What Is Life?Lesson 31

...Continued


So why does life exist?

The earth is teeming with life. Every millimeter of its surface, even under and in the oceans, and atmosphere is saturated with life. It would be statistically unlikely that of all the planets and their moons surrounding the sun, all the sons in our galaxy, and all the galaxies in the universe, as we know it, only earth contains life!

The notion that we are alone in the universe is not statistically probable. So why does life exist? There are several possibilities:

1. Cosmic accident theory. Life on earth is a cosmic accident; something that a confluence of events, unique to our planet, caused to happen. Life exists nowhere else in the universe.
2. Occasional happenstance theory. Like number 1, above, life is accidental, however it has occurred accidentally in some small number of worlds in the universe. Here we must recognize that small, in terms of the universe, is large in human terms. If 100, or 1000, or 10,000 planets harbor life, that would be very small indeed, in terms of the universe, however large as humans measure. However, if life is accidental, and the number of bodies harboring life is small, we may be the only life that exists in our galaxy. That would be unfortunate indeed, because it could take as many years as there has been life on earth to contact life in another galaxy. We may not be alone, but we may be isolated.
3. Common process theory. Life is common and ordinary in situations where the environment is suitable. It may be that celestial habitats capable of evolving life may be the minority of celestial bodies. But, out of the billions of stars that make up a galaxy, and billions of galaxies that we know of, even if life exists on only 1%, that's a lot by human standards! The odds of bumping into life in this galaxy rise dramatically.
4. The inverted theory. Our understanding is inverted, backwards. Intelligence, minds, predated this universe as we know it. Our universe is in fact existent solely for the purpose of creating a physical, corporeal existence for the mind. In essence, minds existed first and the physical universe came later. In essence, the universe as we know it was created by minds which preceded it. It really doesn't matter, in terms of this theory, whether there is one mind which manifests itself in many bodies and many units of consciousness, or whether each mind is unique.
5. The emergent mind theory. This theory states that mind is a byproduct, also known as an emergent property, of bodies. With this theory, body existed first, brains second and mind cotempers were brave, or third. In this theory, we have to separate the concept of mind and memory. Much is a computer stores memory on a flash drive or a disk, and coded in ones and zeros, and the storage medium can be transported from computer to computer, memory is an artifact resulting from thinking thoughts in the brain. As animals, humans included, may have a rudimentary capability to reach peace thoughts. There is some evidence that, if this is true, humans radiate thoughts at a particular frequency, like a radio station, and may have the ability, under the right circumstances, to retrieve other, typically previous thoughts, on that same frequency.
6. The dualistic theory. Mind and matter, mind and body, existed independently prior to the creation of the universe, or matter, as we know it. Mind, whether singuler with lots of tentacled, or whether independent, may have adapted to the presence of matter. It is even possible that mind uses matter much as humans and chimps use tools. In this sense, the tool, the body, may have come into existence long after the dawn of the mind.
7. The multiverse theory. This theory states that our universe popped into existence with the Big Bang, which at its beginning, was a tiny, hot, dense spot of plasma/energy that exploded, expanding into the known universe. The multiverse theory states that the Big Bang actually happened millions or billions of times. Our universe is but one of these. In each of these universes, the physical laws and mathematical constants may vary. A universe in which we live happens to have the right configuration of natural laws acend mathematical constants to permit life, therefore it evolved here on Earth, and perhaps other planets, where as other universes did not. Perhaps still other universes develop the modes of life or intelligence totally foreign to hours.

Analysis of the six theories.
Here, we take for a moment, a leap of faith. Occam's Razer told us that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

Life emerging on earth as an accident, given that so many things in the universe follow predictable laws, even laws we don't yet understand, the sudden appearance of life as an accident on earth is highly unlikely. Not impossible, just improbable. This, of course, makes option number two even more unlikely. If it's unlikely that life was a mistake and one planet, the probability that the same mistake was made on many planets is very remote.

Option three which states that, in the right environment, life is likely to appear, and that in the billions and billions of stars, the relatively ordinary sun means that, undoubtedly, life is rather common in the universe. Even in our own solar system, life may exist on other worlds. Jupiter, various moons, and other unexplored territories are possible candidates for life. We also must remember that life here on earth is carbon-based. That may or may not be true on other worlds. Silicon is another element with properties very close to those of carbon.

