Acceleration of energy dissipation by biological systems

RESUMO

A general scheme of evolution from autocatalytic processes to socio-technological system is discussed from the perspective of maximum energy dissipation principle. The scheme treats the emergence of biological systems as an initial stage in the acceleration of global free energy dissipation. The sequential emergence of qualitatively new levels of organisation (biological cell, multicellular organism, social system) has been proposed, the levels are suggested as the results of cooperation (symbiosis) of the dissipative systems at the previous levels. The cooperation/symbiosis provides sufficient complexity for development of the next, essentially a new level of energy dissipation, leading to a new form of free energy utilization and a new form of information mapping. From a thermodynamic perspective, every qualitatively new level of biological organisation provides an additional step to increase the rate of energy dissipation from qualitatively new sources, essentially widening the number of these sources involved in the utilization.