Life, the universe and all the rest
Paradise never existed
[This title is of course stolen from Douglas Adams]
Paradise was never lost
- It never existed - (On EARTH)
Many currently believe that this world is by nature - literally from its inception - a paradise that is only maliciously prevented from manifesting itself by a certain part of the population.
This is new.
At least some believe this - at least as long as enough moist food pulp is squeezed into their dwelling cells and the waste from their metabolism is discreetly and efficiently disposed of; then they may also believe that they do not produce any.
And it is really an irrational, religious belief (that in a paradise possible on Earth), even if they themselves do not perceive this belief rationally, but try to rationalize their belief; their conveyance of guilt for the loss of it onto some evil Satan incarnate shows this all too clearly.
However, this belief is justified by absolutely nothing.
Even the unconsciously biblical belief that the (Earthly!) Paradise "was lost" through some human fault is just a misinterpretation of the biblical story of the Fall.
Which describes many things, but one thing it does not: That paradise on Earth is possible.
It is not, as long as a person lives.
It is a non-existent dream.
An unattainable goal.
Sealed with the flaming sword of death.
Exactly the opposite is the case: the original state of the world is hell.
The history of its origins shows that already.
The world in its natural state is Hell on Earth, and remains so for all life.
We keep it in check only with great difficulty.
With what we do, or don't do, we do not prevent the fictional paradise from manifesting itself on Earth, but rather the very real hell.
Anyone who breaks their ankle in the boulders far from the city will understand this very quickly.
That person may starve to death within sight of the food, but before that it will itself become food:
First come the flies, then at night the mosquitoes; then the animals attracted by the smaller ones as fodder. Then come those who can smell open meat for miles.
And then there will be no more mercy.
This is the natural state of the world since life has existed: All living beings are fodder for others.
Many people are blinded by the beauty of nature; they fail to understand that this beauty is a product of cruelty and ruthlessness.
The glory of the big cats (exceptions here confirm the rule as always) comes from predation. Only an excellently camouflaged, strong and skilled predator can survive.
And only a shy Bambi deer with wonderful, huge eyes and ears and graceful legs escapes the incredible set of teeth of the wolf; only the hooking hare can save itself from the eagle's swoop.
It was not until the herbivore attack that the putrid green soup, that initially covered this planet, first became clean waters rich in fish; then evolved into fields and forests.
If the prey does not die, the hunter dies.
Even the rook's elegance stems from the fact that it will starve to death, if it cannot fly better than its competitors for food.
But it is nonsense just as well, when nature documentaries declare that (only) "big hunters reign in the prey", which, in turn, would otherwise deplete the plants.
Because, if these are missing, others come into play: the tiny hunters, the fungi, parasites, viruses and bacteriae.
And these clean up quite efficiently.
First, they have been around much longer than their prey; and secondly, they don't have to worry about their table being laid. Their prey itself, by reproduction, steadily provides new prey, effortlessly to them.
THAT could perhaps correspond to an idea of paradise - but from the other end.
It is only that these little predators make no great demands on the external physical fitness, and the resulting aesthetics, of their prey; a soup in a petri dish is good enough for them.
To them, every shapeless lump of protein would be fine; it only depends on its mass. Some only demand that the host still be alive while they slaughter him.
And the defense against such tiny predators does not consist in athletics and aesthetics, but in biochemistry: the immune system. A poison-soaked sponge, made up of leather-hard protein, gets just as far as a product of millions of years of co-evolution.
This depends on their insides, not the outside. It is there that the attack usually happens. But you usually don't usually see the entrails of a living being from the outside.
And death from illness is cruel as well.
So, the function of the great hunters is not to keep the prey short; that, the little ones do much better.
Their inevitable function is to shape the essence of the respective living being through external attack.
Its beauty, if you will.
And with that, its own.
And with that, the world's.
Form follows function.
For larger animals, insects are in the middle; prey on the one hand, predator on the other.
As the latter, they ensure the density of skin and the closure of body orifices.
But what about termites, ants and bees, the 'social insects'?
There, almost all individuals are sexless female serfs; but still, every one of those (mostly female) humans who dream of exhausted drones dropping dead from their bodies want to be the queen, with millions of those sexless workers as their descendants, at their disposal, to serve them front and back and follow them until death.
But as for queens, there is always only one. As a lottery win, so to speak.
Except that this one has been predetermined.
