Natural technology: the Virus

see also Natural technology: the bacterium



http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/cells/virus.html
a bacteriophage is typically 100 nm long (300 atoms)
one of thousands of highly efficient designs of virus

A few years ago I followed parts of a YouTube course on virology by Professor Vincent Racaniello and was awestruck by one statistic on the first module.

 If you could take all the bacteriophages (a bacteriophage is a particular type of virus which destroys bacteria), and lay them end to end, how far do you think the line would reach? The Moon, the edge of the solar system, the nearest star?  These distances are orders of magnitude too small. In fact the line would be 200 million light years. This compares with about 2.5 million to the nearest galaxy, Andromeda.  

There are 10power30 (10 with 30 zeros) bacteriophage viruses in the world’s water supplies. (I am not sure how he defines ‘water supply’ but it doesn’t really matter in this context.)  Elsewhere it has been pointed out that the bacteriophages in soil, water, air and living organisms play a crucial role in maintaining the natural, life-friendly balance of bacteria in the ecosphere. 

 He also points out that there are believed to be 10power16 HIV  viruses , of which only a tiny proportion have been discovered and it is almost certain that there will be an HIV virus resistant not only to every anti-viral drug we know about, but to any anti-viral drug  that could conceivably be developed in the future. (If such an omniresistant virus mutated into a form that can be transmitted by droplet infection, like the Black Death there would be no stopping it. If you are an expert in this area and think I am wrong please tell me: I am only a layman and would gladly modify this post and be pleased to be wrong.)

More extraordinary than the number of viruses is their biodiversity, reckoned by him to be greater than that of the bacterial, plant and animal kingdoms put together. There were, for example, some 10,000 species of virus found by drilling into a frigid Antarctic lake trapped below a thick layer of ice (Lake Limnopolar, 2009). Many of these were previously unknown to science. No one knows the total number of species in the viral kingdom but they appear to fall into seven classes, each class being divided into orders, families, genus’s and species, as is the case with the other kingdoms. 

 A virion (a single particle of a virus) is only a fraction of the size of a bacterium and has no on board machinery for producing copies of itself. Neither is it able to propel itself – unlike the bacterium, which is much larger in size. It is, however, a complex and ultra efficiently designed molecular machine able to penetrate the membrane of a bacterial cell and use the machinery inside to its own end, to either the detriment or the benefit of the host cell. The internal structure of the cell, with its ribosome, nucleus and proteins, is utilised to make mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) which it needs to produce a replica of itself.

Having used the host cell’s machinery to produce a replica of itself the virion then has to have itself ejected from the bacterium. This in itself is a remarkable feat.

Virions also have the capacity to reassemble themselves if broken down into their constituent proteins, which means the proteins have been designed with a unique molecular arrangement out of an astronomically high range of possibilities. Only this one geometry allows the virus to spontaneously assemble itself under the right conditions. It reminds me of the fine tuning of the physical constants of the universe to enable biological life to form.

Discoveries made over the last decade or so  affirm giant viruses  many times the size of previously known ones. This is largely because the method of discovering new viruses relied on the assumption that they were too small to be trapped by a filter. It now transpires that there are giant viruses comparable in size and genetic complexity to bacteria. They also  appear to manufacture DNA, not just RNA and there is every reason to suppose they are equally numerous. Some biologists are now proposing that totally new domains of life must have predated the oldest forms of microscopic life discovered to date. The complexity and richness of life 4 billion years ago, only shortly (in geological nuance) after the formation of the earth, is even greater than had been assumed and adds to the depth of the mystery of what lies behind such intelligent systems.

 Because a virus has less goal-oriented complexity than a bacterium could it be that life started off as viruses? This seems logically impossible given that viruses depend on bacteria for their duplication. However, the bacterial, plant and animal kingdoms also depend on viruses. It has been proposed (speculated?), for instance, that speciation - the creation of new species from existing ones - is achieved by the incorporation by viruses of genetically coded beneficial traits from various species into the germ cell of a certain species to create a new species carrying these traits. The neo-Darwinian 'tree of life' model of evolution still included in text books is no longer given credence by the less dogma-driven evolutionary biologists and it would not surprise me if some mechanism based on what is known as horizontal gene transfer comes to be accepted by the majority, although even this would not explain the extraordinary purposeful irreducible complexity of the first life forms.

A virus has a genome consisting typically of just 15 genes. The newly discovered giant viruses range from the stargate mimivirus (1018 genes, 0.4 microns diameter) to the elongated balloon shaped  pithovirus (467 genes, 1.5 microns long).


In describing biomolecular phenomena biologists are forced to use words like

think, decide, employ, ensure, exhibit, store, encode, divide, assemble, manufacture, coordinate, orchestrate....

These all imply that intelligent willful decisions are somehow involved and strike fear into the heart of the neo-Darwinist. Many biologists warns their students to steer clear of such words wherever possible and when forced to use them to hold in mind the (metaphysical) belief that there can be no intelligence because these molecules don’t have brains, as though molecules having brains would be the only way they could purposefully move and that intelligence could be involved in the processes in some way which is beyond present science, at least - in fact, I would suggest, epistemologically out of the realms of investigation, which  is OK for scientists but not for followers of scientism, a religion commonly adhered to by neo Darwinists.

