#14:The Challenging Mission of Biotechnological Transformation

Paul Nurse, a Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, defines life through three principles in his book What is Life?: (1) Life can evolve through natural selection, (2) Life forms are bounded, physical entities, and (3) Life forms are chemical, physical, and informational machines. In general, it is often said that the first principle refers to the ability to “replicate” and the third to “metabolize.” Nurse, however, emphasizes not just the individual aspects of life, but also the continuous thread of the "tree of life" that goes beyond species. He stresses that life not only transforms chemical energy, but also turns information into knowledge. Each organism maintains and grows itself through metabolism, striving to avoid the cessation of existence, i.e., death, and species also seek to prolong their existence through evolution. Although life on Earth is estimated to have begun 4 billion years ago, the "tree of life" has persisted by giving birth to new species, continuously resisting extinction. Life forms survive by converting information from the external environment into knowledge and then uses that knowledge to influence its own environment, thereby extending its own lifespan.

Erwin Schrödinger, a Nobel laureate in Physics famous for his thought experiment "Schrödinger’s Cat," also addressed the nature of life in his book of the same title, What is Life? He noted that the peculiarity of living organisms lies in their ability to avoid reaching a state of "equilibrium" where they would rapidly decay and no longer function. Schrödinger posited that life defies the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that all things in the universe tend toward increasing entropy, ultimately reaching a state of thermodynamic equilibrium—complete disorder. Life, uniquely, draws "order" from its environment to postpone death, successfully maintaining low entropy in a localized way, even though the universe continues to undergo increasing entropy, marching toward thermal death. This ability of life to maintain order within the boundaries of physical existence is what makes it extraordinary.

The Mission: Impossible film series, with seven installments, features Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, an agent of the U.S. spy agency IMF, completing seemingly impossible missions with unexpected strategies and superhuman abilities. It tells a story where seemingly invincible enemies are defeated, their shocked expressions providing the audience with a sense of catharsis. A curious trait shared by many of the enemies Hunt faces is their obsession with chaos. In Ghost Protocol, Kurt Hendricks seeks to start a global nuclear war at the risk of his own death, while in Rogue Nation, Solomon Lane believes that terrorism and mass murder are righteous actions. In Fallout, Lane plans to contaminate the water sources of one-third of the world’s population through nuclear explosion. In Dead Reckoning, Gabriel wants to surrender humanity’s control to AI. None of them aim for world domination like Spectre in James Bond films or Shocker in Kamen Rider, Japanese superhero TV series. It is as if their only goal is to plunge the world into chaos and increase its entropy.

Fossil fuels like oil, created from ancient biological matter deposited in the oceans and subjected to geothermal and geological pressure, are powerful sources of energy, perhaps because they are a concentration of the ordering power of life. Humanity has harnessed these fuels by releasing and expanding their stored entropy to drive economic development. Earth, meanwhile, has managed to function as an open system by releasing thermal entropy in the form of infrared radiation into space, thus avoiding complete disorder. However, the increasing accumulation of greenhouse gases causes infrared radiation to be reflected and trapped, intensifying Earth’s closure and accelerating the increase in entropy. While life, both as individuals and species, has successfully extended its longevity by influencing its surroundings, humanity’s rapid environmental alterations, now deemed significant enough to define a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene—could ultimately threaten the very "tree of life."

Biotechnological Transformation refers to leveraging the inherent characteristics and functions of living organisms to create new economic value and also address social challenges. It can also be seen as an effort to slow the accelerating increase of entropy by borrowing once again from the advanced "ordering" power that only life possesses. Unfortunately, we do not have Ethan Hunt on our Biotechnological Transformation team. Armed only with the knowledge accumulated from years of biological research and a deep respect for the mysteries of life, we must confront this difficult mission head-on.