How to deduce and teach the logical and unambiguous answer, namely L = ∑C, to “What is Life?” using the principles of communication?

Abstract

Is it possible to understand the very nature of ‘Life’ and ‘Death’ based on contemporary biology? The usual spontaneous reaction is: “No way. Life is far too complicated. It involves both material- and an immaterial dimensions, and this combination exceeds the capacities of the human brain.” In this paper, a fully contrarian stand is taken. Indeed it will be shown that without invoking any unknown principle(s) unambiguous definitions can be logically deduced. The key? First ask the right questions. Next, thoroughly imbue contemporary biology with the principles of communication, including both its ‘hardware’ and its ‘software’ aspects. An integrative yet simple principle emerges saying that: 1. All living matter is invariably organized as sender-receiver compartments that incessantly handle and transfer information (= communicate); 2. The ‘communicating compartment’ is better suited to serve as universal unit of structure, function and evolution than ‘the (prokaryotic) cell’, the smallest such unit; 3. ‘Living matter’ versus ‘non-living’ are false opposites while ‘still alive’ and ‘just not alive anymore’ are true opposites; 4. ‘Death’ ensues when a given sender-receiver compartment irreversibly loses its ability to handle information at its highest level of compartmental organization; 5. The verb ‘Life’ (L) denotes nothing else than the total sum (∑) of all acts of communication (C) executed by a sender-receiver at all its levels of compartmental organization: L = ∑C; 6. Any act of communication is a problem-solving act; 6. Any Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) should have the definition of Life at its core.

The resolution of ambiguity as the basis for life: A cellular bridge between Western reductionism and Eastern holism

“…For any such success, it depends upon self-referential assessment of status within a stream of equivocal information. It is clear that life would not be present except through those specific conditions in which problem solving is required (De Loof, 2015b; Miller, 2016; Torday, 2015c). Directly put, without environmental uncertainties, there would be no problems to solve.…”

“…Initially, primitive cells interacted with their environment in a limited manner in continuing compliance with the First Laws of Physiology (Torday and Rehan, 2012). Since evolution can be defined as the aggregate of its communications directed towards problem-solving (De Loof, 2015a), it might be surmised that the reciprocating complexity of cellular networks may have arisen as a defensive mechanism against the organized pseudo-multicellular behaviors of bacteria, such as quorum sensing (Castillo-Juárez et al, 2015) and biofilm (Majumdar and Pal, 2017). This coordinate problem solving by the three cellular forms (Bacteria, Archeae, Eukaryota), would have provided complementary, interdependent interchanges that gradually gave rise to the complex physiologic traits of multicellular organisms.…”

“…The sorting and resolution of the total range of ambiguities that confront living things is appropriately considered its tool kit for problem-solving. Therefore, communication among organisms is simply a problem-solving tool that has its benefits and attendant limitations (De Loof, 2015a; Torday and Miller, 2016a). …”

“…It has further been maintained that life and its evolution are dependent upon communication (De Loof 2015a; Witzany, 2015). Plainly, communication is the transfer of information between ‘knowing’ entities.…”

The evolution of “Life”: A Metadarwinian integrative approach

“…This represents a truly novel change in paradigm. Communication activity executed by sender-receiver compartments is the key issue in such definition 16 . It leads to the question how the architecture and functioning evolved from the probably simple Progenote as the primordial sender-receiver into the multitude of organismal and supra-organismal entities that function as sender-receivers.…”