Biocosmology - Chris C King
.pdfDate: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:42:11 -0400
From: yanniru@netscape.net (richard ruquist)
To: king@math.auckland.ac.nz (Chris King)
Subject: RE: Brain-mind cosmology monograph
Dear Dr. King:
I have reviewed your paper. I believe that Part I is an excellent SURVEY paper; but I fail to see what is new in it. Perhaps you could help by pointing out what is new.
However, your premise that biology is a "cosmological interactive process initially defined in the cosmological symmetry-breaking process" has not been demonstrated in my opinion. Cosmological bifurcation may be in some sense mathematically equivalent to chemical bifurcation, but it is not the same thing. But even accepting that all bifurcations are cosmological in origin, quite a leap of logic, you have not demonstarted that " it is clear that RNA itself has generic status as a cosmological molecular structure. Bifurcation is the first step in developing coding, but all succeeding steps omit bifurcation. Besides, molecules do not look like anything seen by astronomershence not cosmological structures.
In addition, at one point you yourself say- "too compilcated to account for with simple cosmological argument"
Part II does seem to contain new material as sex is attributed to symmetry breaking. But I see nothing in cosmology that comes close to sexual reproduction. Just saying things like "reproductive investment is symmetry-breaking" and a "biological manisfestation of wave-particle duality" is pure speculation without further elaboration. The form may be the same, perhaps even the math, but that does not mean it is the same except maybe in poetry.
Your discussion of non-locality was equally disturbing. Non-locality or entanglement is not sexual nor does it have a basis in cosmology as far as I know. At least you did not indicate a basis of non-locality in cosmology.
Your unsubstantiated comment that " randomness is ultimately explained by quantum entanglement" is exactly thatunsubstantiated.
Your one comment on Bohm theory indicates that you have not read the latest papers in that field by Sidney Goldstein, etal.
So in my opinion Part II is more poetry than new science.
As a final remark, it was NOT great to make your acquaintance at the Tucson Quantum Mind conference,
as I did not attend that conference...
Sincerely,
Richard Ruquist
Dear Richard,
I would like to know what your comments are on the points below. Can you come up with constructive answers to justify your position? This will help deal with some of the standard critiques.
"your premise that biology is a "cosmological interactive process initially defined in the cosmological symmetry-breaking" process has not been demonstrated in my opinion"
This is confusing a theory with a proof. To be valid as a theory, an idea has to be:
a:plausible
b:capable of being disproven by dissonant facts
c:not already disproven by any such facts
the skeptical principle upon which science depends does not stipulate any theory can be proven, just that the empirical evidence is so far not inconsistent with it.
my theory satisfies these criteria fully
"Non-locality or entanglement is not sexual"
entanglement requires a mutual association between emitters and absorbers with boundary conditions stipulating each to link to just one other in a manner that requires one of each of two complementary 'mating' types to make a transaction consisting of a single real particle ...
But even accepting that all bifurcations are cosmological in origin, quite a leap of logic, you have not demonstarted that " it is clear that RNA itself has generic status as a cosmological molecular structure. Bifurcation is the first step in developing coding, but all succeeding steps omit bifurcation.
not ALL bifurcations but the key described bifurcations between the chemical elements ...
the purine pyrimidine base complementation and the entry of sugars as cyclic oligomers of HCN and HCHO have a plausibly described cosmological basis allowing for similar structures such as PNA which also use the same mechanism of base complementation.
the entire genetic code decryption in the paper is based on bifurcation principles ...
molecules do not look like anything seen by astronomershence not cosmological structures.
wait a minute ... any astronomer looking at earth will see precisely this ... furthermore looking at galactic gas clouds shows precursors of biomolecules.
Part II does seem to contain new material as sex is attributed to symmetry breaking. But I see nothing in cosmology that comes close to sexual reproduction.
you have the process reversed ... as I noted with transactions above, we should understand complementary sexuality first through physics and then through biology. You are asking to reverse the foundation synthesis because you are fixed on sex in its biological from. This clearly will not work, but it doesn't refute the concepts of sexuality and complementarity as later becoming manifest in a new way in reproductive genetic sexual complementarity.
