Thanks to Jack Healy for joining the conversation.  I appreciate your thoughtful comments and “priunits.”  (I sent you a separate e-mail on this as well). I've been a bit ill from a cold recently, so I'm late in responding to Jack H's comment about there being a math applicable to life. I should clarify and state that although life is predicated on known physics, chemistry and its associated mathematics, there is no physics or math that predicts it emergence from its more basic constituents (e.g. amino acids, lipids, nucleic acids, etc.). In contrast, in the early days of quantum mechanics, one of Paul Dirac's equations predicted the existence of antimatter before it was discovered in the lab. He was quoted as saying something like: "my math was smarter than I was."  Similarly, Peter Higgs’ and Francois Englert’s computations predicted the Higgs Boson 48 years before its confirmation at CERN.  My point is that the mathematics, which is a formal, precise description of relationships, has been so precise in physics that it has been able to predict aspects or even entities of what has become the "standard model" of particle physics before there was even empirical confirmation. The same goes for the opposite end of the size spectrum: astrophysics sometimes predicted what we should find before we empirically find it: e.g. black holes, remnants of the Big Bang (e.g. cosmic background radiation, ratios of hydrogen, helium, deuterium, lithium in the universe), and so on. Admittedly, huge mysteries remain like dark energy, particulars about planet formation, etc., so I don't want to overstate their successes either.

When it comes to life, however, the only description that we have to explain its appearance is "emergence" – almost a fancy word for “magic” in this case. I don't have a better word and I'm not denigrating anyone or any field because I have nothing better to offer. My central point is this: when it comes to the prebiotic cosmic history, physicists and chemists can offer tremendous explanatory power. They know enough about the relationships of the cosmic constituents like quarks, strong nuclear force, gravity, leptons, stellar fusion processes, etc. to make amazingly accurate predictions - even if significant phenomena are still unaccounted for as mentioned above.

I will even play devil's advocate for a bit and state that "information” might be a superfluous term when discussing prebiotic Big History.*  From my humble understanding (with a notable exception discussed below – thanks Jack P!), we can get by just fine saying that despite entropy, quarks and atomic nuclei came together under the strong nuclear force, atoms formed with the weak electro force, galaxies and smaller heavenly bodies formed due to gravity, etc. and gave us more complex structures and elements. Chaisson's energy flows work just fine here as well without needing to invoke "information." 

When it comes to biotic Big History, however, I don't see how we can avoid invoking "information” as a fundamental constituent driving complexity and even making it possible. The list of key characteristics that define life varies according to which source you cite. Admittedly, metabolism, responsible for carefully modulated energy flows is one of them. But reproduction, evolution, responsiveness to the environment, and homeostasis are all universally agreed upon criteria as well and rely on the organism replicating information, allowing for at least some variance in information replication, and detecting, processing, and responding to external/internal information, respectively.  DNA, RNA, receptor proteins, hormones, and a nervous system to name a few of Earth life’s constituents require energy to function and replicate, but their fundamental function is to serve information in some capacity.  Stated another way, DNA’s, RNA’s and associated proteins’ main function, is to assure that the incredibly varied relationships of molecules, tissues, organs, and associated processes of an organism are maintained, and also reproduced nearly faithfully for the succeeding generation.

*Thanks to Jack Pearce for pointing out Rovelli’s proposal that superpositional particles decohere when they relate with “something” in the universe. (Note: his position is not accepted by many if not most physicists).  If I understand correctly, the greatest difficulty in creating a working quantum computer is trying to keep superpositional particles from interacting, decohering and changing from qubits to classical bits of information – perhaps more empirical support for classical information being relational – and support for information's relevance even prebiotically. 

Guess I'm stating my point well, and I've discussed this with physicists as well, who agree.  Yes, there is a plethora of math that can be applied to various aspects of life. To name a few, metabolic rate and longevity compared to body mass, digestive efficiency, neural electrical impulse rates, etc.  However, there are no formulas (or physical theory or chemical theory) that predict the appearance of life or even its key characteristics.  From what I've learned, the math used for defining quantum chromodynamics (the interacting "color" forces of quarks) is considered "hairball" and is worthy of an entire doctoral thesis - and we are just talking 3 interacting forces to form a neutron or proton. Even the simplest of life forms like archeae or bacteria have countless interacting processes and constituents. Perhaps that's a core reason why no one has been able to approach anything like [amino acids squared + the derivative of lipids - the cube of nucleic acids] * k log W . . . = Life.  Still waiting for a biological equivalent of Paul Dirac or Peter Higgs.  I suspect that it will be a very long wait.         

