Thermodynamic Constraints of Life as Downward Causation in Ecosystems

The final decades of the last century saw the introduction of several new ways of thinking about biology, and ecology in particular. Firstly, through the development of non-equilibrium thermodynamics it was suggested that it is possible to understand and interpret biological systems and phenomena within a thermodynamic framework. This view has been extended to the ecosystem level and has been applied to a wide range of ecosystems. The view is considered a more useful way of presenting the energetic balances of biological systems than the various forms of 1st Law analysis normally carried out in ecology. This is in spite of the fact that approaches using like doing 2nd Law analysis for instance, will inevitably run into problems of definition as well as epistemology.due to various concepts, for example, entropy, not having a strict definition in domains removed as far from equilibrium as biological systems. Secondly, hierarchical thinking has found widespread use in the fields of biology and ecology. The hierarchical arrangement is a construct and hence often phenomenologically based and epistemological rather than ontological in nature. Thus, it is highly dependent on subjective views. An important problem arises from this, as controversies with the science of theoretical ecology often use arguments from hierarchical constructs that are of a quite different ontological nature. The statements of this paper are based on hierarchies that are physically embedded in each other. Merging thermodynamic and hierarchical views, putting the ecosystem, or any biological system for that matter, with its components at the focal level makes it possible to de-construct the systems and create a connection to the four Aristotelian causes: material cause refers to system components, efficient cause to internal interactions, flows as well as other semiotic processes, and formal cause to its relationship to the immediate environment. Final cause is seen as the function of the whole. A whole that has to obey the 2nd Law, and at the same time make the system survive and grow under far-from-equilibrium conditions. Interpreted in this manner the thermodynamic relationship to the surroundings at least comes to act as weak downward causation of the system. This is considered to be an important exterior constrain on the emergence of first biological structures, as well as evolution, and the existence of life. At the same time, thermodynamic efficiency and a continuous evaluation of the system on the basis of this efficiency--at any time considering the interior and exterior constraints on the system--provides a materialist explanation, i.e. building on physically existing, ontological units, of the Aristotelian final cause or telos of the system and how it can explain ecosystem behavior.