Extraordinary Biology – Daily life at All Scales and Energies
Fixation on Earth-based mostly Visible Existence
A quantity of fixations plaguing the astrobiology local community with regards to the pre-requisites for life is retarding the improvement of biology and the research for new everyday living in the universe. These fixations function as smokescreens to obscure the myriads of other styles of life sorts that may well be thriving even in our Photo voltaic Process. Astrobiologists, specifically at NASA, appear to have a dogmatic fixation on finding out life only at the biochemical level, a pre-occupation with drinking water as a substrate for lifestyle, adamant on only studying carbon-centered lifestyle types, limited to a incredibly slim temperature range and scale and not even noticing that all the lifestyle varieties that they have imagined in their wildest products are only based on particles inside the (physicists’) Typical Product.
Physics influences biology in a extra basic way than even chemistry or biochemistry. New developments in physics should really open up up regions to take into consideration additional serious everyday living forms. If we locate darkish matter and supersymmetric particles – would biologists then begin pondering about dark make any difference and supersymmetric everyday living kinds? Ought to we be speaking about “quantum biology”? When physicists chat of parallel universes, would biologists think about symbiosis among daily life varieties in parallel universes? Is Darwin’s tree of daily life finish? Where are its roots?
Lifetime at Really Tiny Scales – Nano and Quantum Everyday living
Microorganisms may perhaps be no greater than 10 microns viruses no greater than 100 nanometers molecules about 1 nanometer and atoms about .1 nanometer. Does scale impose a barrier to lifestyle or even consciousness? If viruses are considered existence kinds (as some top astrobiologists argue) then they constitute “nano-existence”.
Consciousness could even exist at the quantum scale. “In some peculiar way an electron or a photon [or any other elementary particle] would seem to ‘know’ about variations in the ecosystem and appears to reply accordingly,” says physicist Danah Zohar. A group at the Weizmann Institute in Israel has done a variation of the well-known “double-slit” experiment. They utilised electrons, as an alternative of photons, and noticed how the resultant interference sample (which suggests wave-like houses of the particle) dissipated the lengthier you viewed the electrons go through the slits. As a wave the electron passes via both of those slits concurrently but if, according to E Buks, it “senses” that it is currently being viewed, the electron (as a particle) goes by only one particular path, diminishing the interference sample. Elementary particles (these as photons and electrons) show up to possess a selected diploma of “intelligence” and awareness of the natural environment. Renowned plasma and particle physicist, David Bohm, says “In some perception a rudimentary brain-like quality is current even at the stage of particle physics. As we go to subtler ranges this thoughts-like good quality gets more robust and a lot more produced.”
In a new industry termed “quantum metaphysics”, Jay Alfred has proposed that consciousness is as elementary a property to elementary particles as homes that make it “matter” or a “actual physical drive” (for instance, mass, spin and cost) (see Conscious Particles, Fields and Waves, 2007). And just as mass, spin and cost differ from one particular particle to another it is probable that different particles have distinct degrees of consciousness. He has argued (see Jay Alfred, Our Invisible Bodies, 2006) that consciousness can manifest based on the diploma of quantum coherence and the intrinsic qualities of the one particle. (This may well be cited as the “Quantum Coherence Concept of Consciousness”.)
In finding out particle consciousness we have to not get distracted by their scale. In actuality, (underneath quantum subject concept) particles are excitations in a discipline that may well be infinitely large. Each and every particle has a corresponding industry. If a particle is thought of a “unicellular existence kind” then a field of particles may perhaps be regarded a “multicelluar daily life sort” – other than that these “cells” go in and out of existence in just the area. This of course begs the concern – Is the biochemical mobile the smallest unit of existence? If not, then a organic revolution, much more crucial than the Corpernican revolution in conditions of its impact on modern society, is around the corner.
Everyday living at Particularly Big Scales
Everyday living at all scales are probable – which include at the planetary, stellar and galactic scales and even the universe and multiverse. The Gaia hypothesis has been proposed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. Jay Alfred has proposed lifetime at cosmic and world scales by making use of the “plasma metaphysics” model which thinks that an in depth internet of currents in house and on Earth exists which is both equally anatomically and physiologically very similar to a neural network in the human mind. (See Are We Dwelling in a Gigantic Brain? 2007) This website of currents in room not only appears to be like a neural community, it functions like 1. We must not be surprised to see everyday living remaining engineered making use of an electromagnetic substrate. A biochemcial cell’s membrane is now believed to perform like a semi-conductor.
