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A Sourcebook for the Worldwide Discovery of a Creative Organic Universe
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Introduction
Genesis Vision
Learning Planet
Organic Universe
Earth Life Emerge
Genesis Future
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III. Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

This extensive chapter after Natural Genesis Vision and Planetary Prodigy wishes to outline an abiding milieu as an historic 2ist century universe to wuman revolution. No longer an accidental entropic mechanism, once more Earth and people are returned to a central place and purpose, this time at the frontier of an animate temporal procreation. Our hope is to identify, communicate and document a conducive, amniotic spacescape for the emergence of ovular worlds, embryonic life, mind and self-aware, intelligent, creative beings on fertile bioplanets as it comes into view by way of our emergent worldwise 2020 vision.

A. UniVerse Alive: An Organic, Self-Made, Encoded, Familial Procreativity

A continuous thread seems to link together the events of the history of the Universe, from the Big Bang to the advent of Homo sapiens. The striking continuity of the general pattern of evolution suggests that the Universe was pregnant with life since beginning, and the biosphere was right from the start pregnant of mankind. Francesco Gaeta

Over the ages and stages of our human wonderment, by turns an aboriginal, mystic animism was overtaken by a sterile, mechanical physics, especially in the last century. But into a new millennium, an emergent transition to a global, personsphere collaboration seems on the way to quantifying a conducive uniVerse and procreative geobiosphere. Two prime aspects involve living systems reaching deeper into a fertile chemical ground, and how such material substrates are becoming spontaneously active. As one now reviews in mid 2020, an evolutionary developmental gestation can be perceived all the way from a singular cosmic origin to humankinder’s worldwide sentience. But this revolutionary reproductive reanimation has not yet been well documented and commonly recognized. We offer these many annotated references, almost 9,000 in all, to respectfully help reveal and aver an innately life-friendly, amniotic milieu. This present section, along with Consilience of Biology and Physics, Systems Physics, Systems Chemistry and Universal Evolution, attempt to flesh out a consummate array evidential advances in our midst.

2020: Over the ages and stages of our human wonderment, by turns an aboriginal, mystic animism was replaced by a sterile mechanical physics, especially in the last century. But into the 21st century, an emergent transition to personsphere collaborations seems on the way to quantifying and recovering a procreative geobiosphere in an organically conducive uniVerse. Two aspects involve living systems reaching and rooting deeper into a material ground, and how such basic substrates are now seen as spontaneously fertile. Circa 2020, an evolutionary developmental gestation might be glimpsed from a singular ecosmic origin all the way to humankinder’s worldwide sentience.

Azarian, Bobby. The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness and Cosmic Complexity. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2022.
Artime, Oriol and Manlio De Domenico. From the Origin of Life to Pandemics: Emergent Phenomena in Complex Systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. May 2022.
Bezgodov, Aleksandr and Konstantin Barezhev. The Origin of Planetary Ethics in the Philosophy of Russian Cosmism. UK: Xlibris, 2019.
Branscomb, Elbert and Michael Russell. On the Beneficent Thickness of Water. Interface Focus.October, 2019.
Canup, Robin and Philip Christensen, Co-Chairs. Origins, Worlds and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 2022.
Cockell, Charles. The Equations of Life: How Physics Shapes Evolution. New York: Basic Books, 2018.
Conway Morris, Simon. The Runes of Evolution: How the Universe Became Self-Aware. West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2015.
Fontana, Walter. From Computation to Life: The Challenge of a Science of Organization. www.walterfontana.zone/writings
Gould, Roy. Universe in Creation: A New Understanding of the Big Bang and the Emergence of Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018

Gordon, Richard and Alexei Sharov, eds. Habitability of the Universe before Earth. Amsterdam: Academic Press/Elsevier, 2017.
Hazen, Robert. Symphony in C: Carbon and the Evolution of (Almost) Everything. New York: Norton, 2019.
Kuppers, Bernd-Olaf. The Language of Living Matter: How Molecules Acquire Meaning. International: Springer Frontiers, 2021.
Ravishankara, A. R., et al. Ravishankara, A. R., et al. Complex and Yet Predictable: The Message of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.119/2, 2022.
Volk, Tyler. Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.
Walker, Sara, et al, eds. From Matter to Life: Information and Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Wuppuluri, Shyam and Ian Stewart, eds. Electrons to Elephants to Elections. International: Springer Frontiers, 2022.

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1. Quantum Organics in the 21st Century

As science transitions to a planetary progeny, new phases of integral clarity are being achieved. In the early 1900s, this realm of subatomic substance and activity was dubbed “quantum,” from the Latin for “amount,” by Max Planck because he theorized that energy waves are composed of discrete material units. For over a century, physicists such as Einstein, Bohr, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Bohm, Wheeler and many more sought to study, test, and make sense of this fundamental domain. Quantum “mechanics” went forth somewhat as a “methinks it is like” series of concepts and thought experiments such as entanglement, decoherence, double-slit tests, dead or alive cats, uncertainty, non-locality and so on. For example, I heard Abner Shimony speak in 1979 about superposition, and John Bell in 1990 ask what does it mean that some kind of quantum phase exists, from which we then arise from and wonder.

Around 2000, the project began to include an informational content and essence, along with algorithmic communication, cited more in An Information Computation Turn. In 2009 I heard two of its conceivers, Jeffrey Bub and Hans Halvorson, give a survey to date. With the advent of complex network systems science, since the 2010s a growing recognition of their similar presence in this deepest mode went forth. As a result the old quantum-classical divide began to dissolve, which Nobel physicist Gerard ‘t Hooft, philosopher Alisa Bokulich and others engage. A premier, comprehensive entry and accessible text is Beyond Weird (2018) by the British science writer Philip Ball, which was cited as the European Physics Book of the Year. For these reasons, as a fertile ecosmos comes into view, the phrase Quantum Organics is broached going forward.

This we seek to document a historic revision due to humankind, which has been called a “second quantum revolution.” As the citations convey, a common affinity to other scales of nature and society became evident. Emergent Quantum Mechanics (EmQM) conferences have realized that what lies beneath is not another material stage but a strongly implied independent, mathematical, generative source. Since the 2010s a robust recognition of multiplex, neural-like network systems in this deep domain also arose and took off. For one example, an international Network Science conference (NetSci 2014) has a “Quantum Network” symposia. And as our collaborative vista brings many pieces to fit together into place, might one imagine a Quantome?

2020: A second quantum revolution phrase has arisen because it is lately realized that this deepest, contextual realm seems to be actually suffused by the same network, self-organized, complexities as everywhere else. The advance was fostered by a global project to achieve superfast quantum computers, along with finding that neural network methods are applicable. Nonlinear phenomena such as self-organized criticalities and chimera states are also present. Another aspect is a notice of quantum-like effects in biological organisms, cognition and behavior. As a further result, the olden quantum-classical divide is being erased due to better understandings of each domain. An issue remains because the 20th century version of unintelligible opaqueness is still in place. But altogether within a nascent ecosmos genesis, it may be appropriate to propose a new “quantum organics” identity.


Balatsky, Alexander, et al. Dynamic Quantum Matter. Annalen der Physik. 532/2, 2020.
Ball, Philip. Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different. London: Bodley Head, 2018.
Bastidas, Victor, et al. Chimera States in Quantum Mechanics. arXiv:1807.08056.
Berkelbach, Timothy and Michael Thoss. Special Topic on Dynamics of Open Quantum Systems. Journal of Chemical Physics. 152/020401, 2020.
Bharti, Kishor, et al. Machine Learning Meets Quantum Foundations. AVS Quantum Science. 2/3, 2020.
Burghardt, Irene and Andreas Buchleitner. Quantum Complex Systems. Annalen der Physik. 527/9-10, 2016.
Deutsch, Ivan. Harnessing the Power of the Second Quantum Revolution. PRX Quantum. 1/020101, 2020.
Economou, Sophia and Edwin Barnes. Hello Quantum World. A First-year University Course in Quantum Information Science. arXiv:2210.02868.

Heyl, Markus. Dynamical Quantum Phase Transitions. Reports on Progress in Physics. 81/5, 2018.
jaeger, Gregg, et al. Second Quantum Revolution: Foundational Questions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. 375/20160397, 2016.
Lombardi, Olimpia, et al, eds. Quantum Chaos and Complexity. Entropy. July, 2018
Martyn, John, et al. Grand Unification of Quantum Algorithms. PRX Qunatum. 2/040203,, 2021.
Spitz, Damiel, et al. Finding Universal Structures in Quantum Many-Body Dynamics via Persistent Homology. arXiv:2001.02616.
Walleczek, Jan, et al, eds. Special Issue: Emergent Quantum Mechanics – David Bohm Centennial. Entropy. 21/2, 2019.

