Department of BioEngineering

Nagaoka University of Technology

Nagaoka 940-2188, Japan

The first law of thermodynamics first noted by Julius Robert von Mayer in 1842 is unique in addressing the issue of energy transformation without explicating the material substrate implementing the transformation. It points up the presence of the interface agency accommodating the qualitative difference of energy between before and after the transformation while observing its quantitative conservation. Heat engine is a pronounced case of such an interface agency acting between different temperatures. Thermodynamics provides a software for the occurrence of a heat engine if there are available temperature differences. Quantum mechanics can basically furnish a material hardware for actualizing and maintaining such temperature differences. Temperature dynamics serving as an interface agency lets any material body being affected by changes in the ambient temperature respond to the changes as quickly as possible. Since temperature is a quantitative figure about the context of material bodies moving randomly, temperature dynamics is intrinsically selective in that no contextual constituents belong to two different contexts at the same time. Temperature dynamics thus tailors quantum mechanics so as to accommodate chemical evolution of prebiotic molecules to meet the beginning of biology.

The first law of thermodynamics as understood as such is about the transformation of energy. The transformation requires at least two agencies. One is the supplier of the energy to be transformed, and the other is the consumer of the transformed. The transformation mechanism alone cannot do anything unless it is supplemented by both the supplier and the consumer of the substrate. More specifically, thermodynamics is about a software of interfaceology (Rössler, 1987; Matsuno, 1985). Hardware can be available from quantum mechanics, and a product thereof can be biology (Matsuno, 1989).

Interface requires more than one agency, to be sure. It is consequential upon the negotiation between different agencies. What a single agency can do is to be only part of the interface, but not the whole interface. If only one agency were good enough for implementing the interface, everything else would be colonized by the very agency. The boundary of a colony is not the interface, but the deprivation of the interface. Colonization destroys the interface. At issue is how to describe the interface. This brings us back to the very basic issue of description in a dynamic situation.

We should first note the difference between description and explanation. Explanation is a meta-description requiring the first-hand description of the issue more than anything else. Explanation does give us the answer, but not the question. In order to have the latter, we have to describe the question first. Description is prior to explanation.

One of the longstanding positions adopted for describing any object is that what is describable remains in stasis. If the descriptive object is variable right in the process of its description, no one could expect complete identification of the object since those changes yet to come would constantly urge us to update the description. One direct outcome from this descriptive stance is that if movement is describable, it must be in stasis. In fact, the deductive syllogism concluding any movement is in stasis was first discovered by Zeno of Elea almost 2500 years ago. Since then, no one has ever succeeded in refuting this simple syllogism, though everybody including even Zeno himself does recognize that movement in stasis does not apply to empirical reality. The descriptive stipulation requiring that what is describable remains in stasis is too stifling.

One remedy relieving this stifling stipulation has come from mechanics asking the equality between a movement and its record. The record of a movement is about an inductive judgement or observation taking place in the empirical domain. Although mechanics is faithful in observing Zeno’s stipulation requiring that what is describable remains in stasis, it is further supplemented by an empirical judgement asking that what remains in stasis is in movement as exemplified in Galilean inertia. However, mechanical stipulation requiring movement in stasis while demanding stasis in movement, like Zeno’s movement in stasis, cannot cope with genuine genesis of changes and variations occurring in the empirical domain (Conrad, 2000; Gunji, 1995; Rössler & Matsuno, 1998). Mechanics can address dynamics only to the extent to which whatever stasis, once figured out, could remain in the empirical domain as it is. Despite that, mechanics cannot be completed unless it is supplemented by instrumental measurement. Noting that measurement is also part of dynamic process, one may enrich or extend what mechanics has accomplished to the extent that one could not expect previously, as incorporating the notion of measurement. Measurement can thus serve as a means of supplementing and extending what mechanics accomplished so far while incorporating the process of measurement also in the descriptive domain.