He no doubt fears that believers in God will invoke a direct hands-on intervention by the Lord every time an unexplained phenomena or event is encountered. The professor need have no such fear from those who, like me, suspect that intelligence was built into God’s creation at the instant the universe was conceived in the original quantum event, along with space, time, energy, matter and the laws of physics. Mind could have been  created as a fifth attribute of the universe. This might help explain why there is so much order in the natural world, even where brains are absent, although the laws of physics, mathematics and probability could well be enough. Moreover, since God is greater than the reality we live in I can imagine mind serving as a timeless, spaceless agent by which God pervades the universe and interacts with humanity. Looking at the universe, noting its power, complexity and subtle order, it is not surprising that the eternal Creator can interact with every soul on the planet before and after being born into a body.

(The observed intelligently guided progressive evolution, with experimentation built in,  right up to homo sapiens could, in my view, be envisaged as a something analogous to Michelangelo painting a masterpiece, but done by the Creator from outside of space-time. From our perspective, trapped in space-time, this looks like a progress of events in time and space.)

Once one accepts that the universe may have teleological characteristics deliberately designed into it one can look for order in apparently random or unconnected phenomena by constructing experimentally verifiable hypothesis.  To reject faith in the underlying order and interconnectedness of all things is to risk the very future of science as much as would a belief in a god or gods of the gaps. Some scientists put their faith in Chance, the new god of the gaps, and this could plunge us into a new dark age. Lord have mercy.

see also

 Intelligence without brains


Natural technology: the bacterium

reach me at cosmik.jo@gmail.com

2077:Knights of Peace. Summary of chapter 17: The Hermit Sage

17. The Hermit Sage p.285-301

(the summary is followed by the first few pages of text and a note from the author)


Sister Agatha is a Hermit Sage living in a hut overlooking Codale Tarn in the English Lake District. This is no ordinary hut. It is constructed and designed to make full use of virtual reality in bringing about the spiritual Enlightenment of Knights, impounded dominophiles or anyone wishing to be transformed spiritually in Christ. Father James visits her with Roscoe, his fellow Knight Eric, Isla and her atheist brother Damien.  Sister Agatha explains the Divine Light, how it not only relates to the Holy Spirit but is a manifestation of it, revealing how our different belief systems are necessary and complement each other, stressing that it also heals, confers spiritual gifts and yields fruit. She demonstrates and explains how the stages of Enlightenment take one on a journey, like a pilgrim, to successively higher levels. She says that logic divorced from or denying the divine source of reasoning, the Logos, behind our universe and our own being, can be destructive. The actual programme of Enlightenment goes on for months under the guidance of a Hermit Sage and there is no coercion.


First few pages of chapter 17, the Hermit Sage...

 It was dawn as the five of them walked up the damp stony path which was the final steep stretch towards the hut overlooking Codale Tarn.

A small stone building came into view. A nun-like figure in dark grey stood in the entrance, welcoming and composed in her demeanour. Her face had a few creases but shone with an indefinable radiance. Was it the Holy Spirit, or the Divine Light that dwelled in her? Roscoe decided they were more or less the same thing. There was no mistaking those who were filled with it.

On coming up to the hut Father James introduced her as ‘Sister Agatha’. She was in fact a Sister of the Numinous, a Hermit Sage of the Monastery of Divine Light. She welcomed each one of them in turn with a friendly and dignified handshake then beckoned them in to the small stone hut. It reminded Roscoe of the one he had built during his trial as part of the entry test to the Knights of Peace, though this one was noticeably larger.

As they filed into the hut Roscoe was relieved to see that Eric, now almost recovered from the puma attack, was not accompanied by Isla. She stayed close to her brother Damien, indicating no special privilege of affection for either Roscoe or Eric.  There was an overwhelming sense of peace inside the hut, which seemed to calm Roscoe, and indeed all of them. Somehow this reminded him, through its contrast, of the barbaric battle between Ogrenians and Essonians he had witnessed only three days ago.

Sister Agatha announced that she was feeling rather hungry after her dawn stroll along the top of the valley overlooking Easedale and invited them to help themselves to bread, cheese and cakes, which she had placed on a small table, while she put the kettle on the stove, which burned logs from one of the large forest plantations covering parts of Cumbriana. Father James touched Sister Agatha on the arm and announced he would leave her to conduct the visit. He would go back as soon as he had had a cup of tea and one of her delicious cakes.

She brought over the kettle and poured hot water into a large teapot. Isla took charge of pouring the brewed tea into the mugs which Sister Agatha had placed on a small table and soon they were all sipping gratefully as a way of warming themselves up after walking in the cold mist of the early morning. They also ate pieces of bread and cheese, except Father James who eagerly finished his cake before leaving.

After a few minutes of eating and drinking Sister Agatha made clear her wish to address them. ‘I believe that all four of you are interested in Enlightenment but have not yet had it.  Am I right?’

 They nodded assent, putting down their cups.

‘The tour will, I hope, give you a basic understanding of the process so that, if and when you experience it, your mind and soul will be prepared.’ She and Isla cleared the table, then Eric folded it up and put it in the corner

A white dome of very fine mesh material took shape above and around them as a black curtain dropped down to cover the door, casting the single room of the hut into deep darkness. Sister Agatha turned on a small dim lamp, then spoke in a gentle and reverent voice. ‘Now remember, I’m here to answer any questions you may have. So please don’t hesitate to stop me in my tracks.’