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2. A Consilience Unity as Physics, Biology and People Become One

This section was added in 2013 to cover a growing flow of research papers across these sciences that are finding an integral affinity between them. By our worldwise compass, quantum, condensed matter, many-body, statistical mechanics, and other fields are becoming perceived to have quite lively inferences. At the same while, organic evolutionary systems via anatomic forms, physiologic metabolism, neural architecture and cognizance, dynamic ecosystems and human societies are found to exhibit physical principles. In origin of life studies and elsewhere, as an organic nature spreads ever deeper roots, so does material substance gain an endemic conducive fertility. For example, systems biophysicist Nigel Goldenfeld (search) has advised that biology will become physics in the 21st century and biology is the new condensed matter physics.

An aspect within this overdue reunion is known by an Active Matter phrase. It was first used by the Indian physicist Sriram Ramaswamy in 2010 to designate a novel form of self-propelled material motion. As the quote notes, the endeavor has since engaged many self-assembled and mobile phases. A “Soft Matter” version studies all manner structural properties of pliable biomolecular and cellular forms. A common implication seems to be an innate mathematical source that serves to structure and guide the gravid spontaneity of a procreative evolution and history. (This topical aspect has since been moved to Computational Systems Physics below.)

2020: As 21st century system sciences due to a regnant worldwise cognizance form in our midst, largely unawares, the long separation of organic, evolving life and mind from an “inorganic” material ground are well on their way to a vital integrated reunivication. This holistic synthesis occurs as living systems gain deeper integrations with physical phases and in turn quantum and many-body statistical phenomena find their way into biological vitalities.

Azpeitia, Eugenio, et al. Cauliflower Fractal Forms Arise from Perturbations of Floral Gene Networks. Science. 373/192, 2021.

Bianconi, Ginestra, et al. Complex Systems in the Spotlight: Next Steps after the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics. Journal of Physics: Complexity. 4/010201, 2023.

De Marzo, Giordano, et al. Quantifying the Unexpected: A Scientific Approach to Black Swans. Physical Review Research. 4/033079, 2022.

Krakauer, David, ed. Worlds Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute 1984 – 2019. Santa Fe, NM: Santa Fe Institute Press, 2019.

Newman, Stuart. Self-Organization in Embryonic Development. arXiv:2108.00532.

Nguyen, Thank, et al. Spatial Patterns of Urban Landscapes in the Indian Punjab are Predicted by Fractal Theory. Nature Scientific Reports. 12/1819, 2022.

Renken, Elena. Turing Patterns Turn Up in a Tiny Crystal. Quanta. August 10,, 2021.

Thurner, Stefan, et al. Introduction to the Theory of Complex Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Wolfram, Stephen. The Physicalization of Metamathematics and Its Implications for the Foundations of Mathematics. arXiv:2204.05123.

Zhang, Mengsen, et al. Topological Portraits of Multiscale Coordination Dynamics. Journal of Neuroscience Methods. Vol. 339, 2020.


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3. Earth Alive: An Ovular GaiaSphere Sustains Her/His Own Viability

Earth’s biosphere is now known to have regulated itself for some billion years in a homeostatic fashion so as to sustain conducive atmospheric and geochemical conditions for life’s survival and evolution. Since the 1970's, the British geochemist James Lovelock, with Lynn Margulis and colleagues, have provided theoretical and experimental support for living systems as a planetary phenomenon. Lovelock's country neighbor, the author William Golding, suggested the name of the earth goddess Gaia. The concept has received intense scrutiny, often rejection, over past decades but has become understood and accepted as an innovative, useful model.

The section also contains references for the vital field of Earth systems science and Earth’s formative course. It is given a distinct place in an ecosmology chapter so as to identify and appreciate most favored habitable bioworlds such as our own whereupon a sentient, intelligent species can begin to observe, record, self-select and continue forth. The title seeks to convey its biological, ecological and indeed an ovular, children-bearing essence.

2020: After some decades of critical doubt, worries and just unfamiliarty, a biospheric, life-sustaining, superorganic global envelope has become the basic guide for Earth systems science. This Gaian process is seen to influence and control Earth’s mineral surface, atmospheric compositions, and more so to maintain a favorable, billion year milieu for life’s evolutionary development to our retrospective sapiensphere observance.

Arenes, Alexandra, et al. Giving Depth to the Surface: An Exercise in the Gaia-Graphy of Critical Zones. Anthropocene Review. Online June, 2018.
Arney, Giada, et al. The Pale Orange Dot: The Habitability of Hazy Archean Earth. Astrobiology. 16/11, 2016.
Arthur, Rudy and Arwen Nicholson. Selection Principles for Gaia. Journal of Theoretical Biology. October, 2021.
Bertrand, Philippe and Louis Legendre. Earth, Our Living Planet: The Earth System and its Co-evolution with Organisms. International: Springer Frontiers, 2021.
Irrgang, Christopher, et al. Towards Neural Earth System Modelling by Integrating Artificial Intelligence in Earth Systems Science. Nature Machine Intelligence. August 2021.

Jabr, Ferris. The Earth is just as Alive as You Are. New York Times. April 21, 2019.
Jankovic, Srdja, et al. Gaia as Solaris: An Alternative Default Evolutionary Trajectory. arXiv:2201.04956.
Lenton, Timothy, et al. Selection for Gaia across Multiple Scales. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Online July, 2018.
Lyons, Timothy, et al. Oxygenation, Life and the Planetary System during Earth’s Middle History. Astrobiology. July 21, 2021.
Payne, Jonathan, et al. The Evolution of Complex Life and the Stabilization of the Earth System. Interface Focus June, 2020.
Steffen, Will, et al. The Emergence and Evolution of Earth System Science. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. 1/1, 2020.

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4. Universal Evolution: A Celestial Expanse

This section was added in 2014 to gather viewpoints about a similar stochastic evolutionary process which seems be in occurrence even across vicarious cosmic environments. In regard, this celestial domain has been dubbed a Universal Darwinism, see John O. Campbell, Lee Smolin, Milan Cirkovic and other sources. And in a deep physical contrast, Wojciech Zurek (search here and arXiv) has advanced a Quantum Darwinism which has gained an ongoing interest.

This Western view is then complemented by a Russian school via publications in a substantial Evolution almanac from Volgograd, search Leonid Grinin, et al. But this more Eastern vista does not hold to a capricous contingency. Rather in a Cosmism (search) way, an organic reality is seen to seen as a teleological “Universal Evolutionism.” Life’s aware emergence springs from an independent, informative self-organization in effect before winnowing selection. This is a distinction and difference which quite aligns with a Natural Genesis.

2020: Into the 2010s, a wider notice of a general Darwinian process which forms many contingent candidates so that a winnowing post-selection might attain an optimum or good enough result has occurred. An evident presence is being found all the way from quantum phenomena to cosmic and multiversal domains, far beyond biological evolution. A new aspect is an entry of computational, algorithmic approaches to express and define the pervasive mathematical operation. While albeit harsh, capricious, and excessive, it appears to be the way of beingness and becomings.

In further regard, this “natural selection” writ large, as it dawns upon us, will be a key factor as we reach the Earthropic Principle section because the winnowing process may likewise hold for and apply to vicarious habitable planets in stellar incubators. Out of some quintillion estimated worlds, it is beginning to seem that our home bioplanet may very well be the fittest of them all.

Baladron, Carlos and Andrei Khrennikov. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. Online May, 2017.
Ball, Philip. Quantum Darwinism, an Idea to Explain Objective Reality, Passes First Tests. Quanta Magazine. Online July 22, 2019.
Campbell, John O. and Michael Price. Universal Darwinism and the Origins of Order. Georgiev, Georgi, et al, eds. Evolution, Development and Complexity. International: Springer, 2019.
Cirkovic, Milan. The Astrobiological Landscape: Philosophical Foundations of the Study of Cosmic Life Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Grinin, Leonid, et al. Evolutionary Megaparadigms: Potential, Problems, Perspectives. Grinin, Leonid et al, eds. Evolution: Cosmic, Biological, and Social. Volgograd: Uchitel Publishing, 2011.
Jackson, Holly, et al. Using Heritability of Stellar Chemistry to Reveal the History of the Milky Way. arXiv:2011.06453.
Jofre, Paula, et al. Cosmic Phylogeny. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 467/1, 2017.
Knott, Paul. Decoherence, Quantum Darwinism, and the Generic Emergence of Our Objective Classical Reality. arXiv:1811.09062.
Lewis, Samuel, et al. Darwin’s Aliens. International Journal of Astrobiology. November, 2017.
Newman, Stuart. Universal EvoDevo? Biological Theory. 13/67, 2018.
Saladino, Raffaele, et al. Chemomimesis and Molecular Darwinism in Action. Life. 8/2, 2018.

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B. Our Whole Scale EcosmoVerse Description Project

After theoretical Quantum Cosmology, here we present a survey of astrophysical vistas that have expanded from Galileo’s moon to an infinite multiUniVerse. Our “own” cosmos in its temporal course is graced by a trillion galaxies, each with billions of stars and a quintillion orbital worlds in and out of habitable zones. A good recent example is Finding Our Place in the Universe by Helene Courtois.

