LIFE BORN OF "NON-MATTER", NOT BY CHANCE. (MIND POWER - 2)

(Excerpts from book: MIND POWER (1980) CHAPTER 7, Author - Swami Vijnananand (S.V.), Manashakti publication)

 7.  Life on Earth.

7.3              The chemical scene.(Please see earlier Blog 29 on the subject)

Through the passage of time, chemical evolution progressed and so also the conditions originating life. The book “cell” by Prof. Swanson page 265 gives this in a nice way.

The development of biological elements from primary elements demands so many answers to so many questions.

First of all: - What was exact change after life was borne and was it essentially different from matter?

7.4. Concluding land marks, Life born of “non-matter”, not by “Chance”

At first we found carbon scattered in the form of separate atoms, in the red hot stellar (of a star or stars) atmospheres. We then found it as component of hydrocarbons which appeared on the surface of the earth. With time these hydrocarbons were transformed into their oxygen and nitrogenous derivatives in to the simplest organic substances. In the water of primitive oceans, these substances formed more complex compounds. Proteins and similar substances appeared. Thus the materials of which bodies of animals and plants are formed came in to being. At first these materials existed in a dissolved state.

Coaservate drops:-The forebears of life on the earth.

Then it began to separate from its environment in the form of coacervate drops. The first coaservate drops were of simple structure, but gradually substantial changes took place in their structure. They acquired more and more complex structure and improved structure. They were finally transformed in to primary living beings…………The forebears of all life on the earth.

Life continued to develop. The first living beings were not cellular. But at a definite stage of life’s development the cell appeared. Unicellular and then multi cellular organisms established themselves on our planet.

The development link was as follows:

Carbon atoms ------ hydrocarbons -------- oxygen/nitrogen derivatives, simple organic substances --------- (water from ocean) ------- complex organic compounds ------ coaservate drops ------- primary living being. (Non-cellular)

7.5 Chances and the chemical view of life.

Life by chance seems impossible. Whether cell or virus, their chemical composition is much similar. Cell biology tells us that even in a single organism there are hardly any perceptible differences in the cell. The differentiation in purpose is vast and varied. Book “The Cell” on page 225 tells:-

Because of the exact replication and segregation of the DNA during cell production, all the cells in multi cellular organism contain the same type of and amount of nuclear information. Since nucleus is the control center of the cell, all cells should have the same potential and be capable of manufacturing all the proteins of the body…….The obvious fact, however is that they do not do so for a large number of reasons discussed in this book. This looks to be beyond probability.

To substantiate this, following references may be seen.

Dr Singh and Dr Thompson record on page 28 of “What is matter and what is life” that a “chance” could not have created life even once in thousand billion years.

“Consciousness and laws of Nature” page 62, and “Theories of probability” page 248, mentions:

There is need of new perspective. As many difficulties are encountered in attempts to understand and apply present days theories of probability. Conceivably, Probability is not possible.

A careful sifting of our intuitive expectation and requirement for the theory of probability might reveal that they are unfulfilled or logically in-consistent.

(If we carefully and minutely check across (a) our intuitive expectation and (b) requirement for the theory of probability, it may reveal that they (i.e. requirements) cannot be fulfilled and logically they are not consistent).

It is told that if a single cell of an infant is (assumed to be) manufactured in one minute, a skilled worker will take five thousand years to repeat it. The infant body contains billions of cells. Thus billions of cells multiplied by these five thousand years will project the mathematical picture of the efforts required (by Nature) to complete the task of formation of the infant body.

A quoted reference tells us how nitrogen struck the atom of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and sulfur to produce first living substances. Very few proteins could be living out of their combination. For example, these five elements (N2, O2, C, H2, &S) rearranged in different way, can produce silk, wood and innumerable other articles.

That a life producing arrangement (such as huge systematic work requiring unimaginably highest amount of power) was born by chance, is incomprehensible to think. Such a chance if it occurs would require timeless number of years. By that time, the Universe may run out of its course.

7.6 “Purposeful” developments of single and multi-minds

Birth of a life was not by chance, but it was by definite “purpose”. How so ever the wisdom of that purpose may be questioned. In other words, the decision of “non-matter” (mind) to attach itself to matter may not be very wise, but this happening is at the instance of non-matter, (as matter can’t have a desire).

