Ecology: Biology of Interaction. I-13. (Supplement) Connection of Biosystems with the Environment: Exchange of Matter, Energy, and Information

1-13. (addendum) Connection of biosystems with the environment: exchange of matter, energy, and information Senses, I call them answers to questions. That which does not answer any question has no sense. Mikhail Bakhtin Information is information, not matter and not energy. Norbert Wiener We have discussed (see section I-12) that every biosystem exchanges matter, energy, and information with its environment. How do the components of this triad differ? Matter is defined as matter that has rest mass. Energy (from Greek energeia - action, activity), devoid of rest mass, is the general measure of the amount of motion, the cause of changes in matter. Matter and energy, as two fundamental forms of matter, are the basis of the world we observe. The concept of "information" (from Latin informatio - clarification, exposition) was initially used to denote knowledge transmitted from person to person. In the 20th century, this concept came to denote any knowledge and data transmitted through any material or energy carriers. Laws of conservation apply to matter and energy. Due to these laws, neither matter nor energy appears or disappears, but only transforms from one form to another. Einstein's equation E=mc 2 reflects the fundamental relationship between matter and energy. Conservation laws do not apply to information. Information can appear and disappear. Strangely enough, information can be transmitted to another without losing it (it is not difficult to do this, for example, with a computer file, and impossible, for example, with food or electricity...). However, the action of conservation laws for matter and energy is different. Matter can infinitely transform from one form to another. You exhaled. The exhaled air contains water molecules in the form of vapor. Some of these molecules were formed during metabolism from atoms of Hydrogen and Oxygen that were part of the organic substances your body broke down. These molecules can fall with the vapor onto plants. Some of the water molecules absorbed by plants will be broken down by them and become part of new organic substances. Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms, like other elements important for organisms, can travel through similar routes for thousands (or billions...) of years. Thus, the circulation of matter is entirely possible, unlike the circulation of energy. A stream of energy flows through every organism and through the biosphere as a whole, but its unlimited circulation is impossible. To understand this, one must recall the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics is the law of conservation of energy. For the discussion of this issue, it is most convenient to express it in the following form: the efficiency (coefficient of useful action) of any energy conversion cannot exceed 100%. Therefore, in energy conversion, one cannot obtain more energy than was spent. In this regard, energy behaves the same way as matter. The second law of thermodynamics is more paradoxical. According to it, the efficiency of energy conversion cannot even be 100%: part of the energy will be converted into a form in which it cannot be used for useful work. As a result, with each energy conversion in living systems, a part of it is converted into heat, spent on increasing the disorder of the environment. In other words, you can't win by "playing" with nature. Moreover, you can't even draw with it! Another significant difference between matter, energy, and information is related to the possibility of measuring their quantity. The amount of matter can be measured completely independently of the method of measurement. Its quantity, estimated, for example, by its mass and by the energy required to set it in motion, will be the same. The amount of energy can only be measured in comparison with some other level. Only the aforementioned Einstein's equation provides a complete assessment of the energy contained in a given amount of matter. And for information, in general, an assessment of its quantity independent of its receiver, the addressee of this information, is impossible. How much information is on a CD? A user of a CD drive can download from the disk the amount of information that is recorded on it according to a specific standard (e.g., 700 MB). For a person who can read, the amount of information read is determined by the pattern and inscriptions on the non-working side. For a disk seller, the main information is on the price tag. A technologist will first pay attention to the manufacturing features of this item, reconstructing the details of the technological process from the external signs important to him. But the most important thing is not even in these differences. We do not know what this information is for different recipients and how important it is to them. For someone for whom the information on the CD is not needed or is boring, recorded in an unknown language or format, there is no information there (or it consists of the fact that space on the disk is occupied). For someone else, it is vital and will help draw significant conclusions. And outside the connection with the recipient, information "in itself" cannot exist! You looked out the window and saw a person there. How much information did you receive? You can count the number of photons that entered your eyes. You can measure the number of nerve impulses generated by the retinal cells. You can estimate the probability that this person will appear in your field of vision at this moment and place, and consider the quantity of information to be the value inversely proportional to the probability of this event (the more unexpected the event, the more information you received by learning about it). But to assess the information you actually received, you need to know who this person is to you (mother; a stranger; a friend you thought was missing; the postman who might bring a telegram...) and what the fact of seeing them means to you.