RNA
trajectories in Fig. 12.2 ). This allows us to formulate another principle to be called the
Principle of Decoding Equilibrons into Dissipatons (PDED):
It is possible for some non-equilibrium chemical systems to decode equilibrons into
dissipatons . (4.14)

Statements 4.13 and 4.14 can be combined into what may be termed the
“Principle of Dissipaton-Equilibron Transduction (PDET)”:
It is possible for some non-equilibrium chemical systems to interconvert equilibrons and
dissipatons . (4.15)

It seems logical to view Statement 4.15 as the thermodynamic principle of
organisms (TPO), since organisms are the only nonequilibrium thermodynamic
systems known that are equipped with mechanisms or molecular devices to carry
out the interconversion between equilibrons and dissipatons.
Since organisms can both develop and evolve , it is possible to derive Statements
4.16 and 4.17 as the corollaries of Statement 4.15:

Biological evolution results from non-equilibrium systems encoding dissipatons into
equilibrons. (4.16)
Biological development results from non-equilibrium systems decoding equilibrons into
dissipatons. (4.17)

4.5 Synchronic Versus Diachronic Information

It is clear that the symbol string generated in Process 4.11 carries two kinds of
information which may be referred to as synchronic and diachronic information in
analogy to the synchronic and diachronic approaches in linguistics (Table 4.1 )
(Culler 1991). Synchronic information refers to the totality of the information that