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The general entity of life: a cybernetic approach

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Abstract

Life, not only in the well-known context of biochemical metabolism but also in the context of hypothetical life synthesized laboratorially or possibly found on other planets, is considered in this paper. The three-component information–energetic–structural irreducible processing in autonomous systems is the core of the proposed approach. The cybernetic organization of a general entity of life—the alivon—is postulated. The crucial properties of life and evolution are derived from the proposed approach. Information encoded in biological structures is also studied.

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Notes

  1. The term information metabolism was introduced by Kȩpiński in order to stress that the processing of information should be taken into consideration as an integrative part of the energetic processing on the biochemical level. Nevertheless, this terminology can be confusing for the biologists because the term metabolism has strict biochemical meaning in biology. Therefore, the term three-component irreducible information–energetic–structural processing is used when the approach proposed in this paper is described.

  2. The below passage can be trivial for the biologists. This passage, however, is indispensable because Kȩpiński wrote his monographs (among others, the ones specified in the bibliography—[56–58]) in a hurry, when he was faced with a terminal disease. Therefore, first of all, he worked out the psychiatric aspects of the theory and its applications. Other aspects, including analysis of life as such, were only mentioned in his books. In the passage, the arguments in support of his aforementioned thesis about complexity of biological entities and information processing are put forward.

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Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Professor Bernard Korzeniewski and Doctor Jerzy Rychlewski for inspiring discussions.

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  1. Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Automation, Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering, Chair of Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology, Al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059, Cracow, Poland

    Andrzej Bielecki

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Bielecki, A. The general entity of life: a cybernetic approach. Biol Cybern 109, 401–419 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-015-0652-8

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