complexity as a thermodynamic system

according to Michael Serres:

"[An organism] receives, stores, exchanges, and gives off both energy and information-- in all forms, from the light of the sun to the flow of matter which passes through it (food, oxygen, heat, signals). This system is not in equilibrium, since thermodynamic stability spells death for it, purely and simply. It is in a temporary state of imbalance, and it tends as much as possible to maintain this imbalance. It is hence subject to the irreversible time of the second law [of thermodynamics], since it is dying." (134-135)

qtd. in Mark C. Taylor, The Moment of Complexity (2001)