Just saying things like "reproductive investment is symmetry-breaking"
no ... it's not that investment = symmetry-breaking but that sexual investment is a broken symmetry ... the reproductive investments of the two biological sexes are clearly symmetry-broken ... this IS evidence of bifurcation even if driven as noted by mechanisms like cytoplasmic (male) killer genes.
and a "biological manisfestation of wave-particle duality" is pure speculation without further elaboration. The form may be the same, perhaps even the math, but that does not mean it is the same except maybe in poetry.
if the form and math are the same what are you claiming is the difference then that makes the maths
invalid? these are all non-linear molecular quantum processes ...
Your unsubstantiated comment that " randomness is ultimately explained by quantum entanglement" is exactly thatunsubstantiated.
all 'random' events are either an expression of incomplete knowledge averaged over (e.g. statistical mechanics) or are dealing indirectly with how entanglement works (probability interpretation of quantum theory).
it is very important to draw attention to this deep problem and its possible solution in entanglement. It is not just speculation ... there is no answer to this question that has more substance than the association with entanglement ... you provide a non-speculative theory of the origin of randomness ...
Your one comment on Bohm theory indicates that you have not read the latest papers in that field by Sidney Goldstein, etal.
show me how the Bohm theory can explain how a single high energy photon (with a single twocomponent wave function) can define two non-zero rest mass quark positions within their multi-
component wave functions ....
can making the Bohm theory transactional solve this problem?
I'm not sure it can. Do you think Goldstein can do this? How does this solve the problem of subjective intent?
kind regards, Chris King
From: "Rita Pizzi" <pizzi@dti.unimi.it>
To: "'Chris King'" <king@math.auckland.ac.nz>
Subject: RE: Brain-mind cosmology monograph
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 10:24:53 +0200
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Importance: Normal
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your material.
Your topic is extremely fascinating and I saw your deep effort in showing the formal motivations of your thesis.
Surely your theory has a great potential, and I think that you should have the possibilities of a deeper inspection and diffusion, by means of international exchanges with other scientists.
Unfortunately, I am not an expert in the complex issues you are handling, thus I can't help you more than this. But I wish you the best luck,
Rita
From: Christopher Davia <davia@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Brain-mind cosmology and qm
Hi Chris,
Yes, I enjoyed meeting you too. Its a pity that we did not have more time to exchange ideas.
As for your request. You may not be aware but, I am not a PhD. I was invited to do research at CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh as a result of a paper that I originally wrote in order to get onto a Doctorate program in the UK. I was actually accepted into the Cognitive Science program at Sussex - unfortunately, I could not get the funding to pursue this opportunity. Luckily, however, Professor Patricia Carpenter, whom had already received a copy, offered me a research position for two years - coming to an end in August.
Like your good self, I have been a voice in the wilderness, trying to be heard and, most importantly, understood.
I have been examining your pdf file - very, very interesting. You and I seem to have overlapping ideas.
Please take the time and examine my own web site - www.psy.cmu.edu/~davia/mbc
I have also been thinking about the cosmological implications of the ideas I am working on.
I believe that life is an extension of a fundamental quantum ontology - this may require some explaining - more if you are interested.
On a more basic level. I argue that the twin themes of travelling waves and excitable media are the hallmarks of living processes. In short, it is my opinion that the brain should be considered primarily as an excitable medium. Consciousness is to be corellated with the spatio/temporal evolution of travelling waves the forms of which are dependent upon the way in which areas of the brain are excited or suppressed consequent upon stimulus. Essentailly, I suggest that the senses have the effect of structuring the medium. So, to contrast the brain with the heart - the travelling wave that moves through excitable tissues in the heart (responsible for contraction) evolve dependent upon the structure of these tissues. The brain, on the other hand, is structured, moment by moment, by the senses.
On the cosmological level. I was interested to read that the formation of galaxies seem to be dependent upon the formation of black holes at their heart. The initial collapse of the black hole causes a massive shock wave to move outwards that 'catalyses' the formation of stars and planets. I have recently been toying with the idea that we can consider the 'unformed' galaxy as an excitable medium. The shock wave seems to bear a resemblance to a travelling wave.
Write soon
Chris
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2003 10:56:16 +0200
From: Guenter Mahler <mahler@theo1.physik.uni-stuttgart.de>
To: king@math.auckland.ac.nz
Dear Chris,
thank you for your email and the reference to your book project.
I am a humble theoretical physiscist only, so I cannot judge your most ambituous undertaking in full. E.g. I had to leave out most of the chemistry. Nevertheless, here are some remarks:
1.In the whole, I think, the 2 parts I had access to, give a very interesting and thought-provoking reading. I would certainly like to see it completed and published.
