Thank you so very much for your thoughtful reply!
I wouldn't put it quite that way. Above the level of, say, viruses, the properties of living cells and their organized assemblages are fairly easily distinguished from the properties of non-living matter. But in every case, cells and their assemblages utilize environmentally available energy resources to maintain and reproduce themselves. These processes (living and reproducing, or, as C.S. Peirce put it, "feeding and breeding") are what living things do.
IMHO, the direction one takes in answering the question ”what is life v non-life/death in nature” is pivotal to any subsequent investigation into such issues as consciousness, abiogenesis, etc. The approach you have taken is one of describing the properties of living organisms. On the Plato thread we investigated two similar description-based models, one by Irvin Bauer and another by Javor. The Bauer model was also mathematics.
The descriptive approach runs into difficulty with the classification of the enigmas: bacteria, bacterial spores, mycoplasmas, mimivirus, viroids, viruses and prions. It also does not help the investigation into abiogenesis because it does not speak directly to the emergence of information, autonomy, semiosis and complexity. Nor does it speak to consciousness.
The alternative approach is mathematics, or more appropriately “information theory and molecular biology”. It is the application of Shannon’s mathematical theory of communications to biological life. Shannon is the father of information theory. The model which is described briefly on this post is quite elegant and accommodates all of the enigmas. It also speaks directly to the investigation of abiogenesis by laying the structure for information, autonomy, semiosis and complexity. It also speaks to consciousness as follows.
Information (successful communication) is the reduction of uncertainty (Shannon entropy) in a receiver or molecular machine in going from a before state to an after state. It is the action, not the message. The DNA is as good dead as alive. This formulation of information theory is actively used in cancer and pharmaceutical research. It is not some “pi in the ski” mathematical musing. The presence of information distinguishes between life and non-life/death in nature. Moreover, it gives us important to clues to further investigation.
There are three possible ways a successful communication can be instigated – (a) interrupt such as the presence of food, change in temperature, radiation, (b) cycle or timing, and (c) will. Moreover, there are two types of will – (1) involuntary (2) voluntary.
We have coined the term “will to live” for the involuntary type – others have called it the “life principle” or “fecundity principle”. It has also been called the “want to” live.
The “will to live” permeates the entire biosphere and perhaps the entire universe. For that reason, we assert that it is field-like (existing in all points of space/time). It is observed in plants and animals, in creatures which go into dormant phases of their life cycle. It is observed in the simplest of life forms (cell intelligence, amoeba).
It is also observed in collectives of organisms which act as if one mind (ants, bees, etc.). The “will to live” also permeates throughout the molecular machinery of higher organisms. For instance, if a part of the heart dies (myocardial infarction) - the molecular machinery will continue to struggle to survive, routing blood flow around the dead tissue. A person can be “brain dead” and yet the rest of the body will struggle to survive and will succeed if a machine (respirator) is used to simulate the cyclic instruction of the brain.
The voluntary side of will is another matter. An example would be to drop a live bird, a dead bird and a 12 lb cannonball off a roof top. The live bird will choose to fly away. Another example is to decide to move your finger to press a key on your keyboard. This kind of will includes abstraction, anticipation, meditation, intention, etc.
This kind of willfulness has a hierarchical structure which is difficult to discuss because it gets into metaphysics (Eastern mysticism to Sirag’s cohorts) and everyone seems to have a bias going in.
Naturally, so do I – I am Christian. So I’ll layout the hierarchy of wills according to Scripture:
1. nephesh the will to live, the animal soul, or the soul of all living things (Genesis 1:20) which by Jewish tradition returns to the “earth” after death. In Romans 8, this is seen as a whole, the creation longing for the children of God to be revealed. This is what we described as being field-like, existing in all points of space/time. 2. ruach - the self-will or free will peculiar to man (abstraction, anticipation, intention, etc.) - by Jewish tradition, the pivot wherein a man decides to be Godly minded or earthy minded (also related to Romans 8, choosing)
3. neshama - the breath of God given to Adam (Genesis 2:7) which may also be seen as the “ears to hear” (John 10) - a sense of belonging beyond space/time, a predisposition to seek God and seek answers to the deep questions such as “what is the meaning of life?”
4. ruach Elohim - the Holy Spirit (Genesis 1:2) which indwells Christians (I Cor 2, John 3) - the presently existing in the “beyond” while still in the flesh. (Col 3:3) This is the life in the passage: In him was life, and the life was the light of men... (John 1)
I suspect that only the first two on these four would be manifest in such a way that science might be able to detect them - the last two are gifts of God. If a universal vacuum field is the host or medium for the lowest but universal will, the “will to live” - then it may be measurable indirectly by its effects on other fields, such as the electromagnetic field in living organisms. Alternatively or additionally, it may be geometrically related to the semiosis (the language, encoding and decoding) in living creatures, the DNA, e.g. post 881 on the Behe thread. Such possibilities are being investigated.
The “self-will” is in the domain of the ongoing inter-disciplinary studies of consciousness and the mind. The monist view would be that consciousness (as well as the soul) are merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. Qualia speaks against such a conclusion. Qualia are the properties of sensory experiences which are epistemically unknowable in the absence of direct experience of them and therefore, are also incommunicable. Examples include likes and dislikes, pain and pleasure, love and hate, good and evil.
Which brings me to your last point:
Finally, I would still like to know what it means to "identify the E7 reflection space (a 7-d complex space) with universal consciousness." I'm unable to attach significance to the identification of a mathematical object with a (presumably) physical process the existence of which is entirely unsupported by evidence.
At the risk of oversimplifying this, here goes. Space/time is created as the universe expands. The inflation causes the fields to exist, i.e. fields exist in all points of space/time. The phenomenon we observe as energy and which transforms to matter is the consequence of the geometry. Being able to express that was Einstein's dream.
Our vision and our minds are limited to perception in four dimensions – three of space (x,y,z) and one of time (t). Every corporeal existent is characterized by its space/time coordinates relative to other corporeal existents (simultaneity in special relativity).
We strongly believe that space/time consists of more dimensions, the number is uncertain because of the duality between several of the theories. However, we are much more confident of the multi-dimensional structure because Strominger and Vafa were able to recreate the Hawking and Beckenstein blackhole entropy using string theory.
Exactly what additional dimensions can tell us about other subjects is under investigation. One theory suggests that the reason gravity is so small relative to electromagnetism, strong and weak atomic forces is that it is interdimensional. As positive gravity is a space/time indent, negative gravity would be a space/time outdent and thus shed light on the acceleration of the universe.
Another string theory, the f-theory (father theory) suggests that there is also an extra time dimension in which case our perceived timeline is actually a plane. This would help explain non-locality and superposition but it also would damage our notion of physical causality.
Extra dimensions may also present the Shannon spheres more like multi-dimensional hypercubes – helping us to understand how semiosis (language, encoding/decoding) arose in biological life.
And likewise, the extra dimensions may help us to understand the “will to live” and “self-will”. It is possible that the field-like will is a universal vacuum field of a different choice of coordinates.
IOW, our four dimensional worldview is a seemingly arbitrary choice of coordinates out of set of 10, 11 or 12 (for instance). Sirag is proposing that most of these additional dimensions are used in the phenomenon of consciousness (and presumably, life or a higher reality).
Sirag however puts all of consciousness into a single entity, a “universal consciousness” even though he suggests seven dimensions as host. Personally, I dismiss this part of his speculation as a personal bias towards Eastern mysticism.
