What is life?

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What is life?
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The main property of life its complexity

• It is unprecedented in the inanimate world.
• Because of their fantastic complexity, living
  systems never arise spontaneously in whatever
  fluxes of external energy. They only come to
  existence by means of copying of some other
  living systems.
• In contrast, ordered processes in the inanimate
  nature arise spontaneously in external energy
  fluxes.

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Decay of ordered states in nature

• All complex processes in nature undergo
  spontaneous decay. They arise from an initial
  ordered state which decays to a less ordered
  state.
• On Earth most ordered processes arise because of
  each solar photon coming to the Earth decays into
  twenty thermal photons leaving the Earth to
  space. The increase in disorder (entropy) is
  associated with the increasing number of
  particles (photons).

Complexity of the process is determined NOT BY
THE AVAILABLE ENERGY FLUX but by the particular
routes of solar photon transformation to thermal
photons (decay channels). Life uses an
ultra-complex set of such channels that have no
match in the inanimate world.
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Living beings can only arise as copies of other
living beings.
Ordered inanimate patterns arise spontaneously
e.g., cloud streets (ordered cloud patterns)
are caused by atmospheric motions.
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Frequency of occurrence and duration

• Frequency of occurrence FO of any processes is
  inversely proportional to their complexity.
• Simple processes are common, highly organized
  processes are rare.
• All processes can be characterized by the
  beginning and the end (duration time) TD.
• Commonly, for ordered processes TD ltlt 1/FO.

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Life is a unique process with FO?0 and TD ??.

• It never arises spontaneously.
• Its duration time (4 billion yr) is comparable
  to that of the Universe itself.

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Challenge how to preventspontaneous decay of
the genetic program of life?

• If orderliness of living beings is not determined
  by the external energy fluxes, how is it
  maintained?

How has it been possible for life to retain its
orderliness and to persist for about four billion
years, i.e. on a time-scale compatible to the age
of the Universe?
Life universal DNA error rate 10-9 per base pair
per act of copying
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What information is needed for life to fight with
decay?

1. Life exists in the form of discrete objects
   living beings that have a finite size.
2. Every kind (species) of living beings exist in
   the form of a set of many similar objects
   (population). No species exists in the form of
   one individual. Individuals within a population
   compete with each other.
3. An inherent genetically encoded property of all
   living beings is the tendency to occupy all
   available areas (expansion).

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Competitive interaction as a unique means of
sustaining orderliness
Note the difference between removal of the
non-fit and the Darwinian survival of the
fittest. Without indicating what the the
fittest is, survival of the fittest is a
tautology. Non-fit is an object whose genetic
program deviates from the normal one by a certain
amount that exceeds the sensitivity of
competitive interaction.
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Any level of organization of living objects is
maintained by competitive interaction
Any type of internal correlation of living
objects is maintained by competitive interaction
at the next higher level. For example,
correlation of cells within a multicellular body
is maintained by competition in a population of
multicellular living beings. The highest level of
correlation is the local ecological community. In
forest ecosystems it is represented by individual
trees and the associated local plants, animals,
bacteria and fungi.
A single globally correlated organism (Gaia)
would not be able to persist.
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The main challenge for life Life can only
exist in a narrow interval of environmental
conditions
This challenge is a direct consequence of lifes
complexity the higher the orderliness of a
particular phenomenon, the rarer the
environmental conditions where it can occur.
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Life-compatible environment

• Water in the liquid phase
• Particular concentrations of life-important
  chemical substances
• Example Redfield ratio in the ocean

