Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
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Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#2There is no mystery about why life seems to violate entropy, and it has been well understood since the concept of entropy was invented. Did Schroeder imagine that the biologists didn't know that?
Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#3There is no mystery about why life seems to violate entropy, and it has been well understood since the concept of entropy was invented. Did Schroeder imagine that the biologists didn't know that?
Life doesn't violate entropy. The entropy within a living cell decreases at the expense of increased entropy outside of it.
Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#4I read What Is Life many years ago. Had a major effect on how I see life, including the nature of consciousness (at least as hypothesis). And it's a relatively short, enjoyable read as well. Highly recommended.
Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#5There is no mystery about why life seems to violate entropy, and it has been well understood since the concept of entropy was invented. Did Schroeder imagine that the biologists didn't know that?
On the contrary, I've heard that entropy is a useful lens through which to understand the biological processes behind life. We're used to thinking of living things as processing energy: ingesting high energy food, distributing it, making it into forms that do useful work (e.g. ATP). Apparently (I don't know the details, but this was from a biologist) it's also useful to view it as processing entropy. Ingesting low entropy food, distributing it, making it useful, excreting high entropy waste and heat. A gradient from low entropy inputs to high entropy outputs.
Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#6There is no mystery about why life seems to violate entropy, and it has been well understood since the concept of entropy was invented. Did Schroeder imagine that the biologists didn't know that?
On the contrary, I've heard that entropy is a useful lens through which to understand the biological processes behind life. We're used to thinking of living things as processing energy: ingesting high energy food, distributing it, making it into forms that do useful work (e.g. ATP). Apparently (I don't know the details, but this was from a biologist) it's also useful to view it as processing entropy . Ingesting low e…
"Life is fire, slowed down, with an attitude"
Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#7[dead]
Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#8Find the Maxwell's kaibyou?!
>In fact it is possible for this "negentropy" contribution to be large enough that growth is fully endothermic, or actually removes heat from the environment. This type of metabolism, in which acetate, methanol, or a number of other hydrocarbon compounds are converted to methane (a high entropy gas),[25] is known as acetoclastic methanogenesis; one example is the metabolism of the anaerobic archaebacteria Methanosarcina barkeri.[26][27]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiby%C5%8D
Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary, I've heard that entropy is a useful lens through which to understand the biological processes behind life. We're used to thinking of living things as processing energy: ingesting high energy food, distributing it, making it into forms that do useful work (e.g. ATP). Apparently (I don't know the details, but this was from a biologist) it's also useful to view it as processing entropy . Ingesting low e…
"Life is fire, slowed down, with an attitude"
What is the source of this? Many years ago I wrote an honors essay for some undergrad class that built on the same observation, although I needed to run with it for a dozen pages or so to satisfy page count expectations.
Re: Schrödinger's cat among biology's pigeons: 75 years of What Is Life?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Life is fire, slowed down, with an attitude"
What is the source of this? Many years ago I wrote an honors essay for some undergrad class that built on the same observation, although I needed to run with it for a dozen pages or so to satisfy page count expectations.
Sorry, I've completely forgotten the source, but I'm pretty sure it was extant before 2000, if that helps...