The Evolutionary Preconditions for the Human Mind

 In the nonlinear transfinite (Cantorian) transition from the planetary lithosphere to biosphere certain preconditions are necessary. (Whether we can determine whether they are also sufficient is a matter for scientific research.)

In the realm of the lithosphere we have the solar system's planets, as well as the recently discovered exoplanets. The simple fact of this discovery alone heralds why human progress via economic growth recapitulates such transitions referenced above.

We have so far identified a few critical preconditions for biological life as we know it. In this regard comparing the lithosphere of Mars and Earth is very profitable. For one, the free energy provided by the fuel of the element phosphorous appears to be critical. Especially given the fact that it is essential to the omnipresent biological engine of ATPase (adenosine triphosphatase.) Another is the provision of an oxygenated atmosphere. The recent discovery of Earth's volcanic crustal relationship would appear to be yet another precondition for life on Earth.

There is an overarching power in the potential of the unfolding of geochemical processes where from emerges a new ordering transfinite with respect to those very same processes. I would argue that that very power is more of an unfathomable mystery to mere logic than the much vaunted quantum mechanics paradox of "action at a distance." Now that power which moves from the inorganic to the organic then lastly to the human sphere may be characterized in terms of the dynamics of energetic transformations for performance of work.

At the astrophysical level we view forces of such magnitude that can create groups of galaxies out of  mere clouds of gas. Therein lies a principle of cosmological ordering that spans billions of years and wields fantastic power which humanity is merely at the very dawn of comprehending let alone using for our species' benefit and we hope not our destruction. And yet, somehow among that universal creation of galactic star systems with their black holes and who knows what other as yet undiscovered forces, here on this planet a qualitatively higher order of life emerged. Such that there must be inherent an evolutionary directionality in the universal composition.

Likewise, the succession of species of cellular lifeforms led to higher ordered plant and animal domains. The new principle was the useful capture of elemental energy to sustain growth and reproduction. Yet the very success of this new living era upon Earth invariably led to a succession of energy and food crises. And the capability of overcoming such crises is only manifest in human creative consciousness. We alone can alter continuously our bases of useful energy via technological progress. Again, a human transfinite emergence subsuming the lower ordering stasis of the biosphere.

In the foregoing narrative, we see that forces that appear to be arbitrarily destructive at large may be overcome via the creation of novel degrees of evolutionary freedom. This sort of creative lawful problem solving must become the norm if we are to outlive the perilous evil of geopolitics that currently threatens us with the annihilation of thermonuclear war.  The geopolitical worldview that humanity is no different in essence than the brute beasts is that of the oligarchy. That oligarchy's power rests upon the control of financial speculation. If we are to provide any legacy worthy of humanity the control of that bestial worldview must be superseded once and for all.

Endosymbiosis of Mitochondria as Nicholas of Cusa's Principle of Contracted Maximality

 As I have insisted within these pages and elsewhere, Nicholas of Cusa is not a mystic. In fact, the truth is precisely the opposite. And anyone professing to identify Cusa's works as such, merely demonstrates his of her intellectual shortcomings. 

By the phrase "just the opposite" I mean to say that the method of philosophic dialogue that Cusa develops is the basis not for mysticism but rather it is the basis for scientific investigation. I shall demonstrate this in what follows. 

We do not know, and will never know precisely when and how the mechanism of cellular energy throughput came about in the history of the biosphere. We do know that the remarkable near universality of the mitochondria as the locus of the energy throughput via the engine of the enzyme ATPase supplying ATP as the source of energy to the cell. We know that this constitutes an endosymbiosis, in which the cell's nuclear DNA is separate and distinct from the encapsulated mitochondrial DNA. This constitutes a unity as the basis for the very organization of life across the boundaries of its aerobic and anaerobic forms. 

The principle for this process of development of our organic existence is twofold. One is the necessity of the capture and useful reduction of energy underlying and differentiating the living and non-living states of matter. The second principle is the process of subsumption of opposites in the manifold contractedness of substance.  This occurs via that which Riemann established as the equivalence of degrees of freedom through added dimensionality. This is understood as the orthogonal movement of n dimensions to n + 1 dimensions. 

Thus for all history, the subsumption of the mitochondria into the cell, constitutes a nodal event that rather efficiently demonstrates that which Cusa identified as learned ignorance. For we will never know precisely how this came about, however by investigating this very biophysical irony, if you will, we know that we shall progress upon the pathway of humanity's necessary mission of conquering disease and extending our "healthspan." We do this not as an isolated goal, but instead as the complement for humanity's larger mission of space colonization.

