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The Cosmic Self-assembly
Hypothesis by the Druid Finn Premise: Stage 1 – Raw Materials: The Universal Inventory ·
Source: The elementary chemical
modules, highlighted in the Periodic Table, are the parts catalogue of
the universe. Most of its items were not manufactured here but during the
aftermath of the Big Bang and in in the nuclear reactors of ancient stars and
their supernovae. ·
Process: o Hydrogen
and helium formed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang, a
cosmological event whose mechanism and origin remain unknown. o Stars,
through nuclear fusion, transformed these light elements into heavier ones
(carbon, oxygen, iron, etc.). o Supernovas then
acted as distribution systems, ejecting these newly minted elements as vast
clouds of atoms (actually highly complex nested confined energy packet
quantised aggregates) into interstellar space. ·
Form: These ejected atoms
(?) drift as what astronomers poetically call cosmic dust, though
“dust” here means a heterogeneous cloud of atoms, ions, chemical elements,
and small molecules — the raw feedstock for all future chemistry from which
LIFE emerges. Stage 2 – The Planetary Assembly Floor ·
Accretion: Over ~4.6 billion years
ago, one patch of the Milky Way’s “elemental cloud” condensed under gravity,
producing a newborn star (our Sun) and a set of planets — one of which was
Earth. ·
Initial Conditions: o Earth’s
crust, atmosphere, and oceans are the receiving warehouse constructed of
basic elements, and which receives further cosmic element shipments,
including energy. o Local
conditions — temperature range, liquid water, sunlight, and stable rotation,
magnetic fields, gravitation — made the “factory floor” unusually conducive
to molecular experimentation. Stage 3 – Molecular Prototyping ·
Prebiotic Chemistry: o Atoms
(actually highly complex aggregates (as modules) of nested quantised energy
packets) combined into simple, yet more complex aggregates named molecules (H₂O,
CO₂, CH₄, NH₃). o Lightning,
UV light, and geothermal heat provided energy for these molecules to combine
into polymers and self-replicating systems. ·
Transition to Biology: o Over
hundreds of millions of years, these chemical prototypes self-optimized,
producing RNA/DNA-based life forms. o This
shift marks Earth’s main function: turning (seemingly) inert matter
(i.e. confined, hence self-defining energy quanta serving as mass)
into adaptive, self-regulating, self-sustaining, self-upgrading systems. Stage 4 – Complexification ·
Once life began, Earth’s biosphere acted as an differentially iterative design lab: o Random
variation (mutation) + environmental filtering (natural selection) led to
higher complexity. o Organisms
became more efficient at harnessing energy and manipulating their
surroundings. ·
Key Viewpoint: The life forms themselves
function as temporary configurations of cosmic elements — patterns,
not as permanent entities. They aggregate together, function, and eventually
disassemble, releasing their elemental constituents back into circulation.
Temporary configurations output unexpected emergents
(to wit, exciting, because different frills and whistles), such as the human
as one of 8 million species. Stage 5 – Export & Dispersal ·
If Earth is a transient assembly station, its
“product” is not just living beings, but life-capable arrangements of
matter that can seed elsewhere. o Meteor
impacts can eject life-bearing material into space (panspermia). o Humans
and future intelligent species may deliberately export life and technology
beyond Earth. ·
Thus, Earth’s mission profile is
temporary: to produce complex self-organizing matter (as confined energy
packets) until conditions no longer allow it. Stage 6 – Shutdown & Recycling ·
Planetary assembly stations, meaning condensed
elementary particle accretions, are not permanent: o Sun’s
eventual red giant phase will first sterilize, then vaporise Earth. o All
assembled complex life forms will either have dispersed or have reverted to
elementary particle status. ·
The atoms (?) - as quantised
modules of nested energy packets - that aggregates as the Earth and
upgraded as identifiable real life forms will rejoin
the interstellar medium — ready to be incorporated into new transient
stars, planets, and assembly plants and their aggregated products. Implications of the Druid’s Hypothesis 1. No
Special Privilege: (Currently Given) Life (the term has not found a
generally agreed definition), as the complete emergence cycle of
individual life quanta, does not appear to be Earth’s ultimate purpose — it
is simply what Plant Earth happens to be producing in this cosmic cycle. 2. Time-Bounded
Mission: Like a construction site, Earth will be dismantled
when its job is done. Plant Earth and all its local products are scheduled to
disappear in about 3 billion years, a blink of an eye in eternity. 3. Universal
Process: If this Self-Assembly Plant hypothesis is correct, the
universe is dotted with countless such “stations” resulting from elementary
particle condensation, each a temporary stage in matter’s (as nested confined
energy packets aggregation) seemingly eternal experiments, as random probes,
toward inventing higher complexity. The Upanishad
solution to Cosmic Self-assembly The Earth as Transient Life Assembly Plant The Earth-as-assembly-plant metaphor |