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Originally Posted by HydrogenBond
If you look at water, which is the primary component of life, it has an extremely high melting and boiling point and a very high thermal capacitance relative to any molecule close to its molecular weight. This is due to hydrogen bonding.
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Well, hydrogen bonds are important to life, of course, but they're also important to dirt. So are covalent bonds and ionic bonds, but I fail to see your point here. Molecular bonding is not unique to life, nor does it explain the copious dissipation of entropy required to sustain life under far-from-equilibrium conditions.
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What the high MP and BP and the high thermal capacitance of water means, it takes a lot of energy to overcome the attractive forces within water. This inhibit high levels of entropy, in favor of much more order. This is important to life. Since water is 80-90 percent of life, it sets the background goal of life, which is to lower entropy, thereby allowing higher and higher level order.
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Apparently you and I have taken different biology classes, because I've never heard of a "background goal of life," unless it might be survival. The truth is that life does not have a "background goal." Life does not have a purpose or a mission; it is entirely natural and without any teleological features whatsoever. But life is in the business of energy consumption and entropy dissipation, both occurring at very high rates relative to those of non-living structures.
