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As we were saying in the previous section, the bio-systems are a MS class which must comply with the existence criteria of such a system (besides those of the abiotic MS):
Criterion 1: The existence of the fluxes triad (3F) against the medium of existence (abiotic or biotic medium from which the biosystem’s elements are originating from): the supply fluxes (import fluxes, immergent through RBS), vital fluxes (stored into RBS) and output fluxes (export fluxes, emergent through RBS).
Criterion 2: The existence of the information acquisition and processing processes into a specialized MS (IPS), also organized according to 3F model, system which is able to operate with another class of special MS - the information support systems (ISS). Based on the existence of an internal IPS and on the decisions taken by it, this will allow the existence of the control on the selective permeability against the fluxes through RBS and of the internal and emergent fluxes of the bio-system.
Criterion 3: The existence of the self-reproduction process, required for the preservation of the species and of its specific genetic information.
Criterion 4: The need for fluxes triad also draws another need: the necessity for the supply with a second level energy (the first level is required for maintaining the abiotic support MS fluxes).
In case of the bio-systems living on Earth, the generating medium (reference medium, LA-type, peripheral medium) is the planetary hydrosphere (with all its existence forms: oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, subterranean water), in which all the elements necessary for a biosystem structure are spread (as solutions, emulsions, suspensions etc.). For the time being, it is impossible to mention what were the primordial elementary bio-systems, but at the current stage of the bio-systems evolution on Earth, the most simple bio-systems which comply with the four above-mentioned criteria are the prokaryotic cells. If the set of the abiotic MS from the hydrosphere is a generating set for the set of the living cells from the planet, the set of the prokaryotic cells is also a generating set for all the other cellular or pluricellular bio-system types.
The fulfillment of the bio-system criteria no 1, 3 and 4 is clear and well-known, the feeding, excretion, reproduction processes of the living cells being well-known. As for the existence of the criterion 2, the chemical synthesis processes based on the information contained into some ISS with an universal syntax for the bio-systems on the Earth are certainly known and these are the DNA or RNA molecules. Therefore, the intracellular chemical syntheses are information processing operations of structural synthesis. The processing of the information related to the external medium of a cell are not known enough yet, but there is no doubt that they exist because, without these processes, the other processes such as feeding, reaction to the unfavorable environmental conditions etc. could not be achieved (we are talking about free living cells, which have to manage by themselves, not about the cells belonging to a pluricellular organism).
The bio-systems must be able to distinguish (to deploy an objectual separation) the “good” systems (useful, which can be, for instance, ingested) from the outside medium, from the “bad” ones (which may be considered as a danger for the bio-system’s integrity). These performances cannot be achieved without the existence of an internal IPS. We must also take into account that the most advanced IPS which can be currently found on the planet is the human brain, containing a cell which is specialized in the information processing, that is the neuron. But, this huge information processing capacity, associated to a specialized cell was not able to occur without the existence of some elementary information processing operations, processes which are specific to any living cell and which have the same ISS as an information basis - the DNA and RNA molecules.
Based on the existence of an internal IPS, the bio-systems are endowed with a characteristic which did not exist at the abiotic systems: the selective permeability to the fluxes. In this way, the access through RBS both for the immergent fluxes and for the emergent ones is strictly controlled; the access to the inside is allowed to MS which are recognized as “good” (pk=1) and the access is restricted for the others (pk=0).
According to the above-mentioned issues, we may certainly state that from the point of view of the bio-system’s existence criteria, the living prokaryotic cell is a basic element (fundamental object).
Comment X.11.2.1: In the eukaryotic cells, some of their organelles are themselves specialized prokaryotic cells (such as for instance, mitochondria or chloroplasta). This means that an eukaryotic cell is a system which is already made-up from more cellular-type biosystems, which are systems associated according to the laws of formation of the natural material systems, with the reciprocal advantages which are generated by this association.
There are fragments (subsystems) from the composition of a cell which may exist in the external environment, as a result of the destruction of the cellular membrane (RBS), but these fragments alone cannot fulfill all the main criteria for a bio-system, therefore, they are not bio-systems any longer, but only some compounds with a biotic origin. For example, a class of commonly systems which is considered as belonging to the bio-systems category, the viruses, are proved (according to the objectual philosophy) to not be bio-systems. These MS made-up from a DNA or RNA fragment covered by a protein shell are not self-reproducing, but they are simple abiotic ISS, but with a biotic origin which baffle the access control system through the plasma membrane of some cells and in this way they get inside. Here, any genetic information (contained in a DNA or RNA fragment) goes into “the replication machinery” embedded in any living cell, and thus, the virus’ genetic information determines its deviant reproduction until the destruction of the penetrated cell.
Comment X.11.2.2: The situation is similar with the manufacturing schemes of a high-tech product. By assuming that they are into a container, it is clear that they will remain there without being able to self-reproduce until the moment they will casually reach a proper environment (a technologically developed society able to understand the plan and to manufacture the product). If the product will prove to be harmful, it is likely that the society would be destroyed (the same as the penetrated cell in case of the virus).
Similarly with the abiotic material systems, the bio-systems also make-up a structural chain of MS, that is an hierarchical set of organization forms of these system types, but which this time are spaced on a finite number of complexity levels.
Copyright © 2006-2011 Aurel Rusu. All rights reserved.