Options four through six take a different approach to looking at mind versus body. Advanced cellular structures, what we call eukariotic cells, for example, which make up our human body are actually believe to be cells that, millions of years ago, captured other organelles, found them useful, and made them permanent residence or parts of the cell structure. This same process could have happened between mind and body. The two developed independently, possibly even indifferent conventional space. The line found that substance we call matter, and began experimenting with it, injecting pieces of itself into the physical existence.

Take a look at life on earth. It began as very simple one celled creatures, e-mail is the multicellular creatures in the seas, crawled out of the sea is to explore the land, and once for some very specific cycles. So these experiments were unsuccessful, and died off -- became extinct. Some of them were successful as life, but insufficient for the needs of the mind. They stayed. We experimented with very small lifeforms, very large lifeforms like a dinosaur, and ended up with humans, somewhere in the middle. Humanity is the mind's results in experimentation with the vessels capable of being illuminated by the spark of mind.

If you read six, the dualistic theory, is very similar. However, it assumes the mind and matter URL found two separate paths. Presumably, even mind is older, or capable of evolution much more quickly. Matter was observed by mind, and basically put use. Mind you discovered that it can accomplish more and experience more by using matter is a tool. That is, our bodies are essentially tools of that thing we call mine, which is still in the process of experimenting with matter.

Finally, we have the emergent property concept. Matter formed into cells, cells and life, and life became increasingly more complex. The mind is something that emerges from life, as a result of life. Much like if we throw a bunch of parts that ultimately formidable bicycle, into a box, without proper assembly, they just remain a bunch of parts in a box. The mind is a centrally the bicycle in a box. When life becomes complex enough, the body organizes the parts of the box into a bicycle -- into a mind.

There's only one problem with this. If we look at physics, there is a concept called entropy. Entropy says that everything moves from order and structure to disorder. I start with a tree, the tree dies, the tree decays into its component parts. Two people beget a third, the two original people essentially returned to dust, and over time, the third does also. Entropy exists. The concept of putting a bunch of parts in a box, and magically assembling those parts into a bicycle is contrary to the law of entropy. Mind is an emergent property of the body is contrary to the laws of entropy.

So what happened?

Entropy is the natural tendency for things to go from a state of organization to a state of disorganization over time. Entropy is a law of physics, and a law of nature. According to the law of entropy, everything decays. Rocks become sand. Living things die. Organic things decompose. Things that are hot become cold. Things that are bright become dim and eventually, dark. According to the laws of entropy, the universe is moving from that enormous expenditure of energy called the Big Bang to, if nothing else intervenes, a state of coal darkness. This may happen over many billions and billions of years, but, physics, the physics of our four dimensions, tells us, it will happen.

Now, if the law of entropy, which governs matter, also governs the behavior of non-material things, then there are two possibilities.

First, there is the possibility that life, as we know it, is actually a more disorganized state then the explosion which occurred at the Big Bang. That is possible, but does not, following contemporary human logic, seem likely.

Second, entropy is a condition of matter. Entropy is a law governing things from rocks, to our bodies, to planet Earth itself. However, while the world of subatomic particles, atoms, and more complex matter may be subject to the laws of entropy, there may be other laws that work. The N dimensions that exists (where N is greater than four) may follow totally different laws.

Since matter spontaneously generating a more complex form of life is counter to the law of entropy, it is logical, then, to assume that some force, some energy, was expended for the purpose of organizing matter. Given the laws of entropy, that force had to be outside the frame of reference, outside the frame of existence of matter. Otherwise, we would violate a basic law of physics, the physics that we understand as the physics of matter and energy.

End state.
This logic inevitably leads us to the conclusion that what we know is mind, in its broader definition meaning both the ability to think, and the ability to animate otherwise inanimate matter must be a force not subject to the laws of entropy, or, at least not subject to the laws of physical entropy as it exists in the material world. Mind, soul, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it, must exist separate from physical matter that exists in our four dimensions.

This raises another interesting question! If time, as we measure it, always progressing in a forward direction, as we perceive it, how it is time a fact other dimensions? Are they eternal? Do they exist independently of time? Can something that exists in those other dimensions moved back and forth through time, since nothing in our known physics tells us that the arrow of time must always point from now to future with existing consciousness being stuck in the present.

Note. So far, through these lessons, we have agreed that there are four dimensions: height, width, length, and time. We have also stated, that according to physicists, there must be some more dimensions beyond those that we can perceive. We have been describing, counting, these dimensions as "N, where N is greater than or equal to three." In the rest of this document, we shall refer to the four dimensions we can perceive, and we shall refer to the rest of the dimensions as the Q dimensions.