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A Sourcebook for the Worldwide Discovery of a Creative Organic Universe
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III. Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

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

Impey, Chris. The New Habitable Zones. Sky & Telescope. October, 2009. Life, especially its microbial form, appears hardier every day. The latest research on such “extremophiles” finds bacteria to exist in the most unexpected ranges of temperature, pressure, and chemical environments. Add the newly perceived propensity for all sorts of stellar objects to proliferate planets and the orbital and celestial spacescapes conducive to life and its evolution becomes much expanded. A further consequence accrues with regard to what kind of universe we find ourselves. Rather than an accidental material machine, the cosmos seems more and more to possess an organic, quickening essence of which its human phenomenon can achieve an intended sentient witness. (See also Impey's 2007 book The Living Cosmos.)

The possibility of alien microbes may not quicken the pulse of someone waiting for a message from ET, but clearly we’re poised for a new step in the Copernican Revolution: the demonstration that we live in a biological universe. (25)

Impey, Chris, ed. Talking About Life: Conservations on Astrobiology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Due October, interviews with the scientists and writers listed below, about the latest lights on cosmic life, in these five areas: Introduction, Earth, Solar System, Exoplanets, and Frontiers.

Timothy Ferris, Iris Fry, Steven Dick, Ann Druyan, Pinky Nelson, Neil Tyson, Steve Benner, William Bains, Roger Buick, Lynn Rothschild, John Baross, Joe Kirschvink, Andrew Knoll, Simon Conway Morris, Roger Hanlon, Lori Marino, Chris McKay, David Grinspoon, Jonathan Lunine, Carolyn Porco, Laurie Leshin, Guy Consolmagno, Peter Smith, Alan Boss, Geoff Marcy, Debra Fischer, Sara Seager, David Charbonneau, Vikki Meadows, Jill Tarter, Seth Shostak, Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, Paul Davies, Martin Rees, Ben Bova, Jennifer Michael Hecht.

Ingold, Tim. Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought. Ethnos. 71\1, 2006. In this Stockholm Museum of Ethnography journal, the University of Aberdeen anthropologist argues for a living, sensate, relational nature and cosmos, now to be appreciated as a continuous birthing. An organism in this web of life “…is reconfigured as an outward expression of an inner design.” So a fundamental change is merited in how we regard our abiding cosmos before a more life-friendly creation can flourish.

Animacy, then, is not a property of persons imaginatively projected onto the things with which they perceive themselves to be surrounded. Rather it is the dynamic, transformative potential of the entire field of relations within which beings of all kinds, more or less person-like or thing-like, continually and reciprocally bring one another into existence. The animacy of the lifeworld, in short, is not the result of an infusion of spirit into substance, or of agency into materiality, but is rather ontologically prior to their differentiation. (10)

Ivanitskii, Genrikh, R. 21st Century: What is Life from the Perspective of Physics? Physics-Uspekhi. 180/4, 2010. A senior Russian Academy of Sciences biophysicist concludes that the past several decades of research have increasingly removed all boundaries between animate and so-called inorganic material nature. In Table 1 noted below, these traits are listed for Life in one column: ordered hierarchical structure, open systems, response to stimuli, store information, develop more complexity, propagate, self-regulate and regenerate, metabolize, exhibit taxis, and depart from equilibrium. “Nonliving Matter” in the other column is then found to similarly possess each of these qualities. For Russian roots, the author evokes the biosphere and noosphere of Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945), whereupon “living matter” progressively manifests into mind and reason. A wide world example of how an organic cosmos is now readily admissible, worth several quotes, if we can just allow its perception.

Abstract. The evolution of the biophysical paradigm over 65 years since the publication in 1944 of Erwin Schrodinger's What is Life? The Physical Aspects of the Living Cell is reviewed. Based on the advances in molecular genetics, it is argued that all the features characteristic of living systems can also be found in nonliving ones. Ten paradoxes in logic and physics are analyzed that allow defining life in terms of a spatial-temporal hierarchy of structures and combinatory probabilistic logic. From the perspective of physics, life can be defined as resulting from a game involving interactions of matter one part of which acquires the ability to remember the success (or failure) probabilities from the previous rounds of the game, thereby increasing its chances for further survival in the next round. This part of matter is currently called living matter. (327)

