Negentropy, The Driving Force Behind the Rise and Evolution of Life
I’m quite certain that Larry is wrong in his stated belief that thermodynamics is insufficient to explain complex life. (Please correct me if you think I have misunderstood his position.) The basic notion that negentropy is the driving force behind the rise and evolution of life has been around for perhaps a century; Schroedinger put all the pieces together for the public back in 1943.
I therefore propose the following short, simple piece that presents no arguments, instead offering links to resources that explain my points. My expectation is that these links will demonstrate to readers that my arguments represent the conventional views of most scientists.************************************************************************I invite readers to examine any of the many sources explaining why negative entropy is the fundamental driving force behind the rise and evolution of life. An ideal starting point is the aforementioned short book by Erwin Schroedinger “What is Life?”.
A PDF of the book can be found here:
http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/schrodinger-what-is-life-mind-matter-auto-sketches.pdf
a good general explanation of the thermodynamics of life: https://www.wired.com/2017/02/life-death-spring-disorder/
a six-minute video:
https://bigthink.com/series/great-question/entropy-origin-of-life/
an article, which presents a radical extension of conventional ideas about how negentropy drives life. It’s a detailed analysis showing exactly HOW negentropy can drive the development of organized systems.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/
In regard to the objection that the fundamental constants of physics must be precisely tuned for life to develop, I offer this humorous classic short story: https://web.archive.org/web/20190501130711/http://www.terrybisson.com/theyre-made-out-of-meat-2/
An hour-long video; I did not watch it all but skimmed it, and it seems fairly conventional:
“Thermodynamics and the Origin of Life”
Chris
************************************************************************“Thermodynamics and the Origin of Life” the YouTube video
