
What Is Life? (1944) [pdf] - MichaelAO
http://dlab.clemson.edu/11._Erwin_Schrodinger_-_What_is_Life__1944_.pdf
======
pella
context:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F)

more:

"A New Physics Theory of Life"

[https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-
theory-o...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-
the-origin-of-life-20140122)

HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13103215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13103215)

"An MIT physicist has proposed the provocative idea that life exists because
the law of increasing entropy drives matter to acquire lifelike physical
properties."

 _" Life does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, but until
recently, physicists were unable to use thermodynamics to explain why it
should arise in the first place. In Schrödinger’s day, they could solve the
equations of thermodynamics only for closed systems in equilibrium. In the
1960s, the Belgian physicist Ilya Prigogine made progress on predicting the
behavior of open systems weakly driven by external energy sources (for which
he won the 1977 Nobel Prize in chemistry). But the behavior of systems that
are far from equilibrium, which are connected to the outside environment and
strongly driven by external sources of energy, could not be predicted."_

or: [http://nautil.us/issue/34/adaptation/how-do-you-say-life-
in-...](http://nautil.us/issue/34/adaptation/how-do-you-say-life-in-physics)

~~~
starchild3001
I've long thought "life is inevitable". Why? In a universe where every
possibility plays out, some outcomes are bound to lead to life. [Diverse]
Chaos => universal turing machines occurring somewhere + random codes being
executed + sufficient computation => life.

I'd love to see these notions made rigorous. Somehow they appear obvious to
me.

Order (i.e. life) is necessary to reach the ultimate unordered state (i.e. a
cosmic soup of energy)? Now that's a pretty non-trivial statement.

Video by the author:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91D5UAz-f4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91D5UAz-f4)

~~~
xelxebar
This is a beautiful, romantic view, though I don't see how it can me made all
that physically rigorous interpretation.

Here are some thoughts on the philosophy of what you say.

> Life is inevitable

On one level, this is a tautology: the physics of the universe are such that
life has formed therefore life occurs with 100% frequency in all known
universes.

On a different level, it's not too hard to build "physics" that are too
trivial to even encode Peano Arithmetic much less "life" as we would identify
it. Thus life isn't obviously inevitable in all physical models of the
universe, so we can take the emergence of life as an "experimental
constraint".

On a personal level, I too feel the importance of life. However, I don't think
any of that special feeling is compromised by taking life to not be somehow
"universally fundamental" in some way.

> Life is a fractal

The mathematician in me kind of flinches at this a bit. :p Fractals are super
cool though! But, heck, the eastern coast of Cambodia exhibits fractal-like
qualities too. As do coupled-pendulum setups and the x86 execution pipeline.

This line of thinking feels to me like putting The Mysterious into some
spiritually special place in our thinking.

For myself, when I think something is "obviously true" I usually find that I
just don't know enough to appreciate the intricacy of what's really going on.
Dunning-Kruger and all that.

Anyway, just some 2 cents.

------
kevmo
This is a book full of good questions and poor answers.

Or, as the biologist Max Perutz more scathingly put it, "Sadly, a close study
of [Schrodinger's] book and of the related literature has shown me that what
was true in his book was not original, and most of what was original was known
not to be true even when the book was written."

~~~
woodandsteel
I think HN should have a rule that no one makes a general critique without
including some specifics.

~~~
theoh
Here's a reference I just found without any effort, from an occurrence of the
above quote in Freeman Dyson's Origins of Life.

GP comment does not deserve to be downvoted: a solid searchable reference was
provided.

[https://books.google.ie/books?id=1Fqsd-v4LcwC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3...](https://books.google.ie/books?id=1Fqsd-v4LcwC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=close+study+of+%5BSchrodinger%27s%5D+book+and+of+the+related+literature+has+shown+me+that+what+was+true+in+his+book+was+not+original,+and+most+of+what+was+original+was+known+not+to+be+true+even+when+the+book+was+written."&source=bl&ots=yorJ8bz9HX&sig=zWo6OazrFQPgPEQEJo8J3y7iz2Y&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjsj7Cbo63WAhWKKsAKHTaXB40Q6AEILDAC#v=onepage&q=close%20study%20of%20%5BSchrodinger's%5D%20book%20and%20of%20the%20related%20literature%20has%20shown%20me%20that%20what%20was%20true%20in%20his%20book%20was%20not%20original%2C%20and%20most%20of%20what%20was%20original%20was%20known%20not%20to%20be%20true%20even%20when%20the%20book%20was%20written.%22&f=false)

------
fernly
Interesting. He argues his way to this principle of genetics:

> And the gene is most certainly not just a homogeneous drop of liquid. It is
> probably a large protein molecule, in which every atom, every radical, every
> heterocyclic ring plays an individual role, more or less different from that
> played by any of the other similar atoms, radicals, or rings.

He seems not to have known of (or at least does not cite) some of the points
listed in the Wiki summary of the history of DNA research[1] which would have
been extant in 1944. Watson/Crick/Franklin published in 1953, and Schrödinger
(d. 1961) must have been delighted.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA#History_of_DNA_research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA#History_of_DNA_research)

------
DanielleMolloy
Most of this book should be read from a historical point of view. It is also
great to read thoughts written by the scientific minds of the 20th century,
whose thought processes often went much deeper than today's scientists,
trapped in a miscalibrated incentive system can go.

However, if you read just a little of "What is Life?", read chapter VI on
Schrödingers idea how living matter is related to negative entropy /
information. This is said to contain remarkable thoughts until today, and I
met two professors in computational biology by now who told me how this
chapter inspired them at the beginning of their career.

To those who enjoyed this one I strongly recommend Heisenbergs "Der Teil und
das Ganze".

------
thruflo22
This is a brilliant book, clear, succinct and insightful. Part of the canon on
our understanding of what life is / what it means to be animate instead of
inanimate.

Other books on the intangible quality of being alive:

\- At Home in the Universe by Stuart Kauffman

\- The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander

\- Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

------
dwaltrip
Slight tangent. Some of the comments here made me think of a great video on
entropy vs. complexity by minutephysics:

[https://youtu.be/MTFY0H4EZx4](https://youtu.be/MTFY0H4EZx4)

It's actually part 3 of 5 from a short miniseries with Sean Carroll. I
recommend the whole thing if you are interested, it is quite well done.

~~~
chrisvalleybay
Wow! That's a great series. Thanks for sharing it. It really changed how I
view the world.

~~~
dwaltrip
My pleasure!

------
yters
Data processing inequality would suggest a breakdown in complex structure as
entropy increases.

