ife and its nature

OUTLINE I. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
I. A 21st century scientific view: What is life? What is living?
II. Proto-life found in particle realm
II. An old, new view: life & intelligence are a quality of the universe
III. The relationship between electromagnetism & living, thinking things
IV. The first second and before: an apparent oneness & its relation to life
VI. The Spirit of Life and the Universe: closing comments
Bibliography

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

The property of life as we know it could not have been realized had it not always been a latent property of the universe. All is energy as matter also is from energy derived. Is energy in the form of the earth and soil which births us, then, life as energy laying wait – as and in matter – to spring alive into the laughter, tears, and thought that is us? The foregoing ancient thread of thought runs back to the Bible in words spoken in every Lent, with a touch of physics added to it ... "Remember, oh man, that dust/energy thou art, and into dust/energy shalt thou return [ ... from dust/energy thou came]." And, did people, thoughts not written down, who before the Bible was writ, feel the same — with the Bible just giving voice to a common belief? As farming societies, from-and-to-dust would have been their natural orientation and observation: life from and to the earth. From the view of physics here: energy–to life–to energy (i.e. organic decay via death releases warm light – i.e. infrared light-heat – energy).

Act V. Scene I.— The graveyard in a churchyard. Hamlet handles skulls

• HAMLET: Son of the former and Nephew to the present King • HORATIO: Friend to Hamlet

Hor. What's that, my lord? Ham. Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i' the earth? Hor. E'en so. Ham. And smelt so? pah !       [Throws down the skull.] Hor. E'en so, my lord. Ham. To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why not imagination trace the noble dust      of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole†? Hor. 'Twere to consider too curiously to consider so. Ham. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty enough, and liklihood to       lead it: to and thus' Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into      dust; the dust is the earth; of the earth we make loam‡; and why of that loam whereto he       was converted might not stop a beer-barrel?       Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,       Might stop a hole to keep the wind away;       O, that that earth which kept the world in awe       Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw! —       But soft! aside. — Here comes the king. †A bung-hole is the anus of a slaughterd cow. ‡Loam is dirt, sand, and silt.

WHAT IS LIFE? WHAT IS ALIVE?

In his book, What is life?, The evolutionist, John Maynard Smith, capsulizing his own and Darwin's work (who embodied the ideas of those before him – sometimes extending into the ideas of those in antiquity) wrote:

How shall we decide if something is alive? ... I suggest that there are two relevant properties: (i) although the forms of living organisms remain constant, the atoms and molecules of which they are composed are constantly changing; in other words, they have 'metabolism.' (ii) The parts of an organism have function ... Darwin's theory can be formulated as follows: Given a population of entities having the properties of multiplication, variation, and heredity ... Multiplication means that one entity can give rise to two, and variation that not all entities are identical. Heredity means that like begets like. ^[A]

And, from a physicist's point-of-view, Edwin Schrφdinger wrote:

What is the characteristic of life? When is a piece of matter said to be alive? When it goes on 'doing something' moving, exchanging materials with its environment, and so forth, and that for a much longer period than we would expect an inanimate piece of matter to 'keep going' under similar circumstances. ^[B]

The above ideas summarize the current and major views held by most (not all) scientists. However, these conditions for life are found in the particle realm as discussed next.

