The Universal Law of Life Systems: Entropy Resistance and the Nature of Living Systems

Onur Ece

No r9826_v3, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: The quest to define life remains one of the most profound scientific and philosophical challenges. Traditional biological definitions, anchored in terrestrial biochemistry and cellular structures, risk excluding forms of life that may emerge under radically different physical conditions. In this work, I propose a universal, substrate-independent defini- tion: life is any system that sustains a positive rate of entropy resistance, formalized mathematically as R(t) =−dS/dt > 0 Under this framework, life is not characterized by its molecular composition, but by its persistent maintenance of low-entropy, high-information states against the backdrop of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. By reframing life as a thermodynamic and informational phenomenon, I unify ter- restrial, synthetic, and potential extraterrestrial lifeforms under a single physical princi- ple. This Universal Law of Life Systems offers a predictive foundation for astrobiology, synthetic biology, and the emerging field of entropy-based life detection. It invites a re-examination of the nature of existence itself: viewing life not as an anomaly, but as an inevitable thermodynamic phenomenon wherever complexity, energy flow, and information resistance intersect.

Date: 2025-06-16
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:r9826_v3

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/r9826_v3

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