And endless wars.
And robbers and booty.
As everywhere.
Otherwise they would be nothing but mite-bitten lumps of protein, which, however, would not even get so far as to be such.
Without the predator, life would not have gotten beyond the primordial soup; and that shows that they have existed from the beginning.
And so, the diversity in the realm of life derives from the cruelty of predation; and there are more predators than there are prey.
The Earth is NOT a paradise.
And it never was.
By the way: Originally the insects on this earth were meters long. Why they are so no longer is another topic...
The origin of the lifeless world is hell as well
Anyone who picks up two stones and compares them with one another may see their beauty and structure, shaped by millions of years of geological evolution - which, incidentally, was discovered in Darwin's time, like so much we think we know today, since about 150 years ago.
But who is really aware that only a few ppm of the glowing liquid sphere under our feet are solid enough to be walked upon?
And who, that these giant embers - even if they have cooled down, like Mars and the Moon, one more reason why they are lifeless - are themselves the result of an absolutely life-threatening evolution over 13.5 billion Earth years - long before they even existed?
And what are 13.5 billion?
Nothing, absolutely nothing, even in the shaping of the most aesthetic formations of the cosmos, the galaxies, the suns and stars, the solar systems, the planets and moons, was and is in any way heavenly or even just life-affirming.
It may look like that from the outside.
But the temperatures and energies involved in this process would dissolve any life - or freeze it into a crystallized lump: It is the choice between Dante's hell and Christian hell, between ice and fire, and not from a safe distance, but in the middle of it.
That way, this world has been a hell since its creation, and it will remain so until it is finally destroyed.
Down here,
Paradise was never lost.
Paradise never existed.
Nor will it ever be.
So, the question remains:
How could the - in itself impossible - idea of paradise arise in people, and how did they come up with the idea of wanting to build it here on earth; even though every attempt to do this has so far - and will also have in future - opened the gates to the very hell that this world, as every, happens to be by conception.
And a further question could be if, perhaps, humans can live in this hell as long as they do not try to change it, but to avoid it.
So what is it that keeps us alive?
And how did life emerge from the primordial soup of the universe?
Against all odds?
Well… maybe it didn't.
Summary
(Which is also extracted here)
For the following, it is relatively unimportant whether the entire mass of the universe appeared out of nothing in one Big Bang, or whether matter continuously appears out of nothing. It is also irrelevant what of matter is made up of in detail.
It simply assumes that matter exists, after it has arisen, that it has mass, and it is therefore subject to the attraction of other matter via gravitation or gravity.
All materials (atoms) heavier than the original hydrogen were, are and will be forged in the center of the stars by nuclear fusion, as a result of the gravity of these celestial bodies.
This nuclear fusion is the direct result of the local gravitational collapse of the interstellar gas cloud: its matter attracts itself.
[ - This is undisputed, as far as I know; recently there has been the thesis that there are also other original elements; so be it, it's most likely not the majority.]
Each new atom (or mixture of atoms), created in this way, is more complex than its predecessors, and is generated in an ever shorter period of time.
Thus the effect of gravity increases complexity - and by this definition decreases entropy. This happens on all levels; the formation of elements is repeated, in the next step, at the level of molecules in the formation of planets.
[ - Highly controversial. Science is divided on how to exactly define entropy, depending on its purpose. For the sake of the arguments provided here, (low) entropy will be defined as a measure of complexity, gradient, and potential; the nuclear transformation of hydrogen to helium alone then is proof of the entropy-lowering effect of gravity, as would be the reduction and separation of carbon and hydrogen oxide (or mineral water) to carbohydrates and free oxygen via photosynthesis (effective of the gravity of the Sun), or similar processes via chemosynthesis (effective of the gravity of the Earth).]
All forms of energy in the entire universe, such as movement, light, or heat ultimately arise from the gravity of celestial bodies, on Earth ultimately originating in the Sun, the Moon or the Earth itself; the same applies for others. They arise through the self-reinforcing process of the mutual attraction of matter.
[ - My thesis; the general opinion of science on this is unknown to me. It seems almost to not have been looked for very seriously yet. Usually, the debate stops short at "the Sun" as a "source of all earthly energy", but goes no further; thus ignoring (not only) the energy that the Earth itself provides.]Life on earth is just the local, current, final level of complexity in this place in space, and at this given point in time. Together with the energy it feeds upon, and the material that it is made of, living tissue is simply a consequence of gravity that manifests itself over time.