 ‘You all have a Christian belief, I understand. Had you been, say, Moslems, or Jews or Buddhists, the spiritual journey inspired by the Divine Light would have been slightly different. It might be instructive sometime for you to see the versions used for followers of other faiths. There is even a version for atheists, although this is much more than slightly different from all the other schemes.

‘But today let’s sample the Christian version. Remember, the purpose is to show how your religion serves as a spiritual model for engaging with God. As you know, all the world’s major faiths and mystical philosophies use the word ‘light’ to mean something which illuminates one spiritually and Father James was the first to receive what we call the Divine Light in a Holy vision. Under its inspiration he became a healer of the divisions between the world’s faiths and, a little later, perhaps because of the Christian roots of the culture in which he was raised, became a Christian.

‘Now you’ve no doubt heard it said by followers of some religions that theirs is the only way to God and the truth. What the Divine Light shows us is that they are all right, in that each religion relates to a particular aspect of our Lord that God chooses to reveal to followers through a particular belief-system. We have discovered that the Creator is incomparably greater, more mysterious and more unfathomable than was thought at any time in history.’

Damien was an atheist but had heard about Christians who would not admit of any route to God other than that of Jesus and Moslems who considered followers of other faiths as infidels. It was one of the factors that had turned him away from religion, except from his brief encounter with the SSS. ‘Excuse me, Sister, but is this not blasphemy for a Christian?’

‘It was indeed considered to be so by many Christians – the exclusivists. However, the situation has changed. Since the leaders of the world’s classic religions have been illuminated by the Light they have recognised that no one faith can accommodate the Creator of space, time, matter and life in all his magnificence. Yahweh surpasses all understanding. The Light teaches us that for any faith to believe itself to have an exclusive grasp of the true source of being is blasphemous. However, we Christians are right in saying we have exclusive access to the character of the Creator which Yahweh has chosen to reveal to us.’

Roscoe interjected. ‘Sister, one thing has confused me for a long time and I don’t know if you think it a fair question. How does the Divine Light relate to the Holy Spirit?’

‘A good question. I have found the best way to look at it is this. The Divine Light is the work of the Holy Spirit. At this stage in our history God has chosen to reveal how our religions are necessary and complementary to each other and the Holy Spirit is revealing this through the agency of the Light.’ Sister Agatha paused to see if he wanted to follow up his question and her reply, then continued. ‘Not that the Spirit and the Light are synonymous – the Spirit does other things than speak to us through the Light – it heals and responds to prayer.  Are any of you scientists or philosophers?’

Roscoe raised his hand ‘I studied philosophy and I take an interest in science.’ Isla hesitantly mentioned her mathematics degree and investigation of quantum encryption.

‘Probably even those who have not followed science in depth will realise that in recent decades the strides made have been quite stupendous not only in explaining the previously inexplicable but in presenting to us new mysteries which make the universe so awe-inspiring, almost frightening, that the sense of a deity behind it is as great as it was at the time of the hunter gatherer, as he looked at the moon and stars, or witnessed thunder and lightning or the birth of a child.’

She turned the lamp off and there appeared a large holographic image suspended in the darkness. It was a still one of a wealthy man standing in front of a prostrate, undernourished man in rags.

‘We are now in the first stage of a journey. Here the subject is taught that to go to the next stage he must understand the need for virtue. Without virtue it is impossible to reach truth because one is cut off from the divine source of reality, otherwise known as God.  In a moment the image will become animated.’

The rich man appeared to come to life, although he was faint, as did the poor man, who was slightly less faint. The expression on the former’s face was initially one of insolence but it gradually changed to a look of kindness. Then he knelt, touched the poor man gently on the head and gave him food and drink, at which both seemed to fill with light as a thin silver cord from the realm of God  dangled in space and blended into their foreheads, . ‘This is to show graphically and symbolically how a virtuous act brings us closer to union with God. And the closer we get to God, the more clearly will we see the reality of the world he created. During an actual Enlightenment process the pilgrim discusses the images with the Hermit Sage and is guided through the different levels. The Hermit Sage asks the pilgrim to meditate and pray as the journey proceeds. I will show you a few more images before we go to the next level.’

Now the dome appeared to become enormous, as big as a cathedral. A multiplicity of holographic scenes floated and slowly drifted throughout the seemingly huge space. A man was attacked by a vicious thug and refused to resist. Prostrate, he was kicked and punched in the face but refused to retaliate except with a look of pity, causing first his own body to glow with light, then that of the attacker, whose face gradually lost its hardness. A man saw a lady being robbed by two thieves and intervened, in a kindly and firm way, causing all four people involved to glow with numinousness. A man enslaved by pornographic images cast them angrily aside and became filled with the Light.

‘These images and conversations with the Hermit Sage continue until the pilgrim has fully absorbed the message: that acts of goodness, rejection of evil, bring in the holy light and draw one closer to our Creator.’



Author’s note


Some may get the impression that I hold a “many  paths to God” belief. This is not the case. All reality emanates from the one true Triune God through whom everything in creation was brought into being and by whom reality is sustained. By this very definition He can only be reached through Jesus the Christ. Those who believe in other gods are living in the same reality as the Christian (there can only be one) and even shares some of the values emanating from Christ. This is how God decreed it, knowing that it would take time to bring the world to harvest.  However, as I hope is made clear in this novel, the final step to the Holy Trinity has to be via Jesus, a member of the Trinity.