2.From the subject I see the text to have a two-fold function: On the one.hand side it summarizes a number of ideas of contemporary science, on the other hand side it tries to outline and support the authors' main ideas.
3.From its narrative style I conclude that the intended readership will be the "well-educated laymen".
I would suggest to include a glossary of the most important scientific terms, which are now only partly given as footnotes. If the reader was to have any chance to remain critical and not to be overrun by the expert author, this would be an essential precondition.
4.There are many interesting remarks: statements referring to hard science, opinions (on open scientific issues), but also speculation. I understand, it is very difficult to explicitly mark these borderlines in all cases. However, some attempts in this direction should be worthwhile. In particular as there is an unavoidable gradient in clarity from scientific to the other statements.
5.The meaming of "non-linear" quantum mechanics is rather unclear to me. One has to be very careful about this term; in quantum optics non-linearity refers to a rather special representation (product-operators for the harmonica' oscillator).
6."Biocosmology" is a very strong and demanding wording. There have been terms like Astrophysical Bio-Chemistry , in which one studies the occurrence of biological material in the cosmos etc. At least from the abstract the term biocosmology remains rather faint.
7.The hard problem in consciousness studies according to Chalmers is mentioned. As far as I can see it is not solved in this book either. It should be clarified to what extent we learn something new.
8.As far as I understand, the "transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics" is just this: an interpretation. I doubt whether the elements of this interpretation can be given so much "reality" as to produce an "explanation" for anticipatory consciousness etc.
9.I am not happy with the description of sexuality in terms of "symmetry breaking as a wave-particle complementary". I think, concepts loose their meaning if applied too far away from where they have been defined.
10.The meaning of fractals in your picture of cosmology is not clear to me. Fractals are mentioned only on few occasions.
11.The book will have to compete with those of other authors like Stuart Kaufmann. This will be the easier the better it can be condensed into a central message by which it can be identified. For this to happen the message should be short and easily understandable.
The prospective book has a very broad scope indeed. I expect it to become an interesting and important contribution.
Best regards, Guenter.
--
Prof. Dr. G. Mahler
Institute for Theoretical Physics I Pfaffenwaldring 57 D-70550 Stuttgart Tel.: ++49-(0)711 685-5101
Fax: ++49-(0)711 685-4909
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 21:23:03 -0700
From: David Chalmers <chalmers@arizona.edu>
To: king@math.auckland.ac.nz
hi chris, it was nice to meet you at the conference. thanks for the manuscript. it looks interesting and creative, but i don't think i have the expertise to evaluate it properly, so i'll have to decline
the invitation to provide any semi-official comments. i wish you the best of luck with it, though.
cheers,
dave.
Short Review on Chris King’s Biocosmology Monograph
Huping Hu, Ph.D., J.D.
In a two-part monograph entitled "Biocosmology," author Chris King presents his research over the last 26 years (since 1977) into the cosmology of life including consciousness. The work described therein is a systematic and enlightening synthesis of the author’s view on life and its place in the universe. It may be said that King’s work supports a new anthropic principle based on stochastic bifurcation, quantum complementarity and transactional interpretations of quantum mechanics. Therefore, if it turns out that he is correct, we would all have to change our current thinking on the subject and be prepared to enter a new paradigm of life science.
According to King, the life form as we know it is the product of a consummating interactive process defined at the beginning of the universe in the cosmic symmetry-breaking. King is also advancing the radical view that evolution is not driven by random mutation plus selective fixation of advantageous configurations as incremental historical accidents but by stochastic opportunistic process plus an optimizing selective response to bifurcation in the natural, sexual and ecological landscape. Ontologically, King suggests that the existential realm is a complementarity between subjective consciousness and the objective physical universe by which mind expresses itself in the physical world as having free-will. Thus, free-will originates from chaotic instability and its fractal interaction with quantum uncertainty.
To support these daring claims, King cites in his monograph numerous research articles and data from the existing literature. Undoubtedly, if King would have provided his own unique predictions based on his theory plus experimental verifications of these predictions, his monograph would be even more persuasive. Perhaps that is what King has in mind as his next project.
Dated April 28, 2003
David W. Deamer, Ph.D.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry University of California
Santa Cruz CA 95064 (831) 459 5158
David Deamer <deamer@hydrogen.ucsc.edu>
The King manuscript is the single most extraordinary paper I have ever been asked to review. It is a work of intellectual passion, an attempt to find
a grand pattern that relates life on Earth to fundamental cosmic principles. I have read it several times now, looking for nuggets of useful
wisdom that seemingly must be there. I found many nuggets, but I'm not sure how useful they are, particularly to an experimental scientist such as
myself.
