title: On the divide between animate and inanimate.
abstract: Vitalism was abandoned already for a long time ago, yet the impression that animate beings differ in some fundamental way from inanimate objects continues to thrive. Here, we argue that scale free patterns, found throughout nature, present convincing evidence that this demarcation is only imaginary. Therefore, all systems ought to be regarded alike, i.e., all are consuming free energy in least time. This way evolutionary processes can be understood as a series of changes from one state to another, so that flows of energy themselves naturally select those ways and means, such as species and societies or gadgets and galaxies to consume free energy in the least time in quest of attaining thermodynamic balance in respective surroundings. This holistic worldview, albeit an accurate account of nature, was shelved soon after its advent at the turn of the 18thcentury, because the general tenet did not meet that time expectations of a deterministic law, but now it is time to reconsider the old universal imperative against observations rather than expectations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland ; Institute of Biotechnology, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland ; Department of Biosciences, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Arto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Annila
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
authors.forename: Erkki
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kolehmainen
keywords: Free energy; Life; Non-determinism; Scale invariant; The principle of least action; The second law of thermodynamics