![]() ![]() Thirdly, and more interestingly for this contribution, the MEPP’s epistemic status is subject to debate. This also increases the possible sources of confusion in its interpretations (Kleidon et al., 2010). Secondly, even if closely linked to the Second Law (SL), further assumptions are needed to establish the MEPP’s theoretical foundations and range of applicability-near equilibrium steady states with carefully chosen external constraints-which can reduce the rigor of its predictions (Martyushev, 2010). Despite recent conjectures that biological systems evolve and organize themselves to maximize entropy production over the maximal spatial and temporal scales while abiotic processes maximize instantaneous and local entropy production (Vallino and Huber, 2018), the MEPP has been successfully applied mainly in non-living systems. Firstly, there is the question of its application. Nevertheless, the status of the MEPP remains controversial. In that case, emergent features of life, e.g., cognition, could emerge as MEPP’s customizations. However, as a complex system far from thermodynamic equilibrium, brain dynamics are expected to comply with the Maximum Entropy Production Principle (MEPP), one of the strongest candidates for being the overarching principle that rules life phenomena as far-from-equilibrium processes. At most, one must work with phenomenological approaches of limited scope that may not be coherently integrated into a broader picture, not least because of the diversity of relevant physical scales. Unfortunately, it is well-known that no single specific theory for brain dynamics can predict, on its own, some of the latter’s emergent features. ![]() Some of them present an astonishing degree of complexity and an archetypal example of this is the human brain. There are countless complex dynamical systems in the universe. (3) The MEPP’s ontology ultimately depends on the much-discussed question of the ontology of probabilities in an information-theoretic approach and the ontology of macrostates according to the Boltzmannian definition of entropy. (2) The MEPP’s ontological status may stem from its selection of new forms of causation beyond physicalism. More interestingly, from a metaphysical stance, the MEPP’s philosophical status is hotly debated: does the MEPP passively translate physical information into macroscopic predictions or actively select the physical solution in multistable systems, granting the connection between scientific models and reality? This paper deals directly with this dilemma by discussing natural determination from three angles: (1) Heuristics help natural philosophers to build an ontology. On the other hand, the underlying assumptions to lay the MEPP’s theoretical foundations and range of applicability increase the possibilities of conflicting interpretations. On the one hand, the MEPP has been successfully applied principally to non-living systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. However, its explanatory power beyond heuristics remains controversial. ![]() The Maximum Entropy Production Principle (MEPP) stands out as an overarching principle that rules life phenomena in Nature. ![]()
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