(revised March 2005)
The Aquarian electron shell is the physical information system that forms the elemental basis of the mystery of life. In Taurus, the realm of the atomic nucleus, we saw that nuclear reactions were the controlling interactions in stars, where element-building takes place along the nucleosynthetic pathway. But nuclear interactions are very high-energy reactions, requiring an environment typically found only in the interior of stars. In such circumstances the electron shells of atoms are stripped away and are of little or no consequence in the construction of the nuclear information system of the heavy elements. In the cold, low-energy environment of planets, however, it is the electron shell that resumes the work of information building.
We have two parallel, interconnected, and interdependent information systems building up through the evolutionary development of stars and galaxies, one in the atomic nucleus and one in its electron shell. The information they contain is the physical basis of all that is to follow in the evolutionary pathway to life and human thought - emergent properties of these information systems. But what is the physical purpose of information systems? Physically, the universe is dedicated to returning its energy content to its most symmetric state, light, and light, due to its symmetric state of intrinsic motion, is dedicated to expanding its spatial domain, which by energy conservation, results in cooling. In the Cosmic thermodynamic drive toward the total entropy of cold light, we have to wonder if information building, which constitutes an apparently separate thermodynamic realm - since it is essentially anti-entropic and against the main thrust of physical cosmic evolution - is anything more than an eddy, a countercurrent downstream of the rock of matter in the universal thermodynamic flow (to paraphrase the great Chardin). Is it just turbulence, or is it purposeful?
The information stored in the charges of matter is in fact the very information the Universe needs to return matter to the symmetric state of light in either the presence or absence of antimatter - hence information systems are fundamentally necessary to the success of the thermodynamic drive toward total entropy. The nucleosynthetic pathway, the process of particle and proton decay, and the quasars and quantum radiance of black holes are primary examples of this fact - they require the information contained in charges to make them "work", as do matter-antimatter annihilations.
The Universe comes with an information system built into its elementary material structure; matter is both a storehouse of energy and a storehouse of information, right down to the 6 species of quarks and their incredible gluon field, and the various leptons (electrons, neutrinos, and their kin) which facilitate the transformation of one quark into another. (See: "The Cosmic Tetrahedron".)
Matter is not just mass; it is energy stored in a package of very specific information - cleverly, intricately, complexly, marvelously - wrought; the lowly atom is the absolute masterwork of the Cosmic Blacksmith and the "Big Bang" forge. The "work done" during the Big Bang is the creation of matter; if for no other reason, simple thermodynamics requires the incredible energy densities of the Big Bang to create asymmetric matter from symmetric light and spacetime. The thermodynamic purpose of the Universe is to return the energy of the proton, the hydrogen nucleus, to the symmetric state of the light which formed it, but the Universe is so arranged that this cannot be done (in normal stars) except by climbing up the information ladder of the nucleosynthetic pathway, boosted along by gravitation. Ironically. gravitation's real purpose is to squeeze the light out of matter and destroy its information content entirely in a black hole. But this is a slow process, and along the way information is building up and creating an inverse, anti-entropic realm all its own, aided and abetted by the very energy which seeks to destroy it, not only by the gravitational push up the nucleosynthetic pathway in stars, but also in the planetary environment where the electron shell builds information from the solar energy released by this same process of element-building (as in photosynthesis).
Although the atomic nucleus takes the prize for its combination of incredible complexity combined with incredible energy, the electron shell is also a marvel of construction, and is capable of storing much more information, as it has a much greater capacity for combination. It is also much better understood, being much simpler and more accessible to experiment. It is composed exclusively of electrons which are bound to the nucleus by the electrical attraction of the protons. At "normal" (biological) energies, there is always one electron for every proton, and the electrons lie in well defined orbital "shells" and sub-shells of specific geometric configurations at various distances from the nucleus, depending on the number of protons, or what comes to the same thing, the element in question.
All atoms, including hydrogen (in the case of its deuterium isotope), can be characterized as 4x3 systems, involving three massive components, the proton, neutron, and electron, and 4 "information" parameters, the 4 quantum "numbers" which define the electron shell: N (energy level), L (angular momentum), M (magnetic axis), and S (spin). We have already noted the prevalence of this 4x3 "metric" in the particle and atomic realm - the 3 families of 4 elementary particles, the 3 quarks of the baryon (each carrying 4 charges: electric, color, flavor, spin), the alpha particle, or helium nucleus, which functions as the "brick" of the nucleosynthetic pathway (4 nucleons each composed of 3 quarks) and carbon, the second major step of the pathway, composed of 3 alpha particles each of 4 nucleons, making carbon a triple (including the baryon) nuclear resonance of the 4x3 system metric. In its electron shell, carbon displays a 4th 4x3 resonance - 4 "valence" electrons or bonding sites, in its third (2p) electron shell.
Carbon is the only atom in the periodic table with both a nuclear and an electron shell 4x3 configuration, and this is the atom which is the key and pathway to the information system we call life. What clearer example could we have of Chardin's "within" or "radial" information manifesting in the "without" or "tangential" shell? Finally, carbon displays an amazing 5th 4x3 resonance in its tetrahedral (4 triangles) bonding pattern with other carbon atoms, producing (among many other forms) the diamond crystal. The tetrahedral bonding pattern of carbon, not only with itself, but with hydrogen and other atoms, is the foundation of organic chemistry, the chemistry of life. Significantly for the evolution of life, water also produces a 4x3 tetrahedral bonding pattern.