John 14:6:  Jesus answered: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Interplanetary mining

 There is plenty of room on the earth but humanity is now too demanding of resources and environment to sustain its expansion mode. 

Artificial intelligence and robotics have grown up very rapidly  and this kind of technology is enormously useful in space exploration but like most modern technology it requires minerals and metals. A recent article in The Week (22 June, 2019, p.13)

Rare Earths: China's Secret Weapon? 

highlights the potential geopolitical ramifications of the shortage of the 15 lanthanoid elements (La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Pm, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb and Lu) together with scandium and yttrium, known collectively as the 'rare earths'. 

They are geographically widely dispersed as well as difficult and energy intensive to extract, a process which causes waste disposal and pollution problems and a very low quality of life for those forced to work in the mines as well as those living nearby.

 

There is an increasing shortage of minerals and metals needed in technology, especially in China, an inevitable consequence of

• A rapidly growing world population. Every hour there are some 9000 more people alive on the planet, all consuming resources and generating waste at a growing rate

• A rapidly growing per capita demand for technology (GDP growth 5.9% p.a. means more money spent on goods and services which draw upon the Earth's  resources)

TThis investor report states that ‘dysprosium, terbium, europium, neodymium and yttrium are critical and face a looming shortage.’ These rare earth elements and their associated compounds are used in solar panels, fluorescent bulbs, electric car batteries, wind turbines and semiconductors. Platinum (Pt) and related metals are also in short supply and more expensive than gold.  Most of the world supply of Pt is used in catalytic converters and fine jewellery.

Yttrium (Yt) , europium(Eu) and  terbium (Tb) are used as phosphors in smart phone and TV screens. Lanthanum (La) is used in the batteries of hybrid cars (10 kg per battery). Rare earth elements are widely used in green technology, headlights, catalytic converters, oil refineries, lasers, camera lenses, X-ray machines, MRI scanners, nuclear reactors.  Electric motors in hard disk drives, power tools and electric cars rely on powerful magnets using neodymium (Nd) and praseodymium (Pr) alloys.

Iridium (Ir) is distributed thinly over the planet and expensive to mine, yet is in demand for its uniquely high resistance to oxidation, and as a hardening agent in alloys when combined with Pt and osmium (Os). Pt-Ir alloys are also in sparking plugs and Pt-Os alloys are used to tip fountain pen nibs, in pivot bearings such as those found in compasses, and in surgical tools.

In the past the supply of these materials has been more than enough. This would not have been the case if the Earth did not have such a variety of minerals: 4,500 vs 60 for the average rocky planet (secondary data I came across in 2012; from the source I have no reason to believe it is in any way misleading. I will try to find an up to date link) brought to near the surface and within reach of civilisation by plate tectonics (again, of a kind unique to the Earth).

Providentially, all these substances are available in abundance in asteroids, which are now within reach of humankind at just the right time in history that they are needed and when we are close to developing the know-how to reach them. (The Christian in me says 'Praise the Lord' and I hope God-deniers or ignorers will forgive this lapse of secular etiquette!). In fact we already rely mostly on past impacts from space for our supply of Pt. Even gold is heavily reliant on an asteroid which fell to Earth where the mines of Johannesburg are located today. Some asteroids comprise stainless steel, so pure that it requires no refining. Again, at least one extraterrestrial source has been used on Earth: the Inuits in NorthAmerica made tools and knives out of unrefined metals from meteorites. And Sudbury, Ohio is a mining town exploiting nickel, copper and other metals derived from an ancient impact.

So now is the time to start proactively seeking out this abundant resource rather than wait for the biosphere to be strained beyond its limit. A company has already been formed with just this objective: Planetary Resources Inc., https://www.planetaryresources.com/). The current website states there are 16,000 asteroids rich in resources, 2 trillion tonnes of water for life support and fuel, and that space exploration costs in the long term could be reduced by 95%.

It was set up by James Cameron (adventurer and film director) and Larry Page (co-founder of Google with Sergery Brin), who were able to put serious money into it – billions of dollars. It is being done as a money making venture, its viability deriving largely from the high and increasing price of platinum.  

Requoting from its website as of 2012: ‘Some near-Earth asteroids contain platinum group metals in much higher concentrations than the richest Earth mines. In space, a single platinum-rich 500 meter wide asteroid contains about 174 times the yearly world output of platinum, and 1.5 times the known world-reserves of platinum group metals (ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum).’ It is not just the very expensive materials that are being targeted. Quoting again from Planetary Resources: ‘Asteroids also contain more common metallic elements such as iron, nickel, and cobalt, sometimes in incredible quantities. In addition to water, other volatiles, such as nitrogen, CO, CO2, and methane, exist in quantities sufficient to warrant extraction and utilization.’

They are intending to park asteroids in orbit around either the Moon or the Earth. If the former they would choose ones having a large amount of ice since this could be used to support a lunar colony with water or the electrolysed components of water – hydrogen for fuel, oxygen for breathing. This would be a kind of contracted service for any number of manned lunar enterprises. Minerals could be sent back to Earth relatively cheaply and there are plenty of comet-like bodies having both ice and rock.  Platinum-rich bodies could be parked in Earth orbit for a good financial return.

