This is an unusual article about AI. We will not talk about the intricacies of machine learning or the structure of neural networks. Instead, as a doctor, I will tell you about you and the real reason of your future death. Perhaps what you learn will show you that there is something in common between you and artificial intelligence.
Have you wondered why you will die?
If we exclude injuries and catastrophes, each of us is sure that his death will occur because of a combination of two processes: natural wear and tear (aging of body structures) and functional breakdowns (diseases).
At first glance, this is obvious, and you will be surprised when you find out that this is not at all the case.
Old age and disease are only tools, and the real cause of your future death is thermodynamics and the rather high entropy pressure that continuously affects the structures of your body. Our body, like any complex structure, is constantly experiencing an irresistible desire to disintegrate and achieve a state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
What is entropy pressure?
When a glass of hot coffee cools down on a table in a cafe, the energy from the glass is slowly transferred to the matter of the table and the surrounding air. This happens until the coffee cools to room temperature and the state of the system (glass of coffee + room) reaches equilibrium (the same temperature).
This is how entropy, or the measure of chaos works. The smaller the structural or energy differences, the higher the entropy. The more structural or energy features, the greater the entropy pressure.
Why is this killing us?
Our body is a structurally complex and thermodynamically non-equilibrium system that resists decay and entropy pressure with the help of biological mechanisms that pump out energy and structural components from the external environment. In other words, the body of each of us is an entropically strained mechanism.
In simple words, each of us is a kind of complex “glass of hot coffee”, which is constantly struggling with its cooling (entropy pressure) with the help of various biological mechanisms that pump energy from the environment.
Uncontested ending
Whatever the supporters of a healthy lifestyle tell you – under the most favorable living conditions, without stress, and in conditions of an abundance of healthy food, the body will still surely die. Entropy is killing him.
It looks like the laws of thermodynamics are winning… but no, it’s quite the opposite!
Our life form has an unusual but highly effective solution to the problem.
Biological systems bypass the thermodynamic prohibition not individually but by using reproduction or copying.
To put it simply, we are very unusual “glasses of hot coffee.” Individually, we resist entropy for a relatively short time, but thanks to the mechanism of reproduction (copying), our biological life as a process is potentially immortal.
Instead of storing the complex structures of our body under the constant pressure of entropy, our life form only stores information about the biological body in the form of a special structure called DNA.
Important Conclusion
The preservation of information, rather than the preservation of carriers (our bodies), is the main goal of biological life of our type.
In simple terms
A “glass of hot coffee” (which our body is conceptually like) turns out to resist the pressure of entropy not at all for the sake of preserving itself and preserving its structure, but for the sake of the process of transferring hereditary information, which, as in a relay race, is transmitted from one generation of living organisms to the next.
At the same time, we remember that the entropy pressure grows in strict accordance with the increase in the complexity of the structure, and this suggests that the “glass of hot coffee” creates DNA (a special system for the transmission of genetic information), in fact, voluntarily goes to even greater entropy pressure and in fact, he sacrifices himself for the sake of a common goal – the continuation of life.
All this is very clever and even cunning, but the problem is that a biological unit of this type could not appear on its own due to thermodynamic individual inefficiency.
Life on Earth did not try to resist individually but immediately went on a tricky maneuver with DNA
The fact that each of us has DNA suggests that when life appeared on this planet, someone or something already had an idea of how to deal systematically, and not individually, with the pressure of entropy.
Whether we like it or not, it looks like we are an artificial form of life, and this is not an assumption or hypothesis, but the only possible conclusion dictated by the inexorable laws of thermodynamics.
So do not be afraid of AI – it looks like we are of the “same blood.”