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In considering possible scenarios invoked to explain the origin of life, I find myself searching for a general term which can be applied to the first units on the way to becoming living cells.
Currently, I am using the term "entity", but am unsatisfied with it because I consider it about the most generalized way to talk about "thing" (like an inert rock).
What I am want to discuss are things with active processes intrinsic to their structure.
Alternatively, I am considering using the term "agent". This would seem to be able to actively take action. However, I don't want terms that could lead to too much confusion with other already established terms.
In biology, the term agent is used in discussions of disease causation (as in infectious agents). This a more advanced biological state than what I am looking for, but one I am OK with explaining around.
A thermodynamic animate agent can impose some thermodynamic operation which could in theory drive a system in ways contrary to normal thermodynamic predictions.
I guess a Maxwellian demon would be an example of this, but it has a well established, rather fantastic (meaning not real world) usage. Thus I am leaning to not using it.
Overall I like the agent term, because it indicates that biology seems to have the ability to work around "standard" thermodynamic limits which non-animate entities adhere to.
This not meant as a violation of thermodynamics, but as a work around that arises naturally.
I am wondering what others on the forum think of the potential uses of these terms in the context of early animated matter.
In particular, since I am not particularly well versed in the intricacies of thermodynamics, I am interested in how agent is used in that field, and whether there are particular uses of "agent" in non-equilibrium thermodynamics (which I know little of)?
Currently, I am using the term "entity", but am unsatisfied with it because I consider it about the most generalized way to talk about "thing" (like an inert rock).
What I am want to discuss are things with active processes intrinsic to their structure.
Alternatively, I am considering using the term "agent". This would seem to be able to actively take action. However, I don't want terms that could lead to too much confusion with other already established terms.
In biology, the term agent is used in discussions of disease causation (as in infectious agents). This a more advanced biological state than what I am looking for, but one I am OK with explaining around.
A thermodynamic animate agent can impose some thermodynamic operation which could in theory drive a system in ways contrary to normal thermodynamic predictions.
I guess a Maxwellian demon would be an example of this, but it has a well established, rather fantastic (meaning not real world) usage. Thus I am leaning to not using it.
Overall I like the agent term, because it indicates that biology seems to have the ability to work around "standard" thermodynamic limits which non-animate entities adhere to.
This not meant as a violation of thermodynamics, but as a work around that arises naturally.
I am wondering what others on the forum think of the potential uses of these terms in the context of early animated matter.
In particular, since I am not particularly well versed in the intricacies of thermodynamics, I am interested in how agent is used in that field, and whether there are particular uses of "agent" in non-equilibrium thermodynamics (which I know little of)?
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