Dear Torsten,

There was no jump in the argument. There are 3 issues here.

1.The conditions of the primitive Earth already had the necessary ingredients for a chemical clock. The problem is, as I posted in the abstract, what I propose is a research path. So, in a sense, the first part of the essay is a research proposal.

2.The other is a linguistic one. Intention and aim are synonyms in usual language and intentionality is a very complicated philosophical term and only vaguely linked to intentinon. So, I looked for the philology of the words and I defined in the simplest terms what aim and intention are.

3.I defined life as a radically different thing from life as we know it. In a part of the essay I, indeed, post the expression, "life as we know it". The initial structure was purely abstract, chemical pathways. But this definition of like keep existing, as in the form of the entirety of the biosphere, and all its subsystems, ecosystems, are life forms by themselves. I argue that this is a type of Gaya hypothesis.

9 days later

Dear Daniel,

Your essay is quite complex. I did very much appreciate your review of "The eight immortals of the animal kingdom", which is as concise a summary as I have seen. It certainly is as close to 'magic' as one can imagine, and does seem to defy evolution. You said you would explain it in the next session. Was your explanation that reproduction addresses the fact that the system will accumulate malfunctions and so makes a copy before it breaks down?

I can imagine big numbers like the next guy, but it's extremely difficult for me to envision random mutation 'inventing' this complexity. The growth of an organism is as miraculous is anything I can imagine. Thanks for describing key aspects of the process.

While the extended growth of topological organisms can be (in theory) described by math, it is not at all apparent that math has much to do with the process. You then extend the growth of organisms to societies and the 'invention' of mathematics to solve the attendant social organization issues, concluding that, "at the present time, mathematics cannot be disassociated from people." I agree with this perspective.

Similarly, while one can apply the words 'aims' and 'intentions' to the process, it is difficult to describe intention to the cell-based growth of multi-cellular organisms. The control issues are complex, and the fact that the same eight genes operate across a broad range of organisms is mind blowing. As I understand it, it is largely the frequency with which the gene is expressed that differentiates the structures.

At the end you mention the "extended Gaia hypothesis". I do not know the specifics of this hypothesis, but from what little I know, it would not seem to be unrelated to the consciousness field.

Thanks again for reminding us what goes on in order that you and I might live.

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Dear Edwin,

    I did not raised at all the issue of consciousness in my essay. I wrote about aims and intentions, from the point of view of the definition of life I gave. So, it was about the meaning of life.

    The math part, I tried to make it clear in section 1,2 and in the additional notes. Section 1 and additional, it is about that the fundamental operation life can do is an inequality operation, in the additional notes I wrote how these are accomplished and I cited the mathematical tools used to model that. Section 2, I wrote about the composition that life could make, as I defined, during early natural selection, to compose new life. That was a kind of lambda calculus, but there was not much space to talk about it. I should talk about the Chemoton theory, as what I proposed was even more fundamental, since it reduced all to a simple chemical clock.

    On section about the Gaia Hypothesis, I mean that the definition of life can be extended to the stage as life as we know, if we consider it from the point of view of an entire ecosystem. In this regard, the biosphere is a life form with "arms", or "pseudopods" like and amoeba, that can reach food and redistribute for all system. I consider extended because the original Gaia Hypothesis is about regulating the Earth conditions for life, while in the essay, the biosphere is a gigantic lifeform living on earth. Perhaps I should had used extended from a restricted Gaia Hypothesis.

    As you can notice, well, I tried to make noticed, the components of the biosphere, have a tendency try to reproduce the totality of the biosphere. A multi-cellular life or a society of humans or ants, try to exercise a number of independent functions to an extent would be require an ecosystem. That is, a tendency to a division of work.

    Humans are becoming aware of this process, and use math to reach this totality. But, there is an ecological meaning of this, that to reach that, we must become in harmony with the rest of the biosphere. (If we reach and colonize other planets, we must be able to reproduce one very well, cue to the failure of the Biosphere 2 project).

