Dr. N.L. Kachhara
Living systems are characterized by soul. We know that in the development process the soul initially exists in impure state and takes birth as one sense being. At this stage the soul can take birth anywhere in the universe making its occurrence highly uncertain. From this point of view the life as one sense being is a highly disordered system. As the soul develops and progresses on its journey the regions and scope of its birth are subjected to restrictions, the uncertainty is reduced and the order is increased. Finally when the soul is liberated the soul cannot take birth again and the uncertainty is reduced to zero giving a perfectly ordered system. Thus life in the universe proceeds temporally from a highly disordered system to a perfectly ordered system.
The above hypothesis is supported by history of evolution of species on Earth. Biodiversity found on Earth today is the result of 4 billion years of evolution. Until approximately 600 million years ago, all life consisted of bacteria and similar single celled organisms. The cell structure was prokaryotic. More complex creatures arose sequentially after this prokaryotic beginning, first eukaryotic cells, perhaps about two billion years ago, then multicellular animals about 600 million years ago. This was followed by the age of invertebrates. Then in sequence we had the age of fishes, age of reptiles, age of mammals and finally humans. The complexity of DNA increased through these sequences starting from simple DNA found in virus to highly developed DNA in humans. The structure of DNA can be considered as a representative of order in the living systems and we find that evolution of life on Earth has proceeded from disorder to order. Some scientists are of the view that this order in the world must be the result of intelligence (or an intellect being).
DNA is an organic superconductor that can work at normal temperatures. Artificial superconductors require extremely low temperatures of between 2000K and 1400K to function. All superconductors are able to store light and thus information. This is further explanation of how the DNA can store information. Bio photons responsible for the ability to communicate at all levels within cells, between cells, organization of metabolic activities within the cell, the operation of the immune network and host of other biological functions, also have high efficiency of energy transfer and transformation which often approaches 100 % in DNA, which undergoes physical resonance.
The above scientific information helps us to understand how life proceeds from disorder to order. First, some scientists also find it necessary to believe in the presence of intelligence in life, which we know is the property of the soul. In a soul the prana energy must produce the organization in a cell; in fact this may be the main function of prana energy. The entropy balance is difficult to make as we are not able to account for the subtle prana energy in the energy audit. Lehninger assumed that internal order in organisms is preserved by taking free energy in the form of sunlight and nutrients from their surroundings. This may be true of plants but the mobile beings are not expected to benefit much from sunlight. Instead in their case it should be the prana energy that preserves the order. The prana energy may constitute the "other laws of physics" Schrödinger has referred to. Second, amazing structure, like super conductor DNA holding large amount of information and a weak light in DNA accomplishing feats like 100% energy transfer and transmission efficiency and superb organization of metabolic activities in the cell etc are features which minimize entropy increase and maintain order in a living being. This kind of performance is not expected of innate matter; clearly it is the soul whose powers produce the order in DNA and organization in the cell. As the soul progresses in its journey from one sense microorganism it creates better order and organization in the biological systems which we see as evolution on Earth like planets. After the stage of human beings further increase in order has not been explored by science as yet as this falls in the realm of spiritual world. According to Jain philosophy the order continues to increase in spiritual personalities, hopefully producing improved metabolic and other biological states which are endowed with many kinds of supernatural powers. The journey of progress ends in liberation, a state of perfect order of the soul. Such a state is not possible with physical body, which has inherent limitations, and therefore the soul drops the body at the last stage, becoming free forever. The total number of liberated souls is infinite and this number is increasing as more souls get liberated.
According to Jain philosophy one sense microorganisms are found all over loka and mobile beings, 2-sense to 5-sense beings, are found in the central region of loka. All these organisms produce order from disorder as has been rightly recognized by Schrödinger. They take in matter and energy in various forms from the environment and assemble them to produce the body structure. The body is maintained with minimum increase in entropy. The processes taking place in body are primarily electrical and chemical both of which are energetically more efficient than thermal processes. Thus organisms are means of producing order from disorder.
