13. WHAT IS LIFE?
Dr Adrian Klein and Dr Robert Neil Boyd PhD.

Introductory remarks
RN Boyd Ph. D

What is called Life is ultimately involved with the SubQuantum entities, and with coherent soliton-like organizations of SQ entities, which comprise the "soul" or the "Actual Consciousness" of the physical entity, which coherent aether-soliton (Soul) continues to exist, even without any direct association with a physical form.

So, in manner of speaking, biological Life is correlated with the inhabiting of that biological form by a Soul, which habitation/attachment represents the present status of the coherent aether-soliton which is the Actual Consciousness, as associated with a physical form, or not.

There is nothing which does not have some manner of Consciousness, granted that we admit that the infinitesimal "Bhutatmas" are the smallest unit of Consciousness, as ascribed to them by the Vedas. Then since there is nothing which is not composed from Bhutatmas, technically speaking, there is nothing which is not Alive. Since even individual Bhutatmas have unique experiences, as they can cross infinite distances, at up to infinite velocities, encountering unique conditions all during their travels, experiences unique to each Bhutatma. Since Souls are apparently composed of coherent assemblages of informationally unique Bhutatmas, then every Soul is Unique.

What is really at issue, is the mystery of Biological Life, as opposed to the other forms of Life. The common assumption is that unless the thing is biologically alive, it must be "inert". This concept is disastrously wrong and has made for centuries of many different kinds of sociological problems, all associated with the assumed and mistaken concept that "living" can only be due to some sort of (assumed and undefined) chemical interactions, which eventually result in the thing "moving" and etc.

This is rather like the present unfortunate and drastically mistaken idea that the "meat and chemicals" which comprise biological entities are inert sort of things, which inert stuff "somehow manages" to eventually "self-organize"(?) to produce a Brain, with the added and unquestioned assumption that a brain is absolutely required for there to be any manner of Consciousness, and thinking and memory and so on. We have strongly and physically proved that all such concepts are wrong.

What is the point at which the Life-Force (aether-gas soliton-consciousness) becomes directly (as opposed to indirectly) involved with the given biological entity? This question is presently lacking any sufficient experimental research as to provide any definitive answer for it. Actual researches into questions such as, "What is Life, actually?", and, "How does it work?" are prominently and erroneously lacking, while strangely, at the same time, every day, vast research funding goes into investigations of weapons systems and various ways to kill things and people. (Something is obviously politically and psychologically wrong here.)

Clearly, there is a direct correspondence between Consciousness and "Livingness", which has something to do with the type of SQ soliton-assembly (Type of Soul) which becomes involved with, or detached from, the given biological entity, and the points in time, and the conditions under which, these two developmental processes occur. Obviously, there are many many different kinds of Living Biological entities, other than human beings, so the idea that there are many different kinds of souls, makes perfect sense. Additive informational complexity and additional information processing capabilities at the Soul-level, allow for increased complexities of awarenesses, and correspondingly, these Souls can eventually become associated with increasingly complex physical forms. From this, we think that there are many many different kinds of Souls, not just human ones.

So in a manner of speaking, there is a kind of evolution, but it is evolution of the Soul, NOT anything to do with any "evolution" of the physical vehicle as used by the Soul. The physical vehicle itself is produced by information-driven processes which are inherent to the Cosmic Harmony, in company with the individual Unique Soul which is to inhabit the vehicle.

The physical vehicle can easily arise "ab initio" through information-driven negentropic processes, with no mistakenly chemically-based or chemically-originated "evolutionary processes" involved, except as the chemical system must eventually reflect the informational organizations which are externally imposed on the system by the Cosmic Harmony, by way of flows of information-carrying infinitesimals. [See: http://www.rialian.com/rnboyd/GarFried06-01.doc]

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In our previous installments, we tried to offer our readers a brief but comprehensive understanding of some fundamentals of the new physics, as a prerequisite for addressing, in these new lights, progressively more complex domains, such as Life, Brain and Consciousness. Let's start our next major step of investigating these fascinating realms, by taking a closer look at some of the basic considerations regarding Life and living systems, in their most fundamental essence.

