Topic summary
Living system
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Living systems.
Constraint-based theory of living systems (C-theory)
Constraint-based theory of living systems (C-theory) characterizes living systems in terms of necessary thermodynamic, informational, ecological and architectural constraints that restrict the space of viable living organization. It is scale-bridging rather than scale-free: the same classes of constraints are discussed across levels (molecular → cellular → multicellular → cognitive → ecosystems), without treating any single scale (e.g., metabolism-only or ecosystem-only) as the privileged locus of "life".