The Universal Law of Life Systems: Entropy Resistance and the Nature of Living Systems

This work was originally posted as a preprint on the Open Science Framework(DOI: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/r9826_v5) on 2025-07-29.Zenodo record archives the same version to ensure broader indexing and accessibility. Abstract:The lack of a universal, physically grounded definition of life remains a critical gap in biology, astrobiology, and artificial intelligence. Existing definitions rely on biochemical functions or evolutionary heuristics, limiting cross-domain applicability. This work introduces a general thermodynamic law: a system is alive if and only if it sustains a positive rate of entropy resistance. In the quantum regime, this is formalized asRq(t) =−d/dt Tr[ρ(t) lnρ(t)] > 0,where ρ(t) is the system’s density matrix and the trace yields the von Neumann entropy. This criterion is substrate-independent, operationally measurable, and falsifiable, reframing life as a distinct physical regime that persistently resists informational and entropic collapse. Significance:By unifying classical and quantum formulations of entropy resistance, this law applies equally to terrestrial biology, synthetic organisms, coherent quantum systems, and potential extraterrestrial life. It moves beyond replication- or metabolism-based heuristics toward a falsifiable, substrate-agnostic classification grounded solely in physics. This framework opens pathways for universal life detection methods, cross-disciplinary theoretical development, and a revised ontology of life as a phase of physics—defined not by what it is made of, but by its sustained resistance to the universe’s default drift into disorder.