Perhaps a assumed experiment could be enlightening. Think about on your own as a mobile within your brain very carefully observing your surroundings with a nano-telescope. Would you consider your mind as being able to guidance consciousness? What you would see are neural cells alternately firing and resting chemical substances speeding to synapses and the zapping of terrible electrical currents – plainly not a quite “habitable zone” for daily life or consciousness to exist – from your microscopic stage of view. But we know much better…
Could the plasma universe, with its network of currents, be a dwelling, conscious entity? Was the quark-gluon plasma ball that inflated all through the Huge Bang a lifestyle variety?
Superior Electrical power Biology – Life at Large Energies and Temperatures
At higher temperatures, molecules crack up into atoms and atoms crack up into a soup of sub-atomic particles termed plasma. (Partly ionized gases are also explained as “plasma”.) Plasma daily life types are very likely to be the most popular everyday living variety in the universe, offered that plasma would make up much more than 99% of our visible universe which is practically everywhere you go ionized. This is in stark contrast to complicated carbon-dependent life varieties, which in accordance to the Unusual Earth speculation proposed by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, would be uncommon in the universe thanks to a range of elements – such as the want for an appropriate assortment of temperatures to endure.
Plasma is an great substrate for lifestyle at significant temperatures. Plasma lifestyle types would adapt to environments which would be thought of hostile to carbon-dependent lifestyle types. It is attainable that plasma lifestyle kinds have been already present in the gasoline and materials that formed the Earth 4.6 billion a long time in the past. Carbon-based biomolecular lifetime types only appeared 1 billion yrs later on. Tsytovich and other experts (such as Lozneanu and Sanduloviciu, mentioned below) have proposed that plasma life sorts, in point, spurred progress of natural and organic carbon-based life on Earth.
In 2003 physicists Erzilia Lozneanu and Mircea Sanduloviciu of Cuza College, Romania, described in their research paper Negligible Mobile Method designed in Laboratory by Self-Corporation (released in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, quantity 18, webpage 335), how they made plasma spheres in the laboratory that can increase, replicate and converse – fulfilling most of the classic needs for organic cells. The physicists “grew” spheres from a handful of micrometers up to a few centimeters in diameter. They are confident that these plasma spheres present a radically new clarification of how everyday living commenced and proposed that they have been precursors to organic evolution. Lozneanu plasma spheres can reproduce by replicating, just like bacteria which are generally regarded “immortal” and do not go through “apoptosis” or programmed cell dying.
It is nevertheless a secret in mainstream biology as to how DNA originated. An global scientific group has found out that in the gravity-free surroundings of area, particles in plasma will bead together to sort string-like filaments which will then twist into helical strands resembling DNA that are electrically billed and are attracted to just about every other. Applying a laptop or computer design of molecular dynamics, V N Tsytovich and his colleagues of the Russian Academy of Science showed (in their paper entitled From Plasma Crystals and Helical Constructions in the direction of Inorganic Residing Matter, revealed in the New Journal of Physics in August 2007) that particles in plasma can endure self-firm as electrical rates turn into separated and the plasma gets to be polarized. “These intricate, self-structured plasma structures exhibit all the required qualities to qualify them as candidates for inorganic residing issue”, suggests Tsytovich, “they are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve”.
Past scientific tests, subject matter to Earth’s gravity, have demonstrated that if adequate particles are injected into a lower-temperature plasma, they will spontaneously manage into crystal-like buildings or “plasma crystals”. Jay Alfred has characterised “subtle bodies” as plasma crystals in his 2006 book Our Invisible Bodies. He has published thoroughly about the anatomy and physiology of these bioplasma bodies making a new industry of exploration referred to as “plasma metaphysics”.