The stainless steel asteroids, which can provide steel of higher grade than that from steelworks, could be used both on the Earth and for the building of spacecraft and space stations in orbit or at L2 Lagrange points. Iron and aluminium could also be used for construction work in space.

Not surprisingly, NASA is interested as, I suspect, are the space agencies of Europe, Russia, Japan and China.

Our planet is becoming overstretched not because of people per se but because of the resources they consume and the waste this generates. Equally important is a lack of awareness of just how precious it is and I believe that starting up major enterprises in the hostile environment of space, together with the rarity, if not the non-existence, of extraterrestrial life, will shock us into facing the reality that we and our world are special.

See also
 Destination Phobos?

There is also a technology in the UK awaiting investment which could reduce the cost of launching a payload into orbit by an order of magnitude. This uses a revolutionary propulsion that has gone through proof of concept test, SABRE)
See
Skylon: an opportunity for a venture capitalist?

John

cosmik.jo@gmail.com

The inherent unpredictability of events by natural means

There is no doubt that certain computer models of social and economic systems can be more useful than harmful as planning tools. On balance the best models have considerably more than an even chance of being correct  and enable us to plan housing, medical services, sewage systems, transport, long term financial investment and much else in as rational a way as practicable.

However, it also essential to recognise their limitations. They have to be quantitative in nature and many of the models are based on Game Theory, which assumes that human beings are rational machines who act only out of self interest and enlightened self interest. There is also often an assumption that past trends are a guide to future trends.

It is not just computer models that get things wrong. History proceeds through large, sudden, unpredictable changes – referred to by N.N.Talab as ‘black swan events’ in his recent book The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable . E.g. the Cambrian explosion of life forms, 540 million years ago, as shown in the fossil record; the power of the atom; the television; space travel; the Internet; the abolition of slavery in the West; the National Health Service; and the Arab Spring.

A good example of the folly of assuming that human behaviour is predictable and can be modelled on the assumption of selfishness is the Wikipedia. It requires the contributor to use non-intuitive editing software and spend a lot of time working for nothing. It also has no specialised refereeing teams yet achieves a high degree of reliability and is kept continually up to date. On top of this it is immeasurably more comprehensive than any ordinary encyclopaedia (for which, nevertheless, there is an important role, but that's another story) depending on paid referees. Anyone predicting the growth that actually happened in only a decade would have been dismissed as a naive dreamer.

The recently departed Steve Jobs was probably alone in having the vision to see that the iPhone would catch on. No focus groups, no user surveys, no trend projections. Just intuition and the resources to follow it up.

There are innumerable examples of great leaps forward in all fields of human endeavour and in the evolution of life. In fact the whole universe is like this when you examine what evidence we have of progress to date. The Big Bang was the first great leap forward. 13.8 billion years later, the creation of a human being from 4 embryonic stem cells in the biosphere was another quantum jump.

The term 'great leap forward' came from chairman Mao's atheist communist revolution in 1958 which set off a sequence of events leading, according to the latest data of which I am aware, to the death of 60 million people.

 see https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-forward-killed-45-million-in-four-years-2081630.html and others.

As Rabi Jonathan Sacks says in his highly acclaimed book and on a BBC radio programme called Start the week, the universe is creative, and creative events are by nature unpredictable.

The only aspect of reality that we can predict with certainty is that it will continue to be unpredictable.

John Sears

See also

Is there meaning behind random events?

Fighting fatalism

The doctrine of chance (Psalm 151)

John Sears

Author
2077:Knights of Peace, available on Amazon.
review copy paperback available on request

reach me on

cosmik.jo@gmail.com

  

Intelligence without brains

 Since the original posting in 2011 the  awareness of the ubiquity of intelligence, at least in the biological world, has grown faster than I can keep pace with. Quantum physics, in particular, appears to be at the root of this intelligence, or rather the equations within it partially describe the nature of God's creation of the stage we live on.

 It is no exaggeration to say that natural world has been imbued with computational features of a complexity and power beyond human imagination or even our power to mimic- even with the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and deep learning. These must originate from before the Big Bang within a realm where time and space do not exist.


What is encouraging for me at least is that this phenomenon and the cosmic purposefulness of human's evolution from outside of space-time is beginning to be noted by mainstream physicists and biologists. Even the emergence of our unique planet and solar system appears increasingly to be goal-oriented, evolving in a way not dissimilar conceptually to the  path by which a human being develops from 4 embryonic stem cells.

I am republishing the 2013 version of the original post here and intend to add notes and links as  I come across and digest information in the science media. 

Over the last decade or so I have heard with increasing frequency of intelligent behaviour in nature; for example in primates, elephants, birds, dolphins and  whales

Example: a crow was confronted with a problem which many humans would not have been able to solve. A tall jar was filled to only a low level with water and a piece of food floated on the surface. It was far too low in the jar to reach. Yet the crow solved the problem by dropping stones into the water until the level of the floating morsel was within reach of its beak. In another experiment a crow could only reach a scrap of food by using a long stick. To do this it had to use a short stick to get the long stick because it was placed behind bars in a cage. See Clever New Caledonian Crows can use three tools.

