Biology - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 102

Table 4.4 A comparison between the postulated “info-statistical mechanics” of life and the
traditional statistical mechanics of abiotic physicochemical processes
Heat Life

1. Parent science Thermodynamics Molecular and cell biology

2. Microscopic
theory

Statistical mechanics Info-statistical mechanics

3. Landmark event 1877 1953

Boltzmann's equation a S ¼ k B Watson and Crick's DNA; genetic

code conformons as packets of
genetic information and
mechanical energy

ln Q

4. Field named 1884 (W. Gibbs, Yale University) 2006 (The 96th statistical mechanics

conference, Rutgers University)
(Ji 2006a)

5. Key concepts Energy and entropy (synchronic

information)

Energy, entropy and information
(synchronic and diachronic
informations)

6. Laws Fourth law of thermodynamics (?)

(see Fig. 2.2 and Table 14.9 )
7. Theoretical tools 6N-dimensional phase space 9N-dimensional gnergy space
(Fig. 4.2 )
a S ¼ thermodynamic entropy; k B ¼ the Boltzmann constant; Q ¼ the number of microstates of a
thermodynamic system underlying the observed microstates of the system

First and second laws of
thermodynamics

(i.e., information processings ) occurs along the vertical direction (or in the dia-
chronic space), Fig. 4.3 well illustrates the notion of the “genetic information - free
energy orthogonality,” or the “information-energy complementarity” (Ji 1991). In
other words, Fig. 4.3 depicts the paradox between physics/chemistry (in the syn-
chronic space) and biology (diachronic space): They are orthogonal , or mutually
exclusive, in the sense of the Bohr's complementarity (see Sect. 2.3 ).
Biology is more complex than physics and chemistry, primarily because it
implicates components that are the products (e.g., enzymes) of biological evolution
and hence encodes the history (or memory) of the interactions between biological
systems and their environment. These elusive environmental influences derived
from the past can only be described in the language of the information theory that
accommodates at least three degrees of freedom - amount, meaning , and value of
information as indicated in Sect. 4.3 . Thus, the theory of life, taking these mutually
exclusive components into account, may be referred to as “info-statistical mechan-
ics,” or “informed statistical mechanics”' (Ji 2006a). The “info-” component is
associated with the vertical arrow and the “statistical mechanics” component with
the horizontal arrows in Fig. 4.3 . “Info-statistical mechanics” is compared with
traditional statistical mechanics in Table 4.4 . Info-statistical mechanics discussed
here may share a common ground with “info-dynamics” discussed by Weber and
Depew (Salthe 1996).
Just as statistical mechanics is the microscopic theory of thermodynamics, so
info-statistical mechanics may be viewed as a microscopic theory of molecular and