Irreversibility,evolution,Evolution, and the process of local concentration

Abstract

We suggest that some general questions of irreversibility and of quasi-Equilibrium vs. non-Equilibrium configurations (terminology is explained in the text), with respect to both biophysical and physical structures, can be clarified by generalizing results from investigations of stellar structure in relation to its environment. Such work has evolved from considerations of the stellar atmosphere as a transition zone between the quasi-Equilibrium stellar interior and the non-Equilibrium interstellar medium. As opposed to suggestions of irreversibility originating in the large (Gal-Or, e.g.), we suggest that the origin is local, in coupling between different storage modes for matter and energy. In contract to suggestions of non-Equilibrium biophysical structures arising in fluctuations from a quasi-Equilibrium state (Prigogineet al.), we suggest that they arise via condensations within a non-Equilibrium, steady-state, unstable environment. Generalization from stellar prototype studies of the process of such concentration indicates that the general process of forming structures in the Universe follows a hierarchy of such greater degree ofEquilibrium concentrations formed in lower degree ofEquilibrium environments.