Thermodynamic Function of Life

Abstract

Darwinian Theory depicts life as being overwhelmingly consumed by a fight for survival in a hostile environment. However, from a thermodynamic perspective, life is a dynamic, out of equilibrium process, stabilizing and coevolving in concert with its abiotic environment. The living component of the biosphere of greatest mass, the plants and cyanobacteria, are involved in the transpiration of vast amounts of water. Transpiration is part of the global water cycle, and it is this cycle that distinguishes Earth from its apparently life barren neighboring planets, Venus and Mars. The water cycle, including the absorption of sunlight in the biosphere, is by far the greatest entropy producing process occurring on Earth. Life, from this perspective, can therefore be viewed as performing an important thermodynamic function; acting as a dynamic catalyst by aiding process such as the water cycle, hurricanes, and ocean and wind currents to produce entropy. The role of animals in this view is that of unwitting but dedicated servants of the plants and cyanobacteria, helping them to grow and to spread into initially inhospitable areas.

19 pages, no figures, new evidences, new calculations, new references

References in corpus (1)

• Thermodynamic Origin of Life

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Thermodynamic Origin of Life
• Fundamental Molecules of Life are Pigments which Arose and Evolved to Dissipate the Solar Spectrum
• A Dissipative Photochemical Origin of Life: The UVC Abiogenisis of Adenine
• A non-linear irreversible thermodynamic perspective on organic pigment proliferation and biological evolution
• Properties of cyanobacterial UV-absorbing pigments suggest their evolution was driven by optimizing photon dissipation rather than photoprotection