Write a PREreview

Abstract: The essence of life — Life is, thermodynamically speaking, a self-evolving system that spontaneously optimizes for cumulative entropy production over time. Organisms record historically efficient multi-step pathways of entropy generation through genetic and experiential mechanisms, encoding them into functional modules that are storable, combinable, and extrapolatable. By recognizing the fractal topology of energy distribution in their environment—through pattern matching—they can identify and activate these stored templates in bulk, thereby maximizing cumulative entropy production across extended time scales. The more advanced an organism is, the stronger its capacity for long-term planning, the finer its ability to discern fractal patterns in environmental energy landscapes, and the more efficient its encoding and storage of high-yield entropy-producing pathways. Intelligent beings such as humans go beyond passive genetic memory; they extend memory externally through written records and electronic media, and also solidify high-entropy-output pathways via tools and technological devices.