Life process and biological universality

Abstract

In this essay, I will first describe what constitutes a model in natural science both in the physical and biological disciplines and give a brief overview on its relationship to constructive experimental approaches. Interesting parallels are noted in the key defining inventions and models starting from Voltaic for the early exploration into electrophysiological mechanisms behind muscle contraction, Lillie’s ironwire for nerve impulse conductance, Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction for feedback regulation in the Krebs cycle. The were not meant to faithfully reproduce the intended phenomena as a whole, however sucesstully captured the very essence of nonlinear dynamics as we know them today. Drawing from the basic concepts that eventually emerged from these studies, the present day natural science awaits further exploration into the constraints and geometries in high dimensional systems.

The present day natural science is witnessing closer encounter to their unique dynamic properties or life ‘process’ at the cellular level such as cell growth and cell deformation, but how close are we from understanding such complex phenomena?

The new challenge may require further inteination of machine and nature that drives synthesis of classic hypothesis-driven approach with data-driven quantification.