It is difficult to offer a substantive definition of living matter. Many textbooks list a number of traits supposed to be characteristic of living organisms, but on closer examination they prove to be equally inherent in objects regarded as non-living. Table 1 (Characteristics of Living and Nonliving Matter) illustrates such a comparison. It exposes the futility of any attempt to define a single universal evidence of life. In other words, living systems do not possess properties not found in various nonliving objects. (329-330)

Conclusion. Life constitutes an integrated system (biosphere) having memory and capable of directional motion, self-propagation, metabolism, regulated energy flux, and reproduction. Life from the point of view of physics can be briefly described as a result of a game process, an interplay between part of the system and its environment. During the game, this part acquired an ability to remember the probabilities of gains and losses in previous rounds, which gave it a chance to exist in the following ones. (353)

The following epitaph on the tombstone of certain deleted species would be appropriate: “They were impenetrable to new ideas and could not withstand changes in their environment.” The epitaph on another tombstone would read: “They did not learn to remember nor did they strive for integration because they behaved chaotically.” (353)

Jolley, Craig and Trevor Douglas. A Network Theoretical Approach to Understanding Interstellar Chemistry. Astrophysical Journal. 722/1921, 2010. From the Montana State University, Biogeocatalysis Research Center, an exercise about how even a celestial medium actually filled with complex organic molecules can exhibit the same network geometry as everywhere else. In regard then, one might say that both interstellar and intercellular phases of node and link connectivity are quite identical, as they spring from the same cosmic genetic code.

Kauffman, Stuart. At Home in the Universe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. A popular introduction to Kauffman’s innovative complex systems theories which make a prime contribution to this field. Since their autocatalytic dynamics equally apply to the human phase, by the implications of this perspective people are active members of a spontaneously self-organizing cosmos.

If we, and past eons of scholars, have not begun to understand the power of self-organization as a source of order, neither did Darwin. The order that emerges in enormous, randomly assembled, interlinked networks of binary variables is almost certainly merely the harbinger of similar emergent order in whole varieties of complex systems. We may be finding new foundations for the order that graces the living world. If so, what a change in our view of life and our place must await us. Selection is not the sole source of order after all. Order vast, order ordained, order for free. We may be at home in the universe in ways we have hardly begun to comprehend. (92)

Kauffman, Stuart, et al. Propagating Organization: An Enquiry. Biology & Philosophy. 23/1, 2008. Six scientists engaged in what could be termed “systems biophysics” wrestle with how semiotic information works to impel energized matter into states of increasing, constrained order in a biotic cosmos.

Kondepudi, Dilip, et al. End-Directed Evolution and the Emergence of Energy-Seeking Behavior in a Complex System. Physical Review E. 91/050902, 2016. We note this technical paper by DK, Wake Forest University, with Bruce Kay and James Dixon, University of Connecticut, because it quantifies an inherently fertile, life-breeding, self-developing physical cosmos.

Self-organization in a voltage-driven nonequilibrium system, consisting of conducting beads immersed in a viscous medium, gives rise to a dynamic tree structure that exhibits wormlike motion. The complex motion of the beads driven by the applied field, the dipole-dipole interaction between the beads and the hydrodynamic flow of the viscous medium, results in a time evolution of the tree structure towards states of lower resistance or higher dissipation and thus higher rates of entropy production. Thus emerges a remarkably organismlike energy-seeking behavior. The dynamic tree structure draws the energy needed to form and maintain its structure, moves to positions at which it receives more energy, and avoids conditions that lower available energy. The emergence of energy-seeking behavior in a nonliving complex system that is extremely simple in its construct is unexpected. Along with the property of self-healing, this system, in a rudimentary way, exhibits properties that are analogous to those we observe in living organisms. Thermodynamically, the observed diverse behavior can be characterized as end-directed evolution to states of higher rates of entropy production. (Abstract)

Kulikov, Vladislav, et al. Spontaneous Assembly of an Organic-Inorganic Nucleic Acid Z-DNA Double Helix Structure. Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 56/4, 2017. If one may translate this technical contribution by a nine member team based at coauthor Leroy Cronin’s University of Glasgow chemistry laboratory, its content strongly implies an abiding chemical nature with a fertile biological essence. Over cosmic and Earthly evolution, complex biochemicals and genetic nucleotide molecules innately form on their own due to endemic energies and material qualities. A note on Cronin’s website is also appended to further qualify. An Organic, Animate, Conducive Universe this gains a proven validity, and now awaits our phenomenal human recognition and continuance.