Our subject matter of describing the interface properly is tantamount to saying the issue of movement not in stasis properly. Exactly at this point enters the issue of measurement. Mechanics does require instrumental measurement for specifying both the boundary conditions and the condition of stasis in movement. In particular, instrumental measurement employed for the sake of the decidability of mechanics is unique in distinguishing between measuring the boundary conditions on the one hand and the required condition of stasis for the occurrence of mechanics on the other. These two instrumental measurements differ. Although mechanics suffers if stasis in movement is not literally confirmed on the basis of instrumental measurement, movement in stasis can definitely be salvaged in its record as far as the completed movement available from its instrumental measurement is concerned. What is unique to any movement registered in the record is that the notion of movement in stasis does certainly hold there even if the mechanistic stipulation requiring the equality between the record of the movement and the movement itself does not hold in advance. Even the movement not in stasis can be registered as a movement in stasis since the record of the movement, once registered, remains in stasis since the record does not change in itself by definition. Instrumental measurement does provide a means of accessing the movement not in stasis as far as the finished record is concerned.

What is more, the material body in charge of performing instrumental measurement can be any material body having the capacity of experiencing the target material body once the stipulation of registering the record in a specific manner is lifted. Any interacting material bodies can measure each other internally (Matsuno, 1985; 1989). Internal measurement upholding the movement not in stasis is certainly subject to the anthropocentric instrumental measurement, thus yielding the movement in stasis exclusively within the record.

Internal measurement among material bodies whose record can be identified as appealing to instrumental measurement is nothing but movement not in stasis. One such example of movement not in stasis is seen in temperature dynamics. In fact, temperature is a quantitative figure about the context of material bodies moving randomly. Internal measurement associated with temperature is about the temperature of some material bodies to be detected by other material bodies at a different temperature in the neighborhood, as demonstrated in Fourier’s law of heat transfer. Temperature already detected is definite in determining the context of the detecting material bodies moving randomly, while temperature yet to be detected remains indefinite in the makeup of the material bodies moving randomly on the detecting end. Temperature dynamics certainly demonstrates the contrast between movement not in stasis beforehand and movement in stasis afterward.

Temperature dynamics has a unique characteristic because of its contextual nature. No contextual participants can belong to two different contexts at the same time because different contexts are mutually exclusive. Being contextual is being selective. Consequently, temperature dynamics is intrinsically selective in that realizing one particular context means elimination of all of the other conceivable contexts. An example of the selective capacity latent in temperature dynamics is this. Any material body experiencing, that is to say, being affected by changes in its ambient temperature responds to the changes as quickly as possible. There is no equal opportunity for both the fast and the slow responses. Always, the faster response wins because no chances are left behind for the slower responses. A small hot body put in a huge cold environment decreases its temperature as quickly as possible because there is no room for further temperature decrease for the late comers. Meta-stable energy sources at the higher temperature locally come to be fed upon by another material bodies at the lower temperature locally serving as energy consumers (Matsuno,.1992, 1997a) As a matter of fact, energy consumption is a common denominator of whatever biological organisms (Matsuno, 1995).

Here enters Darwinian natural selection taking most advantage of temperature dynamics that is intrinsically selective. Darwinian natural selection within the framework of a molecular selection experiment has already been well established. Suppose there has been available the recorded data of the experiment. One can read from the record the population of the target molecule and estimate the replication rate. One can know which molecular species wins at least on the completed record. At the same time, one can also imagine the following situation behind the scene. Suppose our laboratory colleague has completed the setup of a molecular selection experiment and put everything in order. All switches are on. Everything runs smoothly. After knowing that, our colleague has left the laboratory bench for something else. Of course, the molecules in the equipment are doing what they are doing. But, they are not counting the population nor estimating the replication rate. They are doing something else. What is evident at this point is that at the least, they are experiencing or responding to changes in the ambient temperature. The rule there is the first comes, first served. The context yielding the quickest response comes to win on the basis that the winner takes all. That is certainly selective and generative. Then, our colleague has returned to the laboratory bench. He can read both the population of the target molecule and its replication rate from what his molecules have been doing in his absence. Everything can be summarized in terms of the replication rate. No mystery is left behind. Everything is clear. Temperature dynamics mediates between movement not in stasis beforehand and movement in stasis frozen in the completed record, while the population of the target molecules and the associated replication can be read from the movement in stasis in the record.

What is unique to biology in general and biological evolution in particular as a concrete instance of temperature dynamics is that it can generate a local organization with the lower temperature on its own, that is nothing other than an energy consumer or an organism in the biological sense. Appearance of the lower temperature locally facilitates the faster temperature drop at the meta-stable energy sources. Then, the material body at the lower temperature can be stabilized as an energy consumer while feeding upon the meta-stable energy sources at the higher temperature locally. This just demonstrates an operational essence of the beginning and functioning of biology as a concrete instance of temperature dynamics that is contextual and accordingly about an interfaceology between different contexts at different temperatures.