There are only three alternatives:-

                        A   God created first life.       

                        B    Chance created first life.

                        C    Non-matter attached itself to the matter.

A and B have been ruled out in the book.

 

C  Non-matter (normally called “mind”) attached itself to the matter. ---This is discussed further. We will see later that each cell has mind and a multi cellular organism has “organized mind”.

Mechanical view of Life

As a preliminary link up, we quote “Origin of life” pages 65 to 67, Russian scientist has attacked pure mechanical view. The reference says:-

1. The mistake of the mechanistic approach was that they did not differentiate between the organization of protoplasm (a colorless substance like jelly from which all animals and plants are formed.) and its structure. This was due to their hard efforts to consider the living organism in the form of material motion which is characteristic of a machine. (Not living body), i.e. they reduced this organism merely to the spatial (relating to space as a physical dimension) arrangement of the individual parts. This off-course is a one sided view, since organization must be regarded not only in point of space but also in point of time. Thus, for example we call meeting “organized” not only because its participants have seated themselves in an orderly manner but also because the speakers have kept within time limit and the reports and speeches have followed the agenda.

2. Depending upon the character of a given system either its organization in point of space or its organization in point of time comes to the fore front. In the case of machine spatial organization is most important. But we know many systems in which organization in point of time is most important.

An example of such a system is any piece of music. A symphony (long musical composition) for instance. The latter in very existence is determined by the fact that the hundreds or thousands of sounds which make it up are combined with strict regard for time. Any disruption of its harmonious unity would destroy the symphony and would lead to disharmony and chaos.

3. Structure, a definite intricate (many small parts put together in a complex way) make up is an essential element in the organization of protoplasm. However, organization in point of time, definite harmony of the process which takes place in protoplasm, is by far more important. Any organism—plant, vegetable or microbe—lives only while it continues to receive and discharge a stream of new particles of substance and of the energy which goes with it.

The organization receives from its environment diverse chemical compounds.

Inside the organism, they are subjected to various changes and transformations, as a result of which, they become the substances of the organism proper, and acquire the properties of those chemical compounds of which the living creature had previously been composed. This is known as the process of assimilation. But simultaneously with assimilation a reverse process takes place—that of dissimilation. The substances of living organism do not remain unchanged, but are decomposed more or less swiftly, and their space is taken by newly assimilated compounds, while products of decomposition are discharged in to the environment.

The simile continues…………..

Concentrate on the simile in the second stage. Symphony presupposes different musicians organized by a composer. Just above another simile of meeting mentioned, the word “organized”, insistence on the ‘time’ is not important, but what is important here is “organizer” without which organization cannot come in to being or function.

‘Earth’s primitive oceans did not possess a rational structure that fitness of its internal organization for the performance of definite living functions in the given conditions of existence which is so characteristic of the protoplasm. Thus the internal structure of the primitive ocean was adapting itself for the creation of life. This adaptation to the condition of environment could not stem merely from physical or chemical laws or from collide-chemical relations’.

Emergence of Biological laws

New laws, namely, biological laws, had to arise in the process of material evolution simultaneously with the inception of living things.

Limitations of the laws of matter

The early history of life cannot be accounted for, by laws of physics or chemistry. Somewhere laws of physics lack tenor. (Settled direction) and therefore laws of non-physics or ‘non-matter’ (i.e. mind) step in.

One or more minds in the same body

Banking on the statement cited above, the singular consideration of ‘space’ is inadequate. Non-matter occupies no space therefore there is no harm in considering one or more minds in the material frame, as required respectively in cellular or multi-cellular organisms.

Summary:

-          Birth of a life was not by chance, but it was by definite “purpose”. How so ever the wisdom of that purpose may be questioned. In other words, the decision of “non-matter” (mind) to attach itself to matter may not be very wise, but this happening is at the instance of non-matter, (as matter can’t have a desire).

-          The internal structure of the primitive ocean was adapting itself for the creation of life. This adaptation to the condition of environment could not stem merely from physical or chemical laws or from collide-chemical relations.

-          The early history of life cannot be accounted for, by laws of physics or chemistry. Somewhere laws of physics lack tenor. (Settled direction) and therefore laws of non-physics or ‘non-matter’ (i.e. mind) step in.