[ - A consequence of points 1 - 3; as everything else, life is only a special form of what is. Living tissue, as all else, except for perhaps the existence of matter itself, is a chain consequence of gravity. Just as gravity creates a mix of increasingly complex atoms out of simpler ones in the center of the stars, the lesser gravitational forces in the region of their satellites generate ever more complex molecules through chemical reaction, once pressure and temperature fall below the values necessary for serial condensation - first exothermic (oxidation...) then endothermic (reduction...); first loaded, then fed by the energy generated through the nearby centers of gravity.]The high-energy and low-entropy conditions, which are caused by the self-accumulation (and consequential self-organization) of matter by its own gravity, trigger a thermodynamic reaction to which belong the (vital!) human labor and economy.
The laws that govern this process, however, do not allow a profit.
[ - A consequence of points 1 - 4; it applies to all forms of energy conversion, of which the human economy is only a special area.]
More to point 5:
Economics are not recognized as a "real" science by other scientists, since their forecasting prowess range within that of Competent Astrology, and that independent of their respective ideology; their proponents can easily be consistently wrong with their predictions, and still be considered experts.
This shows they have no better alternative to fear.
However, if forecast outcomes are wrong more than half the time, then the underlying theses, or premises, will most probably themselves not be right.
Thus to the contrary, point 5 states:
The physical value of work is always negative; and with that, so is its economic value; a profit exists only in the form of (ignored) debt.
By that token, work is just another form, or rather level, of consumption, albeit a tedious one, for it is subject to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
By the same, work may indeed lead to a fortune, but not to wealth. Wealth is bound to that state which can not be produced by man, beast, plant or machine, but has previously been generated by matter itself, outside of thermodynamics - something akin to order as opposed to disorder.
The need to perform work to achieve a goal may be inevitable, but the product thereof is always less valuable than the resources which are, just as inevitably, destroyed in the process (which may include something like a clean environment - negative entropy!).
As the Second Law of Thermodynamics states, the net resources depleted by work cannot be (re-) generated by the performance of work; work should therefore be performed economically, or limited to the minimum required for the desired result. Alas...
BTW:
Plants do perform work. They move large masses of matter against strong forces by burning carbohydrates produced with sunlight via photosynthesis.
However, plants are a secondary form of life. Life was before plants; and even today, primary and secondary life goes on in lightless deep- sea volcanic areas via a process aptly named chemosynthesis.
During chemosynthesis, bacteria living on the sea floor (or within animals) use energy stored in the chemical bonds of hydrogen sulfide and methane to make glucose from the water and carbon dioxide dissolved in sea water. Pure sulfur and sulfur compounds are produced as by- products.
Wherever there is or was magma and (sea-) water, chemosynthesis is possible: sulfates in deep sea water penetrating through cracks in the crust are converted to hydrogen sulfide at heat and high pressure, which, when it is again released into the ocean through deep-sea vents, bacteria break down and metabolize as the first step in a food chain.
Of course, the Sun produces far more concentrated energy (and therefore negentropy) then does the Earth; it's mass and gravity is far stronger; so, naturally, photosynthesis took over with a vengeance, once seaborne life had come into contact with sunlight.
The implications for life, the universe and all the rest:
The matter of the universe itself increases its own level of structure, order, gradation and complexity, constantly and accelerating, through its very own gravity within its sphere of influence; this thereby represents the complement, or rather the prerequisite, for every thermodynamic process.
It is not the other way around.
An increase in energy, potential, (or rather energy potential), information, structure, order, and complexity comes as a package; it is, directly or indirectly, the result of gravitational processes necessarily preceding thermodynamic ones, which in turn then decrease or dissolve these properties again.
This happens, hic et nunc, in three parallel, but temporally successive stages, each of which is shorter than the previous one, and each of which is self-accelerating, which is the fundamental property of all gravitational systems:
Physical:
In the centers of gravity of the stars, under the determining influence of the force of gravity, the material that constitutes them, which was initially [solely] present in the universe - hydrogen - the original, most primitive and most simply constructed of all elements, is converted, over time, into all subsequent elements by nuclear fusion.
With that, the number of natural elements in the universe known to us rises from 1 to about 100; in addition, there is the different internal structure of the individual type of atom.
