Physics - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 25

To highlight the symmetry, properties embedded in Tables 2.5 and 2.6 are
prepared as its geometric version. Please note that the terms enclosed in double
quotation marks are predicted by the symmetry inherent in the table. That is, the
symmetry properties of the table entail their existence.
The gnergy triangle in Table 2.6 has three nodes. Since Mattergy and Liformation
can be decomposed into matter and energy, and life and information, respectively,
resulting in five nodes, the gnergy triangle can be alternatively represented as a
body-centered tetrahedron which possesses five nodes (see Fig. 10.7 ).
If the above symmetries turn out to be true, the following three inferences may
be made:

1. Biology and physics may be more deeply related with each other than previously
thought.
2. Information cannot exist without life (nor vice versa), just as energy cannot exist
without matter (as in chemical reactions) due to E mc 2 .

3. The Universe may be described in two complementary ways - the energy/
matter-based and the information/life-based, in agreement with Statement 2.36
(Lloyd 2006).

¼

If these inferences turn out to be valid, especially inference (3), they may have
important implications for philosophical discourses on the phenomenon of life,
including the problem of vitalism (Crick 1966).

2.3.2 Information-Energy Complementarity and “Gnergy”

Gnergy was originally defined as the complementary union of information and
energy that drives all self-organizing processes in the Universe (Ji 1991, 1995).
Although information-energy complementarity is now more accurately expressed
as liformation-mattergy complementarity for the reasons provided in Tables 2.5
and 2.6 , gnergy may continue to be thought of as the complementary union of
information and energy for the sake for brevity.
Unless indicated otherwise, “information” refers to “chemical” and “genetic”
information among many other kinds of information (e.g., physical information,
mathematical information, literary information), and “energy” will refer to “free
energy” or the “useful form of energy,” for example, for living systems under
physiological conditions, among many other kinds of energies (e.g., thermal
energy, nuclear energy, gravitational energy). It is important to realize that infor-
mation (e.g., software, the mechanical structure of a car) and energy (e.g., electric-
ity, gasoline) can be separated only in macroscopic machines, and not in molecular
machines that are structurally flexible and deformable (e.g., molecular motors,
including ATP-driven proton pumps). Because of the structural deformability, it
is claimed here that information and energy cannot be separated on the microscopic
level and exist as a fused entity which has been referred to as the gnergon (a term
coined by combining three Greek roots, gn- meaning information, - erg - meaning