The main thesis is that universal symmetry-breaking processes have ultimate significance in the cosmos, and that life is an inevitable product, a kind
of fractal structure growing out from asymmetric forces acting at the quantum level. The author uses a variety of examples to make this point, which range over the entire gamut of human knowledge. The topics are illustrated with beautiful works of scientific art, although often the
figures seem to be chosen more for esthetic value than explanatory purposes.
I can see this manuscript as an epic poem of science, carrying the reader lightly through an amazing fabric of ideas, facts and speculations, woven with the thread of symmetry breaking and fractal properties. But the scope is almost impossibly broad, and as a result the discussion is often sketchy and even cryptic. I'm sure that the more cryptic phrases likely have meaning for the author, but readers will be baffled.
I looked hard, but could find no actual errors in the manuscript. In other words, the level of scholarship is high. The main problem for me is that I did not find the attempted integration to lead anywhere useful. It came across as a pattern of linked concepts ranging from quantum physics to cosmology and everything between, but was finally not satisfying in saying anything truly new and significant.
Should it be published in Complexity? This would appear to be an editorial choice, since I am not familiar with the standards set by the journal. I would like to see it published someplace so that others can enjoy it as I have.
Comment in reply:
The although the paper is beautifully presented, it is not a valid criticism of the theory to call it 'art' as opposed to 'science'. In fact it is a mis-construed and prejudical statement made in disarming terms.
The theory sets out clear cosmological conditions pivotal to fractal complexity interaction in biogenesis.
Moreover the theory is clearly testable as a scientific theory, for example comparison of life forms from distinct planets would immediately confirm or deny major aspects of the cosmological thesis in all epochs priebiotic and evolutionary.
Neither is it appropriate to claim the theory doesn't make valid suggstions concerning practical experiments on Earth. The throry suggests an enitely new generation of non-linear interactive experiment with large scale complex molecular systems to test their interactive complexity when the analytic boundary constraints simplifying reactions conditions are removed. I would work with a complex system biogenic reactor in which coexistent systems involving HCNO co-polymers with phosphates, iron-sulphur metabolites, and tertiary interfaces such asclays analysed by computer automated chromatographic separated mass spectrometer analysis. This could enable the study of a whole new generation of autocatalytic and interface experiments which could test major aspects of the idea in a similar way to high energy accelerator experiments in particle physics.
Chris King
Dear Chris - As I mentioned in my earlier email, I did not make a recommendation, but left it to the editor's discretion. Here is what I wrote, just so that you will have some possibly useful feedback. I don't think their answer contradicts what I said - the editor just decided that it was appropriate for their journal.
I am pretty certain that you will not be able to publish Biocosmology in an ordinary scientific journal. There is one extraordinary online journal called Leonardo - probably I have mentioned it before, and you might look into publishing there. Here is the URL: http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/whatsnew.html
The only other possibility I see is to set up your own website and publish electronically, or simply publish it as a small book on your own. Sorry not to be more helpful - please keep me posted on your progress. Dave
Dear Chris - I have now had a chance to read your paper. First I will praise your effort. It is a unique vision of life in the universe, having extraordinary breadth, and contains a philosophical thread that makes it as much a work of art as science. As a working scientist, I read the paper to enjoy the scope of ideas, particularly the symmetry breaking and other links you develop for the way life fits into the rest of the universe. As
an experimentalist, I did not get much out of it. The paper is a vast explanation, an attempt to find larger patterns of encompassing universal laws, but does not provide a way to test the ideas presented. In a strange way, they are too big to be tested experimentally.
You asked earlier whether I would agree to act as a referee - none of the journals for which I act as referee would accept the paper. You mentioned Complex Systems - I really don't have the expertise to be a referee for that journal. In fact, because it is unique, I would guess that the paper will not easily fit into the usual sorts of publications. There is one
other possibility - you should visit the website given below - MIT Press might just be able to convince themselves that it is worth publishing in Leonardo, either as a short book or as an electronic version.
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/
The other possibility is to publish it yourself, again as a book or online at your website. I am sure that many people will read it with interest. Sorry that I can't be of more help - if you do get it published, please let me know. Best wishes - Dave