Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
These approaches are based essentially on the classical statistical physics of ergodic systems,
i.e., on the assumption that the systems under consideration have only statistical, thermal
degrees of freedom fast enough to exchange energy for each other. However, if biological
constructions (beginning at the level of macromolecules) are machines, in the course of their
functioning there might be excited specific, mechanical degrees of freedom which exchange
slowly with the thermal ones. This requires an essentially different approach to their
description (different from the classical statistical physics; my addition).
With due humility, I suggest that the approach described in this topic, i.e.,
mechanisms by which molecular machines actually work,
the ultimate cause of life.
Having provided a comprehensive molecular theory of cell biology in this topic,
it appears natural to ask the question: How does the proposed biological theory
relate to the fields of human knowledge beyond biology? For example, how does
the new biological theory relate to what Popper (1978) refers to as
world 1
(the
physical world, both living and nonliving),
world 2
(the mental world), and
world 3
(the world of the products of the human mind, including mathematics, philosophy,
art, literature, and engineering)? Or how is the proposed new theory of biology
related to what Rosen (1991) calls the
natural
(N) and
formal
(F) systems? Finally,
how does the new theory of biology relate to the
mind-body problem
or the problem
of
consciousness
recently reviewed by Pinker (2003, 2011)? Possible answers to
these questions appear to emerge when it is attempted to correlate and integrate the
following four hybrid words,
mattergy
,
gnergy
,
liformation
,and
infoknowledge using
category theory.
The first three of these terms have already appeared in this topic (see
Table 2.6 and Sects. 2.3.1 through 2.3.5) and the last one was coined just recently
(Ji 2011) based on the suggestion by Burgin (2004, 2011a, 2012) that the relation
between
information
and
knowledge
is akin to the relation between
energy
and
matter
. For convenience, we may refer to this suggestion as the
Burgin's analogy
.
The principles of
complementarity
and
supplementarity
described in Sect. 2.3.1
will play key roles in integrating the four hybrid terms and their associated theories
and philosophies. Supplementarity is an additive principle, i.e., A + B = C, and
complementarity is nonadditive, i.e., A^B = C, where the symbol ^ indicates that A
and B are complementary aspects of a third entity C. These principles led to the
coining of the terms
gnergy
and
liformation
, respectively (see Table 2.6, Sect.
3.2.2). My initial attempt to integrate the four hybrid terms started with the diagram
shown in Fig.
21.1
.
Burgin's suggestion that the relation between
information
and
knowledge
is akin
to that between
energy
and
matter
is depicted at the center of Fig.
21.1
(see Arrows
1 and 4 in this figure and Table
21.2
)
.
Since
energy
and
matter
are related to each
other through E = mc
2
, which can be viewed as a
supplementary relation
, and since
the combination of
energy
and
matter
is conserved according to the First Law of
thermodynamics, it is natural to combine these two terms into one word,
matter-
energy
or
mattergy
, more briefly. Analogously, it may be convenient to coin a new
word to represent the combination of
information
and
knowledge
, namely,
infor-
mation-knowledge
or
infoknowledge
, more briefly (see Arrows 4/5 relative to
Arrows 1/8 in Fig.
21.1
and Table
21.2
).
