Toward a theory of organisms: Three founding principles in search of a useful integration

Ana Soto (1, 2) , Giuseppe Longo (1, 2) , Paul-Antoine Miquel (3) , Maël Montévil (4, 5) , Matteo Mossio (5) , Nicole Perret (6, 2, 1) , Arnaud Pocheville (7) , Carlos Sonnenschein (1, 2)

1 La République des savoirs : Lettres, Sciences, Philosophie
2 Centre Cavaillès
3 ERRAPHIS - Equipe de Recherche sur les Rationalités Philosophiques et les Savoirs
4 MSC - Matière et Systèmes Complexes
5 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques
6 ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris
7 The University of Sydney

Organisms, be they uni-or multi-cellular, are agents capable of creating their own norms; they are continuously harmonizing their ability to create novelty and stability, that is, they combine plasticity with robustness. Here we articulate the three principles for a theory of organisms proposed in this issue, namely: the default state of proliferation with variation and motility, the principle of variation and the principle of organization. These principles profoundly change both biological observables and their determination with respect to the theoretical framework of physical theories. This radical change opens up the possibility of anchoring mathematical modeling in biologically proper principles.

Mots clés: Theory of organisms; Individuation; Variation; Organizational closure; Default state; Biological organization; Theoritical biology

Domaines: Biophysique; Biologie moléculaire; Biologie structurale [q-bio.BM]; Evolution [q-bio.PE]; Cancer; Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Ana Soto, Giuseppe Longo, Paul-Antoine Miquel, Maël Montévil, Matteo Mossio, et al.. Toward a theory of organisms: Three founding principles in search of a useful integration. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2016, "From the century of the genome to the century of the organism: New theoretical approaches", a Special issue, 122 (1), pp.77-82. ⟨10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2016.07.006⟩. ⟨hal-01413497v2⟩