Single cell prokaryotes (such as fossilized cyanobacteria) have been traced back (theoretically) to the most "remote periods" of the cosmic formation of our planet, some four billion years ago, according to commonly accepted theory. Many related scientific theories have been put forth over the years, in a ceaseless attempt to explain these early abiogenetic (non-biological) pathways, which processes might possibly (theoretically) lead to the development of the first "living chemical assembly" by [biopoetic] evolutions from some supposedly self-replicating, but "nonliving" molecules.

Haldane's and Oparin's "primordial soup theory" has inspired various biochemical speculations, as related to some sort of "chemically reducing atmosphere", which, during the "early cosmological times" we are exploring, was supposed to result in a synthesis of those basic amino acids which are common to all carbon-based Life-forms, as resulting from "random interactions" of supposedly inert molecular complexes, under the "specific and required electrical conditions" which were theoretically proposed as being the physical prerequisites which were required to produce such assumed combinations.

Experimental replications of theoretical conjectures regarding the "early conditions" on Earth - such as the Miller-Urey experiment - proved to be non-conclusive, seen the uncertainty of our knowledge regarding the amount of molecular Oxygen available in the prebiotic ("pre-biological") atmosphere, which, beyond a certain point in time, would have prevented any organic molecules from ever forming, lacking adequate molecular Oxygen required to do so, according to this paradigm.

The idea that there might have been some sort of extraterrestrial origin of the requisite precursor organic compounds (delivery by carbonaceous chondrites or a gravitational attraction of such compounds from the deep of space) brings us nothing valuable, as far as the original BioGenesis (origins of biological Life) is concerned- wherever it may be supposed to have first occurred. Moreover, no such primordial monomer accumulations can give any hint towards decoding the various ways in which such simple organic building blocks might have been able to polymerize into more complex structures, which structures might then interact in exactly the proper and required directions, so as to "magically" eventually result in the synthesis of some sort of "protocell".

Eigen's hypothesis of a "self-replicating hyper-cycle in a prebiotic soup", involving Information storage systems (possibly RNA) able to launch cascade-like enzymatic catalytic processes in a closed loop, with possible byproducts of the ribozyme type, was an important step towards a more accurate conceptual framework for biogenesis.

Further on, Wachtershauser's systems suggest the availability of built-in sources of energy (such as iron sulfides) capable of producing autocatalytic sets of self-replicating, metabolically active entities. Such processes might have been enhanced by radioactive actinides-generated organo-metallic complexes, which might be favored by relevant "early gravitational conditions" as suggested by Z. Adams. (This concept is contradicted, to some extent, by our Continous Creation point of view, where there is almost no such thing as any "early gravitational conditions", since there was never any sort of "Big Bang", nor any other kind of "instantaneous Creation" event. Creation is a local and continual process, and is informationally conformed, locally.) Anyway, no provable concept regarding the origins of life can be conceived, without defining in the first place, the still highly controversial phenomenological essence of, what is Life, which definition has far-reaching taxonomic consequences and vast philosophical implications, as we shall see.

The "conventional" definition of life requires homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, an ability to manipulate the environment, and reproductive capabilities, as prerequisites for biological systems. For example, S. Kaufmann's definition of life refers to "...an autonomous multi-agent system capable of self-reproduction and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle".

More recent views try to establish the minimum requirements for a bio-system to respond ably to internal and external changes, including various regulatory mechanisms which are subordinated to superior positive feedback-triggers (defined as potentials of physical expansion and reproduction capabilities). Such requirements imply a successful alignment must arise, between at least two sets of Information, with each Information set active in different implication layers. Furthermore, the mutation ability requests which are thus imposed on biological replication systems, implies a higher order of Information control, one which must be able to supply local adaptive benefits, as according to higher attractor blueprints. Such benefits are supposed to be supplied to a "...self-perpetuating open system of interlinked organic reactions, isothermally catalyzed by the chemicals", which somehow must be produced by the open system itself.

The most important question that arises is whether such open systems may be fundamentally disconnected from their background inorganic chemistry, and what can we expect to find at the conceptual borderline between inanimate - and "animated" forms of matter?