    Dear Daniel Rocha,

    Your essay is thought provoking. You state that a coordinated clock is a necessary ingredient for life. In fact you say this defines life, which I am a bit uncertain on. However, a living system you maintain requires what might be called a master clock. This might be, though I am not sure about that status of research on this. On a larger and more complex scale, the brain has the alpha, beta etc waves which seem to serve as some coordinating the occurrence of action potentials or neural activity. On the cellular level this would imply the frequencies of various molecular processes form the set of possible time periodicities from which by complex coupling a single periodicity or frequency emerges.

    I just just did a brief search on this or a related idea and did not find anything that seemed to match. This does make some sense. At least there should be the emergence of some regulating time keeping process in a biological system. I would think that some cell cycle regulating kinase or protein dependent kinase such as protein kinase A or cyclin dependent kinase linked to cell cycle. These are linked to cyclic forms of AMP and GMP, which in turn are purines at the core of molecular biology from DNA/RNA to cellular respiration. The cyclins are a then a class of proteins that are necessary for the regulation of the cell cycle, and these seem to be at the heart of anything approaching a cellular clock.

    Cheers LC

      Dear Daniel,

      At first I was intrigued by your title that includes "The meaning" of Life", as my essay is named "The Purpose of Life".

      Then I started reading your essay and was happily surprised with the interpretations of the data available to our what I call "collective memory".

      Your interpretations are deepening the understanding of our emergent reality.

      You also indicate that "human beigs" represent the "conclusion" , one of the reasons you mention for this is the use of mathematics. Of course as we are humans, the "center" of our awareness is our consciousness. You are in the middele of a sphere where all information is simultaneously coming in (I call it the Subjective Simultaneity Sphere SSS)).

      I agree with you when added : "It is also through mathematics that we (humans) are not only in the postion to procreate through biological progeneration but also through the creation of AI that would lead to a new form of consciousness. This could be the folow up of hunanity. hen we are really stepping up a rung on the ladder. This new form of consciousness may be able to teach us how to survive without killing others...and a system of organisation without the need of POWER...and suppression.

      I enjoyed your essay very much and therfore gave it a high merit. I hope that my remarks will be interesting enough for you to read, surely comment and also give a rating to my essay : "The Purpose of Life".

      best regards and good luck

      Wilhelmus

        l de França Diniz Rocha replied on Mar. 29, 2017 @ 22:36 GMT

        Dear Wilhelmus,

        I really loved your essay. In GR is also timeless, in that time is a dimension like the others. Given that what we have in GR are events, measured by a test particle, carrying a clock and a ruler, it really becomes an essential issue. This is a problem in that temporal paradoxes are created because the ordering of events, and so causality, become a confusing issue. Solution for this issues are avoided by imposing conditions which are not contained in the theory.

        In QM, time is a parameter for coordinates or fields. This leads to complicated issues, unless you have a low dimensional system, like in 2 dimensions (say, string theory). But this goes awry quite quickly and there is no way to probe this kind of system in any conceivable known experiment.

        So, you come up with an intriguing idea, an eternal now, that is, an eternal event. I think the eternal event, associated with the eternal now, is more fundamental than brains, plants, or whatever living beings, or particles, given that any particle (and thus any of those) has a discontinuous existence(the moment it interacts, it trades particles, so, if you check a Feynman diagram, it cannot be said to be the same). Then, you come up with the concept of SSS.

        I would guess that this SSS is a sort of "condensate", a kind of 3d slice of the universe. While in GR there are no preferential slice due equivalence of observers, this SSS is living like "floating" on GR, perhaps with a universal time, which you call an emerging reality. This would be an extended object, where the eternal now is happening, emerging all the time. Perhaps a clue to this object is dark matter, since this emerging reality would interact with the gravitational field, making sure things stay in sync with a condensated surface with a unique universal time.

