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From Absolute Deadness to Life Primitives Randomness, Recurrence, and
the Minimal Definition of Life, by Bodhangkur Abstract This
essay investigates the minimum conditions under which the concept of life
becomes meaningful once all anthropomorphic, biological, and organism-centric
assumptions are removed. Beginning from the notion of absolute deadness—a
domain of random quanta without recurrence—it argues that life does not
emerge from randomness as a later addition, but coincides with the first
failure of randomness itself. Life, in its most primitive and non-biological
sense, is identified with persistent non-random recurrence: the appearance of
a differential that resists erasure. From this standpoint, the essay further
argues that ontological randomness is not a real state of being but a
limiting concept describing recurrence too shallow or unstable to constitute
identity. Life, therefore, is not a category of substances but a mode of
persistence within an otherwise erasing universe. 1. The methodological constraint: removing the human The
ordinary concept of life is unusable for fundamental analysis. It is: ·
biologically parochial, ·
anthropocentric in scale and intuition, ·
and historically retrospective (derived from late
evolutionary outcomes). Humans,
after all, are themselves aggregates of non-biological quanta—on the
order of The
experiment therefore asks a more austere question: What must
be present, at minimum, for the word life to make sense at all? To answer
this, we must begin not with life, but with its absolute negation. 2. Absolute deadness: randomness without recurrence Imagine a
domain consisting solely of random quanta, conceived as fleeting
virtual events: ·
no stable relations, ·
no memory, ·
no repetition, ·
no persistence. Events
may occur, but nothing happens, because nothing continues. Each
event is erased as completely as it appears. There is no identity, no
boundary, no before that constrains an after. This
state can be characterised precisely: Absolute
deadness is the absence of recurrence. Importantly,
this is not “death” in the biological sense. Death presupposes the prior
existence of life. Absolute deadness is pre-vital and pre-ontological:
a condition in which being itself cannot stabilise. Why call
it dead? Because
without recurrence: ·
no structure can form, ·
no differential can persist, ·
no identity can be said to exist. Randomness,
in this extreme sense, is not chaos but total erasure. 3. The decisive transition: recurrence as the first
ontological event Now
introduce the smallest imaginable deviation. Two
quanta, formerly unrelated, become entangled such that their
interaction is no longer independent. A relation repeats. A bond forms. A
pattern recurs. Nothing
biological has appeared. No purpose, no metabolism, no survival instinct. And
yet something fundamental has changed: ·
the present is now constrained by the past, ·
a distinction persists, ·
a difference resists erasure. This is
the first ontological event. What has
appeared is not a thing but a recurrence. And this
recurrence generates a differential—a persistent asymmetry between
“this relation” and “everything else”. At this
point, it becomes meaningful to say that something exists rather than
merely flashes. 4. Recurrence as the life primitive Why
should this recurrence qualify as a life primitive? Because
it satisfies, in minimal form, everything life requires and nothing it does
not: 1. Memory 2. Identity 3. Boundary 4. Temporal
depth Crucially,
none of this depends on biology, chemistry, or scale. A hydrogen atom, a
molecular bond, or a stable quantum confinement all qualify as stabilised
recurrences. Life, in
this sense, is not yet organismic—but it is already real. 5. Time as accumulated recurrence This
framework also forces a correction to the usual picture of time. Time is
not a pre-existing container in which life appears. Rather: Time is
the measure of recurrence depth. Where
recurrence is absent, there is no meaningful time—only evanescence. Where
recurrence accumulates, temporal structure emerges. Vast numbers of
entanglements, layered and stabilised, eventually yield the deep recursions
we label molecules, cells, brains, and societies. Human
time is not fundamental time; it is thickened recurrence. 6. Is randomness ever real? We can
now address the second question directly. 6.1 What “ontological randomness” would require For
randomness to be real (not merely epistemic or statistical), it would
have to consist of events that: ·
are unconstrained by prior conditions, ·
generate no persistent relations, ·
leave no trace, ·
and possess no recurrence potential. But here
a contradiction appears. 6.2 The self-defeat of real randomness The
moment an event occurs, something is selected rather than nothing. A
distinction is made. A differential appears, however briefly. But
differentiation is already the failure of randomness. If the
event leaves absolutely no distinction, then nothing has happened. If
something has happened, randomness has already been violated. Thus: Pure
randomness cannot actualise without ceasing to be random. Ontological
randomness, if taken seriously, is either unreal or unactualisable. 7. Randomness as failed persistence What,
then, do we call randomness? Not a
mode of being, but a limit concept. Randomness
names situations where: ·
recurrences are too shallow, ·
too brief, ·
or too dispersed In this
sense: Randomness
is recurrence that fails to persist. Virtual
quantum events appear random not because they lack structure, but because
their recurrence depth is effectively zero. They do not endure long enough to
count as anything. Randomness,
therefore, is not the opposite of life. It is life that does not yet
succeed. 8. Reframing life and death With this
in place, several consequences follow naturally: ·
Life is persistent non-random
recurrence. ·
Death is the collapse of
recurrence back into erasure. ·
Matter is stabilised recurrence at
low depth. ·
Biological life is stabilised recurrence at
extreme depth. Hydrogen,
molecules, and stars are not alive in the biological sense—but they are not
dead either. They are ontologically alive, insofar as they are
persistent differentials within an erasing universe. 9. Final definition (non-anthropomorphic,
non-biological) We can
now state a definition that satisfies the goal of the experiment: Life is
persistent non-random recurrence arising within an otherwise erasing domain,
capable of generating and sustaining differentials across time. This
definition: ·
makes no reference to humans, ·
requires no biology, ·
presupposes no purpose, ·
and admits no mystical surplus. Life is not
a substance added to matter. 10. Conclusion Absolute
deadness is not matter, vacuum, or chaos. It is the absence of recurrence.
Randomness, taken ontologically, is not real but marks the boundary where
recurrence fails to persist. Life begins exactly—and only—where that failure
ceases. The
universe is not lifeless with isolated pockets of life. Rather: The universe is weakly
alive almost everywhere, and strongly alive only where recurrence has
deepened enough to notice itself. In this
sense, humans are not exceptions. They are high-order recurrences—knots
of persistence in a cosmos that otherwise forgets itself almost instantly. Life is
not rare. Persistence
is. Some
ancients intuited that the Universe is alive The living Universe as executing Procedure Absolute deadness: random quantum without recurrence The ‘Bright’ Universe as weather Claims
about the ‘State’ of the Universe The ancient Indians: Life
emerges from death |
