The Principle of Substance Stability Is Applicable to All Levels of Organization of Living Matter

Abstract: The principle of substance stability – the feedback principle – is applicable to allbiological systems. It boils down for different temporal hierarchies to the following: duringthe formation (self-assembly) of the most thermodynamically stable structures at the highesthierarchical level (j), e.g., the supramolecular level, in accordance with the second law,Nature spontaneously uses predominantly the (available for the given local part of thebiological system) least thermodynamically stable structures belonging to a lower level, forexample, the molecular level (j-1). The principle can be also applied to understructurehierarchical levels of any temporal hierarchy. It helps in understanding the causes of cancerformation and the origin of some other diseases.