        Dear LC,

        I think that most of the cell reactions can be characterized as chemical clocks. As long as there is homeostasis, that is, that is, control parameters, there will be a clock of some kind, not even if is not regular in time. Like a thermostat. Not, that this is not the same of a random reaction, since in this case the chemical reaction will simply follow the 2nd law of thermodynamics and defuse energy, where a chemical clock is a physical analogue to engine. On the other hand,a clock is more akin to a Carnot cycle.

        The idea of a chemical clock came to me when I was considering the case of pH regulation of a cell, the ion transport. This is the most trivial active function of a membrane cell, in my view, other than the most trivial function, that is no to let the contents of the cell to spread to the environment. The ion transport is like a little machine, that is always pumping ions in order to keep the pH around a certain level.

        The idea is to consider the most primitive example of life, a kind of self controlling cycle. Some thing I had to exclude, to try to get in the most basal level I could thing of. I can get rid of a membrane if the elements needed for are abundantly available in the primitive ocean.

        I can get rid of reproduction if there is no defined requirement for perfect conservation of information. The sequence of stages required for the working of a clock is itself information. I don't know what is the original sequence, but I tried to propose one that would work like one in the primitive ocean. Also, as I posted in the additional information (BK reaction can be thought of composed of sub reactions) and also gave a certain mathematical treatment in section 2, different cycles could superimpose into a different one. Also, due differences in composition due the depth of water and environment, there should be some sort of competition for which reaction could thrive.

        In the large ocean, cycle waves would compete, like these ones, in a petri dish. Just imagine that the ocean is a thin layer over a huge surface.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDgx6n6aExE

        I also proposed that, after a long time, these reactions would be strong enough, or adapt to, the kind of environment rich in organic material, like, in alkaline vents. The presence of stuff like lipids and rna, would select much more complex reactions on the long term, like those which happen in cells.

        Dear Daniel

        You may very well be right about life being immersed in control systems, right from the bottom up dealing with cellular structure, all the way up to that of human society. "... controls case is fundamental. That life is all about control and stability, adapted to a random environment and that it tries to stay as close as possible to a predictable pattern equilibrium, even if it shows non trivial behavior."

        If you get the time, do check out the Good Regulator Theorem of Conant and the Law of Requisite Variety of Ashby. I think you might be able to find more parallels dealing with those laws from the biological world. I rate your essay very highly, despite the fact that I am not all that well versed in the biological and chemical terminologies. I could see that you have the big picture view correct, and the fine details surely must follow from that perspective.

        Warm Regards, Willy

          Dear Daniel,

          In the perception I devellopped there are no time-paradoxes. Even if one of the probabilities in TS is time-travel (and there is...). So...

          You go back to a specific ENM from a specific time-life-line. The as then newly created life-line the evolves as a new one, while the old one still exists as an Eternal Now Moment. Kill your grandfather here and nothing happens to you because the ENM where you were born from his daughter is still an available ETERNAL NOW Moment. ALL the probabilities available as ENM are eternally in TS.(This is different from MWI wher everything splits up and is reality) In my perception EVERY Emergeing reality is an eternal availability.

          GR is closely related to the SSS of an agent. Outside this SSS everything like Time, Space, Mass Gravity is blurred and is PAST.

          In Quantum Theory the smallest time lapse is the Planck time. Compared to this "rythm" our heartbeat is taking an eternity, almost the same as if you are are riding on a photon from the observation point of the SSS of another agent...

          In our EMERGING reality time is a RESTRICTION, no time no FLOW, no experience of consciousness.

          The SSS is the sphere around the "emerged" agent, so it is a way to find in our blurry emerging reality simultaneity. But even the signals received on this SSS are the PAST, a simultaneous past. I don't like to use the word "ILLUSION" because it has some strange side-effect, so I used the description "Emergent phenomenon". If I wouldn't have done that I think the essay would be ignored...

