Life and Laws
“The rule of law is better than the rule of any individual.” by Aristotle shows his belief in the importance of law over the quirks of individual rulers. “Law is order, and good law is good order.” is another quote by Aristotle.
Science is replete with investigations of the startling qualities arising in complex systems. Natural phenomena, disasters and behaviors of species offer further examples in which the whole appears to be greater than the sum of its parts. What is currently and fiercely contended is if all such behaviors and patterns can in due course be derived from the known laws of science implemented onto the individual components or if there is the case of exhibiting genuinely new and different aspects which we know little as yet. While conventional scientific perspective, reductionism, states that it is possible to explain everything ultimately based on the bottom level laws of science, it would be in principle likely to predict life from the laws of atomic physics. What has become increasingly clear is the complex systems’ computational aspects, defined as a system where phenomena emerge as an outcome of multiscale interaction among the constituents of the system as well as and their environments focusing on usually naturally occurring, either biological or social phenomena. Complexity theory implies that emergent properties depending on unpredictable and nonlinear interactions between the constituents are significant to understand the fundamental features and laws of systems that have large numbers of independent agents like living systems [Pernick, N. (2018)].
Scientific laws, on the other hand, refer to the description of a naturally emerging phenomenon in the world, providing an explanation on how something happens. The laws are expression through the use of mathematical formulae and equations, and it is possible that they be proven through the requirement of empirical data to support and substantiate the findings. It is a well-known fact that life entails structural complexity; however, a chaotic mixture of compound elements may also be extremely complex. Considering that life requires a certain extent of structural order, complexity or order on their own rights cannot characterize a living organism. As laws of life, the aims of coming close to life and making life develop to higher organisms are fulfilled and advanced at the same time based on the requirements of complexity and structural order which marks the difference between the living matter and the dead matter. The combination of high order and high complexity also manifests a kind of biosignature that is universal and that can be used for identifying the unknown forms of life or its remnants [Mayer, C. (2020)]. The complexity intrinsic to life as well as life-like rules can be rendered applicable via the balance of order and disorder, which can be demonstrated by simulating life and collecting physical and natural laws besides complexity measurements of the resulting dynamic patterns. Furthermore, system complexity and structural order, as noted above, can make one try to approximately localize the living organisms’ boundaries. With respect to structural order, the typical reciprocal entropy of a living cell can be representative marker of life. In the case of a small loss of such order, the actual death of the cell may occur. Thus, the border between life and death is inherent in the mixing entropy of two vehicula split originally by a membrane. Should the entropy of a homogenized cell be used as a reference, the sum of all the mixing entropies attached to the cell’s homogenization could make the definition of the boundary concerning the structural order of life. When it comes to the complexity of biological life, the smallest genomes of living organisms constitute the definition of the lower limit.
Through the unification of stakeholders, namely scientists, researchers, practitioners and general public, a shared exploration of life’s origins may hopefully exceed the known perspectives lying in the research on origins of life. Distilling the consensus and disputes on life’s general laws can also pave the way for inspiriting further research areas. Such a unified point of view may enrich the shared understanding of where humans originated from and if they may one day discover or foster complex life in a place beyond Earth. You may kindly refer to...
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