The OneNet Theory of Life

The OneNet Theory of Life: Foundations of Organizational Persistence and Organismal Life presents an original theoretical framework for addressing this fundamental question. The book introduces the Theory of Organizational Persistence (TOP) , which examines the general principles by which organized systems persist, and builds upon this foundation the OneNet Theory of Life , which views the life of an individual organism as a single, complex, dynamic, and integrated network—its OneNet. The OneNet Theory proposes that an organism possesses a genotype-rooted organizational blueprint whose possibilities are dynamically manifested throughout life. Beginning with the formation of the organism's first cell, interactions among this blueprint, the organism's changing internal state, its motivations, and its environment generate the dynamics and phenotypes of life. Organisms also interact and organize with other organisms, forming OneNet societies that contribute to collective persistence and evolution. The book introduces additional novel concepts and frameworks. For example, it proposes ontropy as an organization-related complement to entropy within TOP. Building on this concept, a series of ontropy-based laws and hypotheses are developed as foundations for investigating organizational persistence and organismal life. Inspired by the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements, the book also proposes four new periodic tables—covering cell elements, life interaction elements, recognition-memory elements, and consciousness process elements —as systematic frameworks for identifying, organizing, and investigating fundamental elements and mechanisms underlying life processes. Drawing on concepts from thermodynamics, genetics, cell biology, systems biology, immunology, neuroscience, evolution, ontology, and artificial intelligence, the book further develops and applies the integrated TOP–OneNet framework through mathematical formulations, organizational models, biological applications, and testable hypotheses and predictions. This framework is applied to questions ranging from cell differentiation and biological responses to human life and evolution. Building on these foundations, the book introduces the Hierarchical OneNet Holy Grail as a long-term scientific goal of progressively decoding life across molecular, cellular, organismal, cross-species, and evolutionary levels. Extending beyond individual organismal life, the book also explores collective organization, artificial organizational networks, and possible connections among organization, entropy, ontropy, and fundamental physical processes. Together, TOP and the OneNet Theory of Life offer an organization-centered perspective for understanding how life begins, develops, adapts, interacts, evolves, and persists.