This topic can be approached at the microscopic level of the viruses, specifically, in terms of viral structures and behaviors. First, let us remember that viral capsides (outer coating, cell walls) are composed of identical protein subunits, which are arranged in helicoidal or icosahedral symmetries. How does the virus become informed, regarding the rotational symmetry rules it must apply, in order to produce the required icosahedral configurations of these 60 identical subunits? Where does this ready-made blueprint come from? How do enveloped viruses use cellular membranes as guiding sites to produce the proper orientations of these assemblies? How are the given receptor cell's chemical sites, which can result in viral reception, recognized as absorption targets by the given viral entity?

Such questions bring into focus the selective folding isoform patterns of the structurally well-defined prion protein, PrPC, which serves as a copper-dependent antioxidant alpha-helicoidal component of the actual cell membrane. Its Information-induced, or modulated, folding patterns are sensitive to transient embedding actions produced by Quantum configurations, which relate such prion protein structures to long-term memory storage functions (e.g., defective PrP synthesis results in experimentally detectable alterations of hippocampal long-term potentiations, Maglio & All).

A next step toward Information-related increase in viral complexity involves virionic nucleocapsid structures, which are extending from a single type of protein to the tens of proteins involved in capsid (cell wall) morphogenesis (shape-creation) events. In non-enveloped viral structures, the resulting capsids perform attachments which are guided to the infected host cells, while in their enveloped variants, glycoprotein spikes overtake the task of a chemotactic search-engine, conferring viral specificity (tropism) according to the surface markers which are supplied by the cell membrane.

The current Baltimore classification of viral nucleic acid structures discriminates RNA versus DNA (single or double-stranded) viral genomes. This taxonomic range has been extended by the recent discovery of an 800 nanometer giant, called the "Mimi virus", which carries about 1260 genes, by means of which this giant virus is actually able to internally synthesize proteins, conferring to this virus, a bacterium-like degree of complexity. Thus a fourth life form, beyond bacteria, archaea and eukaryotic structures has been introduced by the Mimi virus, along with the seven genes which are common to all cellular life. These discoveries have opened the hypothesis that perhaps eukaryotes actually originate in bacteria, by supplying ribosomes "infected" by genetic stuff injected by the virus in the form of a sort of "proto-nucleus" made of DNA.

It is to be emphasized, that the complex genome of the Mimi virus, the only virus detected yet, which appears to be based on both RNA and DNA, inherently contains elements that blur any clear-cut distinctions between life and non-life forms of energy manifestation. In mapping out the genetic sequence of the Mimi virus, French researchers found some 1.2 million pairs of Information storing Boolean units, encoding some 1200 proteogenetic micro-programs. The translation genes which are carried by the Mimi virus defy any need for this particular virus to rely on the protein-engineering abilities of any host cell.

Conventional science meets increasing paradoxes when trying to make clear-cut differentiations between the matter/energy structures which are assembling in life forms versus the structures and requirements of "non-alive" forms. As such investigations become deeper, such attempts to make energy-based distinctions, become increasingly blurred.

A new approach is required for an accurate understanding of the essence of life. This new approach has to transcend current physical limitations and energetic interpretations, shifting the pivotal attention of modern research into the Information fields, which are implied in the origination and patterning of life forms. Several scientific advancements seem to have paved the way for our SubQuantum model's high explanatory potential, in the framework of this novel paradigmatic trend.

How do such simple organic molecules manage to succeed in assembling themselves into a very complex "protocell"?

RNA has the dual capability of both storing Information, and also acting to catalyze chemical reactions. Experimentally produced, replicase RNA, functions both as an Information code, and a catalyst, providing the template on which actual genetic replications are performed. The right self-replicating conditions, for joint and small-activated mono-RNA nucleotide sequences, into longer chains, imply that an original non-random frequency selection must exist, one which increases catalytic speeds and which leads eventually to S.Kaufmann's "collective autocatalytic sets". Such conformal collectivities require that coherent behaviors must be supplied by teleological attractors, which appear to operate along retro-causational vectors (that is, originating from future bio-system informational "blueprints", which are then eventually produced physically).