-          Non-matter occupies no space therefore there is no harm in considering one or more minds in the material frame, as required respectively in cellular or multi-cellular organisms.

(Note: This is an attempt to make reader friendly interpretation of the book “MIND POWER” based on my perception. Inquisitive readers are requested to refer to the original book to cross check their understanding.)

Vijay R. Joshi.

CAUSALITY OF ACCIDENTS (PURPOSE - 2)

Nature of 'Accidents' 

If being of universe is the ‘effect’ then there must be a cause behind it.

Are there accidents in Nature? If not then the ‘causality’ prevails. We may not know the cause at each occasion, for every effect. If being of universe is the ‘effect’ then there must be a cause behind it, this is a logical conclusion. Science or any other discipline of knowledge is not being able to detect it would not rule out its existence. Book “PURPOSE OF THE UNIVERSE” written by Swami Vijnananand (s. v.), published in December 1961 discusses the nature of so-called accidents. Here are some excerpts:

'Accidents'

Suddenly, a railway engine is derailed and it costs a passenger his precious left eye. An automobile runs across a pavement (side walk), running over a happy-go-lucky stretching himself on the seashore. An innocent infant is torn to pieces in a house-collapse. Such flabbergasting (mystifying, confusing) stupid occurrences certainly call for further analysis, before being accepted as purely having an internal origin.

(l) Institute the inquiry from the other side.

How would the skeptic explain narrow escape of a blessedly lucky who was scheduled to travel by the train derailed later and who was saved by his last-minute cancellation? A close friend of the happy-go-lucky, prey to the accident on the shore had refused to accompany him; since 'accidentally' he had injured his left thigh, while walking the stairs. In the dwindling tenement (rental house / room) that collapsed, another family drove out of its cell its naughty child, a few seconds before the melodramatic disaster, resulting in hair-breadth escape of the child.

I A) What prohibits the conclusion then that the fortunate falling in second category evaded their doomsday accidentally which virtually makes no advance than substituting the word 'accident' for the notion: 'innate (natural, born in mind) cause?

1 B) How can capricious (erratic, fanciful) 'accident' favoring the concerned be construed? For example, does the injury of thigh that prevented the fortunate from visiting the sea-beach by accident 'accidentally' save him?

1 C) Reuter News Agency released news in Express dated 5-3-60, concerning Agadir, a Moroccan city which suffered an earthquake. It reads, "A woman giving birth to a baby was uncovered last night by rescue workers from under the debris of her home in Agadir, which was turned into a heap of rubble by Monday's earthquake. The woman had been trapped under the ruins of her home three days ago. The mother and child were both saved"-

1 D) Implied import (meaning, sense, significance) of accident conveys hypothetically unwelcome situation, which indeed is invalidated in cases mentioned in the foregoing. A small 'accident' eschews (avoids) more monstrous mishaps can hardly be a prudent reasoning. It is confounding (confusing) to draw a moral that naughty children help themselves to escape the house wreckage. No amount of sophistry (apparently plausible but false, misleading argument) lends hand in absolving (exempting, relieving) internal 'cause' of a victim in any predicament (dangerous situation).

(2) Again, in an all devouring earthquake a new built mansion may collapse and who knows, an old hut stands chances to survive. If the former is an accident, the latter also is one. Eventually, the achievement seldom goes beyond rechristening (giving another name to) the word 'causality'. Once the law is established, it is undesirable to change the connotation (implication, intention) as it is suitable to momentary subjective requirements.

(3) Continuing with the uncontrolled truck that smashed our friend, resting on the shore, in the neoteric (new, recent) perspective.

3 A) On the road, coming to a dead stop suddenly, if the engine totally fails to move an inch, the car gets no opportunity to touch any object and no 'accident' takes place.

3 B) But imagine the car is out of control without coming to a dead stop and directs itself to the pavement, fabricated of cement slabs, say of 150 pounds approximately equal to a well-built adult. Over-running the slab, if the automobile checks itself, there is no damage and no accident as such.

3 C) if the car proceeds and slightly damages a lamp-post without being noticed, the motor owner has another opportunity to avert accusations and abuses.

