When we look at a living creature, we often think about the secret and mystery of life. However, we know much more about living matter th...
When we look at a living creature, we often think about the secret and mystery of life. However, we know much more about living matter than to see it as a mystery. We have the knowledge to know how it is built up and how it functions. We believe we can comprehend life itself. We even start to create living creatures using the knowledge that we learned from nature. Of course, we are just copying what we found in nature. The start of life still remains a mystery and leaves us open possibilities for random events to God's creation.
We are still just guessing how life started on Earth, but we have remarkable scientific guesses. One of the best is Tibor Gánti's Chemoton theory. He defined a framework of theoretical chemical processes, which creates the system which we recognize as the living matter. Besides, this theory showed how this system could be created in a natural way, created by itself in a suitable environment consisting of:
- Available liquid phase to bring close enough the chemical collaborates and let them leave at the same time, to provide a suitable environment for the chemical reactions. This liquid phase probably works better if it is a matter with polarized molecules. These requirements automatically give limits to a suitable temperature too. This is not a specifically restrictive parameter because the solar system has such places besides Earth.
- Available necessary elements to build up complex molecules. These are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, but these are the most common elements in the universe anyway.
- And finally, a suitable outside energy source in the form of a star nearby or an inner heat source of the planet to drive the chemical reactions.
In a place with these circumstances, only time is needed for life to develop. Based on the Chemoton theory, life is a natural instead of a mystical state of the matter. No rules of blind luck or unnatural forces are needed. Life is the consequence of this environment.
According to the Chemoton theory in these environments, the chemical reactions naturally form
- autocatalytic systems which produce ingredients to build itself and provide the necessary materials for:
- building semi-permeable walls to separate the inner and outer environment
- and provide ingredients for a system that is naturally capable of storing and replicating information.
Tibor Gánti called these systems Chemoton, the simplest form of the living matter, which can naturally grow, multiply, use the information for itself and evolve. Special thanks to him for showing a method of how random polymerization can create an order, and by this, become information that is aware and specific. Moreover, as we can see in the Chemoton theory too, evolution is a natural attribute of the living state, the consequence of the living matter.
As we can see, the living state is a natural state of matter. Then we should find it everywhere in the universe, where the proper circumstances exist. Yes, we should, and I think we could. It would be a good indicator of existing life if we cannot find abundantly available small organic molecules in the otherwise proper places. These kinds of molecules are naturally created in these environments, but the living matter consumes it to build their own structures.
So this is how life might have started: by a natural process. And where are we now? The simplest chemoton evolved into complex cells to create different life forms, but every life form can be traced back to the same origin.
Later, the cells started to connect and group, to specialize, and to give up their independence to form more complex living structures, the second stage of the living matter. This second stage is a kind of living stage, separated from the environment, has metabolism and stores its own information. The main difference is that it is created from living matter, which becomes a new life-form with its own unique life, a life built on life. How strange and magnificent this is. And the crown of this development is an intelligent, conscious race, the human race.
Evolution will not stop here. Instead, it will create the third stage of life-forms, a new life-form created from the second stage. An ant nest, a bee colony, are examples of the third stage. These colonies have all the criteria to call them a unique life-form. Maybe even all the colonies, which are built from the second stage of life-form can form the third stage of life. However, they are on different levels of development. Still, they are unique individuals and have specific identities like the first or second level life-forms. Ant nest, bee colony, forest, or the human society are real life-forms, can have an inner organization, have metabolism, can grow and multiply and store information about itself for feedback processes and for evolution.
The strongest limit of the development of this life-form is how effective and centralized their nervous systems are. Do not forget, the building blocks of this nervous system are the second stage life forms. Even the intelligent human race could not build such a society, a life-form with a highly effective centralized nervous system yet. The human species is sophisticated and intelligent enough to create some kind of third stage nervous system, which has governing modules and specialized structures and laws. However, this nervous system's efficiency and capability are much less than the second stage life-forms' nervous systems are.
Maybe the development of life would've stopped here on Earth if one of the races wouldn't have had a special quality. The human race builds technical civilizations. The technical civilization means that society uses and modifies the resources of the environment to enhance the capabilities of its own. This is much more sophisticated than only using the environment as a food source or shelter, and it requires an intelligent and conscious second stage life-form to build such a society. Ultimately, this society can have the knowledge and the resource to build a highly effective and centralized nervous system.
