The Principles of Life

by Gánti, Tibor; Griesemer, James; Szathmáry, Eörs

• ISBN13: 9780198507260
• ISBN10: 0198507267
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-11-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Beginning with a new essay, "Levels of Life and Death," Tibor Gánti develops three general arguments about the nature of life. In "The Nature of the Living State," Professor Gánti answers Francis Crick's puzzles about "life itself," offering a set of reflections on the parameters of the problems to be solved in origins of life research and, more broadly, in the search for principles governing the living state in general. "The Principle of Life" describes in accessible language Gánti's chief insight about the organization of living systems-his theory of the "chemoton," or chemical automaton. The simplest chemoton model of the living state consists of three chemically coupled subsystems: an autocatalytic metabolism, a genetic molecule and a membrane. Gánti offers a fresh approach to the ancient problem of "life criteria," articulating a basic philosophy of the units of life applicable to the deepest theoretical considerations of genetics, chemical synthesis, evolutionary biology and the requirements of an "exact theoretical biology." New essays by Eörs Szathmáry and James Griesemer on the biological and philosophical significance of Gánti's work of thirty years indicate not only the enduring theoretical significance, but also the continuing relevance and heuristic power of Gánti's insights. New endnotes by Szathmáry and Griesemer bring this legacy into dialogue with current thought in biology and philosophy. Gánti's chemoton model reveals the fundamental importance of chemistry for biology and philosophy. Gánti's technical innovation - cycle stoichiometry - at once captures the fundamental fact that biological systems are organized in cycles and at the same time offers a way to understand what it is to think chemically. Perhaps most fundamentally, Gánti's chemoton model avoids dualistic thinking enforced by the dichotomies of modern biology: germ and soma, gene and character, genotype and phenotype.

Table of Contents

1 Levels of life and death	1	(10)
1.1 Introduction	1	(1)
1.2 Explanation of some of the basic concepts	2	(1)
1.3 The minimal system of life: the chemoton	3	(3)
1.4 Life at the prokaryotic level	6	(1)
1.5 Life at the animal level	7	(2)
1.6 Between and beyond	9	(2)
2 The nature of life	11	(44)
2.1 It would be useful to know what we are looking for	11	(5)
2.2 Fluid machines	16	(3)
2.3 Order in the nothing	19	(4)
2.4 And who is the constructor?	23	(6)
2.5 Chemotons	29	(7)
2.6 Chemotons of the primordial Earth	36	(6)
2.7 The birth of primordial texts	42	(9)
2.8 We crossed the 'finish line'	51	(4)
3 The unitary theory of life	55	(102)
3.1 Exact sciences	55	(3)
3.2 The units of life	58	(5)
3.3 Sets and systems	63	(5)
3.4 Function and stability	68	(6)
3.5 The criteria of life	74	(7)
3.5.1 Real (absolute) life criteria	76	(2)
3.5.2 Potential life criteria	78	(3)
3.6 Subsystems of the living cell	81	(4)
3.7 The chemical motor	85	(10)
3.8 Growing systems	95	(6)
3.9 Chemical systems multiplying by division	101	(6)
3.10 The chemoton	107	(4)
3.11 Life at the chemoton level	111	(4)
3.12 Computer simulation of the function of Chemotons	115	(5)
3.13 Chemoton theory involves the principles of soft automata	120	(4)
3.14 Chemoton theory involves some basic laws of genetics	124	(8)
3.15 Chemoton theory involves an explication of the origin of life	132	(8)
3.16 Chemoton theory involves the strategy of the synthesis of living systems	140	(7)
3.17 Chemoton theory involves the possibility of an exact theoretical biology	147	(5)
3.18 The responsibility of the biologist	152	(5)
4 The biological significance of Gánti's work in 1971 and today
(Eörs Szathmáry)	157	(12)
4.1 Annus mirabilis 1971: Eigen and Gánti	157	(1)
4.2 Life criteria: units of evolution and units of life	158	(2)
4.3 Gánti's concept and some other definitions of life	160	(2)
4.4 The chemoton satisfies the life criteria	162	(1)
4.5 Compartmentalization and the problem of minimum life	162	(1)
4.6 The autopoietic concept	163	(2)
4.7 The chemoton: a reproducer built from replicators of three types	165	(1)
4.8 Metabolic replicators and the side-reaction problem	166	(1)
4.9 Enzymatic RNAs (ribozymes)	167	(1)
4.10 Protocells without a metabolic subsystem: the ultimate heterotrophs?	168	(1)
5 The philosophical significance of Gánti's work
(James R. Griesemer)	169	(18)
5.1 Units and levels: biology and philosophy	169	(6)
5.2 Self reproducing automata in the fluid state	175	(3)
5.3 Cycle stoichiometry: the language of living systems	178	(1)
5.4 The chemoton	179	(1)
5.5 Lessons from Gánti's work: engineering models and life criteria	180	(5)
5.5.1 Control is distributed	182	(2)
5.5.2 Stoichiometry disciplines	184	(1)
5.6 False models as means to truer theories	185	(2)
References	187	(8)
Index	195