Entropy and evolution:
How order arises from chaos

James S. Albert
School of Biological Sciences, UL Lafayette

Physics Department Seminar 3 pm, Wednesday, Oct. 15
Broussard Hall 116

Schrödinger's paradox refers to the capacity of living systems to evolve increased complexity and greater organization in an entropic universe that is trending inexorably towards thermodynamic equilibrium. The conventional resolution to this paradox is that living entities are thermodynamically open systems that maintain their structural and functional organization using energy obtained from the external environment. Under this view, energy and entropy drive the transient formation of order. While helpful, this explanation does not explain the physical and chemical mechanisms underlying the evolution of increased complexity., nor the persistence of living systems for an estimated 3.8-4.1 billion years, or about 28-30% the age of the Universe. The Natural Sciences now resolve this seeming paradox employing the concepts of entropy, information and emergence from Physics, molecular ratchet and dynamic kinetic stability from Chemistry, and metabolism, reproduction, and organic evolution from Biology, to provide a unified, consilient understanding of the Life phenomenon. Using these concepts, Life may be described as a dynamic flux of matter and energy that propagates itself through space and time, using information embodied in the structure and dynamics of these fluxes, in which energy extracted from the environment is used to synthesize energy-transforming and information-bearing molecules. Information is the difference between maximum and observed entropy, and equilibrium is a dynamic state approached under kinetic (i.e. enzymatic) controls. Living systems are able to persist over evolutionary and cosmic time scales because, not despite, their high complexity; i.e. high information content. This conception of Life is consistent with an entropic (not progressive) and a probabilistic (not deterministic) view of the universe, where events unfold with varying degrees of certainty, ranging from unique and improbable to common and probable. This view also advances the perspective that the origin of agency associated with all living cells introduced the phenomenon of meaning into the Universe.