Meaning of Life and the Universe

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Preface
• Sources
• Contents

The myth of the “Darwinian man” is deconstructed by re-examining the biological roots of human nature which are inextricably tied to the social. Studies from animal and plant communities to “primitive” societies show that sociality is universal to the living world. It is a direct consequence and expression of the unity and interconnectedness of all nature, which is reaffirmed in the new physics of quantum coherence for life and the universe at large. From this perspective, culture is the creation of meaning and knowledge in partnership with nature, in which every social being participates. The coherent society is the society of natural beings living in harmony with nature’s creative process.

A reformulation of Western philosophy based on quantum physics that reconnects to nature and to indigenous knowledge systems all over the world.

The organism is the most universal Jungian archetype in which love, wholeness and creativity feature prominently; a theory of the organism based on quantum coherence is in some respects a microcosm of the quantum holographic universe, and it has profound implications for our global future.

The intrinsic dynamics of developmental processes is the source of non-random variations that directs evolutionary change in the face of new environmental challenges; and the resulting evolutionary novelties are reinforced in successive generations through epigenetic mechanisms, independently of natural selection…

How parental care affects adolescent and adult offsprings’ health, behaviour and genes, but neither the genes nor the environment actually determines who we are and what we must do to make the best of it.

The “fluid genome” has been known since the early 1980s, which predictably makes identifying genes even for common disease well-nigh impossible. Genome-wide scans using state-of-the art technologies on extensive databases have failed to find a single gene for intelligence; instead, environment and maternal effects may account for most, if not all, correlation among relatives, while identical twins diverge genetically and epigenetically throughout life. Abundant evidence points to the enormous potential for improving intellectual abilities (and health) through simple environmental and social interventions.

The rationale and impetus for artificial genetic modification was the central dogma of molecular biology that assumed DNA carries all the instructions for making an organism, which are transmitted via RNA to protein to biological function in linear causal chains. Since the mid-1970s, however, molecular geneticists have uncovered a remarkable circular causation network between organism and environment that not only determines which genes are expressed but marks and changes genes and genomes. In order to survive, the organism needs to engage in natural genetic modification in real time, an exquisitely precise molecular dance of life with RNA and DNA responding to and participating in “downstream” biological functions. Artificial genetic modification, in contrast, is crude and imprecise, and interferes with the natural processes, driving natural systems towards a state of maximum entropy as the perturbations are propagated and amplified down the generations with devastating consequences…

The neo-Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection of random mutations should be consigned to history where it belongs; electromagnetic intercommunication and resonance may be involved in activating and mutating just the right genes.

How the new biology transcends the laws of mechanistic physics and frees itself from mechanical determination and control, presenting the organism as a sentient, coherent being that is free, from moment to moment to explore and create its possible futures.

Quantum coherence is the basis of living organization and can also account for key features of conscious experience — the “unity of intentionality”, our inner identity of the singular “I”, the simultaneous binding and segmentation of features in the perceptive act, the distributed, holographic nature of memory, and the distinctive quality of each experienced occasion.

The creation of significant form is the basis of knowledge, possibly for all living species; it holds the key to aesthetic experience in science and art, and depends on the inextricable entanglement of all beings in nature.

Recovering beauty and truth from corporate obfuscation is the most urgent task in our bid to save people and planet.

Urbanization is among the most pressing problem facing the world, but it is possible to make the most of the process by looking at sustainable cities as organisms in a circular thermodynamics perspective.

Water is essential for life. Yet this simple, ubiquitous chemical compound has remained completely mysterious for centuries until quite recently. New evidence indicates that liquid water may be quantum coherent even at ordinary temperatures and pressure. It associates with macromolecules and membranes in a liquid crystalline configuration that enables enzymes and nucleic acids to function as quantum molecular machines that transform and transfer energy at close to 100% efficiency. Liquid crystalline water at interfaces also provides the excitation energy that enables it to split into hydrogen and oxygen in photosynthesis, simultaneously generating electricity for intercommunication and for the redox chemistry that ultimately powers the entire biosphere. Water is the means, medium and message of life — “the rainbow within that mirrors the one in the sky”…

The quantum electrodynamics theory of water put forward by Emilio Del Giudice and his colleagues provides a useful foundation of a new science of water for life.

A non-mathematician’s initiation into the secrets of the magic number in the heart of mathematics that is woven into the fabric of the living world and the universe.

From philosophy and mathematics to quantum physics and far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, biology and neurobiology, space-time appears fractal and quantum coherent in the golden mean: mathematically, our fractal universe is non-differentiable and discontinuous, yet dense in the infinite dimensional space-time. Physically, it is a quantum coherent universe consisting of an infinite diversity of autonomous agents all participating in co-creating organic, fractal space-time by their multitudinous coupled cycles of activities; biologically, this fractal coherent space-time is also the fabric of conscious awareness mirrored in the quantum coherent golden mean brain states.

The following section is included:

• Index