Temperature dynamics is certainly contextual, but the nature of the contexts available there is quite singular in admitting only those contextual constituents moving randomly with each other. Temperature addresses only those contexts comprising material bodies moving randomly. One conspicuous instance of contextual dynamics is found in quantum mechanics. Each quantum there is taken to be an attribute of the context that is almost completely coherent internally as a polar opposite to the case of temperature dynamics. Quantum mechanics provides us with the hardware supplying each material body as a quantum, while temperature dynamics is about the software manipulating the context of those quanta which quantum mechanics has provides. At this point, it is duly noted that temperature dynamics as an attribute of thermodynamics is by no means a derivative of quantum mechanics through its statistics.

Contextual dynamics operating in nature is thus sandwiched between the two extremes. One is quantum mechanics providing an almost coherent context internally in the form of a quantum, and the other is temperature dynamics yielding an almost completely incoherent context internally in the form of those quanta moving randomly. The present perspective enables us to seek the capacity of contextual selection within temperature dynamics instead of quantum mechanics in itself. Temperature dynamics exerts the activity of contextual selection upon the context of quanta moving randomly. When the ambient temperature changes, the realizable context of quanta moving randomly that determines the temperature of the target quanta responds to the temperature changes as quickly as possible. The fastest temperature response influences the material makeup of the context of quanta moving randomly.

Only those quanta in accord with the fastest temperature response come to be contextually selected and realized. This can necessarily be accompanied by a quantum-mechanical updating of those quanta to be implemented on material grounds. Although quantum mechanics intrinsically provides material capacity of making the context of a material body almost completely coherent internally, it is temperature dynamics that is responsible for determining which context is actually applied to each quantum from its outside. Temperature dynamics has the capacity of tailoring quantum mechanics so as to constrain the realizable quanta only to those demonstrating the quickest response to changes in the ambient temperature. Temperature dynamics has the capacity of transforming the nature of a material quantum of quantum-mechanical origin, which is of course in accord with implementing the first law of thermodynamics.

One conspicuous example demonstrating thermodynamic tailoring of a material quantum of quantum-mechanical origin is seen in nucleosynthesis in supernovea explosions. Synthesis of a heavy atomic nucleus such as iron’s has been considered to proceed during supervoea explosions in the big bang cosmology. The temperature of those nucleons thermally accelerated at the core of a supernova could have reached even up to 1 billion degrees centigrade. They could have formed heavy atomic nuclei such as iron’s since the thermal energy available there could be large enough to overcome the threshold for their binding. Then, the material bodies thus synthesized would have been scattered into deep interstellar space in the latter of which the temperature would be extremely low. The thermodynamic fate of such a material body might have had at least the following two possibilities. One was to lower the temperature while maintaining the synthesized material body as it was, and the other was to lower the temperature as disintegrating it into the former constituent nucleons. Our empirical observation of iron’s nuclei in the empirical domain now comes to suggest that the synthesized material bodies scattered into deep interstellar space during supernovea explosions could have decreased their temperatures much faster when they remained as being integrated. The former thermal energy driving the random kinetic movement of individual nucleons could thus have been transformed into the energy for binding these nucleons in the synthesized atomic nuclei. Similar observations can also be expected even in experimental environments (Matsuno, 2000).

The origin and evolution of biological organizations on the Earth has undoubtedly been put under the cosmological context. The formation of our solar system has been a cosmic event that took place almost 4.6 billion years ago. Formation of small organic molecules that are indispensable for the makeup of biological organizations on the Earth could also have been cosmological. One of the likely candidates for cosmological syntheses of small organic molecules, which is conceivable from the framework of temperature dynamics, is the one taking place in interstellar dust grains. In particular, the dust grains having the refractory core mantles, when irradiated by ultraviolet radiation in diffuse interstellar clouds, could make possible to synthesize various small organic molecules (see, for instance, Chiar, 1997; Pendleton, 1997).