It is likewise not accidental that the scientific progress in the investigation of the inorganic realm hinges upon a subsumption of a different, restricted kind. That is both matter and anti-matter somehow are related as a basis of energy throughput of that nonliving realm. How it is that there is a sort of directionality of the priority of matter over anti-matter in the evolution of the cosmos will never be precisely known. However, we know that in investigating this, we will likewise afford humanity the ability to achieve a new degree of freedom in energy throughput. For it is known that the potential of matter/anti-matter reactions will bring about a new regime for providing thrust for that very same mission of space colonization identified above. 

Once again, we as a unique species are by our nature fitted out to carry out these scientific investigations. In any one historical epoch of such necessary endeavours, we understand that we are merely providing guidance and a potential pathway for what future generations must achieve to further the true mission for humanity. And once again, we return to the principle of "investigation" cited above for both the inorganic and organic realms. This time however we are applying the principle of subsumption of opposites as Cusa develops in his Docta Ignorantia in a different manner. 

Firstly, even though the history of mankind pivots around two different and opposed principles, it is only by the utter defeat of one upon which our continued existence hinges. The organization of society by an irrational oligarchy whose goal is itself destructive of the means and ends of civilization's necessary missions must be once and for all overcome. Now, achieving that does require an uplifting of humanity out of such infantile irrationality. It means extinguishing forms of oppression such as the mechanisms of financial looting of the physically productive economy. In this case it is not a relation of symbiosis that we are dealing with so much as parasitism.

However, there is a precise meaning for the unity of opposites as Cusa developed in his great work De Docta Ignorantia. It is in the national language cultures and philosophical and religious beliefs that apparent opposites can and must be overcome. The ongoing cooperation of eradicating poverty, defeating disease and colonizing space is the basis of creating a new degree of freedom for humanity. Moreover it is by the production of beauty in the arts that we inspire progeny to take up that very same mission. This represents the principle of the Contracted Maximum in human history and as such qualifies the philosophy of Cusa as the basis for scientific progress. 

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), detail of relief ‘Cardinal Nicholas before St. Peter’ on his tomb by Andrea Bregno, church of St. Peter in Chains, Rome

The Revolution of Biophysical Energy Throughput

Several years ago in this space I had occasion to highlight the role of the marvelous machinery of the ATPase protein as the basis for both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. The revolutionary succession in the history of the biosphere to ever more efficient capture and utilization of energy is a quality of negative entropy.

This centers upon higher life forms' symbiotic adoption of the mitochondrion as the source for this function. Consider what sort of power inheres in the subsumption of this relatively more simple organelle to perform work for whole new classes of living entities. It is very much analogous to a breakthrough invention that humanity makes when it undergoes a revolution in the type of energy throughput characterizing its production. (Such as for instance the passage from burning wood to burning coal.)

The larger question here is how the motive force that carries on such problem solving exists in the ongoing development of universal lawfulness. This is in stark contrast to the childish assumption that the universe is "running down" like some enormous wind up clock. Thus it was in Raphael's brilliant cartoon of Aristotle and Plato. And as it was in Leibniz refutation of the outlook of rank empiricism of Newton and company.

Proteins and Biophysical Manifolds

Today we are witnessing a welter of recently designated functional biophysical domains as "omes," mostly conventionally named after the genome. My question is whether there is a unifying principle that can help to bring these rigorously and coherently together.

We are now very much in the infancy of beginning to apprehend how the so called junk DNA transposons may operate in a regulatory manner, for instance, over the protein "interactome." I have been fascinated as a layman who has studied physical economics (as opposed to monetarism) and epistemology for many years with connection of energy dynamics in evolutionary biophysics. 

So I began to look at the powerhouse of the enzyme ATPase as the engine of cellular energy production and throughput. It struck me as remarkable that there was a rotational vector for this that changed chiral handedness depending on whether the cell's respiration was aerobic or non aerobic. So that this was an instance of the Pasteur principal that characterized life at this level.

This led me to view the rationale of Vernadsky's division of the three interacting spheres of physical, biological and human creative powers as being potentially unified around unique forms of functional organization. The transmission of particularly long lived metastable solitonic wave organizations in the inorganic domain seemed to parallel life in a sense. Further the directed quality of many anomalies in astrophysical organization as opposed to the assumptions of chaotic, stochastic entropy. In other words, is there an immanent tendency in this realm for the evolutionary development of life. Why should we suppose anything else? 