Chemical:
These new elements are then scattered in supernovae, and again collect in smaller centers of gravity, such as planets, over time (but in less time than was necessary for their creation), and, again under the determining influence of gravity, enter into ever new molecular combinations with each other.
The number of such newly created materials in the universe is already indeterminable by then.
Biological:
Under suitable conditions, some of these increasingly complex molecules acquire the property of absorbing other molecules, thermodynamically breaking them down and excreting the resulting products, without fundamentally changing themselves; and this by utilizing the energy and material flows generated by centers of gravity in their proximity.
With this metabolism, life begins; and with it evolution or change in ever shorter time.
The number of different molecules that can be now produced biologically is beyond measure.
So, life on earth (or elsewhere in space), is not a frighteningly improbable coincidence, contradicting all natural laws of decline and dissolution; but simply the ever more complex result of matter impacting on itself through the creative force of its own gravity, over the time of 13 billion earth years.
As, by the way, are all lifeless planets as well; and with them the entire cosmos in its current form.
All else are statistical probabilities, not coincidence.
There are no coincidences.
Just as there are no real contradictions -
"One of the two assumptions involved is wrong" (Ayn Rand).
- - - - - - - -
In one sentence:
Over 13 billion years
the matter of the universe transformed itself,
via its own gravity, over several stages,
from a dead cloud of hydrogen gas or plasma
into partially living, self-conscious matter -
and that is only the final stage in this place at this time.
Life requires a dead source.
Life on Earth, as it exists at this moment, and with that, all life from its beginning, and even in that very beginning, has had to have an external source (and sink) in the non- living realm, with or without photosynthesis: All life requires a continuous non- living or dead source (at least of energy, but also as a material precursor), either in the Sun or in the Earth's core, to come into existence, and to continue to exist.
And of course, so does everything non- living as well, living matter being but a special case of matter in general; at first, this pertains only to the fact that everything material must have a material source dating back to the very beginning. Energy, on the other hand, can be generated out of nothing by gravity: Before gravity compacts them into nuclear reaction, two or more particles attracting one another gain energy and lose nothing in the process (at least nothing of relevance).
Combining the two phenomena, energy and matter, all thermodynamic entities and phenomena need an external source and sink not only to function, but to come into existence in a thermodynamic process.
Now, instead of postulating an external source and sink outside of the known universe and cosmos, this might be an or even the singular internal one; one within the confinements of the cosmos, but outside of the realm of thermodynamics, which depend upon this source for their existence: The gravity of matter as the provider of an unfathomable abundance of sources and sinks within that universe.
This would be the mythical, long sought for source of life, and the fountain of youth and renewal: The two are one, and we cannot find it within nor without ourselves, for we are immersed in it like amoebae in the ocean, inside and out; in fact, we contribute to it, ever so slightly, by our own dead weight.
Were this not so, we, and our home in the cosmos, would not exist.
Is that important?
The planet doesn't care why it is.
People do, and for them, this has consequences.
Until the invention of the steam engine, more or less all of humanity was of the opinion that they were created by God, or several supernatural gods, or that they were descendent from them; supernatural, because, logically, man could not have created man.
And most certainly not the rest of the world either, on which humans have always depended, for better or for worse.
This view lost its value in the industrialized world, to the extent that industrialization enabled humans to control nature.
With that, humans, ideologically, slowly morphed from creature to creator; meanwhile even of themselves. And that too, especially, has consequences.
Industrialization has, among other things, already made two world wars possible, in which people objectively fought against their own machines; and according to anecdotal evidence, the machines won, and have now begun to conquer the world.
In this, the part that the theoretical exploration of thermodynamics, which began around 150 years ago, played in the self-image of man should not be underestimated:
On the one hand, it allowed humans to become more and more powerful.
On the other hand, however, it declared the inhabitants of this planet, which they now ruled, including the planet itself, to be an inexplicable, accidental and incalculable freak of nature, in a cosmos that seemingly they could now logically explain ever less.
Indeed, the further science advanced, the more esoteric, contradictory, and confusing the results seemed to become.
But what if that one theory contains an error, a mistake, a false view or choice?
Then that changes.
If the assumed theoretical error is sufficiently fundamental and primary, for example based on a mathematically or physically unfounded, but viable, and at the same time sufficiently incorrect definition of entropy; then man, at least according to this representation, is transformed from creator to creature once again.
And that, too, would have consequences.