PAPER B - Life as a Self-Stabilizing Information Process:A Non-Biological Definition Consistent with Physical Law
PAPER B - Life as a Self-Stabilizing Information Process:
A Non-Biological Definition Consistent with Physical Law
DOI:
John Swygert
January 23, 2026
Abstract
Astrobiology frequently equates life with Earth-specific biological chemistry. This paper argues that such an equation constitutes a category error. Using a systems-physics framework, life is defined as a self-stabilizing, information-bearing process that maintains internal coherence through feedback while resisting entropy locally. Biology is treated as one implementation of this broader class of equilibrium strategies. The paper introduces operational criteria for identifying life-like and sentience-like behavior independent of material substrate and argues that non-biological life may persist in environments hostile to Earth biology, including regions traditionally considered “uninhabitable.”
1. The Biology Bias
The question “Can life exist there?” is almost always shorthand for “Can Earth-like biology exist there?” This conflation narrows inquiry and misrepresents the scope of physical possibility.
Earth biology occupies a small region of parameter space defined by temperature, pressure, solvent chemistry, and timescale. Physics does not privilege this region.
2. Life as an Equilibrium Strategy
Any system that persists must resist entropy locally by exporting disorder to its environment. Life, at its most general, is therefore an equilibrium maintenance strategy.
We define life operationally as a system that satisfies all four criteria:
Boundary: maintains a distinguishable internal state
Feedback: detects and corrects deviations from internal coherence
Persistence: maintains structure beyond passive relaxation
Propagation: reproduces or bootstraps its pattern
This definition is substrate-agnostic and chemistry-independent.
3. Sentience as Model-Based Control
Sentience is not a substance or metaphysical property. It is a behavioral regime.
A system exhibits sentience-like behavior if it:
maintains an internal state model
predicts future conditions
selects among actions under uncertainty
updates its model via feedback
This is a control-theoretic definition. It does not imply consciousness, intention, or agency in the human sense.
4. Non-Biological Life in Biologically Friendly Regions
A crucial and often overlooked point is this:
Regions suitable for Earth biology do not exclude non-biological life.
Even on Earth, non-biological persistent information systems exist:
technological networks
chemical reaction-diffusion systems
atmospheric and oceanic pattern regimes
Biological life does not monopolize habitable environments; it merely occupies one layer of them.
Thus, environments favorable to humans may simultaneously host:
biological life
non-biological adaptive systems
hybrid or transitional regimes
5. Life Beyond Biology Without Ad Hoc Entities
This framework does not invoke extraterrestrial organisms, visitors, or speculative beings.
It makes no claims about who or what exists — only about what physics permits.
If adaptive, persistent, information-bearing systems arise naturally under lawful constraint, then life-like behavior may be widespread without resembling organisms, species, or civilizations.
6. Nested Gravitational Systems and Life
Just as planetary systems occupy nested gravitational wells, life-like systems may occupy nested energetic and informational wells.
Furthermore, gravitational systems themselves are nested:
black holes exist within larger black-hole-dominated structures
no gravitational well is isolated
boundary conditions propagate across scale
It is therefore plausible — and physically conservative — that equilibrium strategies recur across scale, from planetary rings to adaptive information systems.
7. Falsifiability
This framework is falsifiable.
If all candidate systems exhibiting persistence and adaptation can be reduced fully to passive physics without feedback-based correction or pattern propagation, the definition fails.
The burden is empirical, not metaphysical.
References
None
8. Conclusion
Life is not biology. Life is a process.
Biology is one successful equilibrium strategy among many permitted by physical law. Recognizing this distinction expands scientific inquiry without abandoning rigor, and it reframes the universe not as empty, but as structured — governed by constraint, resonance, and persistence rather than appearance.
References
Closing Note (Explicitly for Skeptics)
This work does not invoke aliens, spirituality, or speculative entities. It introduces no ad hoc explanations. It relies solely on systems theory, thermodynamics, and observable behavior.
Skepticism is not an obstacle to this framework — it is its proving ground.
Comments
Post a Comment