A Discussion on the Essence of Life Viewed Through the Lens of Catalysis and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

The difficulty of scientific investigation stems from the need to first analyze and establish the irrationality of preexisting theories. However, unreasonable scientific theories might serve as a shield for one another. The most challenging task in scientific research is to question two or more scientific theories simultaneously and uncover their unreasonable aspects. When studying the origin of life, entropy of the system is commonly used to determine how far from the equilibrium state and how disordered the system is. It is a misunderstood fact that the final state of thermodynamic equilibrium is not always the maximum degree of disorder in a system. Starting with the second law of thermodynamics, we redefine entropy: entropy is solely a measure of how far from equilibrium a system is, and when it reaches equilibrium, the value of entropy is the highest. Here, the population standard division σ is employed for the calculation. As the value of σ increases, the system moves further from its equilibrium state, resulting in a decrease in entropy. We consider living organism as a thermodynamically unbalanced system, which act as driving force to exchange matter and energy with the outside world, thereby maintaining this thermodynamically unbalanced state or moving itself further away from the balance. Our goal is to build a metabolic model of this organism. Going back to our starting point, we find that the activity of catalysts in homogeneous catalytic reactions is dependent on concentration. Our assumption is that in homogeneous catalytic reactions, the individual catalyst molecule does not have catalytic activity. The thermodynamic imbalance of the organism itself is thought to be reflected in the unequal internal energy (thermal energy) of its biomolecules. Our understanding of homogeneous catalysis theory has enabled us to establish a model of organism’s metabolism, explain what life is, and explore the origin of soul and life.