Life from the Viewpoint of Information
- 1 Department of Psychiatry, Sakamoto Hospital, Higashiosaka, Japan
Abstract
We shall consider the relationship between life and entropy from the viewpoint of information. Firstly, as long as life is alive, it tries to keep the order of its body. In contrast, inanimate materials quickly become in equilibrium. Life seems to have a special nature. However, since life is an open system, the maintenance of the order of the living body does not conflict with the second law of thermodynamics. Living life maintains its order using information and energy from the outer world. Secondly, due to the second law of thermodynamics, it is impossible to preserve information permanently. How can living organisms preserve such information? The key feature of living organisms is that there are two phases: life and death. Natural selection uses both life and death. When life is alive, life proliferates and retains genetic information. When life dies, its body is rapidly degraded and genetic information is lost. Both of them increase the number of advantageous genes for survival and eliminate disadvantageous genes for survival. In conclusion, it was confirmed that neither the maintenance of order in living body using information and energy nor the preservation of information by natural selection is inconsistent with the second law of thermodynamics.
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