Living Matter as a Self-Organizing System

Biological evolution proceeded under the sign of the liberation of developing organisms from the power of random phenomena in the external environment. At a certain stage in the evolution of living matter - the totality of all living organisms, it became possible to basically implement liberation from the instability of the external environment. Back in the eighteenth century J.-B. Lamarck argued and tried to prove that all substances located on the surface of the globe and forming its crust were formed due to the activity of living organisms. V.I. Vernadsky wrote: “On the earth's surface there is no chemical force that is more permanently acting, and therefore more powerful in its ultimate consequences than organisms taken as a whole” [1]. We find convincing proofs of the formation of a biogeochemical environment by living matter in accordance with their needs in the work of V.V. Kovalsky's [2].

We have studied the dynamics of the global process of transfer of chemical elements in the ocean-atmosphere-continent-ocean system. Living matter is an active participant in this process. As a result of metabolic processes, living matter constantly creates and constantly maintains an increased concentration of trace elements in its environment. The biocenosis of the hydrosphere initiates  increasing of the soluble forms of microelements in its habitat. The terrestrial biocenosis acts in the opposite direction [3]. The nonlinear laws of the processes of redistribution of average elemental compositions in the biosphere between liquid and solid phases (hydrosphere-lithosphere system) have been established. We have established a universal constant of nonlinearity of these processes in the biosphere (equal to 0.7) [3].

Human activity makes irreversible changes in the dynamics of the biosphere, and at the present stage of development of a technogenic civilization, the scale of human expansion into natural processes is such that they begin to destroy the biosphere as an integral ecosystem. The impending global ecological catastrophe requires development of fundamentally new strategies in scientific  activities that ensure harmonious coexistence of man and nature. We are developing the concept of the harmonious integrity of the biosphere (the concept of biosphere homeostasis). The stability of biogeochemical and other processes on the Earth's surface is completely determined by the coordinated, purposeful activity of living matter as an integral system [3]. The universal constant of nonlinearity of the processes of formation of the elemental composition of the biosphere (equal to 0.7) established by us should be accepted as an ecological standard, violation of which is unacceptable.

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