Chemistry - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 72

large extent, to that extent it would follow logically that cell functions and IDSs are
equivalent or synonymous. We may express this idea in the form of a syllogism:

ð 1 Þ Premise 1 : Genes ) Dissipative Structures

ð 2 Þ Premise 2 : Genes ) Functions (3.3)

ð 3 Þ Conclusion Dissipative Structures ) Functions

:

where the reads “determine” or “cause.” Or we may regard functions as the

external (or exo) aspect or view and dissipative structures as the internal (or endo)
aspect or view of the same phenomenon called life on the cellular level (see
Statement 3.2).

)

3.1.4 Three Classes of Dissipative Structures in Nature

Although organisms are dissipative structures, not all dissipative structures are
organisms. I agree with Pattee (1995) who stated that
a productive approach to the theories of life, evolution, and cognition must focus on
the complementary contributions of nonselective law-based material self-organization
and natural selection-based symbolic organization (meaning the genetic mechanisms;
my addition). (3.4)
According to this so-called matter-symbol complementarity view, dissipative
structures alone, as exemplified by the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction, is not
sufficient to give rise to life, because they are devoid of any symbolic elements that
encode evolutionary history/record. There is a great similarity between Pattee's
emphasis on a symbolic aspect of organisms and my emphasis on the role of genetic
information in life (see “liformation” in Table 2.6 ). Thus, we can recognize three
distinct classes of dissipative structures , depending on the physicochemical nature
of the boundaries delimiting dissipative structures as shown in Table 3.1 .
The main difference between moving boundaries and informed moving
boundaries is that the latter is not only mobile (e.g., the intracellular calcium ion
gradient or the action potentials) but also “communicates” with the chemical
reactions that they catalyze through exchanging energies with both the chemical
reactions and thermal environment (see Sect. 2.1.2 ) . The conformon-based
mechanisms of enzymic catalysis are consistent with Circe effect of Jencks
(1975), the essence of which is that a part of the substrate-binding energy is stored
in enzyme-substrate complex as mechanical energy to be later utilized to lower (or,
more accurately, to regulate) the activation free energy barrier for the enzyme-
catalyzed reaction. The evidence for enzymes regulating their own catalytic rates
(and activation energy barriers) came from the fact that the waiting times of single-
molecule enzymes are distributed not randomly but in accordance with Planck's
radiation law-like manner (see Sect. 11.3.3 ).