PROTO-LIFE FOUND IN PARTICLE REALM

That the above features are found in the particle world either means those qualifications were not exclusive or that exceptions to it demonstrate that life exists in the dimension of the particle. We call particle aspects of life Proto-life. The term Proto-life does not imply lesser life and it is more likely that Proto-life is superior to biological life: further reading will show that Proto-life designs biological life as even DNA is a so-called material blueprint fixed on an immaterial electromagnetic framework. Electromagnetism is the conductor: so-called material DNA molecules the orchestra. Proto-life has the dual meaning that it is both the archetype of life and the form of life preceding and enabling biological life and on which biological life is modelled. However, biological life seems patterned on Proto-life not in the above six features alone but in over 120 features the physical has features that pre-dated and exist in the biological (click). To begin with, however, the six features introduced by Smith and Schrφdinger are found in the particle domain:
• Virtual metabolism: Electrons are maintained by a force called "virtual photons" (i.e. virtual energy) arising from the vacuum. Protons and neutrons maintained by "virtual weak force" particles. This is virtual metabolism. Without these interactions, there would be no atoms, no stars or planets, and no life.
• Parts with function: An atom has real protons, neutrons, and electrons. It also has real strong, weak, and electromagnetic particles. Atoms contain gravitons, and a host of virtual particles including virtual electrons, photons, strong, weak forces, mesons, three types quark – with each type having three so-called colors – and so on. These parts have functions and not only are these atomic functions but functions relevant to the very existence of the universe: to see this, press (click).
• Exchange material longer than we'd expect with inanimate matter: As particles continually exchange virtual matter and force particles to maintain themselves since they were formed at the beginning of time, using Schrφdinger's qualification would establish that they exhibit life. And exist much longer than biological life. Humans live for 60 years. Particles are virtually eternal as they are billions of years old.
• Heredity: All atoms contain protons, neutrons (except hydrogen), and electrons and are "held together" by the electromagnetic, strong, and weak force, and contain gravity. As the two matter and four force particles are all derived from superforce, the atom is a microcosm of superforce. Superforce is the genetic forbear of the atoms found like cells in every form of matter in the body of the universe. Atoms have hereditary characteristics derived from so-called superforce.
• multiplication: Taking a given crest-to-crest wave length of a particle called "offspring," its ancestral parent wave-length would be to its immediate right and descendent wave immediately to its left. Both it and its descendent would have the features of the "ancestral" wave-length. Wave-lengths of all matter particles multiply themselves, replicate, or reproduce.
• Variation: The difference between a gamma wave with short wave length and radio wave with a length of several miles is that the radio wave is a very old gamma wave. There is variation in wave-length as found in gamma and radio waves – i.e. photons.

AN OLD, NEW VIEW: LIFE IS A QUALITY OF THE UNIVERSE

While the above is true, and would indicate that according to the definitions established by Darwin and others – the particle realm has Proto-life – the position of the existence of life is, within this essay, approached from an entirely different perspective and one perhaps more basic.
The interface between one atom and another is the electron, as is the interface between one molecule and another also the electron. And, the electron generates an electromagnetic field. This field is the force within atoms, molecules – and even biomolecules – which is responsible for all atomic, molecular, and biomolecular activity: and it is biomolecular activity which we commonly attribute to the domain of life.
It is electrons in the outer shell which determine an atom's chemical properties. When atoms or molecules interact, it is due to the electromagnetic field alone. Only the electromagnetic field influences atomic or molecular behavior. In the enzymes which created us from biomolecules and ions, that electromagnetic force is called the Circe effect. In Greek mythology, Circe was an enchantress who detained Odysseus on her island and turned his men into swine. Enzymes, as they utilize the electromagnetic force, play a strategic role in the morphological process via the Circe effect. However, the Circe effect is nothing more and nothing less than the electromagnetic force. And, it is the photon that generates electromagnetism.
In its most bare form, the electromagnetism generated from any given photon is the same as all photons are the same. Considering the set of atoms: hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, and neon, they would have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 electrons respectively. If we had this set of atoms, each being +1 – meaning they needed exactly one electron to become neutral – and we had only one electron, an interesting thing would happen. If that one electron bonded with hydrogen, it would give the former hydrogen ion the properties of hydrogen. If it bonded with helium, it would give the atom the properties of helium. If it bonded with lithium, it would give the atom the properties of lithium. And so on to neon. And so on to Lawrencium with 103 electrons.
Somehow, the electron has an embedded form of knowledge such that it can confer upon any element in the periodic table the properties of that element. However, the significance is greater than just this fact alone for physicists consider ions (including plus or minus atoms) to generate an electromagnetic field comprised of an infinite number of virtual photons: so-called virtual for they are too small and live too briefly to be individually photographed or be individually detected. In essence, then, each of these infinite number of virtual photons has the embedded form of knowledge that we attributed above to the electron: for it is not the electron, per se, that exhibits this property – it is the electron through its representative photon that mediates or carries-out the electron's will.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ELECTROMAGNETISM AND LIVING, THINKING THINGS