We do not, and perhaps never will, know what intermediate steps were taken between carbon and the first molecule of DNA (or RNA), but we do know that DNA/RNA is itself a higher molecular resonance of this same 4x3 system, both in its molecular composition (4 nucleotides each composed of three molecular groups - a phosphate, a sugar, and a nitrogenous base), and in the form of its genetic code (4 nucleotides code in triplets to produce amino acids). The four bonding sites in carbon's outer shell allow it to form long chains, rings, loops, and other closed systems with itself and with a variety of other elements. In DNA we see a higher resonance or involution of this same ability: we see polymerization extended to replication, and closed molecular systems extended to cells.
The jump from carbon and polymerization to DNA and replication presumably required oceans of molecules and millions of years, and while we may grant that the process was partly random, the 4x3 resonance between carbon and DNA leads me to believe that it was not entirely a chance process. Further, the very existence of a higher resonant form changes entirely the prospects for success, for it becomes a molecular version of the lottery, in which the winning number or combination is already drawn and known to the "authorities" (in this case, the physical laws of Nature), and it is only a matter of time and the number of players until someone gets lucky. The process may be mostly random, but the outcome is never in doubt; eventually, someone always wins the lottery. (See: "Newton, Darwin, and the Origin and Abundance of Life in the Cosmos".)
DNA is the winning combination of the molecular information lottery, a preexisting combination, in that it is a resonant form, known and chosen by the laws of nature waiting for the lucky winner to solve the puzzle and present the ticket - the correct molecular resonance of the 4x3 metric contained in carbon. Once this resonance is achieved and the puzzle solved, all the rest, as they say, is evolutionary history, for with the advent of a stable, replicating molecule the competitive basis of evolution is in place - the competition for limited resources (complimentary amino acids with which to replicate itself) will drive the molecular information system into competition with its own progeny, thus setting up the crucial "intraspecific" (within species) race to ever more efficient reproduction. A cell is the natural outcome of this process, for what is a cell if not a fortress defending the replicating molecule from the attacks of others of its own kind, and safeguarding a store of amino acids which DNA needs for its own replication?
While building such elaborate information systems requires a surplus of external energy, there is nothing in nature to prevent the "gratuitous" use of such energy by an evolving system. Even the nuclear system overruns its exothermic limits (precisely when the 4x3 system fails in the unstable chromium 48 nucleus, settling at iron 56), building endothermic nuclei up to uranium from the excess energy of gravitational implosions and supernovas. On the one hand, the "play" of molecules in the light of a summer's day appears to be a frivolous experimentation, doomed to failure, producing "sand castles" which fall to pieces overnight; yet, it is probably precisely because of this cycle of day and night, heat and cold, high and low tide, wet and dry, that a robust and stable system was selected and evolved. Each day a new lottery is drawn; each night the losers tear up their tickets; but the cycle does not return completely to zero, for some combinations will survive the night, the cold, and the desiccation, and these will be concentrated day by day and tide by tide. Those who do not survive will yield both place and molecular supplies to those who do. Hence each cycle, acting like a sieve, increases the population of partial and potential winners, and the likelihood that the next cycle will produce the Grand Prize winner - DNA.
Life is no "patsy" - its information system is strong because it has been tested since the beginning. Nothing less could survive under the harsh physical conditions of its birth and subsequent competitive evolutionary development. But what are we to think of this marvel of the information pathway that continues to evolve resonances of itself in terms of cells, organisms, species, ecosystems, Gaia, and finally, human thought and our own abstract and "artificial" information systems? Simply an ancillary phenomenon, restricted to Earth, or a major expression of the principle evolutionary axis of the Universe, as Chardin surmised? (See: "Chardin: Prophet of the Information Age".)
Because the charges of matter constitute the information which the Universe needs to return to its symmetric state, we might expect that the electron shell, or biological information pathway, would eventually produce its own solution to this problem. The evolution of animals is of course a partial solution, in that, unlike plants, animals do not simply build up information from sunlight, binding free energy into information systems. Instead, animals break down the information energy stored by plants and release it as heat, especially the more highly evolved warm-blooded species. In man, this process is accelerated, not only through his release of chemical energy in the burning of wood and fossil fuels, but also in the release of nuclear energy in the production of electricity and the explosion of fusion and fission bombs. Here we see the information pathway converging with the main line of the nucleosynthetic pathway. Obviously, we can hope that some peaceful use of this energy release will evolve, but at least in man the information pathway of the electron shell is beginning to pay dividends in terms of the conversion of bound energy to free energy, putting even biology back in the mainstream of the cosmic thermodynamic flow toward entropy. It is simply our evolutionary and thermodynamic destiny to become ever more efficient energy releasers. If we manage to destroy ourselves, we can at least blame thermodynamics for a predestined fate, and congratulate ourselves for at least having the intelligence of hydrogen atoms.
If our view were wider, we would realize that Earth life is not an isolated phenomenon, but that the electron shell and biological information pathway is as universal as the nucleosynthetic pathway. All over the galaxy, all over the Universe, the same lottery is being played, and where conditions are suitable, there will be winners. The Cosmos is becoming, undoubtedly has become (long ago in a galaxy far away), alive and is waking up to itself. The information pathway allows the Universe to experience itself in myriad ways, to understand itself, to become self aware, even to become more fully itself, just as we have become self aware and through the abstraction of thought have become more fully ourselves in the sense of an ever greater realization of our human potential. Our control of evolution, if wisely pursued, will only further this process, and constitutes in itself another involution of the resonant fractal evolutionary form.
Gaia is the phenomenon of Earth life, but there are undoubtedly many others like her. She is now in her reproductive phase; we are her seeds, the agents of her dispersal into the solar system and the galaxy far beyond. Gaia is in competition with others of her kind for new territory; evolution does not end with Man; it begins a new, extraterrestrial phase with humanity in charge. We will reenact the story of Noah's ark with our spaceships, and the exodus from the Garden of Eden, our own - our beautiful - Mother Earth. In the process, we will learn to release a lot of energy.