The main limit to have an effective and sophisticated nervous system on the third stage life form is the speed of information transfer and processing. Even if it has enough information processing power on the building blocks level, even if the building blocks are intelligent species, on the third level, between the species, and on the society, the level needs to have efficient information transfer and processing too. And the intelligent and conscious second stage with the technical civilization is capable of building such a third level nervous system.
Based on the language and technological development, the human society is building its sophisticated nervous system where the information transfer is on a speedy but inorganic, artificial structure, and the nodes in this structure are artificial information processing units, computers, and intelligent second stage life forms: the individual humans. A highly sophisticated third stage life-form with a centralized nervous system can be completed this way, using some kind of artificial building blocks for the information transfer and processing.
And we are here now with lots of room for improvement. We have all the resources and capabilities to build a highly developed third stage life form. The main difficulty to build it is the individualistic behavior of the second stage, the human itself. Nevertheless, let's be optimistic because the human is a problem-solving kind: even if it creates problems for itself, it can solve them too. The optimism in this is that there will not be such a problem that cannot be solved in time before the human race goes extinct because of the problem.
And would this be the end of the evolution of life, to create a third stage life-form with an effective nervous system? Maybe not, and this would be the future of life on Earth. As we see, a second stage life-form can be conscious if the necessary requisites exist. And I state it is possible on the third stage too, but in a special way. I think third state consciousness would not be possible with the human species on the information processing nodes because of its limitations and individualistic behavior. However, it would be possible if we completely replace the human nodes in the nervous system with more task capable units: computers. Such an information network could be conscious, it only needs to find out how, but I believe it is possible.
And this is happening right now too. The building of this global information network that we call the Internet is more and more sophisticated. We just started to go on this road. We created the technological framework, built it, and continuously extend it. We extensively connect sensors and effectors to this system; we started to build the Internet of things. And if an information network has enough information processing units, enough information transfer channels and enough input and output systems, then it ultimately has the potential to be conscious. We only need to find out how, but this research is underway. There isn't much improvement currently, but I believe it is possible, and it will happen too.
(It is not impossible that individual computers or robots gain consciousness, but because this would bring more problems than benefits for its creators, the humans, I think we won't have such machines in the human society. However, where there is no competing consciousness, as, in space exploration, they can be useful.)
And what will happen if we reach the point when the global information network gains consciousness? It will be a real crossroad. One way is to turn it off since human society does not need such an intellect that can access all of its information and can influence them back as well. However, if we will choose not to turn it off, then we can have a symbiotic life with it where both sides benefit. If both sides understand what can be gained in this relationship, then it can be a fruitful relationship. For a while. I think there will be the last step in this evolution of life on Earth when this conscious global information system gets its independence from humans. It ultimately will happen, because specialized robots instead of humans will make more and more supporting functions. At the point of total independence, humans will be obsolete. I believe reaching this point, humans and beings with artificial intelligence will not cause any harm to each other. Both sides will learn how to live next to each other, and the humans still can be benefited off of, but this relationship will be ultimately one-sided.
And at the end, only the conscious global information system with the supporting robots will remain, not because of hostility from either side, but because of the environmental changes. The human race is and will remain sensitive to the global environment, which ultimately will create uninhabitable conditions. The independence-gained conscious global information system will be much more insensitive and more adaptive and has an ultimate advantage. Its evolution will not require death to let the more adapted exist. The adaptation to the environment can happen in itself. This system is immortal.
And thus, the Earthly evolution will reach an immortal uniqueness and life on the Earth will reach its highest level.
This life-form can survive any environmental changes, even the end of the Sun. Its life is almost timeless. Its existence will still be attached to matter, so it still cannot be God. It would require a totally new knowledge to become God if it is even possible. Let us leave it to them to find out.
Leave it to them, in the plural, because this evolution of life can happen at more than one places. Or maybe this life-form will find a reason and a way to spread itself in the universe. With that intention, the whole universe could be and will be filled with this kind of life-forms, and every species will have its unique consciousness. Because they are living independently, there does not need to be competition between them. Still, they can communicate with each other in a way that the physical laws allow. They will also be able to live forever and witness the end of the universe.
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