Biologists, Molecular Biologists, Organic Chemists, and even Inorganic Chemists, and Physicists usually subscribe to the idea that once we reach the level of organic chemistry, biochemistry, or biology that conditions are operating that are wholly different from the conditions operating on the level of physics or inorganic chemistry. The biomolecule, so it seems the thinking goes, is a different animal, as it were, from the simple subatomic particle. It can contain millions of atoms as in DNA and the interactions are biochemical, not electrostatic as between particles. However, what is similar is that it is the electromagnetic force that is operating on both the level between subatomic particles in atoms and between biomolecules or modules of DNA in living creatures.
Thinking and activities in the nervous system are mediated by the plus and minus ions (NaCl^–, KCl^–, NA⁺, K⁺, Cl^–) moving in and out of the nerve fibres of our brain and nervous system. And, it is the electromagnetic force operating in the nervous system that mediates itself through these particles that carries out thoughts and feelings and makes all movement possible. It is the electromagnetic force that enables life and living, enables thought, feeling, and every human emotion. True, the electromagnetic field generated in a biochemical reaction is much more complex than that of a field generated between a single plus and minus ion – but, somehow, the electromagnetic force appears to exhibit an embedded form of knowledge that becomes readily apparent once it functions as a constituent of an assemblage of atoms such that stars behave as stars, asteroids as asteroids, particles as particles, planets as planets, thought as thought, thinking as thinking, and people as people.
One question that may be raised is, "Why are the lower forms of matter so bound by law and unvarying in behavior?" That issue is discussed in click as being because life and higher forms could not be created on unstable lower forms. Particles are law-bidden for they must be. It is not a fault. It is not indicative of lower powers of existence. Stability and unchangingness serves a purpose.
Somehow, the old Greek idea of gnos, or knowledge being in all things, or the old Zoarastrian belief from which Judeo-Christian emerged with the idea of the Creator being omniscient, omnificiennt, omnibeneficient, omnipotent appears to describe exactly what it is that electromagnetism is. In fact, there would even be more concrete reasons to consider the fact that any photon (i.e. source of electromagnetism) is omniscience. And this applies to the topic of this essay: The nature of life. For life would seem to be a quality of all things (not rocks, but the tiniest forms of physical matter). The following will discuss the idea that E = MC² reduces all matter and forces to one and the same thing. That life and universal intelligence are shared equally and are a quality of the tiniest things of nature: its force and matter particles. This would not be far from the idea of Sir Fred Hoyle of the Royal Academy and also a member of the American Academy of Sciences, who:

Going on to discuss the role of mind and intelligence concludes that the crucial genetic bombardment is ultimately under the guidance of a super intellect operating within the physical universe and manipulating our physical, as well as biological, cosmic environment.

And, this would also give credence to Darwin's letter to Asa Grey at Harvard, found in Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, that: " I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to chance."

