Kauffman Stuart
Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WA 98109, USA.
Entropy (Basel). 2020 Jul 25;22(8):815. doi: 10.3390/e22080815.
In his "What Is Life?" Schrödinger poses three questions: (1) What is the source of order in organisms? (2) How do organisms remain ordered in the face of the Second Law of Thermodynamics? (3) Are new laws of physics required? He answers his first question with his famous "aperiodic solid". He leaves his second and third questions unanswered. I try to show that his first answer is also the answer to his second question. Aperiodic solids such as protein enzymes are "boundary conditions" that constrain the release of energy into a few degrees of freedom in non-equilibrium processes such that thermodynamic work is done. This work propagates and builds structures and controls processes. These constitute his causally efficacious "code script" controlling development. The constrained release of energy also delays the production of entropy that can be exported from cells as it forms. Therefore, cells remain ordered. This answers his second question. However, "What is life?" must also ask about the diachronic evolution of life. Here, the surprising answer to this extended version of Schrödinger's third question is that there no new entailing laws of physics. No laws at all entail the evolution of ours or any biosphere.
薛定谔在其《生命是什么？》一书中提出了三个问题：（1）生物体中秩序的来源是什么？（2）面对热力学第二定律，生物体如何保持有序？（3）是否需要新的物理定律？他用其著名的“非周期性固体”回答了第一个问题。他没有回答第二个和第三个问题。我试图表明，他的第一个答案也是第二个问题的答案。诸如蛋白质酶之类的非周期性固体是“边界条件”，它们在非平衡过程中将能量释放限制在几个自由度内，从而完成热力学功。这项功得以传播并构建结构并控制过程。这些构成了他控制发育的具有因果效力的“密码本”。能量的受限释放还延迟了熵的产生，而熵在形成时可以从细胞中输出。因此，细胞保持有序。这回答了他的第二个问题。然而，“生命是什么？”还必须问及生命的历时性演化。在这里，对薛定谔第三个问题的这个扩展版本令人惊讶的答案是，不存在新的必然的物理定律。根本没有任何定律能决定我们的生物圈或任何生物圈的演化。
