Thermodynamics, Control, & Fundamental Niche
- Date published: 2026-10-10
- Speakers: M. Kearney, I. Shames, R. Schouten, P. Egré, R. Evans (guests); Levin and lab in discussion
- Format: Guest talk + discussion
- Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m96j6MXcisw
- Topics: Control, energy and information
In one paragraph
An ecologist, two control engineers and a philosopher present early work linking an organism's heat and water budget (thermodynamics) with control theory (how it regulates itself) to define the 'fundamental niche' — the range of conditions where it can survive.
Main ideas (plain words)
- Living things are heat engines held far from equilibrium; the higher the metabolic rate, the further from equilibrium.
- A habitat is not an environment: a dragon lizard, a gecko and a grasshopper share one habitat but each builds a different environment through its behavior and physiology.
- Control theory treats a body as boxes with inputs, outputs and disturbances, and it brings hard limits — e.g., you must respond fast enough to control a fast system, whatever the system is.
- Levin's lab connects this to information: coordination and communication eat a large share of a developing organism's energy budget.
Why it matters
Levin's view of cells as goal-seeking agents needs a physics of cost: what does it take, in energy, to hold a goal? This talk supplies the engineering vocabulary (feasible sets, fundamental limits) for that question.
Key quotes (word for word from YouTube's auto-generated captions)
Quotes are copied exactly from the captions, including filler words and caption errors. Timestamps are to the nearest minute.
"the higher the metabolic rate, the further from equilibrium"
— 4 min"they're all in the same habitat but they're all experiencing very different environments"
— 8 min"communication and coordination uh requires a huge amount of the energy budget of developing organisms"
— 36 min
Related
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