2020: Two decades in, an international collaborative astronomy by way of land-based and satellite telescopes, sophisticated instrumentation, analytic techniques, computational displays and more, has allowed we Earthlings to fill in and flesh out the temporal formation of a trillion galaxy, sextillion star spacescape. A prime aspect noted in Universal Evolution is a widest stochastic, contingent variety. We will enter its newly found occasion of myraid habitable planetary zones further on. Streaming 3D videos of intersecting galaxies and black holes, for example, can now inform and illustrate our awesome humankinder achievement, and future task of conceptual ecosmic self-description.

Berlinski, Vladimir and Marc Henneaux. The Cosmological Singularity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Courtois, Helene. Finding Our Place in the Universe. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2019.

Codis, Sandrine, et al. On the Connectivity of the Cosmic Web. arXiv:1803.11477.

Frebel, Anna. Searching for the Oldest Stars. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.

Kobayashi, Chiaki, et al. The Origin of Elements from Carbon to Uranium. arXiv:2008.04660.

Libeskind, Noam and Brent Tully. Our Place in the Cosmos. Scientific American. July, 2016.

Perlov, Delia and Alex Vilenkin. Cosmology for the Curious. International: Springer, 2017.

Vazza, Franco. The Complexity and Information Content of Simulated Universes. arXiv:2007.05995.

Tyson, Neil de Grasse, et al. Welcome to the Universe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.

Vogelsberger, Mark, et al. Cosmological Simulations of Galaxy Formation. Nature Reviews Physics. 2/1, 2020.

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1. Quantum Cosmology Theoretic Unity

When quantum mechanics was developed in the 1920s another revolution in physics was just starting. It began with the discovery that the universe is expanding. For a long time quantum mechanics and cosmology developed independently of one another. Yet the very discovery of the expansion would eventually draw the two subjects together because it implied the big bang where quantum mechanics was important for cosmology and for understanding and predicting our observations of the universe today. (James Hartle, arXiv:1901.03933)

As our phenomenal Earthkinder intellect applies itself over years and decades to mathematically join inflationary quantum depths with expansive cosmic breadth so to represent a whole universe to human scenario, the endeavor became known by the composite title. A search of the term on the arXix.org physics eprint site returns some 80,000 hits. This QC section first sorts into this deeply technical phase, followed by Cosmos about its spatial and temporal population of galaxies, sunny stars, common planets, all arrayed in a stochastic proliferation. Quantum Organics reports a second revolution moving beyond opaque arcanda to a familiar, classical treatment. And for these EarthWise reasons and abilities, it is now possible to contemplate, quantify, and maybe detect exocosmoses far afield. But our homo to anthropo sapience mostly goes on as a simple agency, unawares that we are carrying out a crucial requirement for a self-describing, comprehending, realizing, selecting genesis cocreation.

2020: This title phrase arose in the 1980s as it was realized that mathematic phenomena at the universe’s point of origin had a quantum physical nature. Into the 21st century this evidential synthesis across this widest micro to macro expanse has been well worked out. Issues and nuances may remain over the inflationary moment, but as Planck satellite results affirm, the theoretical basis is basically correct. It can now be put that our collective human inquiry and acumen has been able to find and quantify a whole scale unitifcation so as to form an integral identity.

Bojowald, Martin. Foundations of Quantum Cosmology. Online: IOP Publishing, 2020.

Brahma, Suddhasattwa, et al. Universal Signature of Quantum Entanglement Across Cosmological Distances. arXiv:2107.06910.

Calcagni, Gianluca. Classical and Quantum Cosmology. Europe: Springer, 2017.

Coley, Alan and George Ellis. Theoretical Cosmology. Classial and Quantum Gravity. 37/1, 2020.

Hartle, James. How Nature is Conformable to Herself: A View from Quantum Cosmology. arXiv:1909.08724.

Hartle, James. Arrows of Time and Initial and Final Conditions in the Quantum Mechanics of Closed Systems like the Universe. arXiv:2002.07093.

Ijjas, Anna. Numerical Relativity as a New Tool for Fundamental Cosmology. arXiv:2201.03752.

Kallosh, Renata and Andrei Linde. Hybrid Cosmological Attractors. arXiv:2204.02425..

Sanchez, Norma. New Quantum Phase of the Universe before Inflation and its Cosmological and Dark Energy Implications. arXiv:1912.06655.

Smolin, Lee.Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution. New York: Penguin, 2019.

Wetterich, Christof. Fundamental Scale Invariance. arXiv:2007.08805.

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2. Computational Systems Physics: Self-Organization, Active Matter

Many scientific fields are in the process of a major shift from reduction to emergence such as Systems Biology, Genetics, Neuroscience, and Chemistry, as this site reports. By finding and cataloging the particles and linear laws of cosmic and material realms, this phase has well plumbed materiality and spacetime. But a Google search for “Systems Physics” does not get any results. A curious inversion seems to occur whence this fundament atomic pursuit since Greece and Rome to Newton’s day may be the last to reconceive itself. A developmental self-organization from galaxies to genomes to Gaia does not appear in large colliders. Physicist advocates such as Philip Anderson, Brian Josephson, Robert Laughlin, Lee Smolin, Nigel Goldenfeld, William Bialek and many others are now trying to move beyond a benthic theory of everything to a recurrent vitality everywhere. A Systems Physics to reunite and reinvent quantum and cosmos from which life, intelligence and personhood in community are meant to emerge is an overdue imperative.

A companion aspect of an innate vital spontaneity has become known by an Active Matter phrase. It was first used by the Indian physicist Sriram Ramaswamy in 2010 to designate a novel form of self-propelled material motion. As the quote notes, the endeavor has since engaged many self-assembled and mobile phases. A “Soft Matter” version studies all manner structural properties of pliable biomolecular and cellular forms. A common implication seems to be an innate mathematical source that serves to structure and guide the gravid spontaneity of a procreative evolution and history.

Active matter is composed of large numbers of active "agents", each of which consumes energy in order to move or to exert forces. Such systems are intrinsically out of thermal equilibrium. Active matter systems break time reversal symmetry because energy is being continually dissipated by the individual constituents. Most examples of active matter are biological in origin and span the scales from bacteria and self-organising bio-polymers to schools of fish and flocks of birds. (Wikipedia)

2020: While systems biology and systems chemistry have become distinct research endeavors (see sections herein), this title phrase, which should be equally obvious, has not come into wider use (no hits on Google). The olden divide between life sciences and a mechanical physics is deeply rooted. This section went online in the mid 2000s for contributions that began to scope out the endemic presence of dynamically interconnected environs from universe to human. The current scientific revolution has now well advanced toward a natural unified, animate ecosmos, as Active Matter attests. Other sections such as A Survey of Common Principles contain more entries about complex network self-organizations everywhere.

Corbetta, Alessandro and Federico Toschi. Physics of Human Crowds. Annual Review of Condensed Physics. 14/311, 2023.
Drossel, Barbara. Strong Emergence in Condensed Matter Physics. arXiv:1909.01134.
Green, Sara and Robert Batterman. Making Sense of Top-Down Causation: Universality and Functional Equivalence in Physics and Biology. Voosholz, J and M. Gabriel, eds.. Top_Down Causation and Emergence. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2021.
Hidalgo, Jorge, et al. Cooperation, Competition and the Emergence of Criticality in Communities of Adaptive Systems. Journal of Statistical Mechanics. March, 2016.
Koorehdavoudi, Hana and Paul Bogdan. A Statistical Physics Characterization of the Complex Systems Dynamics. Nature Scientific Reports. 6/27602, 2016.

Kresic, Ivor, et al. Generating Multiparticle Entangled States by Self-Organization of Driven Ultracold Atoms. arXiv:2208.10111.
Nakamura, Eita and Kunihiko Kaneko. Statistical Evolutionary Laws in Music Styles. Nature Scientific Reports. 9/15993, 2019.
Perc, Matjaz. Beauty in Artistic Expressions through the Eyes of Networks and Physics. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. March 11, 2020.
Rodriguez, Quentin. Idealizations and Analogies.
arXiv:2110.12712.

Rovelli, Carlo. The Relational Interpretation of Quantum Physics. arXiv:2109.09170.

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3. Supramolecular Systems Chemistry

This is a 2007 section for the coalescing endeavor which is being dubbed “supramolecular systems chemistry,” aka “constitutional dynamic and adaptive chemistry.” These terms are from the 1997 Nobel chemist Jean-Marie Lehn and colleagues so to represent new appreciations of how nature’s universal self-organizing animations are equally in effect across complex bio/chemical materialities. As Chemical Gardens above, these informed forces are seen to foster emergent, nested, complexities. Another French Nobel scientist Christian de Duve advised that evolutionary matter seems to “pregnant with life.”