          The Eternal NOW Moment is not happening because each happening needs time, and as TS is like your Nothingness timeless...You could eventually an ENM compare to a singularity (with no dimensions) that is the cause of a FLOW in an Emergent phenomenon called REALITY for an emergent agent.

          What I liked very much in your essay is that you also like me are thinking "out of the box" Scientists are shouting "We need a new theory etc" but then go back and calculate. Like in many essays I have read , they keep searching for the announcer in the radio. They will never find him there.....

          I hope that you will continue your thinking and I thank you for your attention and rating. If you have more questions don't hesitate to pose them.

          best regards

          Wilhelmus

          I was trying to make it into a form that I could treat in terms of mathematics. Can you give me an idea?

          Hi Daniel,

          The perception of a Total Simultaneity (not existing entity in our emergent reality so a Nothingness) is very difficult for me to treat mathematically, I proposed alrady the "Hilbert Space".

          Besides I am very bad in mathematics, it is not my cup of tea.

          I will make an illustration of how I am trying to visualise :

          1. Total Simultaneity that is containing ALL realites as probabilities (could it be compared to a Feynman Diagram ?)

          2. The ENM (probability) inside TS that contains the emerging phenomenon of the FLOW (time and space) of a specific life line of an agent.

          It could look like a point from where an infinity of threedimensional radius are spreading, writing this I think that it also could be a kind of holographic effect (three dimensional emergence from a two dimensional surface). But then the emergence from a point into the illusion of a lived life, the memory of...

          I am still working on it....

          Wilhelmus

          Dear Wilhelmus,

          Yes, it looks like a Feynman diagram, but if you do that (I was imaging that also when I made my suggestion), each "reality" has a probability. Think of the possible ralities having a gaussian distribution (it could be something else, but just stick to this idea for the moment). But given that the quantity is too big, it tends to a very thin line. But notice that the lines which are not realized also contribute for your measurement, a sort of interference, just like the 2 slit experiment, but with very complicated inteerference patterns.

          This agent that you say, and keeping in mind the Feynman diagram in mind, is not continuous. Just take a looke at a diagram. There will be splits in the path. So, the agent is not continous. But, the flw you discribe would be the peak in the distribution. This is where the thing about GR enters in the scene. In GR you don't have these splits. The problems with paradoxes are due geometry, you don't have information coming from the future, you have a collision with yourself coming from the future. You cannot say this is "now". GR is a classic theory.

          So, you see, let's say that this Eternal Now has a weight, and that this weight (mass causes weight because it distorts sapce time, but here the reason is different) is because you are trying to make sure things do not have this crazy loop. Which doesn't mean information can come to the future, but that the "now" is respected. So, I conjecture that dark matter is this weight that doesn't allow things to close a loop (let's say it bends space time in such a way that it doesn't allow a loop). I am not sure how to implement that. But since you mention holography, there is a paper that you can draw some inspiration (and get some idea what type of mathematics you should study to formalize your thoughts)

          https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02269

          https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.01415

          Cheers,

          Daniel

          Dear Daniel de França Diniz Rocha

          I am sorry I did not notice this, thank you for posting this on my essay....

          Thank you for reading my essay.

          That is a Good question.

          There is no Bigbang according to Dynamic Universe Model. When I say BEFORE or AFTER Bigbang, it is the time frame to denote a point of time 13.8 gega years back. This is generally believed by Bigbang based cosmologists at that time there was a big explosion and Universe was started from that time.

          Just to mention from that point of time I used those words "BEFORE or AFTER Bigbang".

          I hope this clears.

          Best

          =snp

          Daniel,

          A very interest, well written, well informed, unique and ambitious essay. I think you pulled it off well. I'm no expert in biology to judge those parts but I do have very similar biology to everyone else so think I'm qualify to give you a good score!

          You mention the importance of feedback loops, which also identify as the key to cognitive decisions forming aims and intentions (but I then slip down to the more fundamental quantum scale architecture).

