X-Message-Number: 21787
From: 
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 15:37:11 EDT
Subject: What is life?

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Assume we are a robot-populated society on a Moonlike world. Could basic 
science, for example physics, predict the possibility of life?

I think no, and if there is a contrary opinion I would be happy to know the 
arguments.  I know that a traditional argument is the complexity problem: Life 
is an emergent phenomenon coming from the intricacies of the world. I find 
that a little short and not an explanation.

So there must be a true life explanation in basic physical and mathematical 
terms. I don't think life can be deduced from chemistry, The essential 

molecules of life work not by their chemical composition but by their shape. 
Usually, 
a polypeptide must be folded in a definite way by a chaperone complex before 
it can be used as an active protein. Very often a defined polypeptide can  be 
folded in many ways, only one is useful.

So, life use chemistry to build its elements such proteins, but it is 

something else beyond that: It is about long range forces giving a definite 
shape.

Nearly all basic science rests on points and displacement of points, that is 
vectors. To understand life, something else, as surface and volume would be 
used. P-branes in supersymetric theories do that in a rather unnatural way. I 

think a large part of the basic concepts of physics must be rebuilt with objects
dealing with points, lines (vectors), surfaces and volumes.  In mathematics, 
such structures are known as Clifford's algebras. The basic product in a 

Clifford's algebra is the sum of the inner and outer product, the cosine and 
sine 
product or their generalization in higher dimensions.

The Clifford's algebra is the simplest and most fundamental way to introduce 
long range effects in two or three dimensions. Here, life could be introduced 
as an effect of basic physics. Such an understanding would go far beyond the 
actual observations and "cooking recipes" of biology.

The effects in basic physics would be important too: For example Special 
relativity uses the global U(1) symmetry (the local one is taken by 

electromagnetism). There are scientific paper about a two dimensional relativity
using the 
symmetry U(2). No experiment support them. If we think that the generalization 
of a vector space is a space built on Clifford's algebra, then the Clifford 

Relativity would use the group SO (4,2) this is something as spherical rotation
in 6 dimensions: 4 space-like and 2 time-like. that symmetry is a subspace of 
the four dimensional Clifford's algebra. One parametrization of that 

relativity would introduce a "scale speed": objects would be able to get bigger 
or 
smaller.

Yvan Bozzonetti.

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