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. We have seen that the basic condition for the appearance of such phenomena is the existence of catalytic effects.
Biological systems have a past.
Page 153 Nonequilibrium systems and gravitation Nonequilibrium magnifies the effect of gravitation. In the Benard cell, having a thickness of only a few millimeters, while the effect of gravitation on such a thin layer would be neglible at equilibrium, because of nonequilbrium, the macroscopic gravitational effects become visible. Gravitation obviously will modify the diffusion flow in a reaction diffusion equation. Detailed calculations show that this can be quite dramatic near a bifurcation point of an unperturbed system. In particular, we can conclude that very small gravitational fields can lead to pattern selection.