On life and its origins: when boundary conditions become more important than laws.
DIPC Seminars
- Speaker
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Dr. Kepa Ruiz-Mirazo, Ramón y Cajal Fellow, Dpto. Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia (UPV/EHU), Unidad de Biofísica (CSIC-UPV/EHU)
- When
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2011/05/13
14:00 - Place
- Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal, 4 (nearby the Facultad de Quimica), Donostia
- Add to calendar
-
iCal
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**On life and its origins: when boundary conditions become more important than
laws.**
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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.