Hi Ken, Jack.

I think its my turn. Sorry for the delay in responding. Forgive me if this is a bit long and "rambly" if that's a word!! (it is now) Any way, here goes.

A couple of points. To start Ken, I’m not sure the comparison to the success of the mathematical predictions at the sub atomic level are valid entirely. For a start, they actually were predictions in that the associated entities had not been encountered prior to the maths pointing to their existence. Life on the other hand, we already know to exist, but-and here’s the problem- we don’t actually know what it is?? Or at least, we can not say clearly what it is. We might be able to point to the attributes of a living thing, but life?? What would the mathematics actually predict? The mathematics might predict a development in the phenomenon that we know as life. Is life a well defined thing, as is the Higgs Bosun? Should we entrust that task to mathematics? Can we? Is mathematics an adequate tool for us to fully describe our reality and to process it accordingly (the mathematicians might be horrified at such a notion!! Soon I may find myself being bombarded with lemmas and corollaries for suggesting such a thing!!)

Jack, you give us Lee Smolin’s  “encapsulation” (which is an interesting word in itself). Frankly, Lee needs to get out a little bit more, do some karaoke or line dancing. When was the last time the man was in a night club?? If these comments (of mine) were made in a context other than Big History, they could not but be made entirely in jest, but not here. What interests me about this discussion is that in considering the narrative of Big History, we are all trying to bend (or trim it) it to the virtues of particular disciplines, usually our own.

Ken, you seem to be at a loss as to why the mathematical successes  at the levels of the subatomic and the super-cosmic are not replicated in an analysis of life. There are two issues in this for me, firstly, if we ask, what is the fundamental polarity of the cosmos? It is not between the micro and the macro as far as I’m concerned. It is between the micro and the human. The most recent offerings of the story are not the elements and details of the macro cosmos, but us, the humans. The fundamental narrative of the cosmos is the one that has lead to humanity. Any star is just a vast collection of entities that are in the early stages of that journey. If you consider the average hydrogen atom, if the concept of narrative pertains to it, the only one of which we know is the one that will lead in time to the likes of us (where else can it go?) or else end up in some dead end along the way. When two hydrogens end up in a helium, they have taken the first step on that journey. (4.7 by 10²⁷  in a particular kind of an assembly are now apparently called Jack, unless my friends and family have gotten it wrong this morning)

The other thing, and this might sound like an alarming thing to suggest, is that perhaps the subatomic is relatively simple by comparison. We have a sense of it being very complex. Why do we think that? Some of the greatest minds of all time have been devoted to finding out about it. But perhaps the complexity lies not in the thing itself but in the lengths we have had to go to in order to access it and also in that we have had to part company with our conceptions of what makes “sense” in order to understand it in any way at all.

Ken you say that “there is a plethora of maths that can be applied to various aspects of life”. Maths works very well when it is possible for us to quantify something within our perception (or indeed within our capacity to conceive of that thing) but maybe the cosmos as we find it expressed in ourselves has aspects that have “evolved” beyond our capacity to quantify them. It is premised on the assumption that our “evolution” with the cosmos that contains us will always be faithful to an ability to apply mathematics. {Why do I put “evolved” in inverted commas?? To distinguish it from what I might call, “classical (Darwinian) evolution” which, as I see it, is simply a phase in a much larger cosmic narrative, which as far as I can see is not concluded in anything of which I am aware and so still “evolving” in all its aspects (though not perhaps by “classical evolutionary” means)}

Jack P, you mention “the (from the U's point of view self assigned) task of explaining as best we can how we got here. That is part of 'Big History' “ You’re right. It is part of Big History, but it is a part that some of us choose to pursue. And for me the most interesting part of that is the choice. Will our continued progress in “Big Historical” terms always involve us making that choice? Even now, is the only valid progress to understanding by necessity tied to us realising our experience as a set of empirical facts? As we have evolved to Maths and Science, so too perhaps will we evolve beyond them given cosmic precedent, unless that narrative that gave rise to them has come to a conclusion in them? Has it??

