Biology - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 107

4.13 Information-Energy Complementarity

as the Principle of Organization

For the purpose of discussing living processes, it appears sufficient to define
“organization” as the nonrandom arrangement of material objects in space and
time. I have long felt that both energy and information are required for any
organization, from the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction-diffusion system (Sect.
3.1.1 ) to the living cell (Fig. 2.11 ) and higher structures. This vague feeling may
now be given a more concrete expression by asserting that “organization” is the
complementary union of information and energy or that information and energy are
the complementary aspects of organization (Fig. 4.8 ). In other words, the informa-
tion-energy complementarity may well turn out to be the elusive physical principle
underlying all organizations not only in living systems but also nonliving systems
including the Universe Itself (see Table 4.5 and Fig. 15.12 ). Organization in living
systems require intrasystem and intersystem communications, and communications
require transferring information in space (through waves) and time (through
particles) obeying a set of rules embodied in a language, thus implicating both
language and the wave-particle duality or complementarity (Table 4.5 ). Since no
information can be transferred without utilizing energy, according to Shannon's
channel capacity equation (see Sect. 4.8 ), communication necessarily implicate the

ORGANIZATION

Fig. 4.8 Information and
energy as the complementary
aspects of organization. Since
gnergy is the complementary
union of information and
energy, organization and
gnergy may be viewed as
synonymous

ENERGY INFORMATION

Table 4.5 The information/energy complementarity as the ultimate principle of organization
Energy Information Organization

Mattergy
(matter-energy)
(E ¼ mc 2 ; matter
as a highly
condensed form
of energy)

“Liformation” (life-information;
life as a highly condensed
form of information)
(Table 2.5 )

Self-organization (Sect. 3.1 )

Force Structure Control, regulation
Space Language Law of requisite variety
Time Communication, purpose Curvature of spacetime
The principle of complementarity (wave/particle & information/energy complementarities)