The Worlds 1, 2 and 3

Abstract

Whether or not biology is reducible to physics, it appears that all physical and chemical laws are binding for living things — plants and animals, and even viruses. Living things are material bodies. Like all material bodies, they are processes; and like some other material bodies (clouds, for example) they are open systems of molecules: systems that exchange some of their constituent parts with their environment. They belong to the universe of physical entities, or states of physical things, or physical states.