What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell

The held works use Schrödinger's book in two ways. Friston opens his paper with its guiding question: how physics and chemistry can account for events inside the spatial boundary of a living organism. Wallace credits Schrödinger with partly resolving the apparent conflict between thermodynamics and complex life, by pointing out that organisms are open systems that take in energy as 'negative entropy'. Wallace ties this to non-equilibrium thermodynamics.

How can the events in space and time which take place within the spatial boundary of a living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?

Friston K, 2013 · Life as we know it · open at passage 1

This dilemma was partially resolved by Schrödinger, who pointed out that living organisms were not closed systems, but rather acquire energy from their environment as what he called ‘negative entropy’ [3].

Wallace DC, 2013 · Bioenergetics in human evolution and disease: implications for the… · open at passage 2