The Concept of Action as a Measure of Living Phenomena

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Abstract
Action is defined as the time integral of energy, or more conveniently as the 2d time integral of power, and the rationale and application of the concept is elaborated. As an illustrative example the concept is used in the analysis of the basal living action during human life. For this application the basal power is represented by M x S where M= the basal metabolic rate (BMR) and S= body surface in m2; avg. values of M and S for a complete series of age groups are taken from accredited data, and the basal action is obtained by double time integrations using arithmetic summation of small age increments for the whole life span. Despite the fact that values of M are markedly different in male and female, the compensating effect of the difference in avg. life span for the 2 sexes yields values for basal action that are essentially the same in the 2 sexes, 1164.7x109 gram-calorie-years for avg. American male, and 1154.1x109 for the female. This result and data cited from the literature in many spp. indicate that within a species basal action is constant, and that there is an inverse relation between power and life span. The value for action is suggested as a basis for a precise taxonomic scale, possibly limited to action of the nervous system. Constancy of total or basal action affords a measure for predicting life span. However, a gain in longevity at the expense of power consumption is only a relative gain, and efforts to extend the existence of a living thing should be directed toward increasing its total action.
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