In regard another mini-revolution is recorded whence physical substance is being found to possess an essential spontaneity to evolve and develop into organic precursors. We cite, for example, the work of the University of Glasgow chemist Leroy Cronin and group to seriously quantify life’s deep, tap roots into a fertile cosmos. As the references note, the field has interdisciplinary reaches into life’s origins, artificial chemistry, computational methods, reaction networks, autocatalytsis and astrochemistry.

2020: In our bidecadal span chemical research theory and test has found essential nature’s complex network self-organization to even be at generative effect in this deep substantial domain. Today via international conferences, journal publications and current applications, this cocreative activity serves to study and quantify nature’s organic materiality, along with novel compositions for a better, sustainable future.

Azevedo, Helena, et al. Complexity Emerges from Chemistry. Nature Chemistry. 12/9, 2020.
Cao, Yudong, et al. Quantum Chemistry in the Age of Quantum Computing. arXiv:1812.09976.
Cejkova, Jitka and Julyan Cartwright. Chembrionics and Systems Chemistry. ChemSystemsChem. 4/3, 2022.
Doty, David and Shaopeng Zhu. Computational Complexity of Atomic Chemical Reaction Networks. arXiv:1702.05704.
Fontana, Walter. From Computation to Life: The Challenge of a Science of Organization. www.walterfontana.zone/writings
Ghosh, Abhik and Paul Kiparsky. Grammar of the Elements. American Scientist. November, 2019.
Grzybowski, Bartosz, et al. From Dynamic Self-Assembly to Networked Chemical Systems. Chemical Society Reviews. 46/5647, 2017.

Marshall, Stuart, et al. Formalizing the Pathways to Life Using Assembly Spaces. Entropy. 24/7, 2022.
McArdle, Sam, et al. Quantum Computational Chemistry. Review of Modern Physics. 92/015003, 2020.
Mikhailov, Alexander and Gerhard Ertl. Chemical Complexity: Self-Organization Processes in Molecular Systems. Switzerland: Springer Frontiers, 2017.
Unsleber, Jan and Markus Reiher. The Exploration of Chemical Reaction Networks. Annual Review of Physical Chemistry. Volume 71, 2020.
Zenil, Hector, et al. Algorithmic Complexity and Reprogrammability of Chemical Structure Networks. arXiv:1802.05856.

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4. Geosphere, Hydrosphere, Atmosphere as Complex, Network Systems

This encompassing land, sea and sky Earthscape realm would not likely seem to be influenced by or express any self-organizing, fractal, network complexities, which was the case in 2000. But as these scientific fields grew in interdisciplinary veracity, endeavors in geophysics, atmospheric studies, soil science and more began to find that they indeed are equally at formative effect. (But as ultimately organic-genomic in naturomic effect, it would seem they must be in actual effect everywhere.) Into the 2010s, a broad array of local, bioregion, continental and global areas are seen as formed and guided by invariant, self-organized topologies. As the references cite, rivers, deltas, coastlines, mountain aretes, earthquakes, rainfalls, droughts and onto stormy weather patterns. See the Global Climate as a Complex Dynamical System section for more reports.

2020: A universally encoded pattern and process has even been found in effect across all manner of geologic landforms, oceanic seas and atmosphere phenomena. The benefit of these wiseworld mathematical findings would be better information and knowledge to understand, mitigate, and manage. Active examples are earthquake studies, forest fire control, drought prevention, and so on.

Biswas, Soumyajyoti, et al. Statistical Physics of Fracture and Earthquakes. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. Vol.377/Iss.2136, 2018.
Bonetti, Sara, et al. Channelization Cascade in Landscape Evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117/1375, 2020.
Bui, Dieu Tien, et al. Novel Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithms for Spatial Prediction of Floods. Nature Scientific Reports. 8/15364, 2018.
Cornacchia, Loreta, et al. Self-Organization of River Vegetation Leads to Emergent Buffering of River Flows. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. July, 2020.
Fallah, Bijan, et al. Emergence of Global Scaling Behaviour in the Coupled Earth-Atmosphere Interaction. Nature Scientific Reports. 6/34005, 2016.
Ferreira, Douglas, et al. Long-range Correlation Studies in Deep Earthquakes Global Series. Physica A. August, 2020.
Meng, Fanzhen, et al. Power Law Relations in Earthquakes from Microscopic to Macroscopic Scales. Nature Scientific Reports. 9/10705, 2019.
Rak, Rafal, et al. Universal Features of Mountain Ridge Networks on Earth. Journal of Complex Networks. May, 2019.
Selvam, Amujuri Mary. Self-Organized Criticality and Predictability in Atmospheric Flows: The Quantum World of Clouds and Rain. International: Springer, 2017.
Sun, HongGuang, et al. Fractal Nature of Groundwater Level Fluctuations. Nature Scientific Reports. 9/15383, 2019.

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5. ExoUniverse Studies: Detectable Presence, Conceptual Features

While inklings of other cosmoses were broached through history (Siegfried), actual theoretical studies have only been possible into the 2010s by way of cumulative global postings. For a contrast, I heard Andrei Linde present his fractal multiverse theory in 1983 by way of overhead slides, in 2015 Fred Adams could show streaming videos of galactic evolution. Recent papers by Adams and colleagues, Sandora McCullen, and others can consider an entire unitary cosmos to see how varying physical parameters and chemical elements might effect their relative lifetime and habitability. And ever again, how fantastic is it that we sentient beings on a tiny but special bioplanet are altogether able to contemplate and quantify on a scale of whole cosmoses?

2020: In 1983 I attended Andrei Linde’s first US public lecture at Harvard where he spoke of bubbling fractal universes. But as the 21st century began, cosmic multitudes beyond our own remained a theoretical conjecture. Into the 2010s, due to Fred Adams, McCullen Sandora and other seekers, deeper insights along with detectable inklings now indicate a vast array of vicarious universes. Several entries consider whole cosmoses with regard to variable parameters and elemental makeup. As a result this infinity (maybe 10500) are thought to span wide contingent ranges to an extent that again some selective process may be going on. Since we Earthlings are here due to a rarest cocatenation, our home spacescape must favor anthropic qualities. But how fantastic is it that in a few centuries a sentient worldly species on a tiny orb some 10-33 orders smaller can yet explore and achieve such vast knowledge.

Adams, Fred C.. The Degree of Fine-Tuning in our Universe – and Others. arXiv:1902.03928.
Alonso-Serrano, Ana, et al, eds. The Multiverse. Universe. July, 2019.
Baumgartner, Sandra and Jaiyul Yoo. Living in a Non-Flat Universe. arXiv:2205.12973.
Elhatisari, Serdar, et al. Alpha-alpha Scattering in the Multiverse. arXiv:2112.09409.
Horndeski, Gregory. The Multiverse and Cosmic Procreation via Cofinsler Spaces: Being or Nothingness. arXiv:2301.10275
Kartvelishvili, Guram, et al. The Self-Organized Critical Multiverse. arXiv:2003.12594.

Masaki, Shogo, et al. Anisotropic Separate Universe Simulations. arXiv:2003.10052.
Mastromarino, Claudio, et al. Properties and Observables of Massive Galaxies in Self-Interacting Dark Matter Cosmologies. arXiv:2212.01403.
Sandora, McCullen, et al. Multiverse Predictions for Habitability: Element Abundances. arXiv:2302.10919.
Siegfried, Tom. The Number of the Heavens, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019.
Vidotto, Francesca. Time, Space and Matter in the Primordial Universe. arXiv:2207.13722.
Wood, Charlie. Why This Universe?. Quanta. November 17,, 2022.

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C. The Information Computation Turn

Into the 21st century, aided by computational advances, the concept of information as broadly conceived from algorithms to literate knowledge has become recognized as a prime independent quality along with and prior to matter and energy, space and time. As many references such as James Gleick's The Information (2011) attest, a deep textual dimension provides a missing, codifying element in support of an organic genesis uniVerse. In several ways, the long temporal passage of an ecosmic nature to human culture gains a vital informational-computational empowerment. From Gottfried Leibniz, Alan Turing to Stephen Wolfram and Gregory Chaitin to Gordana Dodig-Gordana, Luciano Floridi, Wolfgang Hofkircher, Sara Walker and many others, the general perception is a universe that seems to independently program and iteratively compute itself into personal, emergent cognizance. By some analogous genotype/phenotype, software,hardware facility, a double generative mathematical domain reappears in our late midst. Another aspect is a similar informational essence within quantum phenomena, which is covered in the next section.

2020: By this date, sanother feature being found by our composite global genius is a theoretical and evidential presence, in addition to space, time, matter and energy, of a maybe more fundamental, mathematic, generative domain. In regard, its intrinsic informative content would appear to program and prescribe the temporal development of an animate, informed, personified uniVerse. In accord with the large Ecosmomics chapter ahead, some 136 entries herein open windows upon a deeply textual source code which at once independently underlies an organic genesis while seeming to rise along with life’s exemplary evolution all the way to our sapient cocreative endowment.