3 D) In the event of the uncontrollable vehicle continuing its march; things shape differently. Our Hedonist friend literally basking in the sunshine, on the pleasing seashore, is given a death-blow. Curiously the cement slab and the happy-go-lucky both weigh 150 pounds; in case of the latter collision, the incident is branded as accident. The obvious reason for man to give way is his own frail texture (weak body frame). Again, in the last analysis, the subject comes in the picture.

(4) Innumerable instances substantiate erroneous implication of our notion about accident.

Two representative fatal cases should give us authentic clue. Re-examine accidental death of our friend on the sea-beach where 'causal agent’ is taken to be an unchecked automobile and compare it with another casualty to typhoid where the causal agent is typhus bacterium.

Four features distinguish the accidental occurrence.

 Unwantedness

 Unexpectedness

 Unconsciousness

 Internal weakness of the subject

Properly analyzed in bacterial invasion the same features come into play.

Firstly, none wants bacterium to switch on an attack.

Secondly, nobody ever expects it. (The first differs from second, where the latter lays stress on unpredictability).

Thirdly, the would-be sufferer never consciously (in its usual sense) allows intake of typhoid germs in the liquid.

Lastly, it is the internal weakness of the victim that brings about the general breaking up.

Medical authorities and bacteriologists substantiate the habitual belief that the bacterium often peacefully lives in the metabolism and it is branded hostile only when the constitution itself undergoes deterioration. It is pertinent to note that the metabolism in relation to microbe is designated as 'host' in technical phraseology (verbal expression).

The mute guest embarks in for a warm shelter. The bewildered host himself unfortunately turns hostile and employing scorched earth policy (strategy which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area), the scared coward commits suicide in the name of (a poor) bacterium, the entity that lacked means for subsistence.

Accident looks to be measure of human ignorance or ego since in the name of accident, humanity struggles hard to keep back inherent shifts and shames.

(5) Thinkers certainly withhold support to misnomers like chance, accident, mishap, and so on. Darwin accepts CAUSALITY.

Science had yet to un-riddle (understand) some of the primary mysteries in the days of Darwin, which often over powered him. Nevertheless, he invariably depreciated 'chance' in its orthodox sense.

To put it in his words' "In the case of every species, many different checks, acting at different periods of life, and during different seasons or years, probably come into play; some check or some few being generally the most potent; but all will concur in determining the average number or even the existence of the species. In some cases it can be shown that widely different checks act on the same species in different districts. When we look at the plants and bushes clothing an entangled bank, we are tempted to attribute their proportional numbers and kinds to what we call chance".

About external conditions affecting internal he says, "It is very difficult to decide how far changed conditions, such as of climate, food etc., have acted in a definite manner. There is reason to believe that in the course of time the effects have been greater than can be proved by clear evidence. But we may safely conclude that the innumerable complex co-adaptations of structure, which we see throughout nature between various organic beings, cannot be attributed simply to such action. In the following cases, the conditions seem to have produced some slight definite effect: E. Forbes asserts that shells at their southern limit, and when living in shallow water, are more brightly colored than those of the same species from further north or from a greater depth; but this certainly does not always hold good. Mr. Gould believes that birds of the same species are more brightly colored under a clear atmosphere than when living near the coast or on islands, and Wollaston is convinced that residence near the sea affects the colors of insects. Moquin-Tandon gives a list of plants which, when growing at the sea-shore, have their leaves in some degree fleshy, though not elsewhere fleshy. These slightly varying organisms are interesting in as far as they present characters analogous to those possessed by the species which are confined to similar conditions. When a variation is of the slightest use to any being, we cannot tell how much to attribute to the accumulative action of natural selection, and how much to the definite action of the conditions of life.

Thus, it is well known to furriers (persons dealing with furs) that animals of the same species have thicker and better fur the further north they live; but .who can tell how much of this difference may be due to the warmest-clad individuals having been favored and preserved during many generations, and how much to the action of the severe climate? For it would appear that climate has some direct action on the hair of our domestic quadrupeds (four footed). Instances could be given of similar varieties being produced from the same species under external conditions of life as different as can well be conceived; and on the other hand, of dissimilar varieties being produced under apparently the same external conditions”.

On the face of it, the diverse results in each current of events manifest subjective dominance. Finally denouncing chance in outright ridicule, Darwin opines “I have hitherto some times, spoken as if the variations so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication (taming) and in a lesser degree with those under nature-were due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation".

