Beyond the Limits of Language: A Message to Scientists Working Far from Equilibrium

Many contemporary difficulties in understanding complex systems, the origin of life, and cellular organization do not arise from insufficient data or theory, but from the limitations of the language used to describe systems operating far from equilibrium. This text argues that traditional scientific language—shaped by equilibrium thinking, linear causality, and narrative explanation—becomes inadequate when applied to state-based, collective, and irreversible processes. Using the methodological approach of Ilya Prigogine as a reference, the essay highlights a shift from storytelling to state mapping, from objects to processes, and from deterministic trajectories to constrained spaces of possibility. This perspective is proposed as a necessary methodological framework for research at the boundary between physics and life.