Bawden, David and Lyn Robinson. Still Minding the Gap? Reflecting on Transitions between Concepts of Information. Information. 11/2, 2020.
Cuffaro, Michael and Samuel Fletcher. Physical Perspectives on Computation, Computational Perspectives on Physics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Davies, Paul. The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information are Solving the Mystery of Life. London: Allen Lane, 2019.
Ensslin, Torsten, et al. The Physics of Information. Annalen der Physik. 531/3, 2019.
Dodig-Crnkovic, Gordana and Raffaela Giovagnoli, eds. Representation and Reality in Humans, Other Living Organisms and Intelligent Machines. International: Springer Praxis, 2017.

Floridi, Luciano. The Logic of Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Ghavasieh, Arsham and Manilo De Domenico. Statistical Physics of Network Structure and Information Dynamics. Journal of Physics: Complexity. February, 2022.
Mainzer, Klaus. The Digital and the Real Universe: Foundations of Natural Philosophy and Computational Physics. Philosophies. 4/1, 2019.
Mora, Thierry, et al. Special Issue on Information Processing in Living Systems. Journal of Statistical Physics. 162/5, 2017.
Stepney, Susan, et al, eds. Computational Matter. International: Springer, 2018.
Walker, Sara Imari, et al, eds. From Matter to Life: Information and Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

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1. A CoCreative Participatory UniVerse

This 2017 subsection grew out of the Quantum Cosmology and Information Computation sections as it became evident that along with Complex System features this foundational realm also has a distinct informational quality. While intimated in the 1980s and 1990s by the sage physicist John Archibald Wheeler, Rolf Landauer, David Deutsch, and others, initial 21st century perceptions were of two kinds. The 2000 work Quantum Computation and Quantum Information by Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang was mainly about mechanics, qubits, Shannon communications and so on. This school continues apace with volumes such as Quantum Computer Science by David Mermin (2007) and Quantum Information Theory by Mark Wilde (2nd ed. 2017) to advance this field.

But another turn sought deeper insights whence this basic feature is distinguished by a prescriptive essence. An initial entry may be the 2003 paper Characterizing Quantum Theory in Terms of Information-Theoretic Constraints by Rob Clifton, Jeffery Bub and Hans Halverson, along with by Gennaro Auletta’s 2005 Quantum Information. In 2010 Vlatko Vedral wrote Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information. Later works by Christopher Timpson (2013), Giulio Chiribella, Giacomo D’Ariano, again David Deutsch with Chiara Marletto, Andrei Khrennikov (Foundations of Physics) grew into an expansive model as cited herein.

This collection about nature’s communicative content which may pass from a programmable universe to our retrospective observation is an apropos place for J. A. Wheeler’s overall arc from Bit (originally Byte, a code-like basis) to It (sentient entities). His novel theory alluded to a quantum reality which requires some manner of self-aware “measurement, witness, recognition” so as to come into full manifestation. By 2017, this deep insidht has gained much acceptance (Edward Witten interview) for it melds an informational source with a central rode for emergent human beings. A further version is the Quantum Bayesian or QBism approach advanced by Christopher Fuchs and colleagues, search here and the arXiv preprint site, whence our cognitive inquiries proceed in clarity by way of iterative, more probable, estimations.

2020: A rising conceptual presence into the 2010s has been certian physical theories which require sentient, interactive human-like beings whom in turn can retrospectively observe, recognize and affirm the procreative, encoded universe they arose from. In its own terms, an original Bit source code needs to reach an It literacy so as to bring the whole temporal scenario into full regnant existence.

By virtue of this perceptive model, to follow its theme, we Earthlings have a central, special importance to the fate and future of an ecosmic genesis. That is to say since human beings can rightly be viewed as the risen ecosmos personified, our Earthomo lives can have a direct cocreative influence. This vista due much to the physicist John A. Wheeler is reviewed more in the main introduction above, along with a view of personal and universal self-realization by Freya Mathews, a feminist philosopher.

Benioff, Paul. Relation between Observers and Effects of Number Valuation in Science. arXiv:1804.04633.
Bynum, Terrell Ward. Ethics, Information, and Our “It-from-Bit” Universe. arXiv:1802.02029.
D’Ariano, Giacomo, et al. Quantum Theory from First Principles: An Informational Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Fuchs, Christopher and Andrei Khrennikov. Quantum Information Revolution. Foundations of Physics. 50/12, 2020.
Gould, Roy. Universe in Creation: A New Understanding of the Big Bang and the Emergence of Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018.Revolution.

Hoehn, Phillipp. Reflections on the Information Paradigm in Quantum and Gravitational Physics. arXiv:1706.06882.
Mermin, David. Making Better Sense of Quantum Mechanics Reports on Progress in Physics. 82/1, 2018.
Nesteruk, Alexei. A Participatory Universe of J. A. Wheeler as an Intentional Correlate of Embodied Subjects and an Example of Purposiveness in Physics.. arXiv:1304.2277.
Scharf, Caleb. The Ascent of Information: Books, Bits, Genes, Machines, and Life’s Unending Algorithm. New York: Riverhead Books, 2021.

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D. Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics of Living Systems

The sterile, mechanical universe of later 19th century theories was conceived as a closed, isolated system tending to quiescent equilibrium. As predicted by the second law of thermodynamics, it must inexorably expire as available energy is spent doing work and converted to entropy. The “noonday brilliance” of the human moment is all for naught per Bertrand Russell in the early 20th century. But a major revision and expansion has been underway since the 1970s whereof life is conceived as an open system infused and organized by a sustaining flow of energy and information. The doom sentence has been repealed and superseded by far-from-equilibrium theories, due much to Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine and colleagues. But in the 21st century the older and newer versions still coexist into our global collaborative revolution. Altogether these efforts serve to explain a vital "physical" source and animation for and impetus to biological and cultural evolution. All of which well bodes for a reunification of organic beings with a conducive cosmos.

2020: As some 100 diverse references cite, this scientific endeavor to learn all about nature’s energies which animate a genesis uniVerse, emergent life and human becomings, has moved far beyond a simple second entropic law to find many intrinsic non-equilibrium formative forces at work in every phase. There is work still to be done such as homing in on a phenomenal proof and how to better understand and align with their Earthly presence.

Beck, Christian, et al. Nonextensive Statistical Mechanics, Superstatistics and Beyond: Theory and Applications in Astrophysical and Complex Systems. European Physical Journal Special Topics. 229/707, 2020.
Conte, Tom, et al. Thermodynamic Computing. arXiv:1911.01968.
Haddad, Wassim. A Dynamical Systems Theory of Thermodynamics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.
Kleidon, Axel. Thermodynamic Foundations of the Earth System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Jeffery, Kate, et al. On the Statistical Mechanics of Life: Schrodinger Revisited. Entropy. 21/12, 2019.
Kempes, Christopher, et al. The Thermodynamic Efficiency of Computations Made in Cells across the Range of Life. arXiv:1706.05043.

Kondepudi, Dilip, et al. From Dissipative Structures to Biological Evolution: A Thermodynamic Perspective. Dambricourt Malasse, Anne, ed. Self-Organization as a New Paradigm in Evolutionary Biology. International: Springer, 2022.
Nigmatullin, Ramil and Mikhail Prokopenko. Thermodynamic Efficiency of Interactions in Self-Organizing Systems. arXiv:1912.08948.
Rovelli, Carlo. How Causation is Rooted into Thermodynamics. arXiv:2211.00888.
Skene, Keith. Life’s a Gas: A Thermodynamic Theory of Biological Evolution. Entropy. July, 2015.
Tlidi, Mustapha, et al. Dissipative Structures Out of Equilibrium from Chemistry, Photonics and Biology: the Legacy of Ilya Prigogine. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. Vol. 376, 2018.
Zenil, Hector, et al. The Thermodynamics of Network Coding. Entropy. 21/6, 2019.

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1. Life's New Open Quantum Informatiive Resource Thermoversion

As I have noted on occasion, my 1960 degree is in engineering thermodynamics from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, now NYU Poly. Back then the field was mainly about the three laws for steam power plants. In 1987 I had lunch at a complexity conference with Ilya Prigogine, the 1970s Nobel founder of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Since around 2010, aided by Internet worldwide collaborations, such studies of energy source, usage, dissipation, and entropies, widely conceived, began to merge with quantum mechanical physics by way of corresponding theoretical finesses. Into the late 2010s, these composite endeavors have spread and grown to an extent and depth that they merit their own subsection.

2020: This fledgling field is an intersect of thermodynamic theory, a work in conceptual progress, with quantum phenomena as it reconceives itself via complex dynamic systems, has led to a flurry of insightful syntheses.

