信息熵及其物理内涵filedownload.pdfVIP

RevisitingtheGaiaHypothesis:umEntropy,Kauffman’s‘Law’andPhysiosemeiosis

Recently,KleidonsuggestedarestatementoftheGaiahypothesisbasedonumEn-

tropyapproachestotheEarthsystem.RefutingconceptionsofGaahomeostaticsystem,

Gaiaisseenasanon-equilibriumthermodynamicsystemwhichcontinuouslymovesaway

fromequilibrium,drivenbyumentropyproductionwhiaterializesinhierarchi-

callycoupledmechanismsofenergeticflowsviadissipationandphysicalwork.Iproposeto

relatethisviewwithKauffman’s‘LawofThermodynamics’,whichIinterpreteasa

propositionabouttheaccumulationofinformationinevolutionaryprocesses.Then,beyond

itsuseintheKleidonmodel,theconceptofphysicalworkipandedtoludingworkdi-

rectedatthecapacitytowork:IofferatwofoldspecificationofKauffman’sconceptofan

‘autonomousagent’,oneasa‘self-referentialheatengine’,andtheotherintermsofphysio-

semeiosis,whichisanaturalizedapplicationofPeirce’stheoryofsignsemergingfromrecent

biosemioticresearch.Iarguethattheconjunctionofthesethreetheoreticalsources,um

Entropy,Kauffman’sLaw,andphysiosemeiosis,allowstoshowthattheKleidonre-

statementoftheGaiahypothesisisequivalenttothepropositionthatthebiosphereisasystem

ofgenerating,processingandstoringinformation,thusdirectlytreatinginformationasa

physicalphenomenon.Isubstantiatethisargumentbyproposingamoredetailedysisof

thenotionofhierarchyintheKleidonmodel.Inthisview,thereisafundamentalontological

continuitybetweenthebiologicalprocessesandthehumaneconomy,asbothareseenasin-

f