Such Information streams have been available to reactant protein structures in biological cells, throughout time, in the form of crystalline Information transferences, as has been proved by Kahr's experiments on crystals of potassium hydrogen phthalate (2007). Of course, this complex gene-like Information transference ability, significantly exceeds the similar ability, as supplied by crystal conduction patterns, which process is rapidly overtaking the task of exponentially increasing differentiation/adaptation speeds of various conformal reactions, as displayed by sequentially higher forms of life. Again, the borderline between living and "non-living" systems is becoming increasingly blurred.

Current research programs address the biosystems in terms of a special feedback-coupling interaction, between a coherent biophotonic EM field and biological matter, where the location and activity of matter are under control of this field, while at the same time, the biological form provides boundary conditions for the field. The interference patterns of this fully coherent field involve the Information necessary for implementing preselected cell-regulatory functions. These dynamically changing interference patterns reflect complex space-time interactions are occurring between the organizing fields and the organized energy-driven matter that conforms, by Quantum mediation, to the regulating programs. According to these nonlinear biophysical actions, matter/energy distribution patterns must follow, by imposed entropic guidelines, and Informational modulations, which are acting in a wholistic hierarchical structure of holonomic (holographic) interactions.

The human body's 10^13 cells are generated by 43 successive rounds of cell divisions. The 10^7 dying cells every second have to be instantly replaced by a perfectly equivalent amount of new ones in order to avoid a quick bodily disintegration. This prerequisite implies a far more efficient signalization and inter-cell coordinating connectedness then the one which can be supplied by mere chemical messengers. This signaling process has to run, according to F. Popp's computation, in the superluminal velocity ranges. Such Information transfer systems are the ones operating in Kurakov's "hidden time domain", which corresponds to our infinite velocity SubQuantum Information transferences, exceeding former efficiency values as, e.g., those supplied by mitogenetic radiations.

Nevertheless, unfolded regulatory systems may operate at cellular interconnectedness levels governed by chemistry also, as it is the case for the carcinogen 3,4 benzpyrene, with a strong absorption/emission anomalies in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum which are related to mitogenetic radiations. The superiority of biophotonic regulations, relative to existing molecular dogmas, has recently been proved by A.B. Burlakov's experiments, where biophotonic activities, in the absence of any actions by chemical/genomic activities, have produced obvious changes, at the level of the actual biological life processes.

Similar experimental results, and many far-reaching conclusions deriving from them, are reported by P.P.Gariaev & All, concerning the ways the chromosomal DNA control is implemented, by the already supplied chemical DNA matrices, and by way of of biological wave-functions which are structurally related to holographic system-memories. As Popp has pointed out, in order to implement efficient intercellular electromagnetic couplings, cellular photon emissions must have the qualities of multimodal, multifrequency laser beams, which are similar to those which have been used in Gariaev's experiments. This implies high coherence and harmony requirements, in which malignant processes are suppressed, as proved by the increasing photon counts which are observed during increasing cell densities, as associated with increasing malignant hepatic cell populations. This points to the ultimately deterministic roles that Informational controls and guidances have, in the multiple scales of the various life phenomena, from biochemical to enviro-organismic, with effects that range all the way to interpersonal relations, and to groups of ontologically collective behaviors, on through all the various integration levels.

Bottom-to-top chemically-based biogenesis theories have to be dropped by now, to be replaced by the more accurate Informational Regulation tenets, which apply, without exception, through all scales of manifestation, as all physical manifestations are controlled by Informations provided from outside the given system.

One has only to perceive the various and abundant hints which Nature provides us, to correctly understand the way Nature works.

It's enough to consider that an inanimate crystalline viral structure apparently turns into a living system, only after being placed inside a ready-made biofield which is, in biogenesis processes, an already-existing Informational biofield, as an unavoidable prerequisite. This field has an Informational Essence which is carried around by aetheric fluxes of SubQuantum entities, which are acting as the precursors for more complex morphogenetic fields (an important topic which will be touched in due time).

Living systems are not a prerequisite for Information processing, but a result of it.

Living systems are aiming at nonlinear increases of their personal efficiencies, during the processes of interacting informationally with their particular and associated environmental dynamics.

This fundamental principle will become increasingly high-lightened during our future installments.

2nd January 2009

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