How cross-disciplinary science can describe living matter

TL;DR

This paper argues that understanding living matter requires cross-disciplinary approaches due to the limitations of traditional disciplines, and it develops a new method to describe ion transport and neuronal function.

Contribution

It introduces a cross-disciplinary framework and a new method for analyzing ion transport, addressing limitations of existing disciplines in describing biological processes.

Findings

Developed a cross-disciplinary theory of neuronal operation.

Identified the need for new scientific disciplines to describe life.

Provided appropriate approximations for ion transport in living matter.

Abstract

Experience shows that disciplinary science cannot describe life without contradictions. We show that one of the fundamental reasons is the disciplinarity itself: the disciplines deal with a limited set of quantities. This way some 'outlaw' quantities are not measured and the discipline does not have laws about them. All laws of science are based on approximations and the approximations must be different for inanimate and life sciences. Studying ions is special because ions belong simultaneously to thermodynamics and electricity, but neither of those disciplines alone can describe biological processes. One needs a cross-disciplinary discussion and maybe a new scientific discipline. We provide a method for handling the different interaction speeds characterizing the ion transport. Electrolytes in living matter introduce further peculiarities with their closed volumes, internal structure, and slow processes. Their meticulous analysis led to the appropriate approximations, leading to the correct scientific description. As a success story, the cross-disciplinary theory of neuronal operation has been developed.