Diffuse clouds keep the water-rich dust grains at temperature in the range 20-100K. When they are irradiated by ultraviolet radiation, the accompanying photolysis can warm up the ice grains to help form aliphatic -CH₂- and -CH₃ groups. As a matter of fact, near-infrared observations reveal the solid-state features due to the presence of dust grains in diffuse interstellar clouds, as pointing out the strong infrared absorption band complex centered around at wavelength 3.4m m(2955cm^-1). The optical depth spectrum of diffuse clouds observed from Galactic Center IRS 6E is found quite close to the spectrum of a laboratory residue produced by the ultraviolet irradiation upon an interstellar ice analog at 10K, then followed by its warm up to 200K (Pendleton, 1997, and references cited therein). Such a similarity has also been observed with the specimen prepared in the laboratory and then exposed to long-term solar ultraviolet radiation on the EURECA satellite. The products could be nucleobases, sugars, and amino acids when coming into contact with liquid water (Greenberg et al., 1995; Greenberg and Krueger, 1996). Furthermore, the similarity of the near-infrared spectrum between the interstellar observations and the ones from a Murchison carbonaceous meteorite suggests a cosmological ubiquity of chemical synthesis of small organic molecules in interstellar ice grains in diffuse clouds. Our Earth is no exception in being subject to the influence from these interstellar ice grains.

Another important source for making small organic molecules must have been cosmic rays and the primitive atmosphere of the Earth irradiated by them. Even if the atmosphere was oxidized, cosmic rays might be a major effective energy source for abiotic formation of amino acids and other bioorganic compounds (Kobayashi et al., 1998). When it was tried to synthesize amino acid molecules from carbon monoxide, nitrogen and water as irradiating their gas mixture with high-energy particle beams of protons, helium nuclei or electrons, a considerable amount of the yields was identified. The G-value, that is the number of molecules produced per 100eV of irradiated energy, of glycine was about 0.02. The present G-value is far greater than that expected from electric discharges. In addition, the G-value did not vary very much depending upon the species of carbon sources in the gas mixture, while it considerably depended upon the species in the discharge experiments. This observation suggests to us that synthesizing small organic molecules including amino acids with recourse to cosmic rays as major energy sources must be cosmic events, and not necessarily be limited to the atmosphere of the Earth. Meteorites and cosmic dusts could have conveyed to the Earth a considerable amount of small organic molecules synthesized elsewhere.

Of course, there might have been possibilities of synthesizing amino acid molecules and nitrogen bases through lightning or electric discharge in the primitive atmosphere on the Earth if the atmosphere was reducing. Spark charges in the hydrosphere could have been another possibility for synthesizing small organic molecules on the Earth (Navarro-Gonzalez, 1998).

Contribution of cosmic rays, radiation and lightning have been registered as significant factors for making feasible the presence of small organic molecules on the primitive Earth. In order to proceed further towards the emergence of life on the Earth, however, we are required to face something more specific to our Earth. Cosmic ubiquity of small organic molecules alone is not good enough for coping with material evolution following the synthesis of those small molecules. In this regard, the contribution of cosmic rays, radiation and lightning is suggestive in sharing one thing in common. That is, the synthesis of small organic molecules could appear in the process of thermal randomization of the primary energy input whatever it may be. Material evolution requires energies to be thermally randomized (Fox and Dose, 1977). Some energy sources other than those from cosmic rays, radiation and lightning must have been available for driving further material evolution on our Earth. The energy sources specific to the Earth must be quite unique in their inevitable dissipation leading eventually to thermal randomization. At this point, we can see two major sources, each of which is quite specific to our Earth in the framework of temperature dynamics. One is the solar energy impinging on the Earth’s atmosphere, and the other is the geothermal energy erupted into the hydrosphere from the Earth’s mantle.

