Physics - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 24

Table 2.5 The Symmetry Principle of Biology and Physics (SPBP): the principles of
supplementarity and complementarity in action in physics and biology. “Wavecles” are comple-
mentary unions of waves and particles, and “quons” are quantum mechanical objects exhibiting
wave or particle properties depending on the measuring apparatus employed (Herbert 1987).
“Gnergy” is defined as a complementary union of information (gn-) and energy (-ergy) (Ji 1991,
p. 152). In other words, energy and information (or more accurately mattergy and liformation ) are
the complementary aspects of gnergy
Physics Biology

6. Life-information equivalence a Supplementarity

(from Special
Relativity Theory)

1. Matter-energy equivalence
E mc 2 ¼

2. Matter-energy or “Mattergy” b 7. Life-information or

“Liformation” c

3. Matter is a highly condensed
form of energy ”

8. Life is a highly condensed
form of information

4. Wave-particle d
complementarity

Complementarity
(from Quantum
Mechanics)

9. “Liformation-mattergy”
complementarity

Kinematics-dynamics
Complementarity e
5. “Wavicles” or “Quons” f 10. “Gnergons” g
a Just as the matter-energy equivalence was unthinkable before Einstein's special relativity theory
published in 1905 (Shadowitz 1968), so it is postulated here that the life-information equivalence
was unthinkable prior to the emergence of molecular theories of life that began with Watson and
Crick's discovery of the DNA double helix in 1953
b

The term often used to denote the equivalence between (or supplementary union of) matter and
energy as indicated by E ¼ mc 2 (Shadowitz 1968)
c

A new term coined here to represent the postulated supplementary relation (or the equivalence or
continuity) between life and information , in analogy to mattergy, embodying the supplementary
relation between matter and energy
d The Airy pattern (see Fig. 4.2 in Herbert 1987) may be interpreted as the evidence for a
simultaneous measurement of both waves and particles of light, and if such an interpretation
proves to be correct, it would deny the validity of the wave-particle complementarity and support
the notion of the wave-particle supplementarity
e The kinematics-dynamics complementarity is a logically different kind of complementarity that
was recognized by Bohr in addition to the wave-particle complementarity (Murdoch 1987,
pp. 80-88)
f Any material entities that exhibit both wave and particle properties, either simultaneously (as
claimed by L. de Broglie and D. Bohm) or mutually exclusively (as claimed by N. Bohr) (Herbert
1987)
g Gnergons are defined as discrete units of gnergy, the complementary union of information and
energy (Ji 1991). Gnergy is a type and gnergons are its tokens (see Sect. 6.3.9 )

to “mattergy” (see Items 2 and 7). Another important insight afforded by the
symmetry inherent in Table 2.5 is the “liformation-mattergy complementarity”
(see Item 9), which may be related to the view recently expressed by Lloyd (2006,
p. 38), if computation can be identified with liformation or information processing:
The computational universe is not an alternative to the physical universe. The universe that
evolves by processing information and the universe that evolves by the laws of physics are
one and the same. The two descriptions, computational and physical, are complementary
ways of capturing the same phenomena. (2.36)