          I think this certainly deserves to be a finalist.

          Very best

          Peter

            Daniel - Thank you for an excellent essay. You are the only author I have read so far that defines "intention" correctly - as a direction or movement that is independent of agency. This is a critical distinction in any discussion of emergence that avoids the muddy waters of panpsychism.

            I am curious if you have an opinion as to whether intention as you describe it in the biological realm may also apply to the chemical and the physical?

            You may find some compatible themes in my essay The How and The Why of Emergence and Intention!

            Cheers - George Gantz

              Dear Peter Jackson,

              I really think you view of spin interaction as something interesting. The spin of the electron, as described by the Dirac equation, belongs to the group su(2), which is a double cover of so(3). That is, we need 2 rotations of a sphere. But people forget that these are different things and end up trying to talk about an electron as it were merely ONE very small sphere, tending to radius 0, mysteriously shifting its position up and down. Stephen Hawking did this confusion in his famous book brief history of time. People confuse the algebra if the group with the actual rotation of the electron. So, an electron is a 4 dimensional entity, since the Dirac equation obeys Lorentz transformations. So, people visualize the wrong situation, where the actual situation should be a hyperbolic sphere SO(3,1). And SO(3,1) is isomorphic so SU(2)XSU(2). This is why you needed 2 spheres to correctly explain the spin phenomena. I think you clarified a great deal of things, even for me.

              Plus, you have added some great stuff along the way, which may help understand intelligence. Look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eas2zOSKIaQ

              What is happening here it is that the slime molde, when it expands and pulsates, it is mimicking a non perturbation integral of a path integral. When you do non perturbative, you appeal to combinatoric methods, which are very compute intensive for usual computer architectures. I think our brains works in a way analogous to a slime mold, but it needs its parts more fixed, and not too fall apart, like it would happen to a slime mold. So, I think the brain works by expanding "pseudopods", and tries to find the food (the idea), and when it finds, it creates a synapse. As you can deduce from the slime mold examples, things will be stored like loops in the brain (indeed this is the case, and this is more clear in the relation ship between brain cortex and thalamus)

              Daniel,

              Thank you for the essay on intentions and living organisms. I was especially interested in your discussion of control and stability, which are fundamental aspects of not only individual organisms, but also the generational changes (evolution) that eventually lead to new species.

              Your conclusion states, '...we can say that any society of organisms is, to a large extent, an organism itself. It may vary in complexity from a spectrum that includes parasitism, cooperation, colony up to a multicellular being (from the perspective of individual cells). Human societies can be seen as a type of organism and as such, it can be ascribed aims and intentions.'

              Therefore, you may be interested in my essay, The Cosmic Odyssey of Matter, which formally defines and quantifies precise structures that include chemical elements, molecules, living organisms, and social groups. This formal definition shows how the whole human population is a precise structure, systematically assembled from smaller components.

              link to The Cosmic Odyssey of Matter

              Regards, Ed Kneller

                Dear Daniel,

                Forgive my delay in acknowledging your answers to my questions, and thank you for them. It is difficult to manage reading all the fine essays in this contest and time is short. I have read your essay twice and consider it an excellent contribution.

                Good luck in the contest and my best wishes for you,

                Edwin Eugene Klingman

                Dear George,

                Thank you for the comment on my essay. Indeed there is a resemblance between your topic and mine. But I think while I went to a more evolutionary point of view, you went to a very beautiful poetic route. It indeed touched my heart seeing how, indeed, everything seem to self organized, despite the aparent lack of purpose in the universe, and that there is a sense of flow in all of that. This gives a reason to see purpose and not chaos to those who wishes to find a reason to exist, that our life has some value.

                When you gave your grandsone as an example of the huge flow of love, as part of the universe's purpose in minimizing entropy, while exploring the environment, did made me a drop a couple of tears. It made me see through your eyes how something so simple can be an atom of the huge large scale principles of the universe.