 Cockatoos were not until recently thought to display intelligent behaviour but a team in Vienna observed that a captive cockatoo was able to retrieve a nut by making a rake, a process which involved shaping a twig with its beak.  See Cockatoo shows tool making skills.

Brain size and complexity does not seem to be much of an indicator of reasoning ability. Even more astonishing is the latest example of problem solving in nature: a single-celled organism (an amoeba, or slime mould, which under the microscope looks like a blob of jelly) is able to solve complex networking problems with no brain or neural network of any kind.

 It is able to construct a matrix of pathways between pieces of food which allow transportation with maximum economy. In fact it is so efficient that researchers have proposed using it as a model for rail and road networks.

Each amoeba is able to negotiate mazes, remembering dead ends, choose the healthiest food from a diversity of options, and anticipate change. To quote from the Scientific American blog source

‘In other words, the single-celled brainless amoebae did not grow living branches between pieces of food in a random manner; rather, they behaved like a team of human engineers, growing the most efficient networks possible. Just as engineers design railways to get people from one city to another as quickly as possible, given the terrain—only laying down the building materials that are needed—the slime molds hit upon the most economical routes from one morsel to another, conserving energy.’

The molecular systems within a cell nucleus and the surrounding cytoplasmic structures also behave in ways which can only be described as intelligent.

In 2013 I came across an example of plants doing mathematical calculations in order to conserve starch throughout the night. It involved feeding in data from the plant's biological clock and the number of starch molecules.

 See  The fittest survive: but how? 

Somehow intelligence moves into our universe at a quantum level from ....somewhere. At one point the whole universe appears to have been a single quantum system and the events within that system are instantaneously connected to events happening now, in the past and in the future via quantum entanglement throughout all the universe.

Time does not come into it. This phenomenon leads to some worldview-shaking-conclusions  e.g. the 400 year old assumption that mind and matter are separate no longer holds.

 Intelligence is a powerful evolutionary tool and appears to have been present from the beginning of life, some 3.5 billion years ago following the late heavy bombardment of Earth by asteroids, comets and meteors. There can be no doubt that this plays a crucial role in the ability of an organism to adapt, compete and cooperate with the living world around it and that this capacity was conferred on life from the start. The emergence of cognitive behaviour in organisms in captivity indicates intelligence levels beyond those needed for survival in their present environment. Perhaps organisms somehow tap an undetectable source of intelligence to help them adapt as the environment changes. This must also be the source which somehow allows totally new species to originate (e.g. as in the Avalon and Cambrian explosions c.550 billion years ago).

Evolution is the subject of much debate. What is beyond doubt is that it is not a random process. To quote the  mathematically brilliant astrophysicist Fred Hoyle(who had been referred to as an atheist) at the end his final book Cosmic Lifeforce (1988): 

The Creator has been given many shapes and names in the diverse cultures throughout the world...the general belief that is common to all religions is that the Universe, particularly the world of life, was created by a being of incomprehensibly magnified human-type intelligence...as if we are creatures destined to perceive the truth relating to our origins in an instinctive way (my italics).

As the Christ said:
 "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you ...the Spirit of Truth, for it abides with you and will be in you."
John 14:16-17

And as the mathematical logician Kurt Goedel proved by formal logic, in his Theorem of Incompleteness (c1930), truth cannot be reached by logic alone: there must be assumptions from outside the logical framework within which a conclusion is arrived at.

See also

consciousness without a brain

 John

reach me at cosmik.jo@gmail.com

2077:Knights of Peace. Summary of chapter 18:Amelia

Followed by.,. excerpt from Beginning of Chapter 18.

Amelia 

Roscoe returns from Grasmere to Cambridge, parking his transpod near the Theatre of War, a large arena in which international disputes are vicariously settled by battles between soldier robots. In this case he watches a bloody robot conflict between Egypt and Sudan over rights to water in the Nile. After the battle he walks via Trumpington Road to the Lion Yard, and visits a reproduction coffee shop, the Grecian, based on one of that name built in 18^th century London. Here he encounters a girl studying music at Emmanuel College. Amelia has already experienced Enlightenment as well as Life Extension. They separate without exchanging contact details but meet again before Roscoe sets off for Grasmere in his transpod . He is still thinking about Isla and her strengthening bond with Eric after his recovery from the struggle with a  Puma but finds himself falling in love with Amelia. He discusses this with his mother Tina in Grasmere, referring to the Oath of Bonding, a successor to engagement, and the Kinship Circle, a successor to the family, made necessary by Life Extension (typically to 300 years) in what has become a largely Christian society.

Link to Amazon pages of the book  (paperback and digital versions)

2077: Knights of Peace by J.L.Sears (Amazon UK)
This is a link to the book's page on UK Amazon, which has two reviews but at present there is no option to buy. Also, there is no sample text. However, you can buy it and sample text through the US site  below.

2077: Knights of Peace by J.L.Sears (Amazon USA)
This is a link to the book's page on the US Amazon which has an option to buy  but there are as yet no reviews. Sample text is available online.


Extract from beginning of chapter 18 ...

Chapter 18   Amelia

 The disused railway line slid beneath the transpod, occasionally marked by a small group of wind turbines, a relic from the days before abundant nuclear fusion technology was used to power most of the world. He was flying quite low and could see that the turbines, although not derelict, were obviously in the early stages of decay. In the distance, even from this low height, he could see a stretch of sea glinting in the sun and recalled that only a few decades ago there would have been dry land as far as the eye could see.

