Abstract

Prigogine's theory of dissipative structures describes how physical systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium can maintain ordered states through continuous energy dissipation. This paper shows that dissipative structures are a physical instantiation of the La Profilée persistence structure. We demonstrate that the three components of any dissipative structure — the stabilizing constraint that defines its ordered state, the dissipative process that carries transformation, and the coupling between them — correspond precisely and necessarily to Frame, Module, and Coupling in LP. The persistence condition IR ≤ 1 is shown to be the structural form of the stability condition of dissipative structures. Prigogine's results do not conflict with LP. They instantiate it. LP does not derive its results from thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is one domain in which LP's structural necessities become physically measurable. This relationship establishes LP as the structural foundation beneath self-organization theory — the layer that specifies when and why self-organized structures persist, which Prigogine's theory assumes but does not derive.