Part
2. Humanity and Chemical Origin
Alien Life
The Chemical origins of life
Chemical life matrix
The human body's chemical balancing act
The Body
There is no real mystical purpose to our bodies. Some people want there
to be, so that they can sleep safely at night. Or to feel superior.
We're clumps of self-proclaimed organic stuff, quite randomly gathered
chemical reactions, electrical attractions, formed from bits that worked,
and some bits that didn't work but remained.
We call some things organic, chemical, mineral... but they are all made
of the same thing... inertia. We can call it potential, or intention.
Energy.
More to know
We like to impose order and meaning on things. That is how our minds work.
We create religions, beliefs, superstitions for things we can't explain.
What is unknown is shifted onto the divine pile, or onto the belief pile.
The more we know the more mysterious existence becomes.
You are what
you eat
Our minds are globs of chemicals and electricity, each glob affecting
the other glob. We have some control over the electrical bits, and so
we can affect the chemical bits a little, though the internal mechanisms
prevent us from doing too much harm. Our diet affects
the chemical bits. We are made up entirely from our food.
In my image
We build machines in our own image, to do our work, enhance our lives.
They operate a little like we do, because that's what we know.
Alien Life
We assume other intelligent life would look like us, think like us, have
the same energy collectors as us. But, to imagine an alien being one must
remove humanness completely. Remove our conceptual view of the universe
because it resulted from our physiology.
Our perception of the universe is very dependent on our construction.
We have evolved into what we are because of environmental factors, including
mild mutation. An alien being could start off the same and evolve into
something that would seem globular and primitive to us, just like we would
seem globular and primitive to an alien being. An alien being could start
off completely different, become something unimaginable, with different
methods of operation. Perhaps conscious thought is unique to our form.
An alien being may not have a brain like ours, but could be capable of
complex reasoning within the model of its environment.
It is possible that the only way life can survive is to have similar form
and function to the life we know.
Animal Consciousness
We know that animals are conscious. Any creature that actively protests
death is conscious of its existence.
The Chemical
origins of Life
All life is derived from simple electro-chemical processes, a fact that
should be debated, not by theologians (whose world and perception of existence
is constructed via debate and vote), but by experts in the field of reality.
Original Life Equation
The result of the original chemical reaction is the initial chemical plus
some extra. This is life. How this chemical reaction started is probably
by chance. (who can say, no one was there to record it... but the elements
were there...) Molecules forming and mixing over eons created chemicals,
these combined to create other chemicals. At some point a reaction occurred
that was re-entrant, that is the outcome of the reaction was the same
of the input, only more. Most life has a binary mechanism, that we define
as male and female. The origins of this requirement are traced to the
chemical stage of our forming. At least two chemical reactions were needed
to create a self-creating form. Three or more is more likely.
Chemical compound
A
Chemical compound B
Chemical compound C
Input raw material X ( e.g. H2O, carbon)
Waste product Y ( e.g. Hydrogen, Oxygen )
Chemical Life Matrix
A+B+X #= A[2] + Y
B+C+X #= B[2] + Y
C+A+X #= C[2] + Y
A[2], B[2], C[2] is the result, with sufficient characteristics to be
classed as A, B, C, but may have other forms.
The System grows
exponentially, provided the raw material X is present.
When the three compounds
exist in confinement, the result of their reactions is more compounds.
Thus abundant raw compounds are created. An external raw material such
as water would be transformed and become part of the compounds. Water
makes sense as the 'fuel' because it would precipitate at regular intervals,
and not smother the reactions.
Find the three compounds, A, B, C, and you have discovered the origins
of life.
Not all reactions
are successful, some are adequate to produce the end products, some become
waste. The reactions become more complex because of the added compounds
in the system. A struggle condition occurs.
Only those compounds that produce the desired results succeed, others
become waste, perhaps later reacting to other stages of chemical reactions.
External factors may be required for reactions to occur, e.g. radiation.
Radiation would alter the compounds subtly, creating variations in form.
Random variations would provide better or worse compounds. The better
ones carry on their traits to the next iteration.
What compounds are
good, and what are bad?
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