| new level drivers | boundaries | emerging correlations |
| interstellar cloud collapse | radial temperature variation | spin up & stellar ignition |
| orbital accretion of dust & gas | radial pressure variation | planetary differentiation & geocycles |
| geothermal & solar gradients | compositional variation | biomolecular cycles |
| biological cells | bilayer membranes & cell walls | chemical communication, microbial symbioses & differentiation |
| biofilms & live tissues | organ surfaces | skeletal, respiratory, digestive, & nervous systems |
| metazoans | individual skins | pair bonds & redirected aggression |
| reproductive bargains, family | gene pool boundaries | social heirarchies & politics, ritualized available work |
| cultures & belief systems | meme pool boundaries | sciences & diversity protocols |
Correlation thermodynamics at work: The simplest illustration of
reversible thermalization is perhaps
the "N=1"-atom Szilard vacuum-pump memory, illustrated
for N atoms at right. It allows
one to put its single atom into the desired side
of a bipartitioned container: EITHER with help from a
piston plus kT/ln2 of available work, OR with help
from knowledge (about which side the atom's on)
used to direct an arbitrarily low-energy rotation to
the desired orientation. This provides a most
transparent example of the process of reversible
thermalization, wherein the work of compression
(whose energy escapes to the ambient as heat) yields
one bit of mutual information (for those outside the
container, namely, valid data on location of the gas
atom within).