Of late, the ideas of Bernhard Riemann with respect to Non-Euclidean constructive geometry coupled with his work on shockwaves have led me to propose a pathway toward a possible unifying geometry of biophysics. Firstly, the protein acts as a singularity through which one or more biological functions operate. This to me was very strikingly similar to the Riemannian arrangement of functional space into connected surfaces of branchpoints that go through singular poles to sheets of a potential variety of functions. Thus the various "omes" mentioned above may be viewed as connected in this way. 

Secondly, I have proposed that the principle of transmission of energy in the biosphere leads under certain circumstances to evolutionary change. The revolutionary seminal work that Riemann did on pressure waves as they surpass the boundary of transmissibility leading to the well known sonic boom and Mach cone guided my thoughts here. 

Time and Light

Einstein's principle of the invariant speed of light no matter what the relative motion is from the physical starting point from which that light emanates, indicates that time itself must be relative to this universally inherent quality of boundedness. The function of light, more broadly conceived as propagation of electromagnetic wave phenomena, varies relative to the type of bounding sphere (geosphere, biosphere, noosphere) as defined by Vernadsky, upon which it operates.

First, what Vernadsky labelled the geosphere or the inorganic realm is the result of the creation of elements up to iron by nuclear fusion in the furnaces of stars and heavier elements by shockwave explosions in supernovae (or perhaps other hitherto undiscovered inorganic processes.) The scale of time for the evolution of elements is only bounded by the age of the universe itself. In Riemann's philosophical notes we find musings upon the hierarchical relativity of time. He takes as his model Fechner's works on the Zend-Avesta. Fechner views the systems of stars as a higher form of a universal life principle. Vernadsky dismisses this as pantheism, or a form of world soul, purporting  to bestow consciousness upon the inorganic. However, I am more charitable toward Fechner's scheme. It is the case that inherent in the formation of planets from stars, the elements essential to life, and cosmic energy is embedded a principle of life. The question of whether this universal order is higher because it encompasses all of time and thereby all possibilities, or lower because it is merely inorganic dissolves when viewed from the standpoint of how technology may use the principle of fusion, matter anti-matter reactions, and other as yet undiscovered sources of energy/matter transformations. Seen from this perspective,that which Vernadsky denominates as the Noosphere, humanity noetically continues or recapitulates the process of creation in the sense that Nicholas of  Cusa gives as the Microcosm recapitulating the entire development of the Macrocosm.

Second, the photosynthetic property of light on the biosphere is the obvious transformation that leads to large scale evolutionary dynamics. We also now find that life thrives at the cellular level as thermophiles and extremophiles feeding from thermal and radioactive  radiation. For the biosphere, the addition of a directional sort of causality that involves a primitive sort of choice is manifest. The opposite chirality of the amino acid and sugar molecules evince this. It is quite remarkable that the ATPase mitochondrial motor that produces usable biological energy rotates either clockwise or counter  clockwise depending on whether the form of life is aerobic or anaerobic. Further, an ongoing quality of directness inheres in the evolutionary development of life forms that are able to capture and efficiently use more energy dense sources of nourishment. Thus, for Vernadsky, the biosphere is bounded by this evolutionary principle.

Third, the human creative interaction with light and radiative processes more generally, via technology shows itself in a multi-functional evolutionary way. At the dawning of civilization, epic poetry underlines the discovery  of fire from wood burning. This is the first in a succession of advancements in fuel sources that lift humanity's inventors into the role of self conscious directed evolution benefiting  unborn future generations. Just as fundamental to these epic poems is the invention of navigation via decoding the positions and movements of the light from stars. As LaRouche has shown, within any one mode of technology, there is posed a crisis for society through the using up of the relatively limited energetic resource. This is the principle which by necessity bounds the proper functioning of the Vernadsky's Noosphere. Here for humanity, creativity and choice becomes a moral imperative for ensuring that we bestow on our posterity the capability to advance understanding and application of light understood literally and metaphorically. This power of continuous creation we can either willfully promote or deny. If we insanely and suicidaly insist upon the primacy of the obligation to pay debt which has been manufactured by the machinations of the global monetarist oligarchy then we will have willfully doused this light. And a dark age will have justly be brought down upon us. On the other hand, if we defeat this monetarist cabal and their control, we can look to the future prospect of our species happiness through virtually limitless colonization of space.