He had approached Cambridge from the north west having followed old motorways and main roads from Cumbriana, then picked up the rail line which skirted the city’s northern and eastern boundaries. Before the line he was following reached the station, now converted into a museum of transport, he turned right and dropped the transpod into a parking area.

Parking space was limited. He had anticipated this because he knew that the Theatre of War would be a popular attraction, even with the reduced population, because transpod ownership was common and the availability of high capacity, three-dimensional routes across the country together with almost unlimited controlled fusion energy meant that owners used them even more than owners of automobiles in the old days of fossil fuels.

The population of Britlandia was down to only forty million after peaking at nearly seventy million before the birth rate declined, net emigration increased and the Plague took its toll.  The average age had of course increased but the revolution in ageing research had enabled people to stay healthy, both physically and mentally, for much longer, even without Life Extension. 

He walked along Trumpington Road. It was busy with throngs of pedestrians, many of whom he presumed were making for the same destination as he was. This was confirmed when he came to a grass expanse which had previously been a golf course and in which stood a large white canopy towards which moved a continuous stream of people. As he approached he could see a floating image above the entrance, three words with their silver letters revolving. Periodically the letters would stop rotating and the phrase ‘THEATRE OF WAR’ would be spelled out.

Inside was a large amphitheatre in which the battle would be conducted. Roscoe regretted that any type of battle was still necessary within GF jurisdiction. Yet if a battle had to be fought this was the only type acceptable in the modern world.

This was a symbolic battle. The Theatre of War was where disputes between ethnic groups or geographical territories could be fought without mass carnage or destruction.  Only countries within the Global Federation were culturally endowed to resolve quarrels in this way and it was unfortunate that there were still areas of the world, such as Ovoskotia, Essonia and Ogrenia, which did not belong to the GF and where ethnic tensions often erupted into violence.

Today’s conflict would decide on a victor in a fight over water rights between Egypt and the Sudan, both countries through which the River Nile flowed with a diminishing volume of water. The two sides had not been able to negotiate an agreement and the only recourse they had as members of the Federation was to be represented by two small armies of life-sized robot soldiers equipped with a variety of weapons. Not weapons lethal to human beings. These were of course illegal under GF Law. They were designed to destroy only the simulated humans which fought in the Theatre of War, albeit in a realistic way which reminded the spectators of the wretchedness of real war. Knights occasionally liked to witness simulated battles since it strengthened their resolve to eliminate the technology which allowed real war to reap its harvest of death and offend against Yahweh.

Roscoe stood leaning against a waist high pillar, waiting for the first robot fighters to appear on the stage below. Then a gleaming red armoured figure appeared and walked around the large expanse of the stage. The audience applauded.

The robot held or had strapped to it a variety of lethal weapons, including a sheathed sword and a repeat action rifle. It managed to convey to the audience, in its stance, mannerisms and appearance, a sense of irony. All were about to witness the settlement of a real quarrel over resources yet no human being would die or be injured. It would be an entertaining spectacle, the battle would be skilfully executed, there would be finesse and skill in large measure; but above all it would convey the futility and inhumanity of war.

A large cascade of applause filled the arena.

A second robot walked calmly and with dignity into the stage area, this time from the right. It was equally well armed but dressed in a long purple cloak.

There was more applause.

Similar robot soldiers entered the arena, each dressed or designed in some way to be distinguishable to the crowd as an individual and each eliciting its own raucous applause, unheard by the humans who operated them from their control stations in Egypt or Sudan or, if they were hired from outside the two nations in dispute, other parts of the world. Despite the highly individualistic appearances the two sides were distinguishable by colour – red for the Egyptians, purple for the Sudanese.

When each side had seven fighters the applause stopped and the whole amphitheatre fell silent. The combatants moved and climbed into their starting positions on various boxes, high platforms and protrusions from pyramids around the arena. They all stood still and the lighting dimmed until they were barely visible. A solid gold ball descended slowly into the arena, coming to rest on a pedestal in the middle of the stage. A voice announced that the engagement was to be fought to agreed rules, that it was a war game, the object being to capture the ball. The rifles each had only ten bullets each. It was also emphasised that the outcome would have real consequences for the two countries involved....

1984 revisited: collective post-modernism

I am republishing this post with slight revision  since I last revised it in 2016, having noticed the recent controversy over the ideas and worldview of Dr Jordon Peterson, a clinical psychologist and polymath scholar from Canada. As my Christian faith grows I become increasingly concerned about the loss of the concept of truth in a secular society. Christ stressed repeatedly the importance of truth in reaching spiritual fulfilment. The near hysterical reaction by university cultural Marxists to Peterson's coherent and rigorous arguments are worrying to say the least and I only hope the final result is not comparable to the mayhem which followed the 20th century adherence to truthless ideologies (e.g. Marxism, Maoism and Nazism were godless ideologies which between them generated untold misery, tragedy and over 250 million deaths over the first half of the 20th C) .

