The convection motion produced actually consists of the complex spatial organisation of the system. Millions of molecules move coherently, forming hexagonal convention cells of characteristic size. In far from equilbrium conditions, the concept of probability that underlies Boltzmann's order principle is no longer valid in that the structures we observe do not correspond to a maximum number of complexions. The tendency towards levelling out and forgetting initial conditions is no longer a general property. In this context, the age-old problem of the origin of life appears in a different perspective.
Benard cells are structures too, but of a quite different nature.
Heat transfer was consdered a source of waste in classical thermodynamics. In the Benard cell it becomes a source of order. The interaction of a system with the outside world, its embedding in nonequilibrium conditions, may become in this way the starting point for the formation of new dynamic states of matter - dissipative structures. Dissipative structures actually correspond to a form of supramolecular organisation. Page 143 Encounter with Molecular Biology In far from equibrium conditions various types of self-organisation processes may occur.