Cell Language Theory, The: Connecting Mind And Matter

Key Terms and Concepts 33

“6x9” b2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter

the living cell that, when completed, may be to cell biology what the

comprehensible theory of the atom, i.e., quantum mechanics, is to

physics.

2.9 The Gnergy Principle of Organization (GPO)

All self­organizing processes in the universe, both living and nonliving,

are postulated to be driven by a physico­metaphysical entity called

gnergy, a complementary union of information and energy [24, 50],

metaphysical in the sense that the concept of gnergy cannot be proved by

traditional quantitative methods of natural sciences. Information (e.g.,

software, the mechanical structure of a car) and energy (e.g., electricity,

gasoline) can be separated in macroscopic machines, but in molecular

machines in action (e.g., molecular motors, ATP­driven proton pumps,

etc.; e.g., see Figure 3.35), these two entities appear to exist as a fused

entity called the gnergon (formed from three Greek roots, gn­ meaning

information, ­erg­ meaning work or energy, and ­on meaning mobile

entity, particle and wave). Gnergons can be viewed as quantized units of

gnergy. One concrete example of gnergons in action in molecular and

cell biology is the conformon, the mechanical energy of which is associ­

ated with conformational strains localized in sequence­specific sites

within biopolymers (the experimental evidence for conformons is dis­

cussed in Section 3.4.1).

The gnergy principle is also referred to as the principle of information

and energy complementarity (PIEC). According to this principle, all self­

organizing processes in the universe (e.g., the origin of life, physicochem­

ical processes occurring in the living cell such as self­replication and

chemotaxis, cognitive processes in the human brain, biological evolution,

the evolution of the universe, etc.) are driven by entities with two comple-

mentary aspects, namely information (carried by material entities or signs

that have been selected from two or more similar entities because of their

unique activities or behaviors) and energy (the ability of those entities to

do work or cause changes of some kind).

PIEC is expected to be manifested in the universe at many

different levels. The wave/particle complementarity is perhaps the best

known example in science, and the principle of matter–symbol

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