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The problem spontaneous degradation of
life-compatible environment
Atmospheric carbon as an example In the absence
of biotic control, atmospheric concentration of
carbon would have increased by a factor of ten
thousand in a billion of years at the expense of
carbon degassing from the Earths interior. Life
has been depositing the excessive carbon in the
form of inactive organic compounds at a rate
equal to that of carbon degassing, to keep the
atmospheric concentration of carbon relatively
stable.
Stores (Gt C, rectangles) and fluxes (Gt C/year,
arrows) of organc (dark) and inorganic (white)
carbon to and from the biosphere during the
Phanerozoi (the last 6 x 108 years).
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The problem spontaneous degradation of
life-compatible environment
Soil organic carbon as an example Disturbed
ecosystems are unable to sustain organic carbon
in soil. On exploited lands soils degrade
completely on a time scale from a few years to
200-300 years. Tropical soils have smaller carbon
stores and are exceptionally vulnerable.
Organic carbon depletion time versus erosion rate
in ecosystems of varying degree of disturbance.
Data of Quinton et al. 2010 Nature Geoscience 3
311. Total global store of soil carbon 2x103 Gt
C.
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Life and modern science No comprehensive
approach ltgt no understanding
No one scientific discipline takes the
responsibility for the inconsistencies that
arise when data from different scientific fields
are considered simultaneously.
Theoretical physics is a field of science which
primarily seeks to build an comprehensive and
coherent picture of the studied phenomena, to
formulate a view that is free from internal
contradictions.
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Life and modern science Evolutionary Biology

• Environment that is fit for life degrades on a
  much shorter time scale than the evolutionary
  time scale Tev 3x106 years (mean time of
  species existence), Tev gtgt Tdegr.
• Evolutionary biology (the paradigms of survival
  of the fittest and adaptation) completely ignores
  this environmental problem and thus cannot
  explain why life persists. Species discreteness
  and punctuated speciation remain unexplained.

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Life and modern science Ecology

• Ecology is dominated by studies of large animals
  (predator-prey models) and, historically, is
  mostly fed by data from disturbed or degrading
  ecosystems. The majority of ecologists can be
  compared to doctors who have never seen a healthy
  human being and consider dying or seriously ill
  people to be the norm.
• One of the misconceptions the idea of nutrient
  limitation (Liebech principle) as the basis of
  natural ecosystem functioning.

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Life and modern science Daisyworld (Gaia)
studies

• This is a very small sector in life studies. In
  contrast to evolutionary biologists, Gaia
  modelers aim to explain environmental stability.
• But their main challenge is that they cannot
  explain how the level of organization necessary
  to stabilize global environment can be guarded
  against genetic degradation? That is, against the
  mutation of regulating daises to
  non-regulating ones.

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Life and modern science Climate science

• Climate science is dominated by physical models
  which would be built in basically the same way if
  the Earth was lifeless.
• The unknown regulatory programs of ecosystems are
  ignored. Impact of life is taken into account in
  the form of empirical parameterizations which
  lack predicative power. Example parameterization
  of evapotranspiration

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Biotic regulation of the environment
Because of its high complexity, life can only
exist in a narrow interval of environmental
conditions. Spontaneous persistence of such
conditions in the inanimate world is im-probable.
Hence, life must contain information on how to
maintain such conditions.
To perform environmental regulation, life must be
highly-ordered and complex.
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Life is a process that is complex enough to
create and maintain conditions necessary for its
own perpetuation.
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Globally and locally regulated biogens
Locally regulated biogens P \ Fout
1 Biological productivity exceeds the abiotic
fluxes. Example soil phosphorus
Globally regulated biogens ? ltP /Fout
ltlt1 Biological productivity is smaller than the
abiotic fluxes of biogens, but their ratio
exceeds biotic sensitivity ? 10-3. Example
atmospheric CO2.
Regulation of global environmental parameters by
local ecological communities
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Condensation over local ecological communities in
Papua New Guinea pristine forest
Image credit Rocky Roe UPNG Remote Sensing
Centre
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Who is the fittest? How to couple competitiveness
and biotic regulation?

• Competitiveness of a local ecological community
  depends on two things (1) its environment and
  (2) its genetic program.
• If, because of spontaneous genetic decay, the
  community loses its ability to regulate the
  environment (the program is partially eroded),
  then its favorable environment begins to
  deteriorate.
• The condition of genetic stability is that the
  decay individual loses competitiveness because of
  environmental degradation BEFORE it has
  outcompeted (replaced) all the normal ecological
  communities.