According to plasma metaphysics (see Jay Alfred, Our Invisible Bodies, 2006), plasma is issue to self-firm by means of both thermodynamics and electrodynamics. Plasma life sorts have a variety of mechanisms for the absorption and distribution of strength – in other words a metabolic technique. These incorporate both equally vortexes (equal to orifices in widespread biological devices) and filamentary currents (equivalent to tubes and circulatory programs in widespread organic programs) which are structured by magnetic fields and driven by electric fields. Details is saved in the nucleus of the bioplasma entire body as compressed wave-varieties (working with Fourier transforms) and used for replication. Plasma lifetime types are also enclosed in a membrane (like the membrane of a biological cell) and selectively confess billed particles (just like the semi-permeable membranes of popular biological techniques that admit ions i.e. charged particles into the cell). These constructions (vortexes, filaments, membranes and the nucleus) have been described in the metaphysical and even religious literature a lot more than 2,000 yrs old in link with what is usually referred to as “delicate bodies”. With a membrane that separates the physique from the ecosystem, metabolic and info programs, these refined bodies are, in reality, plasma lifetime sorts.
Dim Matter Lifestyle Varieties
According to plasma metaphysics (see Jay Alfred, Our Invisible Bodies, 2006), darkish matter is composed mainly of a magnetic plasma of largely non-regular particles or “darkish plasma”. Even with the quite a few experiments to concoct existence out of substances there has yet been no signal of everyday living as complicated as the most basic organic cell. Just one of the main unanswered questions remains as to how DNA, with its double helix composition, was fashioned. Computer system simulations by Tsytovich has verified that helical strands are produced in (elaborate) plasma that glance and purpose like DNA. At a additional basic degree, it is effectively recognized that double helical and corkscrew constructions are signature characteristics of plasma dynamics. Could the missing elements that gave increase to existence incorporate particular components which are now provided less than dark issue? Jay Alfred has proposed the “Darkish Panspermia” speculation (see Plasma Lifestyle Kinds – Dark Panspermia, 2007) which proposes that dark issue was carried by comets, meteorites and asteroids as they traversed the darkish make any difference crammed house all-around the solar neighborhood. As they impacted the Earth, dim plasma cells acted as templates for the formation of biochemical cells. Both dark make any difference and everyday life kinds co-advanced more than broad stretches of time.
Probably a bacterial mobile in option must be “diluted” (very similar to strategies frequently encountered in homeopathy) – by really gradually and meticulously getting aside each and every element of the germs. A healthful human mobile should really then be released into the alternative to see if it would undertake reactions that would be related to reactions brought on by the identical kind of microorganisms composed of obvious everyday make a difference. If it does (as would be predicted and claimed by homeopathic principle) it will betray the existence of the dim matter counterpart of the obvious microorganisms.
Inter-Substrate (Plasma-Carbon) Symbio-genesis
Biologists are beginning to recognize that co-operation was just as significant as competitors in the evolution of life’s diversity and resilience. Each individual cell in the human entire body includes a mitochondrion which is assumed to be a bacterial mobile which invaded an early eukaryote. Alternatively of remaining digested, both of those cells tolerated just about every other and commenced to are living with each individual other – a merger which presented synergies to both of those. This is a startling case in point of symbio-genesis. But then every single mulit-mobile animal or plant is also an evident instance of co-procedure relatively than levels of competition. More than a 1,000 trillion cells are residing peacefully and co-functioning in your entire body alongside one another with 500 to 100,000 species of microbes. In truth, there are about 10 situations as lots of bacteria as human cells in the human system. Does symbiosis lengthen further?
There is anecdotal evidence that plasma lifetime kinds shaped symbiotic associations with the considerable carbon-dependent lifetime varieties on Earth – specifically with hominids. Unlike other know species of animals, the unique brains of hominids authorized them to activate the bigger electricity bioplasma bodies that co-progressed with the actual physical-biochemical entire body devoid of always obtaining any aware awareness that they had been accessing a various cognitive system. Relationships designed between the lessen power carbon-dependent bodies and the larger strength bioplasma bodies which had been sustained, perhaps, for several millions of yrs up to the current. This permitted the greater electrical power bioplasma bodies to evolve in a exceptional way on Earth.
Conclusion
Do we need to broaden the definition of life? When and how does a everyday living form turn out to be mindful of alone? Is consciousness a elementary attribute of physical matter like spin, mass and demand which physicists themselves do not fairly comprehend? Is the mobile (as described in mainstream biology) the smallest device of daily life? Are the delicate bodies described in the metaphysical literature plasma daily life types?
The new science of astrobiology at NASA seems to be limping along in its knowledge of existence in the universe most likely due to the fact it is saddled with the large pounds of fixations produced from a biology that is largely dependent on chemistry rather than the whole of physics.
© Copyright Jay Alfred 2008