ArticleEntropy (Basel, Switzerland)2022
Is There a Fourth Law for Non-Ergodic Systems That Do Work to Construct Their Expanding Phase Space?
Article in Entropy (Basel, Switzerland), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Assembly theory and its relationship with computational complexity.Npj complexity · 2025Article
- Article
- Toward the Relational Formulation of Biological Thermodynamics.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- A robust, agnostic molecular biosignature based on machine learning.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Super-Exponential Growth in Models of a Binary String World.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Substantial grounds exist to doubt the universal validity of the Newtonian Paradigm that requires a pre-stated, fixed phase space. Therefore, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, stated only for fixed phase spaces, is also in doubt. The validity of the Newtonian Paradigm may stop at the onset of evolving life. Living cells and organisms are Kantian Wholes that achieve constraint closure, so do thermodynamic work to construct themselves. Evolution constructs an ever-expanding phase space. Thus, we can ask the free energy cost per added degree of freedom. That cost is roughly linear or sublinear in the mass constructed. However, the resulting expansion of the phase space is exponential or even hyperbolic. Thus, the evolving biosphere does thermodynamic work to construct itself into an ever-smaller sub-domain of its ever-expanding phase space at ever less free energy cost per added degree of freedom. The universe is not correspondingly disordered. Entropy, remarkably, really does decrease. A testable implication of this, termed here the Fourth Law of Thermodynamics, is that at constant energy input, the biosphere will construct itself into an ever more localized subregion of its ever-expanding phase space. This is confirmed. The energy input from the sun has been roughly constant for the 4 billion years since life started to evolve. The localization of our current biosphere in its protein phase space is at least 10
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.