Alicki, Robert and Ronnie Kosloff. Introduction to Quantum Thermodynamics: History and Prospects. arXiv:1801.08314.
Ball, Philip. Physicists Rewrite the Fundamental Law that Leads to Disorder. Quanta. May 26, 2022.
Binder, Felix, et al, eds. Thermodynamics in the Quantum Regime. International: Springer, 2021.
Bowick, Mark, et al. Symmetry, Thermodynamics and Topology in Active Matter. Physical Review X. February, 2022.
Dann, Roie and Ronnie Kosloff. Unification of the First Law of Quantum Thermodynamics. arXiv:2208.10561.
Manabendra, Nath, et al. Thermodynamics from Information. arXiv:1805.10282.
Rubino, Giulia, et al. Quantum Superposition of Thermodynamic Evolution with Opposing Time’s Arrow. Communications Physics. November 2022.
Shah, Ruhi and Jonathan Gorard. Quantum Cellular Automata, Black Hole Thermodynamics and the Laws of Quantum Complexity. Complex Systems. 28/4, 2019.
Wilson, Matt and Giulio, Chilibella. A Mathematical Framework for Transformations of Physical Processes. arXiv:2204.04319.
Wolchover, Natalie. The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution. Quanta. May 2, 2017.

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E. Systems Cosmology: Fractal SpaceTimeMatter

2020: When this section was first posted in the early 2000s, only rare, spurious inklings of intrinsic celestial self-similarities and self-organizing topological dynamics could be found. Two decades later, a pervasive structuration and activity has been well quantified across galactic cluster, interstellar medium, stellar coronae and more onto elemental atomic and material phases. The once formless, sterile, forbidding void can presently evince still another robust instance of the one, same vivifying code basis as everywhere else.

Aschwanden, Markus. The Fractality of Astrophysical Self-Organized Criticality. arXiv:2203.12484.
Butler, Travis and Georgi Georgiev. Self-Organization in Stellar Evolution. arXiv:2202.02318.
Chanu, Athokpam, et al. Analysis of the Structural Complexity of Crab Nebula using a Multifractal Approach. arXiv:2206.04717. NEW
De Marzo, Giordano, et al. Zipf’s Law for Cosmic Structures. Astronomy & Astrophysics. 651/A114, 2021.
Deppman, Airton, et al. Fractals, Nonextensive Statistics, and QCD. Physical Review D. 101/034019, 2020.
Einasto, Jaan, et al. On Fractal Properties of the Cosmic Web. arXiv:2002.02813.
Ettori, Stefano, et al. From Universal Profiles to Universal Scaling Laws in X-ray Galaxy Clusters. arXiv:2010.04192.

Gaite, Jose. Scale Symmetry in the Universe. Symmetry. 12/4, 2020
Garcia-Sanchez, Miguel, et al. The Emergence of Interstellar Molecular Complexity Explained by Interacting Networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119/30, 2022. arXiv:2203.05995.
Lapidus, Michel. An Overview of Complex Fractal Dimensions. arXiv:1803.10399.
Palmer, Tim. Bell’s Theorem, Non-Computability and Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. arXiv:2108.10902.
Teles, Sharon, et al. Galaxy Distributions as Fractal Systems. arXiv:2209.15044.
Toriumi, Shin and Vladimir Airapelian. Universal Scaling Laws for the Solar and Stellar Atmospheric Heating. arXiv:2202.01232.

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1. Ecosmopoiesis: An Autocatalytic, Bootstrap, Self-Made UniVerse

This January 2018 section reports an increasing notice of how a natural universe to human evolutionary emergence seems to be facilitated by life’s autocreative biochemical self-initiation. As popularly known, a catalyst is a (bio)chemical agent which can effect a reaction without itself being changed in the process. An autocatalytic term has become a general identifier for this procedure, and has gained usage because something like this does seem to be going on. A pioneer theorist since the 1970s has been Stuart Kauffman (search) which he has articulated in books and collegial papers to this day. Lately the concept is advanced by biomathematicians such as Wim Hordijk and Michael Steel, along with Liane Gabora, Nathaniel Virgo, Guenther Witzany, Sara Walker, Leroy Cronin, Addy Pross, and others herein.

In November 2019, another phase or mode of a self-making natural genesis will be included here, namely “bootstrap universe” theories. With a once and future casting, the concept began with Geoffrey Chew in the 1960s, but while notable it was set aside. As entries here especially by Natalie Wolchover and others cite, a strong revival has occurred because a lively cosmos seems to actually be doing something like this. New contributions by Nima Arkani-Hamed, David Poland, Gui Pimental and others (cited below, and posted on the arXiv eprint site). If one queries “bootstrap” there it gets over 3,000 hits. The Simons Foundation perceptively funds such efforts and conference (Perimeter Institute). Indeed this ecosmic placement seems to be expecting us (as Freeman Dyson would say) because there is some necessary, vivifying act we all are to carry out.

2020: Another essential feature of a genesis ecosmos is an array of self-creative phenomena which activate and enliven its ongoing development. Living systems from their earliest rediments appear to pervasively initiate and catalyze themselves by innately responsive biochemicals and bioprocesses at every instance. That is to say, a wholly self-making, autopoietic, spontaneity by way of its own internal agencies becomes apparent.

A companion perception is the recent recovery of a 1960s physical bootstrap model mostly from Geoffrey Chew, as described by Natalie Wolchover. A significant implication may be that we regnant human beings, both personally and collectively, ought to be inspired and moved to take up a role and mission as Earthomo and Earthosmic catalystic cocreators.

Adamski, Paul, et al. From Self-Replication to Replicator Systems en Route to de Novo Life. Nature Reviews Chemistry. 4/8, 2020.
Blokhuis, Alex, et al. Universal Motifs and the Diversity of Autocatalytic Systems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 41/25230, 2020.
Dufour, Gwenaelle and Steven Charnley. Astrochemical Bistability: Autocatalysis in Oxygen Chemistry. Astrophysical Journal. 887.1, 2019.
Fontana, Walter. From Computation to Life: The Challenge of a Science of Organization. www.walterfontana.zone/writings
Hordijk, Wim. Autocatalytic Sets and Chemical Organizations: Modeling Self-Sustaining Reaction Networks at the Origin of Life. New Journal of Physics. January, 2018.
Kutner, Corinna, et al. The Photophysics of Nucleic Acids: Consequences for the Emergence of Life. ChemSystemsChem. 4/6, 2022.
Lancet, Doron. Systems Protobiology: Origin of Life by Mutually Catalytic Networks. Life. July, 2018.

Peng, Zhen, et al. The Hierarchical Organization of Autocatalytic Reaction Networks and its Relevance to the Origin of Life. PLOS Computational Biology. September, 2922.
Piotto, Stefano, et al. Plausible Emergence of Autocatalytic Cycles under Prebiotic Conditions. Life. Online April 4, 2019.
Preiner, Martina, et al. Catalysts, Autocatalysis and the Origin of Metabolism. Interface Focus. October, 2019.
Teuscher, Christof. Revisiting the Edge of Chaos. Biosystems. May 2022.
Wolchover, Natalie.Cosmic Triangles Open a Window to the Origin of Time. Quanta. October 29, 2019
Xavier, Joana, et al. Autocatalytic Chemical Networks at the Origin of Metabolism. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. March, 2020.

2030: Into the 2020s, as the newreferences note, a broad realization has arisen that catalytic activities whence all manner of biochemical and metabolic reactions enhance, iterate, and propel themselves. In this regard, they altogether have a premier animative role. As a result the real presence of a self-making, autocreative ecosmos becomes actually evident.

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F. Anthropic, Biotropic, Earthropic Principles

2020: Since the 1970s, a notice of curious phenomena and parameters with just the right, fine-tuned properties and values so that living systems can form and we human beings evolve continues in place. While at odds with the olden pointless accident view, their actual presence would much accord with a phenomenal natural genesis.

Adams, Fred C.. The Degree of Fine-Tuning in our Universe – and Others. arXiv:1902.03928.
Barnes, Luke. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Life. arXiv:21110.07783.
Drabrowski, Mariusz. Anthropic Selection of Physical Constants, Quantum Entanglement, and the Multiverse Falsifiability. arXiv:1910.09073.
Lewis, Geraint and Luke Barnes. A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Livio, Marco and Martin Rees. Fine-Tuning, Complexity, and Life in the Multiverse. Sloan, David, et al, eds. Fine-Tuning in the Physical Universe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Naumann, Thomas. Do We Live in the Best of All Worlds? The Fine-Tuning of the Constants of Nature. Universe. August, 2017.
Slijepcevic, Predrag. Natural Intelligence and Anthropic Reasoning. Biosemiotics. July, 2020.