See 1984, George Orwell website

George Orwell finished his novel 1984 in 1948. It is a remarkably perceptive book about a fictional world  dominated by people whose idea of a good time is to cruelly exert power over others for the sheer pleasure of doing so and who do not believe in an ultimate truth or objective moral values

Instead they create their own model of reality in a kind of ‘collective solipsism’ (a phrase used by O’Brien, the Party leader in the novel) and force this on the Party members by controlling every aspect of their lives and thought processes from cradle to grave. Solipsism is defined in my Penguin English dictionary as the 'theory that the only possible knowledge is that of oneself.' 

The collective solipsism of 1984 is the extension of this to a whole society.

 All those in the Party are forced, by indoctrination and torture, not just to pretend belief, but to really believe, for instance,  that

2+2=5

black is white

ignorance is strength

war is peace

love is hate

The Party members thereby learn to ‘doublethink’:  to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. This reminds me of Steven Hawking’s ‘model dependent realism’ and post-modernism in general (as defined in philosophy rather than art; dictionaries often don't reflect this), since these philosophies deny the existence of an objective reality. Fortunately they are not collective in nature and are not imposed on us by a totalitarian regime but in my view they could have dangerous consequences in the long term even if only held individually.

Orwell appears to have based his society on the communist and fascist, godless, dictatorships of the first half of the 20^th century. The rulers in these regimes, in Orwell's view, saw themselves as the source of power and power was all that mattered. The real God does not exist for the Party founders of 1984, so the Party is God and the Party stands for power over people. Hence ‘God is power’ is perhaps the most telling slogan of the novel.

People loving power over others feature in my novel, 2077:Knights of Peace. I call them ‘dominophiles’. However, they are not as ruthlessly evil as the founders of the Party in 1984. Their danger to the world lies mainly in their capacity to bring out the badness in others and stir up trouble in zones of ‘sociodynamic’ instability, which unchecked would cause violent conflict such as ethnic cleansing. A dominophile with the right aims, e.g. wiping out some disease,  might do some good in the world; but I would not like to work under one.

What concerns me about western democracies today is that they are overly secular and attempt to hold up Christian moral values without any acknowledgement of their sacred source. The horrific consequences of abolishing the sacred are explained by Jordan Peterson (I may add a YouTube link later - there are many to choose from). Political correctness and endless talk about human rights and labelling of people as 'racist' or 'homophobe' or 'sexist' when they make  simple statements of fact are, I believe, symptons of this denial. The spiritual equality of all human beings is a natural consequence of Christianity. All are made in God's image, all are equal in the eyes of God, and without constantly reminding ourselves of this shrill denouncements of 
those who speak truths such as that 

some people are more intelligent than others

some people are more talented than others

people brought up in different environments or cultures are different 

people of different races are physically different 

people of different gender are, on average, different at a deep emotional and visceral level

can only lead to trouble. 

I believe there is a God who incarnated himself into humanity. If this is true, and the evidence is huge, then pretending that it is not is a complete denial of reality, a mass insanity which can only have dire consequences, starting with the rise of demigods offering prosperity, social justice and security to the masses. I don't know what Donald Trump really stands for but we need to be careful about expunging the divine source of reality from government, schools, hospitals, private companies and all public institutions, lest we open the door to evil to rush into the spiritual vacuum. 

The Triune God is real and sustains every atom, thought and being in existence.  He is the source of reality itself, the bedrock, the 'truth that sets us free' and attempts to ignore this can only have horrific consequences. 

See also Gems from the Hiding Place

John Sears
Author, 2077: Knights of Peace

cosmik.jo@gmail.com

Freedom in Christ by Gary Turner

Freedom in Christ

by Gary Turner

Satan prances round us

In a mocking “fun-dance”,

Trying to deny us

Life in Christ’s abundance:

Satan tries to blind us

But Jesus wants to find us.

Satan can enslave us

But Jesus wants to save us.

Satan will accuse us

But Jesus wants to choose us.

Satan’s there to tempt us

But Jesus will exempt us.

Satan may deceive us

But Jesus will receive us.

Satan can entrap us

Through what we say or hear,

But if we are secure in Christ

There’s nothing we need fear.

Jesus Christ –

He is the Truth,

And so, if you’re wise,

You will renounce

Each and every

One of Satan’s lies.

If you repent

And change your mind,

Then there’s something

You will find:

You won’t let

Your feelings break you

If you let

The Lord’s truth make you!

Co-operate with God

And do His will –

Then His Spirit

Shall thee fill.

Even though

You may still do wrong,

Remember to whom

You now belong:

You can no longer

Be defiled

For, though you may sin,

You’re still God’s child.

A sinner once

You may have been

But Christ declares you

Pure and clean.

Since on the cross

He once died,

You have now been

Justified,

So that in

The Father’s sight

You’re no longer bad

’Cos you’ve been made right.

You have been rescued

From your plight

So that you now

Live in light.

And since faith comes

From what you’ve heard,

Listen to God

And feast on His Word.

Meet with friends –

Just one or two –

And you will find

Christ’s there with you.

To journey with

Good friends, you must

Build relation-

ships of trust.

Knowing the truth

Will set you free

To become the person

You ought to be.

All you have to do

Is choose

To do the right thing –

You have nothing to lose!

Choose the truth;

Don’t choose the lie.

What you feed will grow;

What you starve will die.

Overcome the bad

And become the good –

Doing this

Is what you should,

And as you step into

This reality

Then you will find

You’ve been set free!

Gary Turner