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The danger of abundance (visualization)
Normal local ecological communities and decay
ecological community. Normal communities keeps
the environment favorable for life. Decay
community does not, but is able to suppress
normal communities.
Texp time by which the gangsters kill the
entire population. Tdegr time by which the
environment becomes unsuitable for gangsters.
Large biomass stores increase Tdegr.
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Quantitative criteria of life stability

• Texp gtgt Tdegr
• Texp time of global expansion of a decay
  ecological community
• Tdegr time of degradation of its local
  environment
• Tdegr ? ? M/F (turnover time)
• M is the store of a local biogen, F is the
  environmental flux changing this store in the
  absence of biotic regulation.
• Stability is enhanced by decreasing turnover time
  of life-important biogens. This is achieved by
  elevating the rates of biological synthesis P
  and decomposition P- (i.e., by increasing F) and
  by decreasing the available stores of biogens M
  (decreasing abundance).

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Biomass, productivity and turnover times in the
biosphere
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Short and long turnover times ? ? M/P
Epilithic lichens (alga fungus)
Boreal forest
Small biomass M, high productivity P gt Short
turnover time
Large biomass M, same productivity P gt Long
turnover time
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The danger of abundance

• What is the main difference between forest
  ecosystem and oceanic ecosystem?
• Terrestrial forest ecosystems contain ten
  thousand times larger amount of live biomass M
  per unit area than do oceanic ecosystems.
• Net primary productivity (per unit area) is only
  ten times larger in the forest than in the open
  ocean.
• This elevates time Tdegr M/P in forest
  ecosystems and make them intrinsically unstable
  compared to the low biomass oceanic ecosystems.

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Why do large animals potentially undermine life
stability?

• 1. The basis of life on Earth is solar radiation.
  It is represented by massless particles
  photons. Lacking mass, photons cannot accumulate
  on the Earth surface.

Therefore, plants that live on the energy of
solar photons, do not need to move. They form a
continuous immobile cover on land.
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2. Universal mean rate of energy consumption per
unit live mass across life
Irrespective of their evolutionary rank and
genome size, the various life forms consume
between 1 and 10 Watts per kilogram of live mass.
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3. Growth of energy consumption per unit area
with increasing body size
Large organisms consume more energy per unit
ground surface area per unit time than plants can
offer (Pmax 2 W/m2). Large animals must move
and destroy biomass.
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Human body poweris about 100 Watt, or about 300
Watt per sq. meter
The biosphere provides only 0.5 Watt per sq.
meter
4. Large animals have to move and destroy biomass
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Large animals have the potential to destroy
terrestrial ecosystems.
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Energy consumption in a stable ecological
community
Distribution of primary energy consumption over
organisms of different size in stable ecosystems.
The smallest organisms (bacteria, fungi) consume
over 90 of total energy flux the medium-sized
(invertebrates) about 10, and all organisms
with body size exceeding 1 cm are allowed to
consume altogether no more than about 1 of
primary productivity.
The largest organisms consume the smallest share
of ecosystem productivity in stable ecosystems.
Humans have exceeded their quota by an order of
magnitude.
Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Li B.-L. (2004)
Ecological Complexity, 1, 139-175.
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Territorial requirements
Kelt D.A., Van Vuren D.H. (2001) The Ecology and
Macroecology of Mammalian Home Range Area. The
American Naturalist 157 637-645.
Human individual territory, implied by biological
properties, is 4 km2
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Stores and fluxes of information in the biosphere
and civilization
Cultural heritage of humans is unprecedented in
the biosphere.
Human ability to destroy the biosphere is also
unprecedented.
However, the complexity of biotic regulation is
far beyond human possibilities.
Biotic regulation cannot be replaced by
technology.
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Some conclusions

1. Ecosystems with high biomass (large abundance of
   organic matter) are intrinsically unstable. Such
   are terrestrial ecosystems that drive the biotic
   pump.
2. All large herbivorous animals, including humans,
   are potentially able to arrange an ecological
   catastrophe on land.
3. The only strategic solution for sustainable
   existence of the humanity is via a significant
   reduction of global population numbers.