What life is: the conversion of thermodynamic disequilibria into directional motion

‘Life’ is traditionally defined by a long list of properties, but classifying structures as ‘living’ or ‘non-living’ would require a single recognizable difference. Recent evidence shows that a range of biological molecules, including ribozymes and enzymes with rotating or ratcheting subunits, undergo repetitive conformation state changes driven by thermal agitation and energy exchanges, in turn governing catalysis of reactions fundamental to metabolism and cellular replication. These molecules exhibit disparate structures, but share the principle of repetitive unidirectional conformation changes, driven by thermodynamic gradients, that produce directional motion. Here, life is defined as a process whereby matter undergoes cyclic, unidirectional conformation state changes that convert thermal agitation and excitation into directed motion, performing work that locally reduces entropy. The principle of conversion of thermal agitation into directed motion is independent of any specific chemical environment or any particular molecular structure; this definition should apply universally across biospheres characterized by differing biochemistries. Cite as: Pierce, S. (2020) What life is: the conversion of thermodynamic disequilibria into directional motion. arXiv Quantiative Biology: 2005.05656 (https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.05656)