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G. An Astrochemistry to Astrobiological Spontaneity

Into the 2000s and 2010s an exceptional Earthkinder has widely and deeply explored our celestial stellar, galactic and universal environs with regard to its material composition. Rather than a lumpen sterility, a flow of findings has increasingly revealed a natural propensity to form and complexify into an array of lively biochemical precursors. That is to say, a revolutionary organic procreative spontaneity has become its inherent essence. A novel ecosmos thus appears to be “pregnant with life” as the Nobel chemist Christian de Duve famously said.

The copious section includes proceedings for international conferences on this field of study, which has converged upon the term Astrobiology. As this work progressed, it rooted deeply into pre-biological phases which similarly exhibited a tendency to self-arrange into suitable formulations for life’s evolution to come. In regard the further field of Astrochemistry arose.

2020 Early quantified signs that dark, cold outer space can yet contain an array of precursor biochemicals came in the 1980s. Into the 21st century, by way of satellites, spectroscopy, 3D graphic analytics, computational advancesand more, many increasingly complex biomolecules suitable for a life’s further evolution were being found. By 2020, a fecund materiality seems to be “pregnant” with an emergent, quickening development, as Nobel chemist Christian De Duve famously remarked. Here is another way that an actual organic ecomos is newly known to be suffused with all manner of biological fertility.

Cataldo, Franco, et al. Petroleum, Coal and Other Organics in Space. arXiv:2005.01162.
Cleland, Carol. The Quest for a Universal Theory of Life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Frank, Adam, et al. The Anthropocene Generalized: Evolution of Exo-Civilizations and Their Planetary Feedback. Astrobiology. 18/3, 2018.
Gomez de Castro, Ana. Is Life an Unavoidable Consequence of the Formation of the Universe? Investigating the Formation of Bio-Precursors and the Signature of Earth-Like Living Forms. Frontiers of Astronomy and Space Science. August, 2018.
Koksal, Elif, et al. Spontaneous Formation of Prebiotic Compartment Colonies on Hadean Earth and Pre-Noachian Mars. ChemSystemsChem. 4/3, 2022.
Kolb, Vera, ed. Handbook of Astrobiology. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2019.
McGuire, Brett. 2021 Census of Interstellar, Circumstellar, Extragalactic Protoplanetary Disk, and Exoplanetary Molecules. arXiv:2109.13848.

Meadows, Victoria, et al, eds. Planetary Astrobiology. Tempe: University of Arizona Press, 2020.
Mendoza,, Edgar, et al. Interrelations between Astrochemistry and Galactic Dynamics. Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences. May, 2021.
Navrotsky, Alexandra and Kristina Lilova. Materials of the Universe: The Final Chemical Frontier. ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. 5/8, 2021.
Oberg, Karen and Edwin Bergin. Astrochemistry and Compositions of Planetary Systems. Physics Reports. October, 2020.
Puzzarini, Cristina and Vincenzo Barone. A Never-Ending Story in the Sky: The Secrets of Chemical Evolution. Physics of Life Reviews. July 5, 2019.
Yamagishi, Akihiko, et al. Astrobiology: From the Origins of Life to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Singapore: Springer, 2019.

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H. Stellar Planetary Systems: A Stochastic Profusion of Galaxies, Solar Orrerys, and Habitable Zones

As a starter, web reference sites can be viewed at NASA Kepler Satellite, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and many other Google sites, along with Exoplanet encyclopedias, some listed here, for a wealth of information. By virtue of space and Earth telescope searches, along with instrumental and computational analysis, into the 2010s a radically novel universe is being realized that appears to be filled with as many orbital planets as there are sunny stars. In regard, this fecund ecomos seems to have an innate propensity to form and evolve solar arrays and exoworlds of every possible variety. It is then often predicted that bio-friendly Earth analogs in stellar and galactic habitable zones will soon be found.

While this worldwide mission continues apace, since circa 2015 research interests have moved on to learning how to observe and quantify candidate metallicity, continental mantles, liquid and gaseous atmospheres, moons, host star systems (many binary), mobile rocky worlds, Super-Earths, mini-Neptunes, gas giants and so on. Multi-member global teams are in pursuit of lively “biosignatures” (search here and arXiv) via bio/chemical spectography. Astro2020, ALMA 2030, and other large projects intend to access degrees of relative habitability from microbial to complex life forms and onto technical civilizations. So one might even coin a phrase as A Cosmic Census for such heavenly neighborhoods.

2020: This large section with 170+ entries reports and documents a most significant ecosmological revolution of our Earthomo century. As hinted in the 1980s, first verified in 1995, today after an intense, multifaceted worldwide effort, it is robustly evident that planetary systems in solar and galactic habitable zones are a common, distinctive occurrence across a conducive ecosmos. A previously barren, hostilty is being newly filled with maybe some quintillion near and far objects of every possible variety.

Into the later 2010s, the collaborative astronomical community, aided new telescopes, instrumental techniques, computational analysis and more, are commencing on decadal projects to take a near and farther ecosmic census. An emphasis is tuned toward finding Earth-like analog worlds whence a key approach is to discern atmospheric “biosignatures” which could imply a favorable, lively environment. And how special are we cooperative seekers already to be able to embark on an outward mission of spatial and temporal futurity.

Boyle, Rebecca. Astronomers Reimagine the Making of the Planets. Quanta. June 6, 2022.
Burkhardt, Christoph. Planetary Genealogy. arXiv:2203.02203.
Canup, Robin and Philip Christensen, Co-Chairs. Origins, Worlds and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 2022.
Drazkowska, Joanna, et al. Planet Formation in the Era of ALMA and Kepler: From Peebles to Exoplanets. arXiv:2203.09759.
Cirkovic, Milan. The Great Silence: Science and Philosophy of Fermi’s Paradox. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Frank, Adam, et al. Earth as a Hybrid Planet: The Anthropocene in an Evolutionary Astrobiological Context. Anthropocene. August, 2017.

Gilbert, Gregory and Daniel Fabrycky. An Information Theoretic Framework for Exoplanetary System Architectures. arXiv:2003.11098.
Madhusudan, Nikku, ed. ExoFrontiers: Big Questions in Exoplanetary Science. Online:IOP Science Books, 2022.
Mishra, Lokesh, et al. A Framework for the Architecture of Exoplanetary Systems. arXiv:2301.02374.
Secco, Luigi, et al. Habitability of Local, Galactic and Cosmological Scales. arXiv:1912:01569.
Smith, Howard A. The End of Copernican Mediocrity. Zoe Imfeld and Andreas Losch, eds. Our Common Cosmos. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Raymond, Sean and Alessandro Morbidelli. Planet Formation: Key Mechanisms and Global Models. arXiv:2002.05756.
Sandford, Emily, et al. On Planetary Systems as Ordered Sequences. arXiv:2105.09966.

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I. Our EarthMost Distinction: A Rarest Planetary Confluence of Life in Person Favorable Conditions

We have reached an especial Natural Genesis section which can report and documentan increasing apparent but unknown 21st century radical realization. It has long been thought that due to the vast multitudes of galaxies, stars and now orbital planets ought to contain myriad life-bearing worlds. But as Earthumanity learns on her/his own, by 2022 it is found that a biosphere to noosphere evolution process need pass through many check points (see below) to reach this moment. In novel regard, our home Earth might well be the fittest, optimum candidate.

For a title citation, we propose to expand “Anthropic principle” about cosmic parameters that have precise values so to allow life and people to exist (Chap. III. G). An “Earthropic principle” could denote the unexpected discovery that amongst an infinity of stochastic bioworlds our special planet merits a rarest temporal and spatial significance. We continue on with some October 2022 musings (cutting it much to close).

Super Earth Nova Some 13.8 billion years on, our collective, aware observance and accumulated knowledge repository, so it may seem, could be what life’s evolutionary developmental gestation in a solar incubator needs to retrospectfully affirm both our “geonate” success, and possibly the whole ecosmic procreation. A vital point may then be that an informed realization requires our own (autocatalytic) personal and planetary initiative. We broach such glimpses so to wonder what awesome vistas might be in our midst so to reveal a peaceable future.

Here is broad sample of recent findings across the 140 section entries. It is followed by a long tabulation of just how problematic it has been

Ambrifi, Alessandro, et al. The Impact of AGN Outflows on the Surface Habitability of Terrestrial Planets in the Milky Way. arXiv:2203.00929.
Anand, Rajagopal. Orbital Properties and Implications for the Initiation of Plate Tectonics and Planetary Habitability. arXiv:2202.10719.
Ballmer, Maxim and Lena Noack. The Diversity of Exoplanets: From Interior Dynamics to Surface Expressions. arXiv:2108.08385.
Canup, Robin, et al. Origin of the Moon. arXiv:2103.02015.
Chopra, Aditya and Charles Lineweaver. The Case for a Gaian Bottleneck: The Biology of Habitability. International Journal of Astrobiology. 16/1, 2016.

