Abstract
The concept of identity is used both (i) to distinguish a system as a particular material entity that is conserved as such in a given environment (token-identity: i.e., identity as permanence or endurance over time), and (ii) to relate a system with other members of a set (type-identity: i.e., identity as an equivalence relationship). Biological systems are characterized, in a minimal and universal sense, by a highly complex and dynamic, far-from-equilibrium organization of very diverse molecular components and transformation processes (i.e., ‘genetically instructed cellular metabolisms’) that maintain themselves in constant interaction with their corresponding environments, including other systems of similar nature. More precisely, all living entities depend on a deeply convoluted organization of molecules and processes (a naturalized von Neumann constructor architecture) that subsumes, in the form of current individuals (autonomous cells), a history of ecological and evolutionary interactions (across cell populations). So one can defend, on those grounds, that living beings have an identity of their own from both approximations: (i) and (ii). These transversal and trans-generational dimensions of biological phenomena, which unfold together with the actual process of biogenesis, must be carefully considered in order to understand the intricacies and metabolic robustness of the first living cells, their underlying uniformity (i.e., their common biochemical core) and the eradication of previous –or alternative– forms of complex natural phenomena. Therefore, a comprehensive approach to the origins of life requires conjugating the actual properties of the developing complex individuals (fusing and dividing protocells, at various stages) with other, population-level features, linked to their collective-evolutionary behavior, under much wider and longer-term parameters. On these lines, we will argue that life, in its most basic sense, here on Earth or anywhere else, demands crossing a high complexity threshold and that the concept of ‘inter-identity’ can help us realize the different aspects involved in the process. The article concludes by pointing out some of the challenges ahead if we are to integrate the corresponding explanatory frameworks, physiological and evolutionary, in the hope that a more general theory of biology is on its way.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Systems Biology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Physiology
Each gold atom is highly stable and, in practice, totally equivalent to any other gold atom in the universe. It looks like the identity of gold atoms, both in terms of permanence and of uniformity, is out of question – and this is probably one of the reasons why humans appreciate so much pieces of metal that contain many such atoms
The corresponding patterns of order are equivalent each time you run the experiment, regardless of the specific moment or location when/where the phenomenon occurs. The stability of these far-from-equilibrium systems is much more precarious than quasi-equilibrium structures, let alone atoms at equilibrium. Their identity is dependent on their being open systems in constant interaction with their environment: i.e., they constitute themselves through interaction (Collier and Hooker, 1999; Bickhard, 2000; Bishop, 2012)
Summary
The situation would radically change if fission events started to establish more consistent ‘kind correlations’ between different members of the population. Biological organisms, together with all their preceding, simpler forms of individuality, beginning from the first relevant self-organizing and self-assembling phenomena (as described in section “A Plausible Departure Point: The ‘Heterogeneous Protocell Population Scenario”’), are necessarily open systems that require the management of matter and energy resources, taken up from the environment, in order to achieve their own, autonomous construction (Ruiz-Mirazo and Moreno, 2004) Just by itself, this dynamic and asymmetric ‘system-environment’ relationship would be enough to argue that the identity of any living being is, in reality, an identity constructed in interaction, or an interidentity.
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