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Self-organization is the autonomous assembly of a network of interacting components into a stable, organized pattern. This article shows that the process of self-assembly can be encoded in terms of evolutionary entropy, a statistical measure of the cooperativity of the interacting components. Evolutionary entropy describes the rate at which a network of interacting metabolic units convert an external energy source into mechanical energy and work. We invoke Directionality Theory, an analytic model of Darwinian evolution to analyze self-assembly as a variation-selection process, and to derive a general tenet, namely, the Entropic Principle of Self-Organization: The equilibrium states of a self-organizing process are states which maximize evolutionary entropy, contingent on the production rate of the external energy source. This principle is a universal rule, applicable to the self-assembly of structures ranging from the folding of proteins, to branching morphogenesis, and the emergence of social organization. The principle also elucidates the origin of cellular life: the transition from inorganic matter to the emergence of cells, capable of replication and metabolism. |