Erdmann, Weronika, et al. How the Geomagnetic Field Influences Life on Earth. Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. 51/231, 2021.
Foley, Bradford and Peter Driscoli. Whole Planet Coupling Between Climate, Mantle, and Core. arXiv: 1711.06801.
Frank, Adam. Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth. New York: Norton, 2019.
Hall, Shannon. Summer Solstice Mystery: Does the Earth’s Tilt Hold the Secret to Life? New York Times. June 21, 2018.
Haqq-Misra, Jacob. Does the Evolution of Complex Life Depend on the Stellar Spectral Energy Distribution? arXiv:1905.07343.

Horner, Jonathan, et al. The Influence of Jupiter, Mars and Venus on Earth’s Orbital Evolution. arXiv:1708.03448.
Kopparapu,, Ravi, et al. Characterizing Exoplanet Habitability. Meadows, Victoria, et al, eds. Planetary Astrobiology. Tempe: University of Arizona Press, 2020.
Lingam, Manasvi. Implications of Abiotic Oxygen Buildup for Earth-like Complex Life. arXiv:2002.03248.
Martin, Rebecca and Mario Livio. Asteroids and Life: How Special is the Solar System?. arXiv:2202.01352.
McIntyre, Sarah, et al. Planetary Magnetism as a Parameter in Exoplanet Habitability. arXiv:1903.03123.
O'Callaghan, Jonathan. A Solution to the Faint-Sun Paradox Reveals a Narrow Window for Life. Quanta Magazine. January 27, 2022.

Olson, Stephanie, et al. The Effect of Ocean Salinity on Climate and its Implications for Earth’s Habitability. arXiv:2205.06785.
Provenzale, Murante, et al. Climate Bistability of Earth-like Planets. arXiv:1912.05392.
Raymond, Sean, et al. Solar System Formation in the Context of Extrasolar Planets. Meadows, Victoria, et al, eds. Planetary Astrobiology. Tempe: University of Arizona Press, 2020.
Schwieterman, Edward, et al. A Limited Habitable Zone for Complex Life. arXiv:1902.04720.
Secco, Luigi, et al. Habitability of Local, Galactic and Cosmological Scales. arXiv:1912:01569.

Smith, Howard A. The End of Copernican Mediocrity. Zoe Imfeld and Andreas Losch, eds. Our Common Cosmos. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Synder-Beattie, Andrew, et al. The Timing of Evolutionary Transitions Suggests Intelligent Life is Rare. Astrobiology. November, 2020.
Wade, Jon, et al. Temporal Variation of Planetary Iron as a Driver of Evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118/51, 2021.
Way, M. J.. et al. Large-scale Volcanism and the Heat Death of Terrestrial Worlds. arXiv:2204.12475.
Webb, Stephen. If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens-- Where is Everybody? New York: Springer, 2015.

Benign G-Type Star Our sun has been on relatively good behavior for billions of years. While M red dwarfs make up some 80% of galactic stars, this preferred solar type and temperature range is more conducive for life and evolution.

Multiple Suns are Common A majority of stellar objects are found to occur in vicarious double pairings or triple combinations. Binary star regimes in constant motion are considered to be hostile, highly variable environs.

Stellar Clusters in Galaxies Another usual condition is a tendency for stars to cluster together in fluid galactic groupings, which makes suns with orbital planets harder to form and maintain. Our star is not in a crowded area.

Stable Solar System Our own warm sun with an array of eight distinct worlds has experienced a rare long-term stability. A ninth outer planet or more is seen as disruptive. Most exosolar arrays found so far exhibit all manner of chaotic instabilities.

Unique Orbital Geometries For another anomaly, our familiar orrery of worlds all lie in the same plane, with mostly well spaced, circular orbits. A Bohr atom type swarm of planets every which way, often close in, is more prevalent.

Solar Habitable Zone Precious Earth resides in a relatively benign middle location from the sun between fried too near and frozen far out. So situated, its daily rotation and 365 day annual orbit are very conducive.

Galactic Habitable Zone The solar system is located half way from a prohibitive center and too far outer bands. By virtue, beneficial metallicities can occur in the sun and for planetary accretions.

Jupiter’s Journeys This orderly milieu is due to past movements of the gas giant Jupiter in toward the sun and back again. This is known as a “grand tack,” which served to remove a usual inner crush of rocky worlds, leaving only Mercury.

Rare Ratio of Land and Water Among thousands of exoworlds found so far, Earth has a unique 30 – 70 % division of dry land and ocean over a long time. A more usual state, e.g. Mars and Venus, and through the galaxy, is a default to all arid, wet/icy, or gaseous.

Plate Tectonics Still another rarity is the past movement and contact of continental land masses over many millions of years. Their geological and climatic dynamics are seen to foster evolutionary development, which a stationary mantle would not do.

A Timely Oxygenated Atmosphere Earth life’s embryonic biosphere was able to achieve at an early age (Gaian bottleneck) a stable optimum of a 21% oxygen and 78% nitrogen balance. Below 15% or above 25% oxygen would starve or burn environments and organisms.

Asteroid Impact Rates By many paleo-studies, it has been found that Earth sustained a tolerable degree of asteroid hits, while the more usual rain of many more collisions which would be catastrophic to life and intelligence able to learn all this.

An Ideal Moon However it happened, Earth has had a largish moon in just the right place for a long duration. Its presence then causes moderate tidal flows and basins to foster stromatolites and cyanobacteria at life’s origins, go onto mediate weather, light up a dark night for hominins, and more favors.

A Good Axial Tilt for Seasons Earth’s polar axis goes through a 23.5 degree swing each year, aka obliquity, which causes vital seasonal variations. While a 10 to 50 degree range may harbor life, a spring, summer, autumn, winter cycle seems well suited.

A Geomagnetic Field 2021 findings imply that a relatively steady, stable strength is a vital necessity from life’s origin and throughout its developmental emergence.

Arboreal Tree Height As evident on Earth, life’s evolution was fostered by the right amount of ground water so that fertile forests could grow to an optimal size.

Planetary Magnetism Earth has maintained liquid surface water and an airy atmosphere over eons aided by a strong magnetic dipole moment. Other planets such as Venus and Mars do not have this vital feature.

Stellar Spectral Energy Radiance As a sun shines, it must do so at an appropriate rate over a long time span so that life on a habitable, orbital world can evolve from simple to complex entities like us.

Active Galactic Nuclei Their energetic emission in the Milky Way is another factor which can influence living, evolutionary systems

Volcanic Activity A vicarious degree of eruptions from molten global interiors can life’s chances to appear, survive and evolve. (May 2022)

Ocean Salinity It appears that the salt levels of watery expanses are beneficial, while higher, lower or changing amounts can inhibit. (May 2022)

Variable Flows of Cometary Chemicals It is newly found that while comets can bath the planet with biomaterials, their timings and amounts can occur on a stochastic basis. (September 2023)

Paleoclimate Effects from Passing Stars Interstellar movements may brush close enough to have an atmospheric influence. (February 2024)


2020: With regard to this incredible significance, we propose an EarthMost identity so to properly name and represent our possibly fittest, optimum home. As a Pedia progeny now may embark on her/his open frontier of evolitionary continuance, we are aware of how rudimentary our current understandings must be. But in this geonatal moment, when a decisive self-selection between end or begin, kinder or cinder, must be made, this august finding could bring a vital incentive. For an example so far, we suggest works by Marina Alberti and David Wallace-Wells.


2020 - 2023 References:

Boyle, Rebecca. Astronomers Reimagine the Making of the Planets. Quanta. June 6, 2022.
Burkhardt, Christoph. Planetary Genealogy. arXiv:2203.02203.
Canup, Robin and Philip Christensen, Co-Chairs. Origins, Worlds and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 2022.
Drazkowska, Joanna, et al. Planet Formation in the Era of ALMA and Kepler: From Peebles to Exoplanets. arXiv:2203.09759.
Cirkovic, Milan. The Great Silence: Science and Philosophy of Fermi’s Paradox. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Frank, Adam, et al. Earth as a Hybrid Planet: The Anthropocene in an Evolutionary Astrobiological Context. Anthropocene. August, 2017.
Gilbert, Gregory and Daniel Fabrycky. An Information Theoretic Framework for Exoplanetary System Architectures. arXiv:2003.11098.

Madhusudan, Nikku, ed. ExoFrontiers: Big Questions in Exoplanetary Science. Online:IOP Science Books, 2022.
Mishra, Lokesh, et al. A Framework for the Architecture of Exoplanetary Systems. arXiv:2301.02374.
Secco, Luigi, et al. Habitability of Local, Galactic and Cosmological Scales. arXiv:1912:01569.
Smith, Howard A. The End of Copernican Mediocrity. Zoe Imfeld and Andreas Losch, eds. Our Common Cosmos. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.
Raymond, Sean and Alessandro Morbidelli. Planet Formation: Key Mechanisms and Global Models. arXiv:2002.05756.
Sandford, Emily, et al. On Planetary Systems as Ordered Sequences. arXiv:2105.09966.

2023:

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