• [[2023-06-07]]

I have a fever and that got me thinking.

About the immune system, and how the body (our genome and gut flora and other symbionts) regulates our temperature to react to infections and other invasive entities; or while reacting to those.

About how pur bodies are able to raise their temperature considerably above their environment (what's the yearly average? probably 20 degrees or so in temperate latitudes?), and produce waste heat from movement and thought most of the time, but can somehow continue to work (for some time) in warmer environments. The almost-magic of [[homeostasis]] and [[autopoiesis]].

Could some process compute while cooling down the environment? Under which conditions would that be possible? Human bodies and brains continue to work in very hot climates, but only barely. It seems like it should be impossible to keep a region of matter cooler than its environment except via a continuous ingestion of material or energy from outside the system.