The sunlight reaching the surface of the Earth would soon decrease its temperature from roughly 6000K to 300K determined by the equilibrium condition of the black body radiation in the latter. Thermal randomization of the solar energy in the Earth’s atmosphere may quite easily be established soon after the solar photons repeat their collisions with material particles constituting the Earth’s environment. The characteristic time for each average solar photon to reach its thermal equilibrium with the surrounding black body is quite small because the time is scaled by the flight time of the photon. Even if there were no special traps of the solar photons available in the Earth’s environment, their thermal randomization would meet no difficulty. In contrast, thermal randomization of the geothermal energy in the ocean is quite different compared to the case of the solar energy in the atmosphere. The thermal relaxation of the geothermal energy in the ocean takes place mainly through the collisions of water molecules. The characteristic time for the heated water molecules to reach a thermal equilibrium with the surrounding cold seawater is significantly greater than the relaxation time for the solar photons to reach their thermal equilibrium with the Earth’s environment. The process is mediated by molecular collisions instead of the flight of photons. The greater thermal relaxation time may provide thermal randomization of the geothermal energy in the ocean with the richer catalogue of the relaxation processes taking place there. The richer catalogue could have facilitated further evolutionary capability in the relaxation of the geological heat in the ocean.

The sunlight cannot serve as an energy source to drive the relaxation processes in the ocean, because it is mostly reflected upon the surface of the ocean and back into outer space. Photosynthesis could have been installed on the Earth’s surface only when there appeared a mechanism of trapping the energy from the solar photons. For this to be accomplished, the trapping of the solar photons has to outstrip the thermal randomization of the photons in the Earth’s environment due to the black body radiation. We cannot rely upon the sunlight as the energy source driving further material evolution until such a fast trapping mechanism of the solar photons emerges. Exactly at this point, the geothermal energy erupted into the ocean becomes significant from the perspective of temperature dynamics. The geothermal environment in the ocean could have been far richer in trying or even tinkering with a lot of evolutionary opportunities. Once there could be synthesized a molecular aggregate or organization in the environment in a time interval shorter than the relaxation time of the hot water molecules, the organization could survive if its decay time is greater than the thermal relaxation time of the water molecules there. The geothermal environment on the primitive Earth could have been a main stage of further prebiotic evolution prior to the emergence of photosynthesis on the Earth’s surface.

Ever since the ocean was formed around 4.2 billion years ago, off-ridge submarine hot springs interfacing with the surrounding relatively cold seawater in the Hadean Ocean came to provide unique locales for further prebiotic synthesis. First of all, the vicinity of the hot springs would have offered protection from bolide-induced vaporization of seawater, cosmic rays, ultraviolet photons, lightning and tidal waves (Russell and Hall, 1997). Circulation of hydrothermal solution around the hot vents could have provided a means of gleaning traces of small organic molecules residing in the crust, that could ultimately have derived from the carbonaceous chondrites, interplanetary dust particles and comets (Chyba and Sagan, 1992; Owen et al., 1992; Matthews, 1992). What is further unique to the circulation of seawater through the hot vents is the constant geothermal gradient or disequilibrium driving various chemical syntheses. This is the issue of nonequilibrium thermodynamics (Prigogine and Defay, 1954).

Of course, comic rays, radiation and lightning can impart their energy to small molecules and drive synthetic reactions in the latter. The energy pathway from the high-energy sources to the end products is definitely in nonequilibrium in the thermodynamic sense. Impinging high-energy particles, whether protons, helium nuclei or electrons, are responsible for making a nonequilibrium situation that can drive synthetic reactions among the available small molecules. Once those high-energy particles are interrupted for whatever reasons, on the other hand, there would be no factors driving such synthetic reactions. Impinging high-energy particles determine the actual synthetic reactions during their inevitable thermal decay. The actual synthetic reactions are associated with realizing the fastest thermal decay or temperature response. In fact, the temperature relaxation process that is actualized is the possible fastest one among the alternatives since there is no chance for the latecomers.

This perspective comes to suggest to us that the constant geothermal disequilibrium is really unique in that it would take a considerable amount of time for the hot seawater ejected from the vents to reach a thermal equilibrium with the surrounding cold water. This implies that a synthesized molecule in the hot seawater, if any, can survive in the surrounding cold water if it can hold its own structure while the water droplet including the synthesized product decreases its temperature as contacting the cold surrounding.

The constant geothermal disequilibrium due to the mixing of the hot water from the vents with the surrounding cold water provides a selective sieve for the synthesized chemical products when they enter the cold surrounding. Those products that cannot hold themselves during the quenching imputed to the cold surrounding do not have their chance of survival. The dissociation rate of a synthesized product inside or near the hot vent could increase with temperature. If it remains near the vent, the product would likely be dissociated rapidly. On the other hand, if the product is rapidly transferred into the cold surrounding, the dissociation rate of the product is considerably quenched there and its chance of survival in the latter would be greatly enhanced. The constant geothermal disequilibrium thus focuses upon the activity on the part of the lower temperature side in determining the actual temperature relaxation. This exhibits a marked contrast to the case of cosmic rays, radiation and lightning, in which the actual relaxation process is determined by the higher temperature side, that is, impinging high-energy particles.

