On life and its origins: when boundary conditions become more important than laws.

DIPC Seminars

Speaker
Dr. Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo, Ramón y Cajal Fellow, Dpto. Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia (UPV/EHU), Unidad de Biofísica (CSIC-UPV/EHU)
When
2011/05/13
14:00
Place
Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal, 4 (nearby the Facultad de Quimica), Donostia
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On life and its origins: when boundary conditions become more important than laws. ** ** **On life and its origins: when boundary conditions become more important than laws.** **** Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo Ramón y Cajal Fellow Dpto. Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia (UPV/EHU) Unidad de Biofísica (CSIC-UPV/EHU) Abstract: In this talk I will shortly review some current approaches to the problem of defining what is life (in minimal, universal terms) and how it could be originated from a complex physical-chemical scenario that involves the combination of self-organization and self-assembly processes. A protocell model in which these two types of dynamics are taken into account will be presented as an example. Finally, I will discuss why understanding the organization of living systems does not require any new general principle or law, but a theory about the development of increasingly complex, non- holonomic, boundary conditions. Interestingly, under the appropriate set of this type of boundary conditions or constraints (e.g.: ‘self-producing membrane micro-compartments’, ‘chemical catalysts’, ‘genetic mechanisms’,…) the behaviour of matter, without violating fundamental physical laws, seems no longer determined or ruled by them.