Teleonomy: The Feedback Circuit Involving Information and Thermodynamic Processes

Gennaro Auletta

.

DOI: 10.4236/jmp.2011.23021                

Abstract

Informational and entropic - metabolic aspects are strictly intertwined in organisms. An overview of bacterial chemotaxis is presented as a good and simple model to study these issues. In particular, the paper shall focus on the ability of the organism to restore its homeostasis not only from a metabolic point of view but also from an informational point of view. The organism cannot accomplish this task without a good “model” of the environment and without undertaking appropriate actions that will somehow modify it or at least the relation “organism - environment”. Subsequently, the concept of teleonomy is developed as a dynamical trade - off between segregation and openness of the organism both from a thermodynamic and informational point of view.

Keywords

Chemotaxis, Escherichia Coli, Methylation, Feedback, Surprisal, Kullback - Leibler Divergence, Bayesian Probability, Anti-Feedback, Teleonomy

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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