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The Free Energy Requirements of Biological Organisms; Implications for Evolution

Author(s)
Wolpert, David
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Abstract
Recent advances in nonequilibrium statistical physics have provided unprecedented insight into the thermodynamics of dynamic processes. The author recently used these advances to extend Landauer’s semi-formal reasoning concerning the thermodynamics of bit erasure, to derive the minimal free energy required to implement an arbitrary computation. Here, I extend this analysis, deriving the minimal free energy required by an organism to run a given (stochastic) map π from its sensor inputs to its actuator outputs. I use this result to calculate the input-output map π of an organism that optimally trades off the free energy needed to run π with the phenotypic fitness that results from implementing π. I end with a general discussion of the limits imposed on the rate of the terrestrial biosphere’s information processing by the flux of sunlight on the Earth.
Date issued
2016-04
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/103532
Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Journal
Entropy
Publisher
MDPI AG
Citation
Wolpert, David. "The Free Energy Requirements of Biological Organisms; Implications for Evolution." Entrophy 18:4 (2016), 138.
Version: Final published version
ISSN
1099-4300

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