(6) Accidents no doubt present to us a considerably perplexing picture. Japan lives under the shadow of potent danger of earthquakes. Millions have been overturned and ruthlessly annihilated in the Nature's fiery "freaks'. Hiroshima, the city that suffered atom bomb disasters in the Second World War took a heavy toll of Japan's man power, for which Americans are cursed by the aggrieved.

But whom can we blame where there is a bolt from the blue? On 14-1-51, Reuter released a news item from Waco (Texas, U.S.A.) that the pilot who led A-bomb on Hiroshima, Claude Eatherly has been declared insane. The report reads, "The former United States Air Force Major who led the Atom Bomb missions against Japan in the Second World War, Claude Eatherly, has been declared insane by a country jury here. The jury yesterday committed the Texas war hero to an ex-servicemen's hospital here for treatment of schizophrenic reaction. Since 1950 he has been admitted to the hospital nine times. The tall ex-pilot flew reconnaissance (survey for military) missions over both Hiroshima and Nagasaki immediately ahead of the planes carrying the Atom Bombs. He once told a psychiatrist he felt responsible for killing 100,000 people at Hiroshima. His brother, Mr. James Eatherly, applied to a County Court last September for his brother to be committed to a mental institution for the protection of himself as well as others. Among the decorations Eatherly won was the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was discharged from the Air Force in 1947 and since then has been in trouble with the law on several occasions. He served a nine month sentence for forging a check in New Orleans in 1953. He also robbed a grocery store in Dallas, and broke into Post offices in Texas".  As a spontaneous reaction, a considerable population belonging to Hiroshima is likely to gloat over the news.

No doubt the Japanese have suffered an enormous damage. But, if, the logic of Nature's penal code is once unreservedly glorified, it bursts forth a barrage of pointed, embarrassing questions.

6 A) Have all the pilots turned lunatics?

6 B) by the same logic, does not A-bomb on Hiroshima reveals unconsciously / displays expression of a punishment in accordance with Nature's rule? (And incidentally, were all the residents of Hiroshima blown up to be launched into eternity?)

6 C) on endorsement of Nature's rational equity, what difference does it make if Nature administers correction by means of insanity, so-called accident or T.B.?

6 D) this recalls my aphoristic (crisp) conversation with one of the convicts convicted to death during one of my visits to jail for research.

Without my touching the point the condemned on his own flared up, “I am not guilty of murder. Those who have really committed the offence will meet the due penalty one day or the other. I am unnecessarily and accidentally caught instead of them".

I paused a little and said, 'If you believe that the real culprits are incapable of evading equitable impalement (punishment) in future, when they would be actually dealt with retributive (penalizing) justice, they shall be as blank as you are about immediate cause of their catastrophe. Then, they would curse some escaped offender, following in your footsteps. While going to gallows, they will plead ignorant of their guilt as you do today. But, dear friend, you have rightly penetrated through Nature's fundamental creed. For some of your bygone (past) blunder, passed out of cognition, you are meeting your present lot. I do not want to offend you, but to confirm your own pious belief”.

The convict shook his head after a while and conceded, "So it is. Now I will die quietly and convinced".

7) Accidents are traced to the man’s internal situation time and again.

Doctor Dunbar records “A German named Marbe was first to note publicly the existence of the accident habit. In 1926 he proved statistically that the person who has had one accident is more likely to have another than the individual who never had any. In 1934 a Viennese, Alexandra Adler suggested that an unknown factor in human personality was responsible for curious repetition of injuries to those who are prone to accident.

Giving many more illustrations and research findings on “Accidents”, S. V. concludes with a quote from 'Fundamentals of Marx- ism, Leninism’.

"It follows from this connection of accident and necessity that accidental phenomena are also governed by certain laws, which may be studied and become known".

Conclusion:

Necessarily then, every effect-disease, accident, dis- pleasure is related to a deserving cause, though beyond cognition, at an individual Plane. There are no accidents or co-incidences in nature although we may not be able to trace the cause in every occurrence of such nature.

We may not know the purpose (i.e. cause , intent), but the being of the Universe cannot be considered as an accident.

Vijay R. Joshi