Teleonomy: The Feedback Circuit involving Information and Thermodynamic Processes

Informational and entropic - metabolic aspects are strictly intertwined in organisms. An overview of bacterial chemotaxis is presented as a good and simple model to study these issues. In particular, the paper shall focus on the ability of the organism to restore its homeostasis not only from a metabolic point of view but also from an informational point of view. The organism cannot accomplish this task without a good “model” of the environment and without undertaking appropriate actions that will somehow modify it or at least the relation “organism - environment”. Subsequently, the concept of teleonomy is developed as a dynamical trade - off between segregation and openness of the organism both from a thermodynamic and informational point of view.