ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the relations between Maxwell’s demon, thermodynamic coupling, the ‘utilization of information’, and biological organization. Organization, which for the moment might be thought of as some set of structure- function relations, is a dominant feature of all biological systems and appears at all levels from the molecular to the social. The basic questions one asks about organization — what it is and how it arises — are as difficult as the same questions asked about life. The chapter addresses these questions has involved the search for a physical language, as distinct from a purely mathematical or purely metaphorical language, which can describe and explain the appearance of organization at any level. A Maxwell’s demon ‘utilizes information’ because he performs a task which would be impossible without ‘knowledge’ of local molecular movements. The chapter suggests that the answer may emerge from an analysis of the kinetics of thermodynamic coupling during non-stationary irreversible processes.