Herein, we report a hybrid polyoxometalate organic–inorganic compound, Na2[(HGMP)2Mo5O15]⋅7 H2O (1; where GMP=guanosine monophosphate), which spontaneously assembles into a structure with dimensions that are strikingly similar to those of the naturally occurring left-handed Z-form of DNA. The helical parameters in the crystal structure of the new compound, such as rise per turn and helical twist per dimer, are nearly identical to this DNA conformation, allowing a close comparison of the two structures. Solution circular dichroism studies show that compound 1 also forms extended secondary structures in solution. Gel electrophoresis studies demonstrate the formation of non-covalent adducts with natural plasmids. Thus we show a route by which simple hybrid inorganic–organic monomers, such as compound 1, can spontaneously assemble into a double helix without the need for a covalently connected linear sequence of nucleic acid base pairs. (Abstract)

Genetic material in the form of DNA and RNA is essential for life and evolution, but how did it first arise? This is a big mystery and poses a classic ‘chicken and egg’ conundrum: what type of molecule could have determined the sequence of the very molecule in which sequence is encoded? Researchers in the Cronin Group have reported an organic-inorganic compound whose structure closely resembles the naturally occurring Z-form of DNA which forms simply by mixing molybdate with GMP at low pH. It is hoped that the structure could open new avenues in the exploration of the transition between biologically inert matter and living systems. (http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/cronin)

Lambert, Jean-Francois and Maguy Jaber. Minerals and Origins of Life. Life. Online, 2018. Sorbonne Universite and Institut Universitaire de France materials scientists explain and post this special open issue about realizations that nature’s cosmic materiality seems to be an inherently suitable substrate for the occasion and rise of living systems. See, e.g., How do Nucleotides Adsorb onto Clays? and especially The Paleomineralogy of the Hadean Eon (Morrison, Runyon and R. Hazen herein).

When life arose on our planet, a complex mineral world was already present and certainly interacted with the first biomolecules. How it channeled chemical evolution has been the subject of much speculation; specific roles for minerals have been invoked for the emergence of the three main distinguishing features of life: Information storage, metabolism, and compartmentalization. Mineral surfaces may have aided selectivity in adsorption and/or polymerization, thus forming a subset in the space of possible proteins and nucleic acids. A lot remains to be understood concerning the relevant molecular surfaces and their interactions with biomolecules.

As regards metabolic activity, mineral surfaces are well-known as catalysts, but they can act as reaction media offering thermochemical conditions and allow macroscopic gradients and cyclical variations to produce the molecular-level imbalances characteristic of life. This includes chemical energy in the form of molecular-scale concentration gradients, and the appearance of proto-metabolic cycles including reactions with mineral surfaces. Minerals may also have played a role in compartmentalization, to offset dilutions that would destroy emerging prebiotic systems. (Issue proposal excerpts)

Lambert, Neill, et al. Quantum Biology. Nature Physics. 9/1, 2013. As life is being found to root ever into material depths and evolutionary time, RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Japan, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, National Taiwan University, and University of Michigan biophysicists note the many ways that organic phenomena such as photosynthesis, magnetoreception, olfaction, enzyme catalysis, and so on can be traced to and seen as a signature of fertile quantum foundations.

Before the twentieth century, biology and physics rarely crossed paths. Biological systems were often seen as too complex to be penetrable with mathematical methods. After all, how could a set of differential equations or physical principles shed light on something as complex as a living being? In the early twentieth century, with the advent of more powerful microscopes and techniques, researchers began to delve more deeply into possible physical and mathematical descriptions of microscopic biological systems1. Some famous examples (among many) include Turing patterns and morphogenesis, and Schrödinger’s lecture series and book ‘What is Life?,’ in which he predicted several of the functional features of DNA. The pace of progress in this field is now rapid, and many branches of physics and mathematics have found applications in biology; from the statistical methods used in bioinformatics, to the mechanical and factory-like properties observed at the microscale within cells. (10)

Lanza, Robert. Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe. New York: BenBella Books, 2009. A book noted as another sign of a growing cosmic reconception in terms of animate, risen, mindful vitality. But alas, it is one person’s well intentioned effort based on some seven claims drawn from a take of quantum physics sans much evidence, at best based on J. A. Wheeler’s vision that sentient observers are necessary to bring physical matter into overt reality.

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