Ken, you give the following encapsulation of life “Admittedly, metabolism, responsible for carefully modulated energy flows is one of them. But reproduction, evolution, responsiveness to the environment, and homeostasis are all universally agreed upon criteria as well and rely on the organism replicating information, allowing for at least some variance in information replication, and detecting, processing, and responding to external/internal information, respectively. DNA, RNA, receptor proteins, hormones, and a nervous system to name a few of Earth life’s constituents require energy to function and replicate, but their fundamental function is to serve information in some capacity.  Stated another way, DNA’s, RNA’s and associated proteins’ main function, is to assure that the incredibly varied relationships of molecules, tissues, organs, and associated processes of an organism are maintained, and also reproduced nearly faithfully for the succeeding generation.”

This is good, but when myself and Lee Smolin are going clubbing,  you’re welcome to come along too (you too Jack, so’s you don’t feel left out). To me, as I have already stated, it is necessary to consider the living and more especially the human in the context of a narrative that started with the big bang. If we look at living things and especially humans in the context of all the “things” (priunits) that stock that narrative many interesting things emerge. An imperative towards increased size of entity. In turn, a decrease in the total number of priunits. More recently an imperative towards an increased term (life span). All the entities that stock that narrative are just that, “entities” and it has produced in us an entity that can realise them as such and comment on them accordingly. All the entities that stock the narrative tend to be well bounded and mutually exclusive and so lend themselves well to presentations of “unity” that can be perceived by us and named accordingly. Odd to think that the cosmos as we encounter it in ourselves is passing through our capacity to use language.

The fundamental process that drives this narrative of entification (thingisation) is one of assembly and each phase is characterised by a different mode of assembly. Atoms assemble in one way. Molecules in another. Each new phases of assembly makes an increase in entity size possible.  In our retrospective process of naming, the very first living things were entities that were given to a process of assembly that meant that they could not be called molecules. Molecules may “blob” in all kinds of ways. What was different about these “blobs” that in time became the gateways to life as we now know it? To a large extent they were characterized by a presenting, containing membrane. Interesting to think that the first life forms did not have any DNA and so grew until they became unwieldy and then disintegrated, only to start all over again (what ever that means) DNA’s first function was not to serve replication but division. The divided entities would be replicas of one another, DNA being what it is.  The cells that have survived to us were ones that were inclined to divide before their imperative to growth brought them to a point of disintegration. They ceded this imperative to growth to the hope of a future mode of assembly in which they could participate, and the gamble paid off. Interesting to think that an original cell (i.e. one that does not come to us by way of division of an existing cell) has not emerged for over 4 billion years. The next mode of assembly was the one that produced multi-celled entities. Reproduction is a particular mode of assembly based on genetic codification. It is interesting to think that we have an inclination to reproduce but also to produce a new frontier of cosmic entities by participating in various modes of assembly. Teams, nations, choirs, armies, organisations, companies etc. Units to which we are like cells in much the same way as our cells are to us. (we might witness some of this kind of carry on at the night club!!)

Perhaps if we are to define life we must do so both intrinsically and extrinsically in respect of any given living thing Perhaps it is such that it will be constantly moving out from under the stasis of definition and in turn always giving the poor frustrated mathematicians the slip!!

I would suggest close attention to the  Morowitz and Smith discussion. As I read, and re-read, it, it does seem to me to suggest a way to 'predict', or approach, life initial organization, and a way to consider its subsequent paths of evolution on this Earth. 

Whether is will become the dominant paradigm remains to be seen, but it is a very rich conceptual approach, which I would recommend to anyone interested in what life is and how it came to be.

cjp

Here is a lengthy treatment of an attempt to create a virtual, or  conceptual, structure which mimics the processes of life. 

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10773-016-3177-6?wt_mc=alerts.TOCjournals

This document is deeply into the language of correlations and quantum registrations

Jack Pearce