Supply of high-energy particles is met by only those synthetic reactions that could realize the actual fastest temperature relaxation. In contrast, consumption of the geothermal energy from the hot vents by the surrounding cold water is met by the synthetic reactions that could hold the products in the transference. The constant geothermal disequilibrium is maintained independently of the selective sieve acting upon the synthesized products in the hot regions. It can be maintained even if there are no chemicals to be reacted. Independence of the occurrence of the geothermal disequilibrium from the synthetic reactions taking place there now furnishes the reaction products with the selective characteristic imputed to the disequilibrium itself. When there is a dominant relaxation process of an imposed character such as the constant geothermal disequilibrium, it serves as a selective reference against other minor processes of a synthetic character to arise from within. Only those that can live with the dominant relaxation process can survive. Ever since the ocean was formed, the constant geothermal disequilibrium has provided nearby chemical reactants with the opportunity for taking advantage of the disequilibrium itself for the sake of the synthetic reactions taking place. An essence of the operation of the constant geothermal disequilibrium will further be clarified from the thermodynamic perspective of temperature dynamics.

The geothermal environments in the Hadean Ocean could certainly have played a significant role in setting the subsequent stage for prebiotic evolution. This is however not simply a matter of historical contingency unique to our planet Earth. In order to make it possible to have more complex molecules from smaller and simpler ones during chemical evolution, energy sources are definitely required. Energy is required to move chemical reactants away from their thermal equilibrium, in the latter of which no evolution could be envisaged. At this point, there could arise two important issues. One is from where and how the energy sources could be recruited, and the other is about how the energy transaction would proceed in time while activating some of interesting chemical reactants. As for the first question, all of cosmic rays, radiation, lightning and geological heat can be authentic candidates for supplying energy to nearby chemical reactants. For the second question, on the other had, there could appear a sizable difference in specifying the energy transaction especially in how the used energy could be disposed. Among them, the geothermal environments are quite unique in rendering the constant geothermal gradient or disequilibrium to be the dumping site of the used energy. If the disposer of the used energy is the heat reservoir in thermal equilibrium as is most often the case with cosmic rays, radiation and lightning, the way the energy is utilized is limited. Only the fastest relaxation processes towards thermal equilibrium could be actualized.

The constant geothermal disequilibrium, on the other hand, provides subsisting chemical reactants with a selective criterion stipulating themselves to live with the disequilibrium. This is quite different from another selective criterion intrinsic to thermal equilibrium letting the energized species decay towards its equilibrium condition as fast as possible and live with the reservoir indefinitely. Most significant to the occurrence of the geothermal environments in the Hadean Ocean is the installation of a de novo selective criterion applied to reacting chemical species in the environments. The likelihood of the present perspective on the occurrence of a new selective criterion applied to prebiotic evolution can even be demonstrated and tested experimentally.

Chemical syntheses leading to the origin and evolution of biological organizations on the Earth do require a selective criterion other than that applied exclusively to thermal equilibrium. The likely candidate is submarine hydrothermal systems which have persisted in existing ever since the ocean was formed on the Earth (Corliss et al, 1979; Edmond et al, 1982; Russell et al, 1988; Ferris, 1992; Shock, 1996). The hot spring ejected from the hydrothermal vents soon comes to face cold seawater in the surroundings, which serve as the heat sink. Chemical products synthesized in the hot vents undergo abrupt cooling once they are ejected into the cold environment. The surrounding heat sink constantly feeds on the hot water and consumes the heat energy therefrom. In this sense, the contextual dynamics actualizing the fastest temperature relaxation is definitely operative towards the products. Only the products exhibiting the fastest temperature drop could survive there. Reaction products synthesized in the hot vents followed by their rapid quenching in the surrounding cold seawater are both generative and selective. They are generative in facilitating synthetic reactions in the hot vents, and at the same time selective in materializing only those that can decrease their temperature at the possible fastest rate when ejected into the cold environment. Furthermore, continuous circulation of seawater around the hydrothermal vents could make the selective process cumulative as constantly transforming the preceding products into the succeeding reactants even if the cycle time of revisiting any one of hydrothermal vents in the Hadean Ocean would be tens of thousands of years or more. Temperature dynamics applied to continuous circulation of seawater around the hydrothermal vents in the ocean can sustain selective process on material grounds indefinitely even prior to that Darwinian molecular evolution gets started.