THE FIRST SECOND, THE BIG BANG, AND BEFORE: AN APPARENT
ONENESS AND ITS RELATION TO LIFE

The formation of the four forces and two matter particles can be looked upon as a seven sliced inverted pyramid where the first slice is superforce, and then gravity, the strong force, the weak force, electromagnetism, quarks, and leptons. And slices two to seven are all derived from the first and interchangable with each other with the only factor determining which became what being the form that a given particle was in when the temperature in the early universe was quickly dropping after the big bang. Temperatures dropped from 10³² K to 10¹² K between 10^–43 seconds and 10^–12 or within less than one second of the big bang. These particles were changing into one another with those which were gravity at 10^–43 seconds remaining as gravity; those that were strong force particles at 10^–35 seconds remaining as strong force particles, and so on.
While the force and matter particles were interchangable in the early universe, roughly below 10^–35 seconds, it was the photon that ended up producing quarks and leptons (as the electron). Therefore, this section will end stating that the photon produced quarks and leptons that • their nature, • the nature of the periodic table, • the nature of molecules, and • the nature of life and the universe, are all found in photons as sand in the bottom of an hour-glass pours there from the top. However, we recall from the above discussion that forces and matter particles were perfectly interchangable meaning identically energy (E = mc²): any of the other five particles could have been a photon or a photon been any of the other five particles: it was just a matter of chance which became what. For more detail on this era, please go to click.
Going back two sentences, that effect equals cause is nothing more than Aristotle's idea of actuality equalling potentiality as an oak tree emerging from the seed which contains it. And, as photons are identical, life and the universe are possible as these are qualities somehow found in their totality in each photon. Furthermore, that this is a commonly held thought by some of today's thinkers as in the late David Bohm who considered each particle to be a hologram of the universe – similar to the Judeo-Christian idea of God's omnipresence.
The point to take from this section is that the quality of life cannot be disconnected from the source of matter and can only be derived from it. Life and intelligence must be a quality of each force and matter particle. Life must be a quality of everything .

VI. THE SPIRIT OF LIFE AND THE UNIVERSE: CLOSING COMMENTS

What is normally considered to be superforce or superstring and its later forms of force and matter particles may be none other than Spirit. Consider that at its basic dimensions, particles of matter and the forces themselves are not at all material but vibrant forms of energy that conspire together to create all forms of matter and life. And the essentials of life itself – thoughts, feelings, emotions, hopes, dreams – are themselves not matter, but immaterial.
The ancients all spoke of darkness filling the void and the void being filled with light. That really is what happened. In physics, it is known as the radiation era following the big bang when temperatures were upwards of 10¹² K (today it is 3⁰ K). Such a fact would go a long way to describing why nonlocality exists (click), why the universe appears sentient, why it appears to be an organic oneness, why it responds to one law, how it can produce life.
The ancients all believed Spirit lived in each thing: The old American Indian, South American Indian, and African thought Life to dwell in every rock and tree. The Judeo-Christian belief is that the Spirit of God dwells in every person. The ancient Jains of India believed that life was in all things. Of the old Western world, Atkins writes, "Heraclitus of Ephesus took the view that the reason why we can comprehend the universe is that each of us contains the logos."^[C]
From the old Eastern world, the Taoist sage, Lao Tzu said, "I know the way of all things by what is in me." And before Lao Tzu, in the Book of Coming Forth into Day, Lamy writes of Dynastic and pre-Dynastic beliefs in Egypt that, "By the virtue of the divine spark which enlivens him during his existence, the human participates at every moment in the process of becomming conscious, in which the One, the cause of Creation, is engaged."^[D]
The greater portion of humanity for the lion's share of historical time believed in the universality of Spirit. All but the present highly scientific age behave like there is a Greater Being. There are exceptions such as Arthur Peacock, Lindon Eaves, Robert John Russell, Ervin Laszlo, Arvind Sharma, Paul Davies, Ian Barbour, and David Bohm. David Bohm, an associate of Einstein, ironically exiled from the United States in the 50's as it was thought he was communist, wrote that the whole of the universe is "enfolded" in a single and any given particle. The particle is like a hologram of the universe which is still in the mid-point of its evolution.^[E]
In our world, man and nation are at each other's throats in bloody conquest bringing into question the value or even need for a human race. We pursue meaning through materialism, hedonism, the UFO, alien life forms, and the quest to find life on other planets. It would be tragedy if by looking out we fail to look in. Life is a quality of existence as all existence would seem to point to a Supreme Being. A Being so humble He/She finds no need to talk and boast of His/Her Might, Wisdom, Power, and Love. That Life is within all of us. It would be our catastrophe not to find, understand, and glorify that Life. It could perhaps be the world's hope to possess it.

---

Bibliography supplied on request

---

[ Home]