We have constructed a flow reactor simulating a submarine hydrothermal system just to examine the appropriateness of temperature dynamics tailoring quantum mechanics for synthesizing prebiological oligomers in the hydrothermal context (Matsuno, 1997b). Synthesis of oligoglycine from monomeric glycine up to octaglycine was in fact confirmed in the flow reactor (Imai et al., 1999b). Hydrothermal vents could also be active for dissociating amino acids into their constituent molecules through, for instance, decaroxylation, deamination or even dehydration because of their high temperatures (Bada et al, 1995). However, the synthetic reaction could survive despite that if the residence time of the reaction products in the hot vents is limited compared to the total cycle time required for completing the rounding around the vents. Once continuous circulation of the fluid carrying reactants is guaranteed for some time, an autocatalytic growth of the products could naturally be expected. For the reactants that help producing the products of like kind can increase their yields exponentially in time. In fact, we observed an autocatalytic growth of oligoglycine in the flow reactor (Imai et al, 1997, 1999a, b). Such a growth of products in the flow reactor also applies to the synthesis of oligopeptides from more than two different kinds of amino acids (Ogata et al, 2000) and to the synthesis of oligonucleotides from monomeric nucleotide AMP (adenosine monophospate) (Ogasawara et al, 2000). Even formic and acetic acids were synthesized from carbon dioxide and water when metal oxides were put inside the simulated hot vents (Terada et al, 1999).

Chemical synthesis connecting prebiological to protobiological evolution can be seen as a concrete instance of temperature dynamics proceeding on our Earth. Temperature dynamics of a contextual character makes each quantum of quantum-mechanical origin to act as an agency measuring the context under which it is placed. Temperature is about the interface between a quantum as an almost completely coherent context internally and one more larger context comprising the smaller contexts of quantum-mechanical origin moving almost completely randomly. Consequently, temperature dynamics is an interfaceology between two-tiered contexts of different scales. The outer larger context determining the temperature of the collection of the smaller inner contexts is almost completely incoherent in the movement of the inner contexts, while each inner context is almost completely coherent internally. However, the two contexts of different scales are not mutually independent. The outer context determining the temperature of the inner contexts is constantly subject to the fastest response to changes in the ambient temperature. When the outer context is affected by changes in the temperature of the surroundings, the target outer context may be able to respond to the changes faster by modifying the inner contexts of quantum-mechanical origin as seen in nucleosynthesis in supernovea explosions. If this is the case, the inner contexts thus modified can be stabilized within the perturbed outer context.

Material transformation due to the occurrence of temperature differences can of course be perceived within the operation of the first law of thermodynamics in terms of thermodynamic entropy if the entropy is definable. When a material body contacts with two heat sources at different temperatures under its stationary condition, the heat flow entering from the source at the higher temperature comes to equilibrate with the heat flow leaving the body into the source at the lower temperature. Since the heat flow is equal to the temperature multiplied by the entropy difference at the contact between the two bodies, the stationary condition yields that the material body contacting with two heat sources at different temperatures can decrease its entropy. This decrease of entropy being in accord with the operation of the first law of thermodynamics is certainly legitimate, but limited in that entropy is no more than an extensive quantity derived from a given context. Entropy, once defined legitimately, cannot affect the context that has been responsible for defining itself. Entropy, though legitimate, is not competent enough to assume the role of influencing the two-tiered contexts. This is exactly the place where temperature dynamics enters as claiming its own legitimacy upon the ground that temperature can be definable at least operationally insofar as it is measurable.

Temperature dynamics as an interfaceology having the capacity of connecting between quantum mechanics and biology is unique in appreciating the construction of whatever contexts in a bottom up manner. What is intrinsic to the interfaceology is the observation that any contextual constituent of material origin has the capacity of measuring or observing its outside from within. That is internal measurement (Matsuno, 1985, 1989).

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